human will. The guardians
of the oracles mastered certain inner forces connected with fire and other
elements. They can be called magicians. What supersensible knowledge and
force they had retained as a heritage from ancient times was certainly
slight in comparison with man's powers in the remote past. But it
nevertheless took all kinds of forms, from the noble arts, the only object
of which was the welfare of humanity,--down to the most reprehensible
transactions.

The Luciferian influence held sway over these people in a peculiar manner.
It had brought them into connection with everything which diverts mankind
from the purposes of those exalted beings who alone would have guided
human evolution, had not the Luciferian influence interposed. Even those
members of this race who were still gifted with some remnant of the old
clairvoyant condition, described above as a state intermediate between
sleeping and waking, felt themselves powerfully attracted by the lower
beings of the spiritual world. In order to counteract these characteristic
qualities it was necessary that a spiritual impulse should be given to
this people. A leadership was established among them by the guardian of
the Mysteries of the Sun oracle, from the same source from which the
spiritual life of ancient India proceeded.

The leader of ancient Persian civilization, who was sent by the guardian
of the Sun oracle to the people now under consideration, may be designated
by the same name as the historical Zarathustra, or Zoroaster. Only the
fact must be emphasized that the personality indicated belongs to a much
earlier period than the historical possessor of the name. In this
connection it is not a question of outer historical research, but of
spiritual knowledge. And any one who instinctively thinks of a later time
in connection with the bearer of the name Zarathustra may reconcile this
idea with occult science on learning that the historical character
represents himself as a successor of the first great Zarathustra, whose
name he took, and in the spirit of whose teaching he worked.

The impulse which Zarathustra had to give to his people was to show them
that the physical world of sense is not merely the lifeless material,
devoid of spirit, which it appears to a man who gives himself up
exclusively to the influence of the Luciferian being. To this being man
owes his personal independence and sense of freedom; but it should work
within him in harmony with