Spiritual minority in a materialistic world

Considering the population worldwide, the spiritual scientific worldview segment or cohort will always be a minority in an established dominant world which is very, totally different. Given how the two are tangential, diametrically opposed .. the dominant majority is bound to not understand and/or ridicule the other.

It is a recurrent reality and consequence of evolutionary dynamics, that a minority develops that is not part of the past or the current, but makes up the seeds of the future. These souls are scattered, dispersed amongst the billions of people driven less consciously by the materialistic worldview and certain powers, driving our world into another direction.

This pattern is quite similar to a situation in the previous Atlantean epoch, and this topic page groups a number of quotes from Rudolf Steiner lectures that describe this situation.

This page also covers the related concept of 'homeless souls', which is how souls are called that have a feeling of not belonging to a folk or circle, and seem to be driven by inner destiny or karma to leave the ordinary highway of civilization on which the majority of mankind at present progresses, to search for their own path.

To the reader

This page is dedicated to the loneliness that a human being may experience, the scorn from others because of the differences in spiritual maturity.

You are not alone, many people worldwide are in this situation, but just in a minority and very dispersed and scattered, amongst the millions and billions of people driven less consciously by the materialistic worldview and certain powers, driving our world into another direction.

See also the quote by Rudolf Steiner on homeless souls - and the whole topic page: Meaning of Free Man Creator#1923-06-10-GA258

Aspects

homeless souls

• a homeless' person, in the innermost nature of his soul, does not consider himself as belonging to any one people (1918-12-08-GA186) ... and seeks the path to the spiritual from the elementary nature of their own being (1923-07-08-GA225) ... driven by inner destiny or karma to leave the ordinary highway of civilization on which the majority of mankind at present progresses, to search for their own path (1923-06-10-GA258)
• an individual called a 'homeless' person must change his ether body which normally connects him with his people (folk, nation) .... initiation training is a matter of directing evolution to the structures in the ether body, like lasting habits and basic temperament, which otherwise tend to be unchanging (1907-01-28-GA096; see Man's transformation and spiritualization#1907-01-28-GA096)
• in the ancient mysteries or mystery schools, one who was sufficiently prepared and who had withstood the necessary tests was admitted to the training after having received the wisdom teachings, he had purified himself from impulses and desires, had accustomed himself to a regulated thought-life, he loved all humanity; he had become homeless, for he could love all men equally—not only those to whom he belonged through the ties of blood. (1907-04-01-GA096)
• Rudolf Steiner mentions that "growing up, I see that I was destined to be homeless even in childhood. I had no opportunity to experience the peculiar feelings of connection with my fellow countrymen and fellow people" (1914-09-30-GA174B) and "a certain strange inner tragedy, which is perhaps difficult for someone else to understand if one is prepared by one's karma to be homeless" (1914-09-19-GA252)

spiritual minority

• notes to the Schemas
  • Schema FMC00.169 and Schema FMC00.169A show how a small cohort in one cultural age represents or contains the seed for the next epoch. This principle is illustrated in a larger context 'big picture on Schema FMC00.486, and the period of the sixth cultural age is depicted with commentary on Schema FMC00.052.
  • the development funnel leading to this minority is and is illustrated on Schema FMC00.562, in other words this is a logical natural consequence of the sixteen paths of perdition and the fact only a minority of the whole population develops optimally across long evolutionary periods

Inspirational quotes

Hermann Hesse

Those who do not seem to fit into the world, are always close to finding themselves

in DE:

Wer nicht in die Welt zu passen scheint, der is immer nahe dran, sich selbst zu finden.

Krishnamurti

When you call yourself and Indian or Muslim or Christian or European or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, nationality, tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, religion, political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.169: shows how evolutionary periods should not be seen as discrete and separated periods, but are always overlapping. While an earlier (red, period N-1) is morphing into the current (green, period N), the future is already developing (blue, period N+1).

This Schema and its variants give a sense that the future (blue) sixth epoch is already being developed today, in what is developing today for the next sixth cultural age. The fifth and sixth cultural ages are decisive (see 1910-GA013 quote on Schema FMC00.052). See also: Schema FMC00.486

This also relates to the symbol of the spiral: evolution does not proceed in linear fashion but takes evolutionary 'jumps'. The double intertwining spirals show how a wave from the past leads to the seed from which a new wave rises, see 1905-11-04-GA093A. This is symbolized by the Cancer sign (see 1904-12-19-GAXXX on Zodiac clock). The discrete 'jump' can be found throughout, see Schema FMC00.550 for a visualization of a spiral giving raise to such 'jump'.

The seed used in the plant metaphor corresponds to the cultural age from which the 'sample' for the next evolutionary phase is taken, see Schema FMC00.169A below, See also Overlapping evolutionary periods

The fifth and sixth cultural ages are decisive ( see 1910-GA013 quote on the Current Postatlantean epoch.)

Schema FMC00.422 illustrates humanity as a statistical distribution of a population of souls, with different segments or cohorts. One can imagine the distribution pie chart to represent spiritual maturity and also the choice for the light or the darkness, good or evil.

On the right, the thin black line represents black magic, around it cohorts or segments that tend or gravitate towards it, that are in the zone or field of attraction of this extreme direction, so to speak.

On the left side, the thin yellow line represents the white stream, with similarly people in the field tending towards that, whereby spiritual science could be imagined to represent a certain segment or colour. To get closer to the yellow and white is to make the conscious choice to put oneself on the path of initiation.

The drawing makes explicit the responsibility that comes with the freedom of choice, and the development goal for the consciousness soul, to make the conscious choice on where we want to be on this chart, and use our life to further this. More background is given in the three excerpts below.

• Spiritual minority in a materialistic world#1907-06-05-GA099
• Evil#1908-06-30-GA104
• Spiritual minority in a materialistic world#1910-GA013 .28OeS.29 is the statement that the fifth and sixth cultural ages are the decisive ones, and that - at the end of the current epoch - approx. one third will attain its developmental goal, a second third not but will do so at a later stage, and a third one 'falls away completely'. These three thirds are represented in the Schema by colours yellow (left), white (middle), and grey (right).

Lecture coverage and references

Spiritual minority in a materialistic world

Below are two main quotes from two lectures early 1909 (Feb and April). They are supplemented with two more quotes, for additional positioning.

Exceptionally on this site, the two first and main references are quoted in full with extended excerpts.

And also exceptionally in this section the lectures are in a non-chronological order for better sequential reading.

1909-02-15-GA109

Atlantis time picture

We have often talked about the fact that humanity must consider its ancestors to have come from ancient Atlantis, a former geographical region situated between what is today Africa and Europe on the one hand and America on the other.

All the souls that are present today had already been incarnated in Atlantis, but in bodies that were in part considerably different from the ones we are accustomed to seeing.

The Atlantean humanity had its own special form of leadership, and the soul-forces — indeed all the faculties — of the Atlanteans differed greatly from those of human beings. Hence, leadership as we know it today was nonexistent. In Atlantis, for example, there were no churches, ceremonial centers, or schools in the modern sense, but there existed an intermediate institution between ceremonial center and school; that is what we call the mystery sanctuaries or centers.

Leadership of the Atlanteans with respect to learning and the conditions of external life was vested in these sanctuaries, and one could say that the spiritual leaders were at the same time kings of the Atlantean tribes. Initiates, whose mission can be circumscribed by a word of later coinage, by the word oracle, imported knowledge and exercised leadership in the mysteries. We therefore designate the great centers of Atlantean culture as the “Atlantean Oracles.”

We have to get a clear understanding of the function of these oracles. They had to impart knowledge to human beings about the spiritual world behind the physical world. Knowledge such as this is different from ordinary knowledge in many ways; to stress only one difference, spiritual knowledge is not confined to space as is our present knowledge of the physical world. Anyone who, for example, knows about the mysteries of Mars also knows a great deal about the spiritual mysteries of the entire universe. All the heavenly bodies of our solar system are interconnected, and as such they are the exterior expression of spiritual beings. The individual who knows these spiritual beings also knows the forces that are at work from one planet to another as well as in the spiritual world during the time between death and rebirth.

And so it was the primary task of one oracle in Atlantis to transmit and proclaim to human beings the mysteries of Mars, whereas the primary task of another was to communicate the mysteries of Jupiter, and so on; and these compartmentalized insights made it possible to lead certain sections of the population.

The Atlanteans were divided into groups, and part of the whole developmental process was that one group of human beings had to be governed especially by the forces that could be acquired through the knowledge of Mars. Other groups had to be governed by the forces acquired through the knowledge of Venus, or Mercury, and so on. In ancient Atlantis there were actually human beings alive whom we could call “Jupiter People” or “Mars People,” and there were seven oracle centers because the populace in ancient Atlantis was divided into seven groups according to racial characteristics. The names applicable to these oracle centers corresponded to the names of the planets, but they were assigned to the oracles at a later time.

The leadership of, and supreme sovereignty over, all other oracles was vested in what we may designate as the Atlantean Sun Oracle. Whatever oracles existed in the post-Atlantean periods — in Greece, Egypt, Asia, all were successors of the Sun Oracle in Atlantis. This is true also for the Apollo Oracle in Greece.

The initiate who headed this Sun Oracle was the guardian of the deepest mysteries of our solar system. Together with his subordinates, he was called upon to investigate the nature of the spiritual life on the sun itself. His role was to proclaim to Atlantean humanity the secrets of the whole planetary system and to exercise supreme authority over the other oracle centers.

