r a long time, yet the souls incarnating in them
gradually became so cramped that they had to die out. It is true that some
of these race-types survived into the post-Atlantean times; those which
had remained sufficiently agile lasted even for a very long time in
modified form. Human forms which had remained flexible, after the period
just described, became bodies for such souls as had, in a large measure,
undergone the pernicious influence of the betrayal described above. These
forms were destined to speedy extinction.

In consequence of what had thus happened, beings had brought their
influence to bear upon human evolution, since the middle of the Atlantean
period, beings whose influence tended to make mankind live in the physical
sense world in an unspiritual manner. This went so far that, instead of
man's seeing the real form of that world, phantoms, hallucinations, and
illusions of every kind appeared to him. Mankind was exposed not merely to
the Luciferian influence but to that of those other beings mentioned
above, whose leader may be called Ahriman, according to the appellation
given him later in the Persian civilization. (He is the same as
Mephistopheles.) Through this influence man was subject, after death, to
powers which made him appear even then as a being adhering only to
material earthly conditions. He lost more and more the unobstructed vision
of the events of the spiritual world. He was forced to feel himself in
Ahriman's power, and to a certain extent shut out from intercourse with
the spiritual world.

There was one oracle-sanctuary of special importance, which in the
universal decline had preserved the ancient cult in its purest form. It
was one of the Christ oracles, and on that account it was able to preserve
not only the Christ Mystery itself but those of the other oracles as well.
For in the manifestation of the loftiest of the Sun-spirits, were also
revealed the regents of Saturn, Jupiter, and the other planets. In the Sun
oracle the secret of producing in some particular human being, such human
etheric bodies as had been possessed by the best of the Jupiter, Mercury,
and other Initiates was known. By means of the methods used for this
purpose, which cannot be further dealt with here, impressions of the best
etheric bodies of the ancient Initiates were preserved, in order that they
might subsequently be stamped upon suitable individuals. The same process
could be employed with the astral bodies