Sixth Main Age

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The sixth main age, also called the sixth root race according to outdated theosophical usage in Rudolf Steiner's early writings and lectures, will follow our post-Atlantean age, which will end around 7893 AD. The separation of the spirits into a good and an evil "race", as described by John in the Apocalypse, will then be complete. The term "race" or "root race" is to be used here, however, only in an inauthentic sense[1]. In the war of all against all, our post-Atlantean epoch will perish and the time of the 7 seals will begin. When the 6th seal will be opened, John reports, the Earth will reunite with the Moon and humanity will pass into the ethereal state:

„12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.“

On ancient Lemuria, when the Moon left the Earth, man entered the physical Earth; in the sixth main age, when the Moon will rejoin the Earth body, he may leave it again. Then will arise the sealed hundred and forty-four thousand who bear the seal of the formative life-forces on their foreheads, and the great multitude in the white robes, the etheric humanity, will appear:

„9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”“

Then, as far as the regularly advanced part of humanity is concerned, the unique humanity beyond all races, peoples and individual egoisms will be realised, an ethereal humanity of angel-like purity. The spiritualisation of man will then be so far advanced that there will no longer be any alternation between embodiment on earth and life in the spirit land:

„Reincarnation began in Lemurian times and will again cease in the beginning[2] of the sixth race. It is only a certain period of time in earthly development within which man reincarnates. It was preceded by an exceedingly spiritual state, which did not necessitate re-embodiment, and will again be followed by a spiritual state, which also does not necessitate re-embodiment.“ (Lit.:GA 93, p. 25)

„... and the root race which will follow ours will have essentially different characteristics. In the midst of it it will bring forth a human race which will not enter so deeply into the physical world as ours, and which will have cast off monosexuality and become bisexual.“ (Lit.:GA 53, p. 304)

It is only in this period that Christianity comes to its completion, to its actual realisation. It is prepared by the stream of Mani:

„This means nothing other than that he wants to prepare for that time in which humanity in the sixth root race will be guided by itself, by its own soul light, and will overcome the outer forms, transforming them into spirit. Mani wants to create a stream of spirit that goes beyond Rosicrucianism, a stream that goes further than the stream of the Rosicrucians. This stream of Mani strives over to the sixth root race, which has been prepared since the foundation of Christianity. It is precisely in the sixth root race that Christianity will first be expressed in its full form. Only then will it really be there. The inner Christian life as such transcends all form, it propagates itself through the outer Christianity and lives in all forms of the various confessions. Those who seek Christian life will always find it. It creates forms and breaks forms in the various religious systems. The important thing is not to seek sameness everywhere in the outer forms of expression, but to feel the inner stream of life that is there everywhere beneath the surface. But what still has to be created is a form for the life of the sixth root race. This must be created earlier, for it must be there so that the Christian life can pour itself into it. This form must be prepared by people who will create such an organisation, such a form, so that the true Christian life of the sixth root race can take hold in it. And this outer form of society must spring from the Mani intention, from the little cluster which the Mani is preparing. This must be the outer form of organisation, the congregation, in which first of all the Christian spark can really take hold.“ (Lit.:GA 93, p. 62f)

Alongside realised Christianity, however, there will continue to be the life of men inclined to evil:

„What will occur in the fifth round for all mankind, that the outer physiognomy which each creates for himself will be a direct expression of what karma has hitherto created out of man, that will occur, as a foreshadowing of this state, in the sixth root-race within the spiritual. In those in whom karma produces an excess of evil, evil will be particularly prominent within the spiritual. On the one hand, there will be people of tremendous inner goodness, of genius in love and kindness; but on the other hand, there will also be the opposite. Evil will be present in a large number of people as a disposition without a cloak, no longer disguised, no longer hidden. The wicked will boast of evil as something especially valuable.“ (Lit.:GA 93, p. 63f)

„The reunion with the Moon will then coincide with the culmination of evil on Earth.“ (Lit.:GA 94, p. 125)

The task of the good people in the sixth root-race will be to include these evil people as far as possible again in the progress of development:

„The sixth root-race will have the task of reintegrating evil as far as possible into the ongoing stream of development through gentleness. A spiritual current will then have arisen which will not resist evil, even though it will appear in its most demonic form in the world. In those who will be the successors of the sons of the widow, the consciousness will have solidified that evil must again be included in the evolution, but that it cannot be overcome by struggle, but only by gentleness. To prepare this powerfully is the task of the Manichaean spiritual current.“ (Lit.:GA 93, p. 63)

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. ↑ Rudolf Steiner has repeatedly pointed out that the term "race" is actually no longer justified in the post-Atlantean time, since now it is no longer the physical but the soul-spiritual development that comes to the fore. The division of humanity into races will gradually be completely overcome. For the so-called 6th and 7th "root race" the designation is quite misleading, since humanity will then already have completely discarded the physical body. The terms "root race" and "subrace" still originate from the terminology used by the Theosophical Society at that time and were later hardly ever used by Rudolf Steiner (Lit.:GA 99, p. 144).
  2. ↑ According to GA 324a, p. 38 "...until the middle of the sixth root-race - for until then our incarnations will go..."
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