Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/231/en

In the many studies that Rudolf Steiner devotes to the cultural epochs in his written and lecture work, he characterizes the levels of consciousness that humanity wins for itself in the progressive taking hold of earthly conditions. The transitions from one to the next of these epochs are gradual. They result from the arising and the ebbing of the ruling spirit-impulses from the zodiacal regions. This holds as well for the fourth post-Atlantean period. For this period, however, Rudolf Steiner gives at the same time a dating of beginning and end, one that has an astronomically grounded reference to a specific year in relation to the zodiacal region of Aries. The beginning of the Greco-Roman cultural epoch falls accordingly in the year 747 B.C. and its end, after the completion of 2,160 years, in the year 1413 A.D. (Rudolf Steiner: Die tieferen Entwicklungsimpulse der Menschheit, 12. Juni 1917, Publikation in Vorbereitung). On the basis of these figures, which are related to a cosmic rhythm, the dates for the preceding great ancient civilizations can be calculated, as well as those that follow them and that in 1413 A.D. commenced with the present Age of the Consciousness Soul.</ref> The great ancient civilizations that followed upon this one