Selecting material for cultivation

A very special task devolved on the Initiate of the Sun Oracle. It was to guide humanity in such a way that when the great catastrophe culminating in the submergence of Atlantis was over, the human race would be able to propagate and establish what we have often discussed as the postAtlantean cultures. Specifically, the task of the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle was to prepare human beings during the Atlantean time in such a way that they could enter the ancient Indian, Persian, Egypto-Babylonian-Hebraic, and Graeco-Roman cultures. To put it differently, the Great Initiate had to see to it that enough suitable soul material was available for these cultural epochs.

We must now inform ourselves a little about the task of this Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle.

What were the essential features of Atlantean culture?

Certainly it was quite different from later cultures. In ancient Atlantis, an individual belonging to the highest level of cultural life — the levels at which today's great leaders in, say, scholarship, art, industry, or commerce can be found — was one who possessed extraordinary clairvoyant faculties and who was especially skilled in the use of magical powers.

The qualities usually attributed to a leader or to a scholar were nonexistent in those days, or they were known only in the most primitive form. But although modern arithmetic, counting, logical reasoning, and intellectual deduction were unknown to the Atlanteans, they did possess primitive clairvoyant faculties and powers with which they could pierce into the spiritual worlds. Without the modern ego-consciousness, the Atlanteans saw into the spiritual world, and those whose vision was the most penetrating became the pillars of Atlantean culture. We have already stressed that the Atlanteans were able to manipulate certain inner forces of nature, for example the seed forces of plants; they propelled their vehicles with them, just as we utilize coal to propel our vehicles.

To repeat, the leaders of the Atlantean culture were not the people who tried, as the leaders of our time try, to unlock the secrets of the universe with their intellectual powers; rather, the leading individuals in Atlantis were those who excelled as clairvoyants and magicians.

And those human beings who had the first rudimentary inkling about arithmetic, counting, logical reasoning, and intellectual deduction were in a certain sense despised because of their simplicity and were not considered as belonging to the aristocracy of cultural life.

But it was precisely those human beings who possessed the very first rudimentary knowledge of the aforementioned skills and who were the most lacking in clairvoyant and magical powers whom the Great Leader of the Sun Oracle gathered from all regions.

Yes, he assembled the most simple and, in a sense, the most despised people of ancient Atlantis — those who had first developed intellectual capacities.

But those who were then at the highest level of cultural life and who were the acknowledged masters of a dimmed clairvoyance were not suitable material to be led through and beyond the great Atlantean catastrophe. No, the call of the Initiate went out to the simple people.

Comparison with current epoch: a ‘call’ indeed

Incidentally, it may be said that we are living in an epoch today when a similar call is once again going out to humanity. To be sure, this appeal is what is appropriate for today, a time when humanity sees only what is in the physical world. The call to humanity issues from unknown depths of the spirit, depths that humanity will gradually become acquainted with, asking that humanity prepare itself for a new culture of the future, which will be permeated with clairvoyant powers. As with Atlantis, a catastrophe will occur, and afterwards a new culture imbued with spiritual capacities will arise, and it will be linked to what we call the idea of the universal brotherhood of humanity.

But today, as in Atlantean times, the call cannot go out to those who stand at the highest levels of cultural life because they will not understand. The Atlantean clairvoyants and magicians, who were in a way destined to die out with their culture, occupied a position similar to that of people in contemporary life who occupy the highest positions in the realms of scholarship and external industrial life—the great inventors and discoverers of our time.

No matter how much the present leaders feel there is still to be done, they nevertheless occupy the same position as their Atlantean counterparts.

Contemptuously they look down on those who are beginning to feel something of the spiritual life to come.

The consciousness of this fact must be awakened in the soul of anyone whose cooperative efforts in the anthroposophical workshops are to be strengthened. When leading representatives of modern culture look contemptuously down at these small circles, those who are participating diligently in the preparation of future conditions must say to themselves that the intellectual giants of today cannot be counted on to lead the way in this task.

It is precisely the people who are held in contempt because they are not considered to have reached the heights of contemporary erudition who are being assembled today, just as the leader of the Sun Oracle once gathered around him the simple of Atlantis. These disdained people are being assembled to prepare the dawn of a new culture whereas erudition of the modern form will bring about the twilight of our culture.

This is mentioned in passing to fortify those who have to endure and hold their own against the attacks of the people who consider themselves to be on the cutting edge of contemporary culture.

1909-04-06-GA109

Introduction

Wherever anthroposophical truth is proclaimed and where the spiritual element that pulsates through us is cultivated, there our message must be delivered in the light of sincerity, even when it is still surrounded by the thoughts of those who hate anthroposophy. However, in the midst of those who hate anthroposophy there are souls who, more or less consciously, long for the light of anthroposophy. And especially a strong contrast such as the one I have experienced during the past fourteen days can show us what a strong magnet anthroposophical life is.

The observation of our immediate present teaches us that this anthroposophical force is now strong enough to justify our joyful and satisfying hope that the small seedling planted today will in the future grow into a mighty tree.

As anthroposophists, we are today in the same position humanity was in during the ancient Atlantean time.

And just as life has become different since that time, so it will change again in the future, up to a time following a catastrophe. The wide perspective will now be made to appear before our souls.

Atlantean culture and technology – vehicles, navigation, ..

Let us call to memory a similar movement in the last third of the Atlantean epoch that started small just like ours. The Atlantean soul life, which in many ways was still clairvoyant, had reached a high point during that time, but it did not yet have the consciousness of self, the strong feeling of the “I.”

Instead, Atlanteans had a certain ability of clairvoyance and also certain magical powers, and this enabled them to look into the spiritual world. Those who had progressed to be leaders of this civilization were the ones best able to gaze into the spiritual world in the old ways and to bring forth the most knowledge from the astral realms.

This clairvoyance disappeared little by little; in fact, mankind had to lose it completely in order to conquer for itself the consciousness of self in the physical world. But it is certain that clairvoyant knowledge in the last third of the Atlantean era had reached a special climax.

You will remember the technological achievement of the Atlanteans. They flew over the earth in small space vehicles — close to the earth because the atmosphere was saturated with thick fog formations. They propelled their small vehicles through this sea of air and water with energy derived from sprouting plants. The leading creators of this technology can be compared to today's industrial wizards who construct ingenious machines from lifeless forces. And those Atlanteans who could relate the most from the spiritual world can be compared to today's leading scholars and natural scientists.

A segment of the population developing

However, within this Atlantean humanity a segment of people began to evolve who had only minor clairvoyant faculties, but possessed the ability to regard the external world with affection. The first rudimentary beginnings of arithmetic and counting could be observed in these people, but their participation in the great advances of the Atlantean industry — the construction of ever mightier vehicles for this sea of water and air — was very limited.

And thus a small, insignificant group of people had developed in this last third of the Atlantean period who, in a certain sense, were despised for their comparative lack of clairvoyant power and their inability to participate in this great industry. However, this group of people prepared the way for seeing and knowing that is prevalent today, the way of seeing and knowing of which the external world today is so proud since it developed it in such a one-sided way.

Those leaders of the Atlantean civilization who had mastered everything that could be known from the vantage point of the Atlantean consciousness, including technology, conceived of a technical idea toward the end of the Atlantean era that has become fully productive in modern times. We can compare it to another measure of progress in our time that will carry over into the next catastrophe.

During their golden age, the Atlanteans had vehicles that moved through air that was heavily mixed with water.

Later, however, when their culture was already in a state of decline, it also became necessary to navigate the water, and this led the last cultural races of the Atlantean era first to embracing and then to realizing the idea of navigation and the conquest of the seas. This momentous idea in the Atlantean era not only of traversing the air but also of navigating the ocean water was quite a sensational idea that was put into reality by the last Atlantean races. After long experiments to navigate the waters, success came during the time when Atlantean culture was already in its decline.

Selection

Those responsible for this tremendous progress were not the ones who could be recruited for the task of transmitting the legacy of the actual spiritual life from the Atlantean era to our time. Rather, this task was reserved for the plain and simple people because they had been the first ones to be endowed with the ability to relate to the physical world. They were the ones whose clairvoyant faculties, though deteriorated the most among the several groups of people, were still adequate for those who were messengers from the spiritual world.

These people, despised by the great scholars and inventors, were gathered by an eminent initiate whom we call The Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle.

This small group was comprised of people who had least preserved their technical abilities and who were disdained by the leaders and by the great scholars and inventors. Yet it was precisely they whom the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle led from the West to the East, through Europe and into Asia. And it is also this small group of people that made the foundation of the post-Atlantean cultures possible.

The best of what was subsequently developed by the various cultures, the mighty tree of post-Atlantean knowledge and wisdom, emanated from the descendants of the despised simple people from the Atlantean era. Above all, something else emanated from the midst of the descendants of this group of modest people. Let us place the external events side by side with the internal events of our evolution. Let us look at the great sensation of the Atlantean era when the secondary racial group, whose descendants were the Phoenicians, invented navigation.

What was accomplished by this invention?

We need only to remember the great events from the beginning of modern times, such as the great voyages of discovery by Columbus and other seafarers, which would have been impossible without navigation and the invention of ships, and we shall see how this sensational invention led to the gradual conquest of the physical plane on earth. PostAtlantean peoples were confined to a small radius of activities, but through the invention of ships the circle defining the earth became rounded out so that we now have a completed configuration of the physical plane. And thus, the sensational invention of the Atlantean world reaches into our time and promotes further progress on the physical plane.

However, the greatest conquest in the Atlantean era emanated from the descendants of that group of plain people gathered around the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle. And when those descendants, through their own development, had prepared the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, GraecoLatin, and our cultures, the earth became capable of yielding the material into which the Christ could be born. Therefore, the greatest spiritual event and deed of the post-Atlantean era had its beginning in the people who belonged to the most despised human beings in the eyes of the leaders of the Atlantean civilization, and this event gave rise to the immense spiritual progress that supports and maintains all spiritual life in our time — weaves through it and makes it productive.

