Menschheitsgeschichte und Geisteswissenschaft. Notizen Rudolf Steiners zur Geologie und Paläontologie (1900–1908)

Abstract:

In a series of articles in the journal Lucifer-Gnosis, which were later summarized under the title »Aus der Akasha-Chronik« (»From the Akashic Chronicle«), RUDOLF STEINER, starting in 1904, made statements about earlier states of the earth and mankind, which thematically and terminologically followed the works of HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKYS (»Secret Doctrine« vol. 1: »Cosmogenesis«, vol. 2: »Anthropogenesis«), which in those days had already been known for some time within the Theosophical Movement, but the content of which arose from his own spiritual research. From his posthumous notes on geology and palaeontology it is clear that he had already dealt earlier, especially from 1900 onwards, intensively and in detail with the then state of science in these fields, and that he furthermore endeavoured to establish the concrete chronological relationship between the palaeontological epochs recognized at that time and the epochs of earth history according to spiritual science. The conserved notes from 13 notebooks from the period between 1900 and 1908 show step by step how Steiner worked towards a viable correlation during these years, and did not stop after achieving this goal, but went contentwise even further. His statements on this subject during the Waldorf Teachers’ Conferences held in 1919 are an important complement to the notebook records, as he here too emphasized the limits of such a parallelism.