Atlantis

Rudolf Steiner: Atlantis, pastel on paper (1914)

Pangaea breaks up into Laurasia and Gondwana at the Mesozoic, corresponding to the Lemurian period, at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary about 200 million years (Mya) ago. Laurasia split and finally broke apart with the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean c. 56 Mya

The Atlantean age is the fourth of the seven main ages into which the present physical state of form of the Earth is divided. According to obsolete theosophical tradition, this main age is also called the fourth root race. At that time, according to theosophical view, man lived predominantly on the Atlantic continent or island, called Atlantis (Greek: Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος Atlantìs nēsos "Island of Atlas"), which according to Rudolf Steiner was located in the northern Atlantic Ocean between present-day Europe and America. The term "Atlantis" is considered scientifically outdated today, but it is essential for understanding Steiner's statements. It is possible that his descriptions refer to fragments of the former large continent of Laurasia.

The Atlantean period was preceded by the Lemurian period, in which man first incarnated on Earth, and is followed by the post-Atlantean period, which is divided into seven cultural epochs, the fifth of which is our present modern era.

Climate and location

According to Rudolf Steiner, the Atlantic period on the geological time scale began approximately with the Cenozoic (Lit.:GA 300a, p. 107), the beginning of which is placed at about 66 million years ago. At that time, the climate was completely different from today. At the beginning it was still very warm. Later, about 2.6 million years ago, the most recent Ice Age began with the glaciation of the North Pole. At the South Pole, the Inland glaciation began 38 million years ago. All references to time here are only for comparison with the present state of external research and are to be taken with great caution, as Rudolf Steiner also clearly points out.

The air was saturated with water vapour and filled with fog vapours. About 11,700 years ago, with the subsiding of the Last Glacial Period and the beginning of the Holocene, the Atlantic Era came to an end. It was only at the end of the Atlantean period that the masses of fog began to settle and the sea level rose very rapidly as a result of the rapid warming, so that Atlantis finally sank in a massive flood. Plato still tells of the last remnant of this land, the island of Poseidonis, which is said to have been located westwards from Europe and Africa, a little to the west of present-day Ireland.

„Our root race, the Aryan, is descended from the most highly developed sub-race of the Atlantians, the Ur-Semitic, which last dwelt approximately in the region of present-day Ireland. The island of Poseidonis, mentioned by Plato, can be regarded as the last remnant of the declining Atlantis. Manu, a leading figure of the Atlantians, led the most mature people to the East.“ (Lit.:GA 94, p. 168)

„It was essentially the whole area that is now ocean, the ancient Atlantis, and there dwelt the physical ancestors of the present human race.“ (Lit.:GA 100, p. 125)

„The land was covered with vast masses of water-mist; these masses of water-mist were of different density in the first and in the last Atlantean period, namely they were different in the vicinity of present-day Ireland than in the other regions. The water and mist masses were warm and hot at first. In the southern part of the Atlantis they were still warm, partly hot, like warm, hot masses of smoke; towards the north they were colder.“ (Lit.:GA 101, p. 20)

„Let us look clairvoyantly at the old continent of the Atlantic world, which we must seek where the Atlantic Ocean is now, between Africa and Europe on the one hand and America on the other. This continent was enclosed by a kind of warm current, a current which clairvoyant consciousness shows to have risen, strange as it may sound, from the south, passing through the Baffins Bay towards northern Greenland and embracing it, then flowing over to the east, gradually cooling down, then in the time when Siberia and Rumania were in a state of heat, then, at the time when Siberia and Russia were far from being raised to the surface of the Earth, it flowed down in the region of the Urals, turned round, touched the eastern Carpathians, flowed into the region where the present Sahara is, and finally, at the Bay of Biscay, it went towards the Atlantic Ocean, so that it had a completely closed current area. You will understand that this current can only exist in its very last remnants. This stream is the Gulf Stream, which once flowed round the Atlantic continent.“ (Lit.:GA 121, p. 176f)