[Editor note: more on the Christ Impulse, Buddhi, and Love in this same lecture, after the end of this lecture extract]

Similarity with our times

The events in Atlantis are paralleled by those of our time.

Seeing that the germinal beginnings of man's ability to do arithmetic and to count were present in Atlantis, we can recognize how these capabilities are today furthered in a marvelous conquest of the physical plane and how they brought about all kinds of technical progress.

We also see how the great inventors and discoverers today have reached the culmination, in a sense, in applying those forces that first began to germinate with the small group of despised people in the Atlantean time.

And what was then clairvoyant knowledge is today knowledge of nature and of the physical world.

There is also a similarity between the spiritual leaders of the Atlantean civilization and today's natural scientists and scholars.

On the other hand, a class of plain people exists everywhere — irrespective of positions its members might hold in the world, whose hearts are filled with the mighty magnet that attracts us to spiritual life, just as people in Atlantis were attracted to a life in which the external faculties for the physical plane could be developed.

Differences between the two situations

Despite these similarities, there is also a certain difference between the modern and the ancient situation.

In the old days referred to, the last remnants of clairvoyance were still present in people so that they were able to behold the Great Initiate.

In a certain way, things today are more difficult for human beings when a call from the spiritual world issues to an equally small group of people, something we designate as the call from/of the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings. But since people today are placed on the physical plane, these Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings are at first unknown to this small nucleus of human beings that has crystallized itself out of the mass of people.

As we can deduce from the facts of the present time, this small group feels in its hearts that there is such a thing as a new spiritual message that is meant to have an effect on the future just as the message in former ages has had an effect on the present. These human beings who today come from all walks of life and whom we can find everywhere are the true theosophists because they carry in their hearts a longing for a spiritual life that is meant to lay the foundation for future cultures. The true theosophists in our time are emerging — just as we now encounter a sensational discovery similar to the one in the Atlantean era.

In ancient times water was conquered through the highest technological progress; the same is true today in the case of air. This conquest will, of course, extend into a later epoch. But just as ships in our times have brought about mastery of the physical plane only, so the air ship that will lead human beings into the atmosphere and beyond will empower the pilots to find only matter — material things. Granted, new realms of the physical plane will be conquered, and this will be beneficial for the external world. However, the inner spiritual life is borne in the hearts of those who feel spiritually fulfilled by the promise of being able in the future to look into the spiritual world while being conscious of self

Look into life and you will find out there our leaders of civilization, the pillars of external culture, active as inventors and discoverers, as scholars and natural scientists. They look with scorn and contempt on a small group such as the one assembled here today that constitutes itself as a new bearer of culture and that unites its members with others in spiritual scientific associations. The events of the ancient Atlantean era repeat themselves.

However, when the spiritual life touches your hearts with such force that you can compare yourselves with dignity to those who were gathered around the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle, then you will be the bearers of spiritual life in later ages. In addition to offering humanity the external, material, and corporeal realities, such a life would also make possible a renewed immersion in the spiritual world.

Although the Great Initiate gathered human beings around Himself in ancient times, today the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings [editor: White Lodge] fulfill a similar function and issue their call to you.

If you feel your mission from a sense of history, then your hearts will become strong enough to withstand all the ridicule and disdain that the so-called pillars of civilization heap on Spiritual Science from the outside. And if you understand your mission in this spirit, then your thoughts will be strong and any doubt that may reverberate into your souls from the outside will be unable to shake you in your conviction. Your thoughts will be spiritually refined by the very force that can issue from such a knowledge of our mission.

Even if we have to review thousands of years and establish far-reaching ideals, it is worth the effort because where such ideals are established, life is transmuted, and where they are absent, life is dead. Ideals transform themselves into the force of a moment even if they have been taken from vast periods of time and may seem to make the person subscribing to them appear somewhat petty and despondent.

You will be strong for the most insignificant task if you are capable of extracting your ideal from the loftiest heights.

This will make you stand fast when those who govern the world with their erudition talk with disdain and contempt about the little spiritual scientific associations where those people sit who “do not want to go along with contemporary culture.” Oh yes, they do want to go along, and they also know to appreciate the accomplishments of the external, physical world, but they also know that just as a body cannot be without a soul, no external culture can exist without spiritual life.

1909-06-10-GA109

We will now think once more of ancient Atlantean culture. In the earliest period man possessed strong magical powers. With these powers he controlled the seed forces, mastered the forces of nature and in a certain way was still able to see into the spiritual world. Clairvoyance then gradually faded. Men were destined to found the culture belonging to the earth; they were to descend to the earth in the real sense. Thus, at the end of Atlantis there were two kinds of human beings within the peoples and races.

Firstly, at the height of Atlantean culture there were seers, clairvoyants and powerful magicians who worked by means of magical forces and were able to see into the spiritual world.

Beside them were people who were preparing to be the founders of present humanity. They already had within them the rudiments of the faculties possessed by men today. They could emphatically no longer equal the achievements of the old Atlanteans but they were able to make preparation for intelligence, for the power of judgment. They possessed the elementary faculties of calculation, computation, analysis and so forth. They were the people who developed the rudiments of the intelligence of today and no longer made use of the magical forces applied by the Atlantean magicians at the time when their application was already fraught with danger on account of the powerful ahrimanic influence.

They were those 'others', the despised people, rather like the anthroposophists today who meet together in small groups, or like the first Christians in ancient Rome who gathered together in the catacombs.

1907-12-05-GA266

Our whole civilization has its origin in the spiritual world. That's where plans are made that govern our life on the physical plane. Down here we only see how one event after another takes place according to physical laws, but the great spiritual causes are hidden from us. It's events on higher planes of our existence that bring about physical events.

…

An especially important event took place on the astral plane in November 1879. Since then esoteric life has taken on a quite different direction. The esoteric stream that lived in mankind since the 14th century was replaced by a new one. Previously all occult life took place very quietly and hidden from the outer world under the direction of the archangel Gabriel (“annunciation”).

Something quite similar to a birth took place on the astral plane in 1879. What had slowly ripened since the 14th century could now be carried into the world in a freer way, even though only for a few people. For Gabriel's rule was followed by that of the archangel Michael. He's the radiant sun that lets esoteric wisdom shine out into a small host of people.

Materialism is included in the divine plan of creation and it has a purpose in the whole world. But the time has now come for the esoteric sun to shine brightly under Michael's radiant direction. For materialism's dark forces are increasing.

Michael's radiant rule will be followed by a dark, terrible age that starts about 2300.

Together with Michael, a dark God has begun his rule — the God Mammon.

For occultism Mammon isn't just the God of money. He's the leader of all base, black forces. And his hosts attack men's bodies and souls to corrode and ruin them. There's a lot of talk about bacterial today, and they influence a lot of things. In future they'll increase in a terrifying way, and many human bodies will waste away from terrible diseases and plagues. The brand of sin will be stamped on men's bodies for all to see.

Another archangel — Oriphiel — will rule then. He must come to shake men up to their true vocation through terrible tortures.

So that this can happen in the right way a small group of people must be prepared today to spread esoteric life in the black age 400–600 years from now. [editor: so approx. 2300-2500]

One under Michael's rule who feels the urge to participate in spiritual life is called upon to serve archangel Michael and to learn under him .. so that someday he'll be mature enough to also serve the terrible Oriphiel in the right way.

A sacrifice is demanded from those who want to dedicate themselves to a higher life. One should only want to receive spiritual life and experience an awakening if one later wants to use this to put oneself, one's will and everything one has in the service of mankind only.

In four to six centuries the small group of men who are being prepared today will serve the God Oriphiel so that mankind can be saved. If in that age men wanted to be spiritual leaders who hadn't been prepared to stand fast in all storms and to resist Mammon's hosts, they wouldn't be able to serve the God Oriphiel in the right way, and mankind would not be lifted out of their misery.

So in order to do it we must work very earnestly now to fulfill our tasks then.

But when dark powers rage most terribly, the brightest light also shines.

Oriphiel has ruled before. That was the time when Christ appeared on earth. Bad powers of degeneration and decadence were ruling everywhere on earth then. And the human race could only be shaken higher by terrible means. Oriphiel is called the archangel of wrath, who purifies mankind with a strong hand.

The story in the Bible where Christ swings a scourge to chase the money changers out of the temple has a deep meaning. Back when things were darkest on earth, Christ appeared as the savior of mankind.

Oriphiel's reign ended 109 years after Christ's appearance, and he was replaced by Anael. Then came Zachariel, then Raphael; Samael ruled during the Renaissance and Gabriel from the 16th century until 1879. Then Michael began to rule, and circa 2300 Oriphiel, the terrible archangel of wrath, will be ruling things.

And as once before, spiritual light will shine into darkness brightly and radiantly. Christ will appear again on earth, although in a different form than before. We're called upon to receive him and to serve him.

[Editor note: refer to Christ's appearance in the etheric, also referred to as the 'second coming']

Meditations

When you, my sisters and brothers, let the spiritual life that streams into your soul live in you so that it reverberates in your meditations, you then have the right fruit. You should let what's received echo in your meditations. While you do that the spiritual powers of the world stream into you.

The world is always flowed through by spiritual streams that proceed from the great Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings [editor, re: White Lodge]. The Masters continuously pour streams of love and wisdom over humanity, but men's souls aren't always ready and open to receive them.

But meditation words are magic words that open soul portals so that divine life can move in. That's why one shouldn't speculate with one's intellect about meditation words, but should open the soul for forces that are higher than merely intellectual ones. If one speculates about them with one's intellect then only forces that are already in one become active. But higher forces are supposed to awaken. One shouldn't want to solve riddles in one's meditation words, one should let them solve riddles, for they're much wiser than the intellect can ever be. That's why one should let them work on one and take in what they permit to flow into one's soul, let them live completely in one's soul.

