Seventh epoch
The seventh epoch will be the last of Earth's seven epochs, and it will end the current physical Condition of Form (CoF). Afterwards Earth and humanity will be in an astral form in the next astral CoF, see also Earth rounds perspective.
The seventh epoch is even harder to imagine for contemporary consciousness than the Sixth epoch, as in that epoch already Man will no longer reincarnate or have a physical body as today, and will have a totally different state of consciousness. In the Book of Revelation the seventh epoch corresponds to the epoch of the seven trumpets, which means that Man will attain the natural faculty and stage of clairvoyant consciousness of inspiration and hear the music of the spheres of the lower spirit world.
A division between good and evil, between the higher spiritual future humanity and the lower material 'race' will have taken place. For the first, after the great Sixth epoch when Christianity will flourish, Christ will have become the group soul of humanity, see Second Adam. The lower evil race will split off as part of a material globe, a process symbolized in the Book of Revelation by the pooring out of the bowls or vials of God's wrath. (1908-06-25-GA104)
The seventh epoch will be characterized by a moral impulse and active moral life, a firm resolve to do what is moral. Cleverness without morality will be non-existent (1911-09-21-GA130). This is the merger of wisdom and morality that Rudolf Steiner often discusses as these two are separated in the current Postatlantean epoch. this blending or fusion is depicted in Schema FMC00.054 as a result of the Christ Impulse.
Aspects
- the next astral Condition of Form (CoF) of the current Condition of Life (CoL) is stated to already starts in the seventh epoch (1905-03-19-GA090B), see also timing of the fifth apocalyptic seal on Reunion of Sun
- the transition of Earth and Man to the astral condition 'after the seventh trumpet in the Book of Revelation, is described in the First Letter to the Corinthians 15:47, where Paul calls the human being who has reached the astral level the 'last Adam', in contrast with the first Adam who entered a physical body during the Lemurian epoch, whereby Adam means 'son of the Earth'. (1908-06-26-GA104)
- All matter will bear the stamp of the spirit. There will be absolutely nothing in this seventh epoch that can be hidden in any way (1908-06-25-GA104)
- "the form of Man and the forms of all the other beings will be an expression of good and evil to a much higher degree than in the sixth epoch"
- "it will be quite impossible by speech to hide what is in the soul. Thought will no longer remain dumb so that it can be hidden, for when the soul thinks, its thought will ring forth outwardly."
- Man
- Man will develop the two-petalled lotus flower between the eyebrows (1904-05-11-GA089)
- Man's two spinal columns will merge into one. The first spinal column is the merger of ida/pingala/sushumna, the second the one developed in the second epoch and made up out of pineal and pituitary glands and sympathic nervous system (see Man past and future)
- because conditions on Earth will have changed dramatically, the seventh epoch will offer very little opportunity for souls that have remained behind to make up for their development (GA013 Ch 6)
- in context of the forces of natures (se the Mothers) .. after electricity was discovered and mastered in the current Postatlantean epoch, the forces will come out during the decadence of the sixth and seventh epochs (1917-11-02-GA273)
- the archai will work in the economic life, so that fraternity has then to be realized .. in the sixth epoch, a more intimate living together with archangels will take place, and the state life must have developed by then in the sense of social threefolding (1919-03-23-GA190 tbc)
Illustrations
Schema FMC00.054 shows a blackboard drawing by Rudolf Steiner in the lecture of 1919-10-17-GA191 on the impact of the Mystery of Golgotha. It depicts, on the left, the old mystery wisdom and clairvoyance dying out. In the middle in orange, the Mystery of Golgotha? On the right, the new beginning through the Christ Impulse of spiritualization and the new clairvoyance and wisdom.
Lecture coverage and references
1908-06-25-GA104
for long extract, see Book of Revelation#1908-06-25-GA104
below extract SWCC
Just as the epoch after the great War of All against All [editor: sixth epoch] is characterized by the seven seals, because the seer can only see it today from the astral world, so by the sounding of the trumpets is characterized the stage of civilization which follows [editor: seventh epoch], because man can only perceive it from the true spiritual world where the tones of the spheres sound forth. In the astral world man perceives the world in pictures, in symbols, in the spirit world he perceives it in inspiring music; and in this spirit world is contained the climax, as it were, of what is revealed concerning what follows the great War of All against All.
...
- .. the sixth [cultural age of our current fifth epoch] will found the future civilization [of the sixth epoch] after the great War of All against All.
- And the very last of those civilizations will have to found that which is indicated by the seven trumpets. [editor: the seventh epoch]
...
For if we have had to say that
- already in the sixth epoch men will show good and evil on their faces, we shall have to say
- all the more of the seventh that the form of man and the forms of all the other beings will be an expression of good and evil to a much higher degree than in the sixth epoch. All matter will bear the stamp of the spirit. There will be absolutely nothing in this seventh epoch that can be hidden in any way.
[so]
- Even those belonging to the sixth epoch will be unable to hide anything from him who has the necessary vision. An evil man will express his evil, a good man will express the good that is within him; but
- in the seventh epoch it will be quite impossible by speech to hide what is in the soul. Thought will no longer remain dumb so that it can be hidden, for when the soul thinks, its thought will ring forth outwardly. It will then be just as thought is already to the Initiates today. To them thought now rings out in Devachan.
But this spirit world will have descended into the physical world, just as the astral world will have descended into the physical world in the sixth epoch. Even now the sixth epoch can be found in the astral world and the seventh in the heavenly world.
- The sixth epoch is the descended astral world, that is to say the images, the expressions, the manifestations of it.
- The seventh epoch will be the descended heavenly [spirit] world, the expression of it.
1909-05-14-GA104
The seventh epoch will have neither people who glow with enthusiasm for the spiritual, nor glow with enthusiasm for the sensory. The souls that spiritualized into the spiritual world in the sixth epoch, purified and christined will walk as it were etherically. Human beings wholly entangled in matter will no longer be interested in the spiritual at all, as on Earth there will no longer be any transformed human beings who increasingly spiritualized themselves in the sixth epoch
1911-09-21-GA130
• The sixth epoch will be followed by the seventh, when the moral life will be still further deepened.
Whereas in the sixth epoch man will take pleasure in good and noble actions, in the seventh epoch the natural outcome of such pleasure will be a moral impulse, that is to say there will be a firm resolve to do what is moral. There is a great difference between taking pleasure in a moral action and the doing of it.
• The seventh epoch will be characterised by an active moral life, cleverness without morality will be non-existent.
Discussion
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