This page, somewhat satirical, follows "Matters of Form" and "Stages".

Like the other pages in this series,

"Almost the End" originally appeared on a different website.

Our evolution runs in circles, sort of. As we move ahead, we recapitulate where we've been, repeating (in altered condition) the past that is our future — until eventually we reach the final recapitulation in the final condition of consciousness.

But to get there, first we — starting here and now, and in due course — must negotiate the remaining conditions of life in our current condition of consciousness, and then we must proceed through the remaining conditions of consciousness. 

R. Seddon relays the following summary of the seven conditions of life within The Present Earth condition of consciousness: 

1st Elementary Kingdom (shapeless being [sic], physical body), 

2nd Elementary Kingdom (shaping beings [sic], etheric body), 

3rd Elementary Kingdom (sentient beings, astral body), 

Mineral Kingdom (created forms [not be be confused with stages of form] — this is where we are now, life-wise), 

Planet Kingdom (living forms), 

Animal Kingdom (ensouled beings), and 

Human Kingdom (ego-beings [sic]). [1]

(There are also several pralayas along our route. [2] Don't pay them much heed. They are just rest stations, periods when the physical relapses into the spiritual, and/or refreshments are served.)

Note that the seven conditions of life are "kingdoms." Now, "kings" are not necessarily despots, although here in the USA we tend to think poorly of them. A "king" (bad) has subjects, whereas a republic or democracy (good) has citizens. Citizens have rights, whereas subjects are just, well, subjects. So you can see that future history will be headed in a somewhat sinister direction. But more on that later.

Let's look a little more closely at the kingdoms, as explained by Seddon (in my paraphrasings):

◊ 1st Elementary Kingdom. This consists of intentions that become forces that remain unshaped, such as fire, air, fluids... Our physical bodies trace back to this kingdom, and in a sense they remain today a reflection of this kingdom, because they eventually fall apart and blow away. [3]

◊ 2nd Elementary Kingdom. This kingdom manifests Goethe's ideas about ideas. Nature spirits such as gnomes, salamanders, and such have their roots in this kingdom. (These beings are found today in the depths of the earth, or in the water, or in the air... They are part of our past and present, and in recapitulation they will reverberate through the future.) The way is paved, in the 2nd Elementary Kingdom, for the glands. [4]

[THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY AND THE EARTH AS FORESEEN BY RUDOLF STEINER,

detail, p. 132.]

◊ 3rd Elementary Kingdom. Quick soul-stuff and soul-entities, shining out from within, arise here — they are fleeting and lovely. The way is paved, in this kingdom, for the development of our nervous systems. [5] (Note: You may think I'm moving too fast, here, but R. Seddon crams all this and more onto a single page.) 

◊ Mineral Kingdom. Minerals and suchlike arise here. We, today, exist within this kingdom; it is the kingdom of nature (and of our present incarnation). 

"Only in our fourth (mineral) Condition of Life does there appear the world of nature all around us, which is grasped by our inorganic, mineral thinking and gives form to separate objects and our separate ego." [6] 

Our understanding of ourselves and our world is hampered by our reliance on our brains, which are mineral constructs.

◊ Pralaya.  This is a pause, a break: a millennium or so of not much. Three cosmic beats must pass before evolution proceeds. [7]

◊ Plant Kingdom. Living forms, more truly formed and alive, arise here. (The forms that arose previously were not truly alive; they were only mineral or less than mineral.) This kingdom sees a first transcendence of physicality.

"The fifth Condition of Life of the earth...may be seen as a precursor of Jupiter evolution, without human beings having yet acquired the full angelic consciousness that can then be theirs ... Human beings no longer dwell within a body, but have it outside them." [8] 

(Jupiter, in the sense Seddon uses here, is the next condition of consciousness, which we will consider on "The End".)

◊ Animal Kingdom. Beings with souls arise. Living forms are no longer vegetative but animated. The plant kingdom and all that preceded it are now history. 

"In this sixth Condition of Life, which may be seen as a precursor of Venus evolution, there is no longer any mineral or plant kingdom. 'Earth and heaven have vanished' (Rev. 20:11)." [9] 

(As a stage of evolution, a condition of consciousness, Venus will come after Jupiter. Note that the future not only recapitulates the past but it also provides precursorial variants of more distant futures.) 

◊ Human Kingdom. The best stage in this sequence, flashing and swift, is finally attained. Although we were "human beings" before this, we will not fully realize our human potential until we enter this kingdom.

"This last Condition, the fastest of the seven, in which only progressive human beings take part, may be seen as a precursor of Vulcan evolution ... Humanity then becomes a god...." [10] 

(Vulcan will follow Venus.)

Only "progressive" (enlightened, Steiner-faithful) humans will attain this stage. Bad, evil, deficient, backward "humans" will have been shunted aside, sent to perdition, or dropped from evolution altogether. As for the notion that humanity will become a god, secularists may consider this unlikely, while followers of orthodox faiths may consider it sacrilege. But our apotheosis is the objective of Anthroposophy.

In re kings: When a "king" issues a command, that's that.

— Roger Rawlings

We will conclude the story at "The End"

(which will be a relief). 

Painting by a Waldorf student,

courtesy of People for Legal and Nonsectarian Schools.