1910-GA013 (OeS)

When the seventh cultural age (in the current postatlantean epoch) has run its course .. the Earth will be struck by an upheaval comparable to the one that took place between the Atlantean and Postatlantean ages.

After this, evolution will continue under transformed earthly circumstances through seven more time periods.

...

However, only human beings embodying souls that have become all that they could under the influence of the Greco-Latin cultural age and the subsequent fifth, sixth, and seventh cultural ages of Postatlantean evolution will be able to cope with these reconfigured earthly circumstances.

...

Other souls will have to remain behind at this stage, although earlier they could still have chosen to create the prerequisites for participation in it. The souls mature enough to face the conditions that will exist after the next great upheaval will be the ones who succeeded in imbuing supersensible knowledge with their own forces of intellect and feeling at the transition from the fifth to the sixth Postatlantean cultural age.

The fifth and sixth cultural ages are the decisive ones, so to speak.

In the seventh cultural age, although the souls who have achieved the goal of the sixth will continue to develop accordingly, the changed circumstances in their surroundings will provide little opportunity for the others to make up for lost time. The next opportunity will present itself only in the distant future.

…

Not all reach the goal. A third part (of humanity) falls away completely from evolution. We have therefore one third which will attain the goal, one third which lags behind, and one third which does not reach the goal and falls completely away.

One third attains its goal, a second third will only later attain its goal, making together two thirds; and at the end of the Fifth epoch, only one third of those who began evolution will have reached the necessary stage of development.

[Editor note: in the above quote, terminology was edited to be consistent with the nomenclature Steiner adopted throughout his decades of lecture cycles, namely: seven epochs (eg Lemuria, Atlantis, current Postatlantean, ..) and below that seven cultural ages in each epoch. In this book, as well as in other older texts, he uses 'root races' and 'periods' but these can give rise to confusion.]

1907-06-05-GA099

complements all the above, discussing 'two streams'. A related excerpt is Evil#1908-06-30-GA104.

What the materialistic mode of thought brings about has not yet been completed. We have two streams today,

• a great materialistic one which fills the earth,
• and the small spiritual stream which is restricted to but few human beings.

Distinguish between soul-evolution and race-evolution. Do not think that if races pass over to a grotesque form that the soul too does the same.

• All materialistically thinking souls work on the production of evil race-formations,
• and what is done of a spiritual nature causes the bringing forth of a good race.

Just as mankind has brought forth that which has retrogressed in the animals, plants and minerals, so will a portion split off and represent the evil part of humanity.

And in the body, which meanwhile will have grown soft, the inner badness of the soul will express itself externally. Just as older conditions which have degenerated to the ape species seem grotesque to us today, so do materialistic races remain at the standpoint of evil, and will people the Earth as evil races. It will lie entirely with humanity as to whether a soul will remain in the bad race or will ascend by spiritual culture to a good race.

These are things that we must know, if we would live into the future with real knowledge. Otherwise we go through the world with our eyes bound, for forces are working in humanity which we must recognise and to which we must pay attention. A Man would neglect his duty to mankind if he did not wish to become acquainted with the forces which work in the direction of right evolution or against it. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge would be egotism. He who wants to know in order to look into higher worlds acts egotistically. But one who tries to carry this knowledge into the direct practice of everyday life, furthers the advance of the coming evolution of humanity. It is extremely important for us to learn more and more to put into practice what exists as the conception of spiritual science.

So you see, the spiritual movement has a quite definite goal, namely, to mould future humanity in advance. And the goal can be reached in no other way than through the acceptance of spiritual wisdom. This is the thought that lives in the mind of one who conceives spiritual science as the great task of mankind. He thinks of it as inseparable from evolution and he regards it not as an object of desire but as a task and duty that is laid upon him. And the more we acknowledge this, the more rapidly do we approach the future form of humanity in the sixth epoch.

As at that time in ancient Atlantis, in the neighbourhood of modern Ireland, the advanced human beings were drawn to the East in order to found the new civilisations, so have we now the task of working towards the great moment in the sixth epoch, when humanity will undertake a great spiritual ascent.

We must endeavour to come out of materialism again, and societies with a spiritual aim must undertake to guide humanity, not from motives of arrogance and pride, but as a task and duty.

So a certain group of people must join together in order to prepare the future. But this union is not to be conceived of geographically. All ideas of locality have then lost their meaning because it is no longer a question of racial relationships. The point will be for people over the whole Earth to find each other spiritually, in order to fashion the future in, a positive way. For this reason, 400 years ago, when our epoch plunged the deepest into matter, the Rosicrucian Brotherhood emphasised that practical spiritual science which contains an answer to all problems of everyday life.

Here you have the ascending evolution following the descending. Just as old knowledge acts as a disintegrating force, as is shown in Mauthner's Criticism of Language, so the spiritual current of thought seeks the unifying bond of spiritual wisdom. Hence arises the new school of initiation which is directly concerned with leading humanity over into a new cycle of time.

Thus with the principle of human evolution is connected the concept of Initiation

1911-02-12

from an esoteric lesson

(SWCC theosophy was changed to spiritual science)

Since November 1879 a handful of people have become mature enough to undertake spiritual scientific teachings, but it is only just a small group ... while other modern people are still incapable of taking up these teachings. They involve themselves in dreams, fantasies or even become angry over such things.

We have been given about 400 years to make these teachings accessible to all people - in the garment of spiritual science. All those who fought against it in their current incarnation will have the opportunity to be born again in the next 400 years.

At that time there must also be a corresponding group present to represent spiritual science in the right way.

Homeless souls

1904-07-01-GA092

I would like to briefly characterize this occult hierarchy.

• We have such beings who never show themselves: the masters. For people on the physical plane, they are not perceptible at first.
• Below them are chelas, secret disciples who take on the great tasks of the masters on the physical plane.
  • The first to teach there are called “hamsas”, which means “swans”.
  • Those chelas who are called “homeless people” are so called because they do not have their home in this world, but are rooted on higher planes. They give the people the lessons that they themselves have enjoyed from the hamsas. They are the messengers for the geniuses of world history. For example, it can be shown that the leaders of the French Revolution were connected with this spiritual side of world history.

The Great White Lodge had to send its emissaries to prepare and teach people so that they could become the organs on the physical plane to carry out the will of the Masters. So it was with Wolfram von Eschenbach.

In the Middle Ages it was known that there was a White Lodge, at that time it was called the “Castle of the Holy Grail”. In it was the White Brotherhood. He who was sent out at that time to spread the founding of the city to the physical world was called Lohengrin; he was directly instructed by a Hamsa, and he taught Henry I, who is referred to as the founder of the city. This means that the time-souls were to receive a new impact from the “homeless people”.

In the occult language, the soul is always symbolized by a female personality. Elsa of Brabant represents the soul of the time. She is to be married to a knight who belongs to the old tradition, to Telramund. But an envoy of the Grail comes and woos the soul of the time, Elsa of Brabant. This period is characterized by Wolfram von Eschenbach in such a way that Henry is led to Rome, where the inner, esoteric Christianity fights the enemies of Christianity, the Saracens.

Lohengrin is a “homeless person” whom one dare not ask where he comes from. To ask him would be against his monastic vows. He is afflicted with a kind of Janus face; on the one hand he must look towards the occult brotherhood and on the other hand towards the people he must lead in the physical world. Richard Wagner often found poignant words, for example when he has Lohengrin sing: “Now thanks be given, my dear swan.” That is the moment when the swan leaves him and he becomes dependent on physical conditions. He is transported into a world that is not quite appropriate for him; it is not his true world. His world is the world of the other side, so that he must be regarded as a homeless person. When his mission is fulfilled, the homeless man disappears again to where he came from. When his origin is discovered, he must disappear again. This is difficult for him who has entered into relationship with the physical plane. Therefore Elsa of Brabant must ask three times whence he came.

1904-10-03-GA090A

This is what the pathfinder develops. When he has developed these qualities to a certain degree, then he is ready for what is called discipleship.

Then comes the moment when he has a great experience of tremendous significance: from this point on, he receives impressions from the spiritual world, from a completely different world, from a world that lies behind our world and of which our world is only the effect. He enters the world of the spiritual. He then looks at the world from the other side. What we call space and time no longer apply to him. It makes no difference to him that he is living in this particular incarnation. He could just as easily be living in a different incarnation. He could have lived thousands of years ago – when he looks at what he is now seeing, he would see it in the same way. He could even be living in the future and would still experience everything in the same way.

This is the first level of discipleship. Such a person is called a homeless person; he is removed from the Heimav. In return, he also says things that no longer refer to this or that place, to this or that people, to this or that race, but he says things that refer to all races, to all times and all peoples.

The first stage enables him to see only what is nearest. At this stage, he only sees what belongs to a so-called “root race”. The disciple, then, sees what relates to our present root race, back to the time when the Atlanteans disappeared.

Then the second stage of discipleship begins, which is not attained through theory, not through concepts and ideas, but through a real insight. The Theosophical worldview teaches that man does not live only once in the world, but many times, that he embodies himself again and again and that his actions are related. The individual lives are connected by cause and effect. This can be seen by observing life. It is also possible to understand this concept in theory. Many followers of Theosophy are still at the stage of believing reincarnation and karma to be true only as a conceptual and intellectual realization. However, the second stage of discipleship has the knowledge of the truth of reincarnation and karma. The disciple does not suspect the truth of reincarnation and karma – he knows it.