„What Germanic mythology calls Niflheim or Nebelheim - cloud home - is the land of the Atlantians. The Earth at that time was indeed warmer and still enveloped in a constant vapour envelope. The Atlantic continent was submerged by a series of torrential cloudbursts, in the course of which the Earth's atmosphere cleared. Only then did blue skies, thunderstorms, rain and rainbows appear. For this reason the Bible says that after Noah's ark landed, the rainbow became the new sign of the covenant between God and man.“ (Lit.:GA 94, p. 24f)

Geological clues

From today's geological point of view, based on plate tectonics, the continent described by Rudolf Steiner as Atlantis is probably best identified with fragments of the former large continent Laurasia, which broke away from the last supercontinent Pangaea about 200 million years ago in the younger Mesozoic. Gondwana, the southern large continent that became independent (again) with the disintegration of Pangaea, is presumably largely identical with Lemuria described by Rudolf Steiner. Antarctica, Australia and the Indian Plate had already detached from this southern continent at that time.

With the opening of the Atlantic Ocean, which began from the south about 150 million years ago, Laurasia gradually split into Eurasia and what is now North America. According to some sources, however, Laurasia still existed in a largely coherent form in the north until about 55 million years ago in the early Palaeogene, which already belongs to the Atlantic period. The South Atlantic had already opened wide at that time. Since the sea level was still much lower at that time, significant land bridges between the fragments, especially in the north, are likely to have existed for a long time later. From a geological point of view, a longer existence and the relatively rapid demise of southern Atlantis, of which Plato's Poseidonis is said to have been the very last remnant, seems particularly problematic. Andreas Delor has outlined an unusual solution to this (Lit.: Delor, 2011-2014).

The Atlantis as a completely new impact in the Earth's development

Only with the Atlantis did something really new begin in the Earth's evolution; all previous epochs were only repetitions of earlier stages of world evolution.

„Now let us take a look at this fourth period, the Atlantean, and what it represents. It was preceded by what I have often called the Lemurian period in Earth evolution, then by what we may call the second and the first period of Earth evolution. But these first three periods of Earth evolution up to the Atlantean period are repetitions: the first of the Saturnian Age, the second of the Solar Age, the third of the Lunar Age. Only the fourth, the Atlantean period, represents something new. The preceding periods are indeed repetitions, repetitions, however, on a higher level, but just repetitions.

The Atlantic period, that is, this fourth period, represents something new. And that which happened during the Atlantean period occurred when the Earth still had essentially different forms from those of later times. A solid Earth crust did not exist in the same sense in the middle of the Atlantic period as it does today. The geological periods that are assumed for these things are illusions. The times in which the earth solidified from its relatively solid-liquid composition still lie in the Atlantean period. And the human race was quite different during the Atlantean period. In the middle of the Atlantean period it did not yet have the solid bone structure of today. Men in their formation at that time actually resembled substantially more or less lower animals, not in their form - in their form they were very nobly formed - but substantially they resembled lower jellyfish-like animals in soft, cartilaginous substance.“ (Lit.:GA 346, p. 168f)

The group I's of the Atlantean people

Until about the last of the Atlantean times, the individual I had not yet moved into the physical body. The I-consciousness had not yet awakened and the human being was still entirely under the influence of the group-I.

„Only through the gradual pushing in of the ether head were parts of the head condensed, first detached from the parts of the surroundings. Even in the later Atlantis, man was still endowed in a tremendous way with that which has been preserved in a morbid way in the watery head, in a watery brain. In addition, we have to think of a softening of the bones, a complete softening of the upper limbs of the human being. That sounds terrible to the man of today. From this watery substance has hardened what today forms and encloses the human head. This is not even a very unsuitable image, which I sometimes use, the hardening, the crystallisation out of the masses of water, out of a salt solution in a glass; it reflects things quite accurately, this crystallisation of the salt out of the aqueous salt solution. What happened to the head at such a late date happened to the rest of the human being much earlier. The other limbs also gradually formed out of a soft mass. So that we can say: Where then is the human I, the present-day I? Not really in the human being; it is still in the environment. Through the drawing in of the I, we can also say that the upper limbs of the human being harden. Because the I was outside the human being, it was still afflicted with a peculiarity in another respect, which later became different. By moving into the physical body, the I was induced to become an individual I, whereas before it was still a kind of group soul. I want to give you a picture of the facts. Imagine a circle of twelve people sitting somewhere in a circle. Through the development as it is today, every human being has his or her I within him or her. So there are twelve I's sitting around in a circle. But if we look at such a circle of people in the Atlantean time, the physical bodies would also be sitting around, but the I would only be in the etheric body, which is still outside. So in front of each one is his I. But the I has another characteristic, it is not so centralised, it immediately unfolds its forces and unites with the I's of the other people, so that they form a ring, which in turn sends its forces towards its centre. So we have here an etheric circle body which forms a unity within itself, and within it the I's, thus a circle of physical bodies and within it an etheric circle surface which forms a unity, through the fact that the I's are caught up, the individual I is enclosed and through this picture we come to a vivid idea of the group souls.

