The article ‘University of Christ’ explains that mankind has been helped since the prehistoric age by the masters under guidance of Christ.

By this Christ aims at stopping the suffering of the human being on earth and bringing an eternal happiness in its place.

He knows that this happiness will only be permanent if mankind has reached a high grade of feeling.

The article ‘grades of feeling’ explains that our life of feeling has a particular level.

The masters got to know those levels in the hereafter.

In this, they distinguish various astral worlds which they call ‘spheres’.

A sphere reflects the life of feeling of its inhabitants.

In the spheres of light, the inhabitants have universal love for all life, while in the dark spheres self-love reigns.

As the grade of feeling of a human being indicates his level of love, the masters also speak about the grade of feeling of the whole of mankind.

That is the average level of love that is experienced on earth by the human being.

In the prehistoric age, that grade of feeling of mankind was still just at the first level.

The prehistoric being was especially focused on his own survival, also if this was at the expense of other people.

In the case of food shortage, they fought intensely with each other.

The masters could not suddenly bring these people to universal love, as a result of which the fighting with each other would stop.

They first inspired the human being to receiving more material prosperity, so that the fighting for food became less necessary.

In order to advance the earthly existence, they taught the human being to control fire and to make tools.

That material progress ensured that people became more alert of the environment and everything to be found there in order to increase the own material possession.

Even if this was aimed at the own possession, this still already gave more material consciousness than the previous phase.

As a result, after a long time a number of people on earth reached the second grade of feeling, which corresponds to the dark sphere which is described in the article ‘Land of Hatred and Lust and Violence’.

Here only the law of the strongest applied, such as in the animal world.

This second level is also called the animal-like grade of feeling.

As a result of this ‘right’, the people with a weaker body were targeted and they had to suffer under the rule of the strongest.

When the human being became conscious that he was stronger within a group, larger and larger groups started to fight against each other.

The tribal battle became more intense, the violence increased.

The masters understood that the human being would only change his behaviour if he felt a power higher than himself and the enemies, which could call a halt to this violence.

The articles ‘Moses and the prophets’, Bible writers’ and ‘God’ describe how the masters inspired people on earth to start to feel respect for that supreme power.

The followers of Moses could only believe in that higher power, if he also actually showed his power, by for instance protecting their group against other tribes.

The masters helped Moses to protect his group, so that it would not be wiped out by the tribal wars.

The leadership by the masters consisted especially of warning Moses what the plans were of the rulers of the hostile tribes, so that he could anticipate that.

Moses was also inspired to make his followers warriors, so that they could protect their group.

In this way, this group was not destroyed by tribes with a lower grade of feeling.

Otherwise, a dominance of people with a higher grade of feeling would never come to the world.

The protection by the masters is aimed at allowing the number of people with a higher grade of feeling to grow until they are so numerous and powerful that they can ensure peace and progress in the world.

After the prophets had carved a narrow path for the Messiah, the mentor of the University of Christ reincarnated himself in order to give mankind a powerful impetus towards universal love.

The articles ‘Jesus Christ’ and ‘Gethsemane and Golgotha’ explain this.

The Christians who put his joyful message into practice, raised their own grade of feeling in that way.

The masters inspired all the people who were reincarnated for a task on earth.

As a result, Socrates, Plato, Aristoteles, Buddha, Ramakrishna and many others could expand the thinking of mankind, each in their own time.

The great artists also received their direct inspirations in order to bring a higher feeling to earth.

The University of Christ boosted science and ensured for instance that the seas could be sailed.

The masters inspired millions of people to reach higher feelings.

In this way, mankind could conquer its first grade of feeling, in which they still stayed at the moment when Christ brought his joyful message.

When Napoleon was born in 1769, mankind had evolved to the second grade of feeling.

Napoleon was a product of a world, which was still largely attuned to hatred and destruction.

Consumed by a lust for power, no means was too cruel for satisfying his lust.

He unleashed a hell on earth and let the blood of hundreds of thousands flow.

Restlessly swept forward by his rage for possessions and rule, he began one military action after another.

And yet the masters could ensure that his actions did not just bring destruction.

The masters gave him the thought to unit Europe.

They could not make him a noble person in one blow, nor could they raise mankind to a higher grade of feeling in one year.

Napoleon could not be stopped in his will to fight and to destroy, but by means of the thought that the masters gave him, that unavoidable battle still also brought the first steps on the way to more collaboration in Europe.

For that collaboration, it was first necessary to get to know each other, because unknown makes unloved.

The military operations of Napoleon and his occupation were an undesirable and forced contact, but nevertheless brought the contact, as a result of which the people got to know each other.

As a result, the former enemy received a face, and ultimately turned out to be an ordinary fellow being with the same fears and longings.