IN RE VULCAN

“Whereas in ancient Atlantean times these human beings descended to earth from Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the other planets — and it was therefore a matter of human soul beings entering the earth existence then — now a time is beginning when beings who are not human are coming down to earth from cosmic regions beyond. These beings are not human but depend for the further development of their existence on coming to earth and on entering here into relationships with men.

“Thus, since the eighties of the nineteenth century, heavenly beings are seeking to enter this earth existence. Just as the Vulcan men were the last to come down to earth, so Vulcan beings are now actually entering this earth existence. Heavenly beings are already here in our earth existence. And it is thanks to the fact that beings from beyond the earth are bringing messages down into this earthly existence that it is possible at all to have a comprehensive spiritual science today.

“Taken as a whole, however, how does the human race behave? If I may say so, the human race behaves in a cosmically rude way toward the beings who are appearing from the cosmos on earth, albeit, to begin with, only slowly. Humanity takes no notice of them, ignores them. It is this that will lead the earth into increasingly tragic conditions. For in the course of the next few centuries, more and more spirit beings will move among us whose language we ought to understand. We shall understand it only if we seek to comprehend what comes from them, namely, the contents of spiritual science. This is what they wish to bestow on us. They want us to act according to spiritual science; they want this spiritual science to be translated into social action and the conduct of earthly life.

“Since the last third of the nineteenth century, we are actually dealing with the influx of spirit beings from the universe. Initially, these were beings dwelling in the sphere between moon and Mercury, but they are closing in upon earth, so to say, seeking to gain a foothold in earthly life through human beings imbuing themselves with thoughts of spiritual beings in the cosmos. This is another way of describing what I outlined earlier when I said that we must call our shadowy intellect to life with the pictures of spiritual science. That is the abstract way of describing it. The description is concrete when we say: Spirit beings are seeking to come down into earth existence and must be received. Upheaval upon upheaval will ensue, and earth existence will at length arrive at social chaos if these beings descended and human existence were to consist only of opposition against them. For these beings wish to be nothing less than the advance guard of what will happen to earth existence when the moon reunites once again with earth.

“Nowadays it may appear comparatively harmless to people when they think only those automatic, lifeless thoughts that arise through comprehension of the mineral world itself and the mineral element's effects in plant, animal, and man. Yes, indeed, people revel in these thoughts; as materialists, they feel good about them, for only such thoughts are conceived today. But imagine that people were to continue thinking in this way, unfolding nothing but such thoughts until the eighth millennium when moon existence will once more unite with the life of the earth. What would come about then? The beings I have spoken about will descend gradually to the earth. Vulcan beings, Vulcan supermen, Venus supermen, Mercury supermen, sun supermen, and so on will unite themselves with earth existence. Yet, if human beings persist in their opposition to them, this earth existence will pass over into chaos in the course of the next few thousand years.” — Rudolf Steiner, MATERIALISM AND THE TASK OF ANTHROPOSOPHY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1987), lecture 14, GA 204.

IN RE DECADENCE

"Races would not stay behind and become decadent if there were not men who wish to stay behind and are obliged to stay behind, since they have not developed their eternal life-kernel. Older races only persist because there are men who cannot or will not move forward to a higher racial form. I cannot today speak about the whole series of possibilities, in the course of earthly evolution, for man to become one with the race, to grow together with what is the character of one race or another. Think of the Atlantean race; souls have gone through it, but not all have passed out of it. There are sixteen possibilities of becoming merged with the race. They are called the 'sixteen paths of perdition.' On these paths man would merge with the material. By striving forward, however, he is drawn up from race to race to ever higher stages.

"We see then that it is actually possible for a man to combine with the one incarnation in such a way that he remains behind in evolution. His other soul-brothers are therefore at a higher stage when he reappears in a new incarnation. He must then content himself with an inferior incarnation which has been left to him in a decadent race. This is something that positively takes place. It need not frighten people, however, for the present phase of evolution. No one is obliged to take all the sixteen paths and thereby fall out of evolution. We must only be aware of the possibility.

"Now let us take an extreme case and imagine that a man unites too fully with what is to constitute the character of an incarnation. Let us suppose he reaches what is to be reached in sixteen incarnations; he takes the sixteen false paths. The earth does not wait for him, the earth goes forward and he finally arrives at a point where he can no longer incorporate in a human body, for none are in existence. There will be no more bodies in which souls that have grown too much involved in their bodily nature can incarnate. Such souls lose the possibility of incarnation and find no other opportunity ... They appear in a later epoch as subordinate nature-spirits. In fact the human race will furnish a whole number of such new nature-spirits in the second half of the Jupiter evolution, for man will have fully completed the fifth principle at the Jupiter stage ... Just the same occurred in the case of our present nature-spirits in the earlier periods of evolution." — Rudolf Steiner, THE INFLUENCE OF SPIRITUAL BEINGS UPON MAN (Anthroposophic Press, 1961), lecture 8, GA 102. [Note that Steiner does not detail 16 separate paths; rather, he essentially speaks of going down the same false path in 16 separate incarnations.]

Endnotes

[1] THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY AND THE EARTH AS FORESEEN BY RUDOLF STEINER, p. 132.

[2] Ibid., pp. 132-133.

[3] Ibid., p. 103.

[4] Ibid., p. 103.

[5] Ibid., p. 103.

[6] Ibid., p. 104.

[7] Ibid., p. 104.

[8] Ibid., pp. 104-105.

[9] Ibid., p. 107.

[10] Ibid., pp. 109-110.