emple of Zeus-(or
Jupiter) is so constructed as to present to the physical eye a fitting
shrine for what the guardian of the Zeus-(or Jupiter) Initiation saw with
spiritual vision. And it is the same with all Greek art. The wisdom of the
Initiates flowed in mysterious ways into poets, artists, and thinkers. The
Mysteries of the Initiates are found again, in the form of conceptions and
ideas, in the systems of thought by which ancient Greek philosophers
interpreted the universe. The influences of the spiritual life, the
Mysteries of the Asiatic and African sanctuaries of Initiation, flowed
into these nations and to their leaders. The great Indian teachers, the
associates of Zarathustra, and the followers of Hermes had attracted
disciples. These, or their successors, thereupon founded sanctuaries for
Initiation, in which the ancient wisdom was revived in a new form. These
were the Mysteries of antiquity. Here disciples were prepared to be
brought into the condition of consciousness through which they might
attain vision of the spiritual world.(23) From these sanctuaries of
Initiation the Mysteries flowed forth to those who cultivated Spiritual
Mysteries in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. (Important centres of
Initiation were formed in the Greek world in the Orphic and Eleusinian
Mysteries. In the Pythagorean School of wisdom, lingered the effects of
the great wisdom-teachings and methods of past ages. On his distant
travels, Pythagoras had been initiated into the secrets of the most varied
kinds of Mysteries.)

But human life between birth and death in the post-Atlantean period had
also an influence on the disembodied state after death. The more man's
interests were fixed on the physical sense-world, the greater was the
possibility of Ahriman gaining a hold upon the soul during earthly life
and retaining his power of it after death. This danger was least among the
peoples of ancient India, for during earthly life they had felt the
physical sense-world to be an illusion, and thus had eluded the power of
Ahriman after death. The danger for the primitive Persian peoples, who
between birth and death had fixed their attention, with great interest,
upon the physical sense-world was much greater. They would have largely
fallen a prey to Ahriman's wiles had not Zarathustra pointed out,
emphatically through his teaching concerning the Light of God, that behind
the physical sense-world there exists the world of the Spirits of Light.