Egyptian-Chaldean culture

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Rudolf Steiner: The Egyptian Man, pastel 1914

The Egyptian-Chaldean culture (2907 - 747 BC), more extensively the Assyrian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Egyptian-Jewish culture, the Taurus Age, was the third post-Atlantean cultural epoch and served above all to train the sentient soul; it can therefore also be called the sentient soul culture. During this period, the first advanced civilisations flourished, such as the ancient Egyptian culture on the Nile, the Mesopotamian empires in the Fertile Crescent between the Euphrates and Tigris, the Chinese culture on the Yellow River, the Oasis culture on the Oxus in Central Asia and the Harappa culture on the Indus. From around 3000 BC, the Mayan culture flourished in Central America. The vernal equinox was then in the sign of Taurus.

Mysteries

Shortly before the beginning of the Egyptian-Chaldean period, according to Rudolf Steiner in 3101 BC[1], the Kali Yuga (Sanskrit: n., कलियुग "age of Kali") began, the dark age with which the last remnants of the old nature-given clairvoyance at the end of the ancient Persian period (5067 - 2907 B.C.) abruptly ceased for by far the greatest part of humanity. In order not to lose the connection with the spiritual world, a rich, multifaceted mystery system, appropriate to the various peoples, now unfolded.

The Northern Chaldean Mysteries and the Southern Egyptian Mysteries

„There we have a strange phenomenon in this Chaldean-Egyptian time. It is not for nothing that we call it by two names. For on the one hand, during this cultural epoch over in Asia, we have members of the northern current of peoples, that is the Chaldean element; and the Egyptian element belongs to the other current, the current of peoples that has moved along the southern path. There we have an epoch where two currents of peoples collide. And if you remember that the northern current preferably developed the outward gaze, the search for those beings who stood behind the carpet of the world of the senses, and that the Egyptian people sought those spirits which one finds on the way inwards, then you will understand how here two currents worked together. So the way out for the Chaldeans and the way in for the Egyptians collide. The Greeks also felt this in a quite correct way when they compared the Chaldean gods with their Apollonian kingdom. They sought in their own way in their Apollonian mysteries what they had received from the Chaldeans. But when they spoke of Osiris and of that which belonged to it, then they sought it in a corresponding way with themselves in their Dionysian mysteries.“ (Lit.:GA 113, p. 166f)

„Zarathustra did not see the physical sun first at all, but Zarathustra saw a great all-embracing world spirit at the place where we see the physical sun today through ordinary consciousness. And this world spirit exercised its influence on Zarathustra in a spiritual way. And Zarathustra knew how, with the radiance of the sun, with the rays of the sun on the earth, the divine-spiritual rays of grace come, which kindle in the soul, in the spirit of man, the higher man, to whom the ordinary man should rise. And since in those ancient times the initiates were not called by external names, but by those names which came to them through what they knew, this great initiate was called by his disciples and so he called himself: Zarathustra, Zoroaster, the shining star [...]

And then came a later time when one could no longer penetrate so deeply into the mysteries of the world. It was the time that I called the Chaldean-Egyptian culture of humanity in my "Secret Science". There, too, people looked up to the sun, but they no longer saw the sun as radiant, they saw what was merely luminous, merely shining. And Ra, whose earthly representative was Osiris, appeared as the sun actually moving around the earth and shining. Thus certain secrets had been lost in that one could no longer see the radiant world-god in complete inner clarity as an initiate of the old time, but that one could now only see that which comes from the sun more out of elemental forces, out of astral forces. Zarathustra still saw a being in the sun; at that time he could still see a being in the sun. The Egyptian, the Chaldean initiates, they saw in the sun only the forces that came from the sun to the earth as forces of light, as forces of movement. They saw only something lower than a spiritual being: they saw spiritual deeds, but not a spiritual being. And as the one who represents on earth what one carries in oneself as a human being from the forces of the sun, these old Egyptian initiates called Osiris.“ (Lit.:GA 211, p. 180f)

Literature
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.

References

  1. ↑ According to H. P. Blavatsky and also according to Hindu tradition, the dark age began already on 18 February 3102 BC with the death of Krishna.
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