If we go further and further back, we can hold on to this picture, but we no longer have to imagine such a regular circle of people, but these people can be scattered in the world in the most manifold ways. Let us imagine one man in western France, another in the east of America, and so on, not sitting together, but where the laws of the spiritual world are concerned, the I can nevertheless hang together, even if the people are scattered over the Earth. These people then form this round dance. That which is formed by the flowing together of their I's is not such a geometrically beautiful etheric body, but it is nevertheless a unity. So there was a group of people at that time who were connected by the fact that their I' s formed a unity; and there were essentially four such group I' s. You have to imagine these people again according to the etheric bodies. You must again imagine these people according to the laws of the spiritual world. The group souls of the four groups went into each other; they were not inwardly connected, but they went into each other. These four group souls are called by the names of the four apocalyptic animals: Eagle, Lion, Bull, Man.“ (Lit.:GA 107, p. 74f)

These group souls already existed in Lemurian times. At that time, the female gender had developed from the lion people and the male gender from the bull people.

„At that time a very strange sight would have presented itself to the observer. One would have found a kind of race of which one could have said to oneself with prophetic gift: 'These are physical beings somewhat reminiscent of lions, reflecting the character of the lion, though they looked different from lions today.' They were lion-minded people, aggressive human germs. Then again there was a group of bull-like people, all viewed on the physical plan. You can easily complement the third and fourth races. The third race was already strongly visionary. While the first was martial, while the second cultivated everything connected with the physical plan, with the processing of the physical plan, you would have found a third class of people who were very visionary. As a rule, they had something that was malformed in relation to the other bodies. They would have reminded you of such people who have a great deal of psychic and who believe in visions, but who, because they do not care much for the physical, have something withered, something stunted in comparison with the vigorousness of the other two groups. They would have reminded you of the bird nature. "I want to retain my spirit", that was the tendency of the eagle people. The others had something that was mixed from all parts, so to speak.“ (S. 76f)

The people of Atlantis

In the early days of Atlantis, the human form was still softly mobile, watery-cartilaginous. The work of the regular Spirits of Form was not yet complete, the bone system not yet hardened. The etheric body still protruded far beyond the physical body, namely in the head area. Our everyday, familiar, objective sense consciousness was still barely developed, and a natural clairvoyance was peculiar to human beings.

Already on ancient Lemuria, where man entered the solid earth, he acquired - as a result of the moon's exit - the upright posture. At this time, the separation of the sexes also occurred. Language was then developed primarily on ancient Atlantis, although its beginnings date back to the late Lemurian period. On the one hand, the formation of the larynx necessary for this already presupposes the upright posture, but on the other hand it is closely connected with the westward migration of mankind from Lemuria to Atlantis.

The regular Spirits of Form worked from the Sun or the Moon (Yahweh). These forces, either more sun-like male or more moon-like female, are also the basis of the separation of the sexes, and they imprinted the all-round I-like form on the human body.

„If we ask why the Spirits of Form could not intervene on Saturn, we must reply: because the germinal systems of the physical body formed there were still too young, so to speak; a certain state of maturity had first to occur. And this state of maturity did not occur until our earth was on the threshold of that development of which I have spoken to you by describing how the earth, together with the sun, formed a kind of fine substantial world-body and then progressed further in its development. At that time the Spirits of Form were already active and slowly and gradually worked on the human body until it was finally able to attain human form.