Now comes the third stage of discipleship. Re-embodiment is not an eternal thing. Before the middle of the Lemurian period, there was not yet what we call reincarnation, and after the middle of the sixth root race, this kind of reincarnation will cease again. Another kind of life and re-embodiment will then be there. Up to the middle of the sixth root race, man will be reincarnated. Reincarnation will then depend on the will of the person; today it is independent of it. We can say there is a first moment before reincarnation and a last moment after it. Before that, man was one who did not incarnate, and after that he will be one who no longer reincarnates. To see beyond the realm of reincarnation is the attribute of the third level of discipleship. This disciple, this chela at the third level, is called “swan”. When he looks at the first and the last, that is, at that which is higher than all reincarnation, then he is able to write and speak of apocalypses. What is contained in any apocalypse initially comes from those initiates who not only overlook the time of reincarnation, but see from the first to the last. To show how man has come into this reincarnation and how he comes out of it again, that is the task of every apocalypse. It has to describe a distant past and a distant future, and in doing so it also encompasses the present. In the Apocalypse of John you will find a description of the seven sub-races of our fifth root race, because what is said of the seven churches refers to the seven sub-races of the fifth root race. The admonitions that the apocalyptic John addresses to the churches are the admonitions that the chela John calls out to the individual sub-races. Each sub-race is connected with a very specific constellation in heaven. Therefore, there are seven stars that represent the seven angels: they guide the genii of the seven sub-races. Then one is led to the first and to the last. The first is the human being who stands before reincarnation, and the last is he who still stands after having overcome reincarnation.

John was in a so-called initiation shell. He also says that he was in spirit. And what is revealed there is nothing other than the inspiration of a chela in the third degree of discipleship; it is an apocalypse of the swan. The swan is the one who establishes the connection between the most highly inspired and man. This is expressed in the most important legends.

So the disciple becomes homeless at the first level. Those who have become swans can attain the higher revelations. They are those who come into our world, but you are not allowed to ask them their name because they come from a world beyond. This is expressed in a great, powerful allegory that also has a deeply mystical meaning. It is a very profound truth that is expressed in the Lohengrin saga; through Lohengrin, who comes with the swan, who was thus a disciple - a chela - of the third degree. Great truths are found with him. Only he who understands the saga of Lohengrin understands world history from the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth century.

Now I have explained to you the origin of who can speak apocalyptically, who can create a picture of the world, independent of space and time. We will also talk about the distant past, the present, but also the future. This will become clear when we talk about the apocalypse revealed by Theosophy. There we will see what man can set as a great goal, because it really is a great goal.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA053/English/UNK2014/19050302p01.html

There, too, the Master took him by the hand and guided him from stage to stage. There, too, he had to perform the symbolic act of laying down his hat and sword. He had to lay down everything that connected him with the everyday life of the physical world. This is what anyone who ascends to become a chela, a spiritual disciple, must always do; he must do it within himself.

That is why such a person is called a “homeless person”; he has laid down what ordinary people call their home. This does not mean being torn out of life; he stands firm in his position, but his own life is removed from the world that surrounds him.

1905-03-16-GA053

This inner sound, which is of course not perceptible to the outer sensory ear, this inner word of things, through which they express their own nature, is the experience that a person has when they are able to influence their etheric body from their astral body. Then they have become a chela, a true disciple of a great initiate. Then he can be led further along this path. Such a person who has ascended to this level is called a homeless person, because he has found a connection with a new world, because it sounds to him from the spiritual world, and because he no longer has his home in this sensory world, so to speak. This should not be misunderstood. The chela who has reached this stage is just as good a citizen and family man, just as good a friend, as he would have been if he had not become a chela. He does not need to be torn away from anything. What he experiences there is a process of development of the soul. There he finds a new home in a world that lies beyond this sensual world.

What has happened there? The spiritual world resounds within the human being, and as the spiritual world resounds within the human being, he overcomes an illusion, the illusion itself, in which, basically, all human beings are caught before this stage of development. This is the illusion of the personal self. The human being believes that he is a personality, separate from the rest of the world. Mere reflection could teach him that he is not an independent entity, even in the physical sense. Consider that if the temperature in this room were two hundred degrees higher than it is now, none of us would be able to exist here as we do now. As soon as conditions outside change, the conditions for our physical existence are no longer there. We are only the continuation of the outside world and simply unthinkable as separate beings. This is even more the case in the soul and spiritual world. We see that man, understood as a self, is only an illusion, that he is a member of the general divine spirituality. Here, man overcomes the personal self. What Goethe expressed in the Chorus mysticus with the words: “All that is transitory is only a parable.” What we see is only an image of an eternal being. We ourselves are only an image of an eternal being. When we give up our separate being, then we have outer life — and we do indeed live a separate life through the etheric body — then we have overcome outer, separate life, we have become part of all life.

Something now arises in the human being that we have called the buddhi. In practical terms, buddhi is attained as a stage of development of the etheric body, that etheric body which no longer causes a separate existence but enters into universal life. The human being who has attained this has reached the second stage of chelaship. Then all scruples and doubts fall away from his soul, then he can no longer be a superstitious person, just as he can no longer be a doubting person. Then he no longer needs to obtain the truth by comparing his mental images with the external environment; then he lives in the tone, in the word of things; then what it is sounds and resonates from the essence. There is no more superstition, no more doubt. This is called the handing over of the key of knowledge to the chela. When he has reached this stage, a word from the spiritual world sounds into it. Then his word no longer proclaims the reproduction of what is in this world, but his word is the reproduction of what comes from another world, which has an effect on this one, but which cannot be seen with our outer senses. These words are messengers of the deity.

1905-10-09-GA093A

The first stage of initiation consists in the pupil learning to penetrate through the veil of the external world and to look at the world from the other side. The initiate is homeless here on the earth. He must build himself a home on the other side. When the disciples were with Jesus ‘on the mountain’, they were led into the devachanic world, beyond space and time; they built themselves a ‘tabernacle’—a home. This is the first stage of initiation.

At the second stage of initiation something similar occurs, but on a higher level. At this stage the initiate has a state of consciousness corresponding to the intermediate period between two conditions of form (Globes), a state of Pralaya that comes about when everything is achieved that can be achieved in the physical condition of form and the Earth is metamorphosed into a so-called astral condition of form (Globe).

The third stage of initiate-consciousness is that which corresponds to the intermediate state between two Rounds, from the old Arupa-Globe of the previous Round to the new Arupa-Globe of the following Round. The initiate is in the Pralaya between two Rounds when he raises himself into the third stage. He is then an initiate of the Third Degree. So we can now understand why Jesus had to reach the third stage before he could place his body at the service of Christ. Christ stands above all the spirits who live in the Rounds. The initiate who had raised himself above the Rounds could place his body at the service of Christ.

1905-11-18-GA068B

First stage: The homeless person. He no longer clings to the external world, does not look back longingly at the world of the senses. He is not unloving towards the world of the senses, but he does not allow himself to be captured by it. He himself gives equal love to all the world. He now begins to look consciously into the spiritual world, into those regions which are otherwise open to the average person only after death. Then all superstition and doubt disappear forever, because he sees how things are. But then all illusion of the self also disappears.

We can already realize this in the physical. Our existence depends entirely on the context we have with the globe. If we were to rise above it, we would perish, because the living conditions we need are not available up there. We can only live in the environment we were born into because it is in the right proportion to the temperature of our own blood. If the temperature were only 30 degrees higher or lower, our existence would be endangered.

The personal self will be overcome, the “Tat twam asi” - “That art thou”, fully awakened, that is, the human being feels at one with the universe.

[The] second stage of chela-ship is referred to as “building huts”. He sees the kundalini light. This is presented to us in the account of the Transfiguration, where the Lord Jesus introduces his three disciples to chelaship. Then they want to build huts.

Third degree of chela-schip: Then the light shines out of the disciple. “Every thing says its own name to him.” He sees things from the other side through the rays of the spirit,

Fourth degree of chela-schip: cannot be described; it cannot be explained in ordinary words; it can only be spoken of in secret schools.

Only a hint can be given of the higher stages.

1905-12-02-GA090B

in context of the Sermon on the Mount

When reading this scene, we find that the disciples speak a significant word. In the path of discipleship, three stages are distinguished.

1. The first stage is that of the homeless man,
2. the second stage is that on which man builds “huts” in the spiritual world.

The disciples were at this stage at that time, so they said: “Here let us build huts.

1905-12-03-GA092

Let us consider the stages of the chela's initiation. The chela must first overcome three stages.

1. The first step is that of the homeless man, where man is torn out of the physical world, where he becomes objective towards the physical world. He must unlearn to be partial, he must learn to love everything equally; he does not love less, but he transfers his love to everything that deserves love, not just to his homeland and so on.
2. The second step is where the chela builds huts. He finds a new home. The disciples on the mountain have reached this stage. They are beyond space and time, they see Elijah and Moses. That is why they say: “Let us build huts.”
3. The third stage is that of the swan. A swan is the chela who has come so far that all things speak to him, even those who have their consciousness on higher planes. On the physical plane, only man has the ego. The animal has consciousness on the astral plane, the plant on the mental plane (rupa plane), the mineral on the higher mental plane (arupa plane). One must rise to higher worlds to find the I, the names of other beings; there things speak their own names to the chela. The world then becomes resounding and sounding for him everywhere.

1906-02-12-GA068B

Theosophy teaches that man belongs to three realms: the physical, the soul and the spiritual, and that his being is subject to the laws of these realms. Knowledge of these laws promotes a person's inner development. First of all, it is necessary to listen to the teachings of the knowledgeable in the spiritual realm without prejudice and to let them take effect, because one does not initially have the spiritual tools to penetrate into the higher worlds. Therefore, the first thing that must be demanded of the disciple is unreserved, unbiased devotion. He must be able to make himself, as it were, an empty vessel into which the foreign world flows; he must become completely selfless and master of his pleasure and displeasure. He must accept pleasure and pain with composure; furthermore, he must strictly regulate his thinking, and this should take on the inner character of the spiritual world.

