rld to be a deception of the human power of observation, an
illusion (Maya). By every possible means these people strove to open up a
view of the real world. They could take no interest in the illusory
sense-world, or at any rate only so far as it proved to be a veil for the
supersensible. The power going out from the Seven Great Teachers to such
people as these, was a mighty one. What they were able to reveal entered
deeply into the Indian soul; and since the possession of the transmitted
etheric and astral bodies invested the teachers with lofty powers, they
were also able to work magically on their disciples. They did not really
teach; they worked as though by magic power from one personality to
another. Thus there arose a civilization completely saturated with
supersensible wisdom. The contents of the books of wisdom of the Hindus,
the Vedas, do not give the original form of the lofty wisdom imparted by
the great teachers of most ancient times, only a feeble echo of it. Only
the seer's eye, looking backward is able to find unwritten primeval wisdom
behind the written words.

A particularly prominent feature of this ancient wisdom is the harmonious
accord of the various wisdom oracles of the Atlantean time. For each of
the Great Teachers was able to unveil the wisdom of one of these oracles,
and these different aspects were in complete harmony, because behind them
all was the fundamental wisdom of the Christ Initiation. It is true the
teacher who was the successor of the Christ Initiate did not impart to his
disciples what the Christ Initiate himself was able to reveal. The latter
had remained in the background during this period of evolution. At first
he was unable to entrust his high office to any post-Atlantean. The
difference between him and the Christ Initiate of the Seven Great Indian
Teachers was that the former was able to work his vision of the Christ
Mystery completely into the form of human ideas, whereas the Indian Christ
Initiate could only offer a reflection of the Mystery in signs and
symbols; for his humanly cultivated power of conception did not suffice
for such a Mystery. However, from the union of the Seven Teachers there
resulted a knowledge of the supersensible world, presented in one great
wisdom-panorama, of which only separate portions could be imparted in the
ancient Atlantean oracles. The great Regents of the cosmos were revealed,
and the One great Sun-spirit, the Hidden One, ruling over those