We can point to a time when this shaping of the human being reached a certain conclusion, when the human form was, so to speak, in the main finished. This was not yet the case in the first period of the Atlantic. If we go back to the first period after the tremendous catastrophe which swept away the ancient Atlantis, we find our ancestors in a condition very different from our present one. Only in the middle of the Atlantean epoch do we arrive at the point in time when man in the main received his human form as we know it today. Before that, man was not at all as solid as he was afterwards, but his whole material content, if we may so express it, was softer. In the first Atlantean period we find man consisting of soft matter, which had nothing of the hardness of bones we know today, and was not even as firm as cartilage. Man was, so to speak, still swimming around in the air, which was still completely filled and interspersed with dense water; he was a kind of water creature, in the way that there are certain animals today that can hardly be distinguished from water. Even then, the bone structure was already predisposed in the forces, but it was not yet hardened. That is the time when there was a completely different connection between the higher and lower members of the human being. Let us remember once more that today, when man sleeps, he leaves his physical and etheric body in bed, while the astral body and the I are outside. Since today the etheric body is nearly the same in form and size as the physical one, when man leaves the physical body with his astral body, he is also very soon out of the etheric body. It was not like this in the first Atlantean times. There the etheric body protruded on all sides, especially at the head, above the physical body. The consequence of this protrusion was that the astral body, when it had already left the physical body, still remained connected with the etheric body. When the astral body emerges in the human being of today, it has also left the etheric body at the same moment that it has left the physical body. And the consequence of this connection of the astral body with the etheric body, which in former times still lasted when the physical body had already left, was that man did not have such darkness and unconsciousness around and within him at night as is the case today. Then, when he was out of his physical body, he could perceive soul-spiritual beings in a dim clairvoyance. When you imagine that you fall asleep and your astral body leaves the physical body, your gaze is diverted from the physical world, but instead you are confronted with a world populated with soul-spirit beings. But such a human being could not need a solid physical body, he could not need a solid bone system, for the fact that the physical body was soft also made it more mobile.

And here we come to something that was certainly once present for the clairvoyant consciousness, however much it may be an abomination to the materialistic consciousness of today: In the first Atlantean times man had great power over the shape of his body. Think of it, man at that time wanted a limb which later became a hand - roughly speaking - to look different, for example, to lengthen; then he could indeed lengthen it elastically, he could not only move all his limbs but also stretch them elastically, he could, so to speak, inflate himself. That was quite possible at that time, however much it may be repugnant to the materialistically thinking man of today; he could stretch out his fingers far and wide, lengthen them; and this was especially strongly the case if we go back still further, to the Lemurian age. And now you will see how two things come together. When did man lose the ability to extend his limbs, to stretch them and to contract them again? When the Spirits of Form had finished working out the forms.“ (Lit.:GA 105, p. 96ff)

But now the abnormal Spirits of Form from the remaining five planets worked in one-sidedly and early hardening. Because they are retarded spirits, they worked on the astral body, as was still usual on the Old Moon, and not I-forming like the Elohim. This is how the 7 Atlantean races first came into being, although the racial characteristics were not yet physically hardened at the beginning, but were only etherically pre-formed. Accordingly, the physical human body could at first still easily adapt to changing conditions, as has already been mentioned above. Only with the progressive downfall of Atlantis did the present races come into being, and this by the fact that the Atlantean etherically mobile races were suitably mixed, partly also with remnants of the former Lemurian population, namely in the southern and south-eastern regions of the earth. These secondarily formed races were then confined to certain territories, which essentially correspond to our present continents and which only acquired their present form in the course of the sinking of Atlantis, and hardened into their present shape. 7 is, as the number of the earth's development periods also shows, the number of temporal, i.e. at the same time of etheric development. Therefore, there were also 7 races unfolding on Atlantis, of which Rudolf Steiner speaks in detail in his reports Aus der Akasha-Chronik (Lit.:GA 11), so that a brief overview may suffice here:

1. Rmoahals (feelings, sense memory, language)
2. Tlavatli (memory, ancestor cult)
3. Primal Toltecs (personal experience)
4. Primal Turanians (personal power)
5. Primal Semites (power of judgement, arithmetic)
6. Primal Akkadians (application of judgement, "laws")
7. Primal Mongols (lose power over life forces, but retain belief in them)

Seven is the number of etheric development; in the number five the physical formation of the human being is completed, the freely mobile formative forces coagulate into a solid form adapted to the outer world. It is not by chance that today's solid earth is divided into five continents essential to the development of mankind, it is not by chance that the human form with its head and four limbs has a five-rayed structure, and it is not by chance that hands and feet, with which we most strongly encounter the outer world, have five numbers. And so, too, through intermixing and solidification, our present 5 main physical races arose from the 7 etheric Atlantean races. They are just as necessary for development as the five fingers are indispensable for the usability of the hand.

On ancient Atlantis, people were still little awakened to the world of the senses, but instead, as mentioned, they had a natural clairvoyance that was essentially dependent on the physical constitution, which expresses itself in the different races. At the same time, it was a natural clairvoyance that was able to see those spiritual forces that shape nature and also contributed to the formation of races. In the Atlantean oracles these forces were particularly studied. In the oracle sites, those points of equilibrium on earth were conscientiously sought which came into consideration for the formation of the various races, and then the streams of emigration and colonisation were deliberately directed.

All Atlantians had great influence on the life forces, both those of their own bodies and those of their natural environment. The tremendous flood catastrophe by which Atlantis finally sank was brought about by the misuse of these etheric forces.

Literature

• Dankmar Bosse: Die gemeinsame Evolution von Erde und Mensch: Entwurf einer Geologie und Paläontologie der lebendigen Erde, Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgat 2002, ISBN 978-3772515934
• Ignatius Donelly: Atlantis, The Antediluvian World, 1882
• William Scott-Elliot: The Story of Atlantis, 1896
• Andreas Delor: Kampf um Atlantis. Ein Beitrag zur anthroposophischen Atlantis-Diskussion, Info 3 Vlg., Frankfurt a.M. 2004
• Andreas Delor: Atlantis nach neuesten hellsichtigen und wissenschaftlichen Quellen, Bände 1 - 8, Vlg. Ch. Möllmann, Borchen 2011 - 2016 ( http://www.andreas-delor.com/index.php?id=43 )
• Rudolf Steiner: Aus der Akasha-Chronik, GA 11 (1904 - 1908), Kapitel Unsere atlantischen Vorfahren English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Die okkulten Wahrheiten alter Mythen und Sagen, GA 92 (1999), ISBN 3-7274-0920-7 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Grundelemente der Esoterik, GA 93a (1976), Berlin, 16. Oktober 1905
• Rudolf Steiner: Kosmogonie, GA 94 (2001), ISBN 3-7274-0940-1 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Die Theosophie des Rosenkreuzers, GA 99 (1985), ISBN 3-7274-0990-8 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Menschheitsentwickelung und Christus-Erkenntnis, GA 100 (1981), ISBN 3-7274-1000-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Mythen und Sagen. Okkulte Zeichen und Symbole, GA 101 (1992), ISBN 3-7274-1010-8 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Das Johannes-Evangelium, GA 103 (1995), ISBN 3-7274-1030-2 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Welt, Erde und Mensch , GA 105 (1983), ISBN 3-7274-1050-7 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Ägyptische Mythen und Mysterien, GA 106 (Dornach 1992), Vortrag vom 4.09.1908
• Rudolf Steiner: Geisteswissenschaftliche Menschenkunde, GA 107 (1988), ISBN 3-7274-1070-1 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen im Zusammenhang mit der germanisch-nordischen Mythologie, GA 121 (1982), ISBN 3-7274-1210-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Konferenzen mit den Lehrern der Freien Waldorfschule 1919 bis 1924, GA 300a (1995), ISBN 3-7274-3000-1
• Rudolf Steiner: Die vierte Dimension, GA 324a (1995), ISBN 3-7274-3245-4 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Vorträge und Kurse über christlich-religiöses Wirken, V, GA 346 (2001), ISBN 3-7274-3460-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated. Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.