Plato demanded that those accepted into his school first undergo a mathematical course of study so that their thinking would be a reflection of undisturbed mathematical thinking and reasoning; then the laws of the spiritual world would flow into the student. From his thinking, he must then allow his actions to be influenced. Thus, arbitrariness is nowhere to be seen, only conformity to law.

Then the human being becomes free of all sense perception; his spiritual self is released from the sense-perceptible coverings. Thus he becomes a disciple of wisdom, a homeless human being who lives only in the spirit; he no longer lives only with the things that are formed by the spirit, but with the forming spirit itself. All doubt and superstition soon fade away, for he knows that the true form of the spirit is freedom from personality, doubt and superstition. To attain higher knowledge, Man must acquire four qualities.

• First, he must learn to distinguish the eternal from the temporal, truth from mere inclination;
• second, he must learn to appreciate the eternal and real in relation to the transitory and unreal;
• third, he must develop six qualities: control of thought and action, persistence, tolerance, faith and equanimity; and
• fourth, he must develop the desire for liberation.

These are the stages on the path to higher inner knowledge.

1906-03-29-GA054

The first stage of the higher path of knowledge consists in learning to behave completely objectively toward the world, to practice love without the slightest trace of prejudice from within. Isn't it true that in ordinary life, people love first and foremost because they are related by blood, because they have been bound together for a long time by some kind of bond? That is correct. But those who want to walk the path of knowledge must advance to a different kind of love. Nothing that connects me to a person in a special way should give them preference in my love. I must only ask about what is outside of myself. Does the one who is my brother or my brother-in-law have an advantage? No! This is not to say anything against the love of kinship; it is only about the character traits of the person. Even if he is a complete stranger to us, we recognize that he is worthy of our love, and then we love him as one who has been connected to us for a long time.

Such a person is on the first level of chela-ship. We call him the homeless person because he has lost, in the ideal sense, what is called home.

This is also meant by the sentence you find in Christianity: “Whoever does not leave wife and child, mother and brother for my sake cannot be my disciple.” The same is meant by this sentence, and this is how Christianity was also felt in Central Europe. No name and no title should give a person the right to preferential love. A person's innermost dignity and worth should be the basis for love in someone who is ascending the path of knowledge.

Once a person has climbed the first steps of the path of knowledge, the difficult moments of doubt arise. As we get to know the world more and more and immerse ourselves more and more in love, we also learn more about the dark and evil side of the world. These are the difficult days of the initiate. The initiate gradually struggles upward. Then that light of the soul awakens, which, like an inner sun, illuminates the spiritual things and beings around him. We see the objects around us with our eyes because the light shines on these objects. Actually, we only see the rays that are reflected back to us from the objects. We do not see spiritual things because no spiritual light shines on them. But those who have reached the point where the so-called kundalini light shines on them are on the second stage of the path of knowledge. The third stage is reached by those who have managed to perceive their ego without preference, who do not consider themselves superior to other people, who find their higher self in love for all beings. Those who no longer hope for their own egoistic self, but hear and perceive the individuality of beings, we say have reached the third stage of the path of knowledge. In the Secret Doctrine, we call them swans, an expression that is common throughout the world where spiritual research is practiced.

And what does this degree bring? It brings an outflowing over all beings. We are no longer separated from the world by a skin. The pain of others is our pain, the joy of others is our joy; we live and weave in existence. The whole earth belongs to us. We feel ourselves in everything. Then we no longer know that we are looking at objects from outside; it is as if we were inside them, as if we had penetrated them through love and thus knew them. Through compassion, through feeling ourselves one with them, everything has become knowledge.

1908-05-30-GA103

Do not misunderstand what is said here and imagine that anyone who is able, as an initiate, to experience the spiritual world as well as the physical world must give up all other human feelings and sensations which are of value here in the physical world and exchange them for those of the higher worlds. This is not so. He does not exchange one for the other, but he acquires one in addition to the other. If, on the one hand, he has to spiritualize his feelings, he must, on the other, strengthen much more those feelings which are of use for working in the physical world. In this way we must interpret those words used in connection with an initiate, namely, that he must, in a certain sense, become a homeless person. It is not meant that in any sense he must become estranged from his home and his family as long as he lives in the physical world, but these words have at least this much significance, that by acquiring the corresponding feelings in the spiritual world, the feelings for the physical world will experience a finer, more beautiful development. What does it mean to be homeless? It means that one without this designation cannot, in the true sense of the word, attain initiation. To be a homeless man, means that he must develop no special sympathies in the spiritual world similar to those he possesses here in the physical world for special regions or relationships. The individual human being in the physical world belongs to some particular folk or to some particular family, to this or that community of the state. That is all quite proper. He does not need to lose this; he needs it here. If, however, he wished to employ these feelings in the spiritual world, he would bring a very bad dowry to that world. There, it is not a question of developing sympathy for anything, but of allowing everything to work upon him objectively, according to its inherent worth. It could also be said, were this generally understood, that an initiate must be, in the fullest sense of the word, an objective human being.

It is just through its evolution upon the earth that humanity has emerged out of a former homeless state connected with the ancient dreamy, clairvoyant consciousness.

1910-06-07-GA121

Perhaps you will better understand what we mean if you remember, that at a certain stage of initiation development one is called a ‘homeless man.’ This designation is a technical one, and if we wish to characterize without further ado—as we are not now speaking about the path of knowledge—what is to be understood by the term ‘homeless man,’ we may briefly say, that a man is called ‘homeless’ when, in his knowledge and grasp of the great laws of humanity, he cannot be influenced by all that usually arises in a person through living in his native country. A ‘homeless man’, we might also say, is one who is able to identify himself with the great mission of humanity as a whole, without the various shades of the particular feelings belonging to this or the other home-land playing any part. This will show you that a certain degree of maturity in mystical or occult development is necessary, in order to have a liberal point of view regarding something which we otherwise rightly consider great, which, in contradistinction to individual human life, we describe as the Mission of the several Folk-spirits, as that which brings, out of the foundations of a people, out of the spirit of the various peoples, the separate concrete contributions to the collective mission of humanity.

We shall therefore describe what we may call the greatness of that from which the ‘homeless man’ must in a certain respect free himself. Now the ‘homeless’ men of all times, from primeval ages down to our own day, have always known, that if they were to characterize in all its fullness that which is described as the character of homelessness, they would meet with very, very little understanding. In the first place a certain prejudice would be brought against these homeless men, which would be voiced in the reproach: ‘You have lost all connection with the nation from which you have sprung; you have no understanding for that which is usually most dear to a man’. This, however, is not really the case.

Homelessness is in reality—or at least it may be so—a détour or roundabout way, so that, after this sanctuary of homelessness has been attained, the way may be found back to the folk, in order to be in harmony with what is permanent in the evolution of mankind. Although it is necessary to begin by drawing attention to this, on the other hand it is also not without reason, that just as the present time, that which we call the Mission of the several Folk-souls of humanity, should for once be spoken of quite impartially. Just as it was right that, to a certain extent, silence should be maintained regarding their mission until the present time, there are good reasons why one should now begin to speak of this mission. It is especially important, because the fate of humanity in the near future will bring men together much more than has hitherto been the case, to fulfill a common mission for humanity. But the individuals belonging to the several peoples will only be able to bring their free, concrete contributions to this joint mission, if they have, first of all, an understanding of the folk to which they belong, an understanding of what we might call ‘The Self-knowledge of the Folk.’ In ancient Greece, in the Apollonic Mysteries the sentence ‘Know thyself’ played a great rôle; in a not far-distant future this sentence will be addressed to the Folk-souls; ‘Know yourselves as Folk-souls’. This saying will have a certain significance for the future work of mankind.

1914-03-13-GA069E

Man cannot follow his own path. Anyone who looks at economic life knows that it always depends on how the affairs of the present are integrated into the objective order. Man is plunged into this objective order, seized by it, and his personal life is completely eliminated, so that Sombart can say: People have lost various things over time. If you look at today's entrepreneur, you have to say that he has given up the last thing that could still separate him from this objective economic machine. He has lost all subjective feeling and all his love for the work in the company itself. What used to be directed at completely different things has been poured into the company. Man no longer knows anything about himself, but has become homeless in his work. That is not a word of mine, but of Sombart.

This is the social current of the present: the soul is homeless in modern life, and is it only the case for those who work in leading entrepreneurial positions? No! This social spirit of the present has taken hold of everyone, so that not only the entrepreneur, but also those who work as simple laborers in the economic life do not feel connected to what they work. If, in the course of work, the question of wages or something else is a cause of disagreement, then it is not work that is at the center of interest, but the question that has been raised by our economic system. This interest is intertwined with work. This plays a role in contemporary social life. In this area, the present is certainly moving forward.

All that I have just said has not been said in order to criticize. The way things have become, they had to become – they have become necessary. But what is characteristic is what man has to say about this order. The individual human being cannot really live in a way that befits human dignity, but rather says: Today I will have to do this or that, tomorrow is none of my business; let the “blind giant” do later what cannot be known, that is none of our business. Sombart says even more. I mention him not precisely because he wrote this book, but because what he says is typical.

Sombart says: This social order, this economic order has come to the point where we see it taking hold of people, making them spiritually homeless, throwing them into the wheels of industry, mercilessly throwing them in.

