Ancient Persian culture

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Rudolf Steiner: The Persian Man, pastel 1914

The Urpersian culture or ancient Persian culture (5067 - 2907 BC) was the second post-Atlantean cultural epoch. Since the vernal equinox was then in the constellation of Gemini it is also called the Age of Gemini. In it, under the guidance of the great initiate Zarathustra, the astral body was further trained.

In the Apocalypse of St. John, in the epistle to the community of Smyrna (present-day Izmir), reference is made to the ancien Persian period.

In the Urpersian culture, a memory of the hyperborean time shone forth, in which the Sun separated from Earth, but which at that time still had the Moon within it. This is also where the descriptions of the biblical creation story begin. From now on, the light world of the sun stood opposite the dark world of the earth. While the Cattle still lived in unity, the principle of duality, of polarity, now emerged, which was expressed through the opposition of the light god Ahura Mazdao (Ormuzd) and his dark adversary Ahriman.

„Now let us consider the second cultural period. In the principle of light and darkness we have the religious consciousness of the primeval Persian cultural period. There the great initiates placed two beings, one personified in the Sun and the other in the Moon, opposite each other. Ahura Mazdao, the aura of light, Ormuzd, is the being whom the Persians worshipped as the supreme god; Ahriman is the evil spirit, the representative of all the beings who possessed the Earth plus the Moon. A reminder of the second earth epoch is the religion of the Persians.“ (Lit.:GA 106, p. 35)

The primeval Persian cultural epoch is distinguished from the primeval Indian culture by the fact that here man begins to direct his attention to the gradual conquest of the physical plan (culturally here primarily as agriculture and animal husbandry). To the representative of the primeval Indian culture, the outer material world was Maya - and it was not considered worthwhile to penetrate it further.

„The mission of the post-Atlantean culture, however, consists in man making the world in which he is placed more and more his own, conquering it more and more. Thus we see that in the Persian, in the pre-Zarathustrian culture, the first phase of this conquest of the outer physical world takes place. The ancient Persians - and here we are referring to the prehistoric Persians, who are based on a colony of the last Atlantians who had migrated over there - already had a different consciousness; they already felt the physical plan as something real. The physical plan no longer appeared to the ancient Persian as something strange; he said to himself: In this physical plan there are also possibilities for planting and nurturing the spirit. - He already paid attention to the physical world; he did not yet study it, but he paid attention to it. The old Persian still feels an enemy in it, but in such a way that he can overcome the enemy. He makes himself a friend, a comrade of the god Ormuzd, in order to redeem matter. He works into the physical; little by little he begins to suspect something of the fact that this world is not merely Maja, not merely insubstantial appearance, but a reality to be noticed.“ (Lit.:GA 105, p. 154f)

The approach of humanity to the physical-sensuous world-appearances at the Urpersian time also brought the efficacy of Ahriman, which since the Atlantean epoch has been inseparably linked with the human structure of being, more strongly to the fore. This finds its spiritual expression in the teaching of Zarathustra as an antagonism between the Ahrimanic powers of darkness on the one hand and the divine powers of the sun, designated as Ahura Mazdao, on the other.

While in the Atlantean epoch the physical body was permeated with the forces of the I, and this was the case for the etheric body during the Urindian cultur of the post-Atlantean epoch, the forces of the I penetrated the soul or astral body during the Urpersian period. This subconscious penetration of the astral body with the forces of the I is not to be confused with the fully conscious reworking of the astral body into the spirit self.

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.
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