In addition, wars ensure that more and more people turn away from everything that has to do with war, as a result of the misery that they experience as a consequence of war.

These people will no longer start a war themselves, because they know what misery will be heaped on another person as a result.

The suffering shook them awake and made them conscious that hatred and destruction take the world to the abyss.

The masters knew that Napoleon would not succeed in realising the unity of Europe.

That unity can only be established enduringly if it has been based on tolerance and collaboration which give happiness and peace to all the parties involved.

However, the intended collaboration had still come a step closer due to the greater contact.

For Napoleon himself, his lust for power was disastrous.

As a result, he attuned himself to the lowest dark sphere which exists in the Hereafter.

He now lies down there like an astral jellyfish, his spiritual body has become slimy.

He is no longer conscious of life and he will not reach working any sooner than over a hundred thousand years in order to resume his evolution again.

The masters drive the material development of mankind by inspiring inventors.

For instance, Edison could bring the electric light to earth because the masters elevated him into their consciousness.

All inventions which serve for progress were brought to earth by the masters.

They also knew that those inventions would be used for war purposes.

That was of course not their intention, but the masters did foresee that this abuse would contribute to the insight that it must not be done like that.

In 1914, mankind still lived in the animal-like grade of feeling, attuned to the Land of Hatred, Passion and Violence.

Due to the great misery during World War I, it turned its back on the animal-like grade of feeling and it went towards the third grade of feeling, the coarse-material level.

In the years afterwards, mankind went further on this path and in this way reached the sphere which is called the Land of Twilight by the masters.

Now it had received more control over its lower instincts.

Before 1914, people plunged themselves into war without reflecting much.

After 1918, it took much longer before the war was declared, because people still knew what this meant.

The article ‘Land of Twilight’ explains which feelings its inhabitants experience.

The fear and the tension of the Land of Hatred then lies behind them.

They no longer want to murder, but are now attuned to peace and quiet.

They still want more material possessions, but no longer at the expense of other people.

Since knowledge is aspired to, the Land of Twilight in the hereafter has in fact become a sort of university city, with study areas and world views.

The feeling is still earthly material here, the majority is still not engaged in enriching itself spiritually.

The Land of Twilight is a misty state, which still does not radiate any heat.

On earth too, people still do not feel warmed by the masses, true happiness is still not experienced everywhere.

Some inhabitants of the Land of Twilight increase their grade of feeling by for instance helping where possible in the dark spheres.

Doctors and nurses pass on to here quickly, because they were already attuned on earth to serving their fellow being.

By serving people come higher, because people discard the lazy complacent feelings from the Land of Twilight.

However, the majority wait and do not begin of their own accord to work and to devote themselves to the fellow being.

Most people only feel self-love here and have still not begun with their spiritual awakening.

Their earthly life of feeling is aimed at the material.

On earth, the masses who are attuned to the Land of Twilight are only stimulated to fight against lower characteristics by means of a war and an occupation.

Holding onto the material possessions is only thwarted by a war which destroys the properties on a large scale and with raging violence.

And in 1939 in mankind there were still lower powers which would ensure this battle.

The average of mankind was already attuned to the Land of Twilight, but some peoples were still not that highly evolved and still longed for acquiring more land and possessions by means of conquest and battles.

They would plunge mankind into a new world war.

In 1939, many people in Germany, Italy and Japan were still attuned to the Land of Hatred, Passion and Violence.

This group of people was still large enough to impose its will on the part of the population which had already reached the Land of Twilight.

Together, the people who were attuned to the Land of Twilight and the Land of Hatred still had the upper hand within these peoples, and they could use the technical means in order to increase the weaponry and to deploy it for conquering.

They wanted to dominate the whole world and subject it to their will.

They represented the lower self of mankind.

This lower self tortured the fellow being in concentration camps, showed no mercy and lied and cheated as that had not yet happened before.

The Land of Hatred, Passion and Violence declared war and plunged the world into a ruthless destruction.

This animal-like atmosphere wished to conquer the whole world and unleashed World War II.

It became a battle between two grades of feeling in mankind, between the Land of Hatred and the Land of Twilight.

It took millions of years before a war could be fought which would become the last world war of all times.

It was only now that mankind as a mass had evolved to the attunement of the Land of Twilight, in which it no longer wanted such a war.

During this battle, it will devote everything to finally conquer the lower self of itself, the animal-like grade of feeling, so that after this war it would never get the chance again to begin a world war.

The article ‘Hitler’ describes the course of this world battle.

The article ‘the Age of Christ’ explains how this last world war drives mankind to go on the way to the light of the first sphere of light.

The article ‘illuminating future’ describes what a beautiful future mankind obtained by finally conquering its lower characteristics during the last world war.

Evolution of mankind -- Sources