1923-06-10-GA258

lecture called 'homeless souls' in GA258: The anthroposophic movement

long extract, still relevant to read the whole lecture

Whereas the others have a profound desire for an earthly state of existence, these souls have to the last a lively interest in the things that are going on in the spiritual world, and come upon earth accordingly, when they do embody, with a mind that draws its consciousness from spiritual impulses, and affords less inclination to the kind of impulses which I described as existing in the case of the broad highroaders. They outgrow the impulses of their surroundings; in particular, they outgrow their surroundings in their spiritual aspirations. And they are thus pre-destined,—ready prepared,—for going simply their own way.

And so one might divide the souls into two kinds, which come down to-day out of their pre-earthly existence into earthly existence. The first kind, which still at the present day includes the majority of people, are remarkably ‘home-gifted’ souls, who feel so thoroughly at home as souls in their warm nest,—even though at times they may think it uncomfortable; but that is only in appearance, is only maya;—they feel comfortable in this warm nest, in which they have already taken an interest for so long, before coming down to earth.

Others perhaps,—the external maya, is not always a good guide,—others, who may go through their child-life quite acquiescently as souls, are not so home-gifted, are homeless souls, grow out of the snug nest rather than into it.

And to those of this latter species belong undoubtedly those souls too, who afterwards find their way into the anthroposophic movement.

It is therefore certainly a matter, in one way or other, of predetermination, whether one is impelled by one's fate into Anthroposophy.

It may truly be said, however, that the impulse manifests itself in all manner of ways, which leads these souls to search along side-paths, off the track of life's great highroad. And anyone, who has gone through life with a certain conscientness during the last twenty or thirty years of the nineteenth century and the first twenty to thirty of the twentieth, will have observed, that everywhere, amongst the others, there were to be seen these homeless souls—soul-homeless souls, that is,—in numbers,—numbers relatively speaking, of course. A great many souls, in fact, to-day, have what I might call a certain streak of this homelessness.

If the others did not find it so comfortable to keep along the beaten tracks, and did not put such difficulties in the way of the homeless souls, these homeless souls would be much more striking in their numbers to the eyes of their contemporaries. But even so, one can perceive everywhere, I might say, to-day a certain streak of this homelessness in a great number of souls.

Only quite a short while ago, there was a report of an incident, which shows how even such things as this may happen. A professor at a certain university gave a set of lectures, a course of collegiate addresses, announced for schoolmen, with the title, ‘The evolution of mystic-occult philosophy from Pythagoras to Steiner’. And the report says, that when the course was announced, so many people came to the very first lecture, that he was not able to give it in one of the ordinary lecture-rooms, but had to hold it in the Great Auditorium, which as a rule is used only for the addresses on big University occasions.

From facts such as this, one can see how things stand at the present day, and how in fact this tendency to homelessness has spread extremely deep into men's souls. And one could watch this thing, so to speak, which to-day grows week by week to an ever more intense longing in the souls of those who bear about this homelessness within them,—the longing for something which is not a ready planned, ready mapped-out post in life,—this longing for something spiritual,—which shows itself in this corner of life from week to week, one might say, with greater insistence and ever increasing force amid the chaotic spiritual life of the day one could watch all this growing up. And if to-day I succeed in sketching the gradual growth of it for you in a few brief touches, you may be able to find in this sketch, through a sort of self-recollection, just a little perhaps of what I might term the common anthroposophic origin of you all.

To-day I will do no more than pick out some characteristic features by way of introduction.—Look back to the last twenty or thirty years of the nineteenth century. We might quite well take any other field; but let us take a very characteristic field; and here we find coming into prominence at a particular time what one may call ‘Wagnerianism’: the cult of Richard Wagner.

There was, no doubt, mixed up with this Richard Wagner cult, a great deal of fashionable affectation, desire for sensation, and so forth. But amongst the people who showed themselves at Bayreuth, after Bayreuth was started, there were not only gentlemen in the latest cut of frock-coat, and ladies in the newest and smartest frocks; but at Bayreuth there was everything conceivable, side by side. Even then, one might see there gentlemen with their hair very long and ladies with their hair cropped short. People might be seen, who felt it like a sort of modern pilgrimage to travel from long distances to Bayreuth. I even knew one man, who, when he set out for Bayreuth, drew off his boots at a place on the road a very long way off, and pilgrimaged to Bayreuth barefoot.

Amongst the people who turned up like this,—the gentlemen with the long, and the ladies with the short hair, there were undoubtedly many who belonged in some form or other to the homeless-soul class. But amongst those, too, who were dressed, if not in the very latest, yet at any rate in a fairly respectable fashion, there were also such as were homeless souls.

Now, what made such an effect upon the people in this Wagnerianism,—what there actually was in it, (I am not talking now of the musical element only, but of Wagnerianism as a social phenomenon)—what made itself felt in Wagnerianism as a force, was something that in this Wagnerianism stood out quite distinct from anything else that the materialist age had to offer. It was something that went out quite peculiarly, and almost suggestively I might say, from this Wagnerianism, and acted upon people in such a way as to give them the feeling: It is like a door into another and more spiritual world, quite different from the one we usually have round about us.

And round Bayreuth and all that went on there, there sprung up a whole crop of longing aspirations after pro-founder depths of spiritual life.—To understand Richard Wagner's personages and dramatic compositions was at first certainly difficult. But that they were the creations of quite another element than merely the crass materialism of the age,—this at any rate was felt by numbers of people. And if these happened to be persons, who as homeless souls were more particularly impelled in this direction, they were stirred up by what I might call a sort of suggestive force in the Wagner dramas, particularly in the life that the Wagner dramas brought with them into our civilization, and began to have all sorts of hazy, emotional intuitions.

There were also, for instance, amongst the many people who came into this Wagnerian life, the readers of the Bayreuth Papers. It is interesting, historically,—to-day it has already all come to be history,—historically it is interesting to take up one of the annual sets of the Bayreuth Papers, and to look through it and see, how they start out with an interpretation of Tristan and Isolde, of the Nibelung Ring, of the Flying Dutchman even, how they start out from the dramatic composition, take the individual figures in the Wagner dramas, the incidents in them, and thence, in an extremely subjective and unreal way, it is true,—unreal even in the spiritual sense,—but nevertheless with a great yearning of spirit, how they attempt to arrive at a more spiritual aspect of the things and of human life in general. And one can truly say, that in the multifarious interpretations of Hamlet and other interpretations of works of art that have since been brought out by theosophists, there is much that reminds one of certain articles, written in the Bayreuth Papers, not by a theosophist, but by an expert Wagnerian, Hans von Wolzogen. And if you woke up one morning, let us say, and if, instead of a theosophist paper that you read perhaps fifteen years ago, some mischievous fairy had laid beside your bed a batch of the Bayreuth Papers, you might really mistake the tone and style of them for something you had come across in the theosophist paper,—if it happened to be an article of Wolzogen's, or one of the kind.

So that this Wagnerianism, one might say, was for many persons, in whom there dwelt homeless souls, an opening, through which to come to some aspect of the world that led away from the crassly material that led them into a spiritual region.

And of all these people who, not externally out of fashion-able affectation, but from an inner impulse of the soul, had grown into a stream of this kind, it may truly be said of them all, that whatever else they might be in life, whether they were lawyers, or lords, or artists, or M.P.s, or whatever else they might be, who had grown into this stream,—even the scientists, for there were some of these too,—they pursued the direction into the spiritual world from an inner longing of their souls, and troubled themselves no further about hard and fast proofs, of which there were plenty to be found everywhere for the world-conception of materialistic construction.

As said before, I might have mentioned other fields as well, where homeless souls of this kind were to be found; one did find plenty of such homeless souls. But this Wagner field was especially characteristic; there these homeless souls might be found in numbers.

Well, it was my lot, I might say, personally, to make acquaintance with a number of souls of this kind (but in company also with others), who had gone, so to speak, through their spiritual novitiate as Wagnerians, and were as I knew them, again in a different metamorphosis. These were souls whom I learnt to know towards the end of the eighteen eighties in Vienna, amongst a group of people, collected together entirely one might say out of homeless souls.

How this homelessness displayed itself in those days, even on the surface, is something of which people no longer form any true conception at all to-day; for many things, which then required a good courage,—courage of soul,—have to-day become quite commonplace.

This, for instance, is something, which I think not many people at the present day will be able to conceive.—I was sitting in a group of such homeless souls, and we had been talking of all sorts of things, when one of them came in, who either had been kept longer than the others by his work, or else maybe he had stayed sitting at home, busied with his own thoughts. At any rate, he came later, and began talking about Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov [Known in English under the title ‘Crime and Punishment’], and spoke of Raskolnivok in such a way that it struck like lightning into the company,—just like a flash of lightning. A new world opened up, a world which ... well, it was very much as though one were transported all of a sudden into another planet:—that was how these souls felt.

Perhaps I may be allowed to say something:—In all these observations of life, which I am telling you by way of introduction to the history of the anthroposophic movement, during all the time that I was impelled by my fate to make these observations in life, there was for myself never any sort of interruption of the contact with the spiritual world. The direct association with the spiritual world was never in any way broken; it was always there. I am obliged to mention this, because this must form the background of these contemplations: namely, the spiritual world as a self-obvious reality, and the human beings on earth seen accordingly as the images of what they really are as spiritual individualities within the spiritual world. I want just to indicate this frame of mind, so that you may take it as spiritual background all through.

