Horses, White,
Red and
Black, reveal the primal symbolism of the
and body. This symbolism is frequentlyspirit, used in fairy tales. Thus Snow White in her unearthly beauty is as snow, red as blood, and black as ebony. (And depicted as white has the stork perhaps been made the emblem of human birth because consonance of
soul
an archetype made physically visible, he also owns this triple of the third Seal, the step from red to black colour?) At the opening It is an inversion of the illufurther a tragic descent. is, therefore, like
of colours which accompanies the minating and comforting change transition from Good Friday to Easter Day on the altars of the restored The Black sacrament celebrated in The Christian Community. hue of death used during Lent is replaced by the bright Red of Easter, through our souls. in the succession of apocalyptic Riders the Black Horse takes of the Red, evolution leads from the sphere of the living to
and a breath of resurrection and rejoicing
When
passes
the place that of the dead.
The Black Horse and its Rider show what happens when Intelligence
down to the plane of material opportunities and advantages. Trade and barter begin. There is buying and selling on Earth. The white and red is still bright. The polarity between polarity between red and black conceals dangers. Behind the red, "Luciferic" desires and passions threaten; behind the black, the "Ahrimanic" danger of sinks
soulless cleverness
But the
scale
is
hid.*
not yet ended. Out of the fourth The word pale is chloros in Greek. This
of descent and loss
Seal leaps the Pale Horse.
is
means yellow-greenish in colour, like sulphur. He who rides on this Horse is called Death. He is followed by Hades, the underworld of ghosts. And to him is given the baleful authority to kill a large part of all living beings on Earth.
literally
At the
present time
it
ought not to be
difficult
to understand this
further plunge of human intelligence, a plunge expressed in the transition from the Black to the Pale Horse. Straightforward material-
ism has
still
some
character; bloodless abstractions are
inhuman. With
one can prove and refute anything. Mere inteEectualism left. It ceases to take thinking seriously. It is long since began to absorb into himself what had formerly been the
abstractions
has
no
Man
roots
first
Now
he no longer engages even his own human prerogative of God. nature fully in his thought life. He does not even notice how diinking * The double nature of evil is presented as a fundamental truth in the philosophical and anthroposophical works of Rudolf Steiner. He calls this evil polarity "Lucifer" (Devil) and "Ahriman"
(Satan). Cf. also
page 104.
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