Of course, ‘making observations’ did not mean sniffing about like a dog with a cold nose, but taking a warm, whole-hearted interest in everything, and not with the intention of being an observer, but simply because one is in the midst of it, in all good-fellowship and friendliness and courtesy, as a matter of course. So one really was in it all, and became acquainted with the people, not in order to observe them, but because it naturally came about in the course of actual life. And so I made acquaintance at the end of the 'eighties with a group of this kind, composed in other respects of people of every variety of calling, with every different shade of colouring in life, but who were all homeless souls of this kind; and of whom a number, as I said, had come over from the Wagner region, and were people whose spiritual novitiate, so to speak, had been made in the Wagner region. The man of whom I told you, who took off his boots in Vienna and walked barefoot to Bayreuth, he was one of them, and was, in matter of fact, a very clever man. For a while I used to come together with these people quite frequently, often indeed every day. They were now living, as I might say, in a second metamorphosis. Having gone through their Wagner metamorphosis, they were now in their second one.

There were three of them, for instance; people who knew H. P. Blavatsky well, who had been indeed intimate acquaintances of H. P. Blavatsky, and who were zealous theosophists, as theosophists were at that time, when Blavatsky was still living. About the theosophists of that time,—the time just after Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled and Secret Doctrine had appeared,—there was something quite peculiar. They all had a marked tendency to be extremely esoteric. They had a contempt for the external life in which they were placed, and a contempt of course for their own profession in life; but were nevertheless under the obligation of mingling in external existence:—that lay in the order of nature. But, as for everything else,—that is ‘esoteric’; there one converses only with Initiates, and only within a small circle. And one looks upon all the people, who, in one's opinion, are not worthy of conversing on such matters, as the sort of people, to whom one talks about the common things of life;—the others, are the people to whom one talks esoterics. They were readers, and good readers too, of Sinnett's newly-published book, Esoteric Buddhism, but all of them people eminently belonging to the class of homeless souls I have just described: people, namely, who, the moment they stepped into practical life, were engineers, electricians, and so forth, and yet again studied with deep interest, with the keenest eagerness, a book like Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism. And with these people too, there was a sort of tendency,—inherited partly from their Wagner phase,—to seize on everything available in the way of myths and legends, and explain, or interpret, them in ‘an esoteric sense’, as they called it.

One might observe, however, as these homeless souls really began more and more to make their appearance with the close of the nineteenth century, that the most interesting of all were not those, who after all, if I may say so, with only nine-tenths honest minds—nine-tenths honest, at most — used to study the writings of Blavatsky and Sinnett, but the others,—those who would listen, but were not willing to read for themselves. (In those days people were still exceedingly shy of such things.) They were not willing to read the things personally, but would listen with open mouths, when the people, who had read, expounded them. And it was very interesting to watch how the listeners, who were often more honest-minded than the narrators, would drink in these things, in the homelessness of their souls, like a spiritual nourishment of which they were in need,—and who indeed, out of the comparative lack of sincerity with which this spiritual nourishment was presented to them, converted it into something absolutely sincere, through the superior honesty of their own souls. And the way they drank it in! One could see the longing there was in them, to hear for once something quite different from what is to be found on the ordinary highroad of civilization. How these people gulped down what they heard! And it was extra-ordinarily interesting to see, on the one side the long arms of the highroad life snatching up the people ever and again in their clutches ... and then again, you know, how these people would turn up afresh in some drawing-room where they used to meet,—often it was a coffee-house,—and there would listen with hungry eagerness to what somebody or other had just been reading in some book of this kind that had newly appeared,—and who often laid it on pretty thick with what he had read. But there were these honest souls there too, most unquestionably, who were tossed in this way to-and-fro by life.

1923-06-11/12/14/15/17-GA258 and 1923-06-16-GA350

Discussion

Note 1 - On Down syndrome, autism, and other states of consciousness and incarnate experiences

draft work area for note under development

Introduction

The topic page Planets hosting beings at various stages of evolution puts forth the idea of the 'pie chart of humanity with different groups and cohorts'.

See not just this topic page, but also: Planets hosting beings at various stages of evolution#Note 2 - The topic of the so-called Star children

.

From this perspective, links could also be explored to souls incarnating that find themselves with the Down syndrome or autism, and a different state of consciousness and soul experience of this life and incarnation.

One might intuit that maybe these children and people, that do not fit the regular standards of what is regarded 'normal' Waking Consciousness in society, do not have the tight processing of and acting upon sensory impressions and thoughts (re: sentient soul .. intellectual soul) but (maybe as a result) have different soul characteristics in how they stand in the world.

Perhaps more 'naively' open-hearted and loving, and/or with heightened capabilities for intuition, empathy, telepathy?

Notes

• For example, see Karl König and his work for the spiritual well-being of adults with Down syndrome, people who in some particular way also do not fit into regular society yet have particular soul characteristics (see Camphill Community, as well as König's views on Kasper Hauser). König viewed individuals with Down syndrome as having an open-hearted, wisdom-filled nature, unburdened by the typical constraints of the 'I' and modern intellectualism. Seemingly König also made an intuitive connection between Kaspar Hauser and children with Down syndrome .. seeing both as bearers of a special mission on Earth. König suggested that Kaspar Hauser represented a pure, innocent soul who had a unique, almost otherworldly quality, much like the children with Down syndrome he worked with in Camphill communities. He saw both as embodying a deep, loving presence and a special connection to the spiritual world.

Background

note: info in this section via internet search and chatgpt - not checked or validated

There is a growing body of research on the special capabilities often found in children and adults with autism. While autism is characterized by challenges in social interaction and communication, many individuals exhibit extraordinary abilities in specific areas.

Some key areas of research include

1. savant syndrome & extraordinary abilities: exceptional skills, often in highly specialized domains such as Mathematics & Calendar Calculation, Music & Perfect Pitch, Art & Visual Thinking, Memory & Hyperlexia
2. heightened sensory perception: research suggests that many autistic individuals experience enhanced sensory processing in one or more senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell). Some studies have found that autistic individuals have superior ability to detect slight differences in sound (auditory processing), are more sensitive to colors, lights, and visual patterns, can focus intensely on specific details, filtering out distractions.
3. pattern recognition & systematic thinking, a.oi. a deep ability to analyze and construct systems (e.g., coding, mechanics, and logic-based thinking).
4. a different type of empathy & emotional Intelligence, e.g. hyper-empathy" (feel emotions deeply but struggle to express them in conventional ways)
5. creativity & innovation: autistic individuals score higher in divergent thinking tasks, meaning they can generate unique solutions to problems.

Also:

• Telepathic or Non-Verbal Communication: many parents and caregivers of non-verbal autistic individuals report intuitive or telepathic communication with their children. Diane Powell (MD, former Johns Hopkins professor) studied cases where non-verbal autistic individuals appear to answer questions or identify objects telepathically. See also the podcast '
  • note: many non-verbal children with autism communicate using alternative methods, such as: (1) 'augmentative and alternative communication' (AAC) devices: These devices, which can include speech-generating devices or communication boards, allow individuals to select words or symbols to express their thoughts and needs. (2) 'Facilitated Communication' (FC): This (controversial) method involves a facilitator assisting a non-verbal individual in pointing to letters, words, or symbols on a communication board. Some proponents have argued that FC can allow individuals to communicate with the world in ways that are not possible through traditional methods. The scientific validity of FC has been debated, with many researchers questioning its reliability and effectiveness. (3) Sign language and gestures: Many non-verbal children with autism learn basic sign language or use gestures to express themselves. These methods allow for direct and intentional communication but may not always fully capture more complex or abstract thoughts.
• Heightened Intuition & Empathy: some researchers suggest that autistic individuals might pick up on subtle emotional or energetic cues more than neurotypical people, even if they struggle with conventional social interaction. Some autistic individuals describe experiencing synesthesia-like emotions, where they "see" or "feel" emotions in colors or sensations.
• Spiritual angle:
  • in some indigenous and mystical traditions, people with autism or developmental differences are considered “seers” or spiritually gifted individuals who can access other realms.
    • in Native American indigenous tribes, particularly among elders, there is a belief that autistic individuals live with one foot in the spirit world and one foot in the physical world, suggesting a unique spiritual connection. ​The Māori perspective holds that individuals with autism possess spiritual gifts and operate within their own unique time and space, reflecting a deep respect for neurodiversity within their cultural context. ​In Hinduism, behaviors associated with autism may be perceived as divine or spiritual gifts, indicating a cultural framework that honors different expressions of human experience. ​(various sources)
  • Anecdotal reports describe autistic individuals having out-of-body experiences, recalling past lives, or showing a deep connection to nature and the cosmos.
  • Some researchers studying near-death experiences (NDEs) and altered states of consciousness have suggested that autistic individuals may naturally access similar altered states.

References

autism-related

various (just a preliminary sample)

• Diane H. Powell:
  • 'The Non-Verbal Child: A Guide for Parents' (2009)
  • 'The Search for the Soul: Scientific Evidence of Reincarnation, Telepathy, and Other Spiritual Phenomena' (2009)
  • 'The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena' (2012)
  • articles:
    • 'Telepathic Communication in Non-Verbal Autistic Children' (2007)
    • 'Autism and Telepathy' (2008)
• various online
  • Star Foster: 'The Spiritual Component of Autism' (2012)
  • Ky Dickens: The telepathy tapes (2024 podcast, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Telepathy_Tapes)
  • Seth Jordan: 'The first major takedown of "The Telepathy Tapes" only exposes its own magical thinking' (2025)
• research papers
  • Ingela Visuri: Sensory supernatural experiences in autism (2019)
  • 'Near-Death Experiences and Autism Spectrum Disorders: Exploring the Relationship' (2016 in Journal of Near-Death Studies)
  • 'The Neuroscience of Consciousness: A New Approach to Autism' (2015, National Institutes of Health (NIH))

Related pages

• Meaning of Free Man Creator
• Overlapping evolutionary periods
• Atlantean epoch
• The Michaelic stream
• Planets hosting beings at various stages of evolution