From Jesus to Christ 2023 NEW READING CW 131.
A cycle of ten lectures plus an eleventh public lecture given the day before the start by Rudolf Steiner in Karlsruhe between 4 and 14 October 1911. Translated by Charles Davy.
Lecture 1: (Karlsruhe, 5th October 1911)
Lecture 2: (Karlsruhe, 6th October 1911) – 0:42:21
Lecture 3: (Karlsruhe, 7th October 1911) – 1:22:47
Lecture 4: (Karlsruhe, 8th October 1911) – 2:13:47
Lecture 5: (Karlsruhe, 9th October 1911) – 2:54:18
Lecture 6: (Karlsruhe, 10th October 1911) – 3:38:20
Lecture 7: (Karlsruhe, 11th October 1911) – 4:25:08
Lecture 8: (Karlsruhe, 12th October 1911) – 5:02:34
Lecture 9: (Karlsruhe, 13th October 1911) – 5:39:42
Lecture 10: (Karlsruhe, 14th October 1911) – 6:22:44
Lecture 11: Appendix: Public Lecture (Karlsruhe, 4th October 1911) – 7:13:37
(Titles of individual videos in general not titles given by Rudolf Steiner)
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You are listening to Rudolf Steiner audio.com as well you can hear these podcasts at Rudolf Steiner podbean.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org in America and rudol Steiner press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner into English and have given me permission to do these
Recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works volume 131 by Rudolph Steiner 11 lectures given in carlu between the 4th and the 14th of October 1911 translated by uh Charles Davy and entitled from Jesus to Christ lecture one the object of these lectures is to
Place before you an idea of the Christ event in so far as it is connected with the historical appearance of the Christ in the person of Jesus of Nazareth so many questions of the spiritual life are bound up with this subject that the choice of it will enable us to make a
Wide survey of the realm of spiritual science and its Mission and to discuss the significance of the anthroposophical movement for the spiritual life of the present time we shall also have the opportunity of learning what the content of religion is and since this content must spring from the common Heritage of mankind we
Shall seek to know it in its relation to the deeper sources of religious life and to what the sources of occult science have to tell us concerning the foundation of all religious and philosophic Endeavors much that we shall have to discuss will seem to lie very far from
The theme itself but it will all lead us back to our main purpose we shall best come to a more precise understanding of subject modern religious life on the one hand and the spiritual scientific deepening of spiritual life on the other if we glance at the origins both of religious life
And of occult spiritual life in recent centuries for as regards Spiritual Development in Europe during this period we can discern two directions of thought which have been cultivated with the utmost intensity on the one hand an exaggeration of the Jesus principle and on the other a most careful conscientious preservation of the Christ
Principle when we place before our minds these two recent streams we must see in the exaggeration of the Jesus principle a great and dangerous error in the spiritual life of those times and on the other side a movement of deep significance a movement which seeks above all the true paths and is is
Careful to avoid the paths of error from the outset therefore in our Judgment of two entirely different spiritual movements we have to ascribe serious errors to one of them and most Earnest efforts after truth to the other the movement which interests Us in connection with our spiritual scientific
Point of view and which we may call an extraordinarily dangerous error in a certain sense is the movement known in the external world as Jesuit ISM in jesuitism we encounter a dangerous exaggeration of the Jesus principle in the other movement which for centuries has existed in Europe as rosar chanism
We have an inward Christ movement which above all seeks carefully for the ways of Truth ever since a jesuitical current arose in Europe much has been said and written in exoteric life about jesuitism those who wish to study spiritual life from its deeper sources will thus be concerned to see how far jesuitism
Signifies a dangerous exaggeration of the Jesus principle if we wish to arrive at a true characterization of jesuitism we must get to know how the three Chief principles of world Evolution which are indicated in the most varied ways in the different world outlooks find practical expression in human life including exoteric
Life today we will first of all turn quite away from the deeper significance and characterization of these three fundamental streams which run through all life and all Evolution and will review them from an external point of view first of all we have the cognitional element in our soul life now
Whatever may be said against the abstractions of a one-sided intellect ual search for truth or against the alienation from Life of many scientific philosophical and theosophical Endeavors anyone who is clear in his own mind as to what he wills and what he can Will knows that cognition belongs to the
Most deeply rooted activities of the soul for whether we seek knowledge chiefly through thinking or more through sensation or feeling cognition always signifies a taking account of the world around us and also of ourselves hence we must say that whether we are satisfied for the moment with the
Simplest experiences of the Soul or whether we wish to devote ourselves to the most complicated analysis of the mysteries of existence cognition is the primary and most significant question for it is basically through cognition that we form a picture of the content of the the world a picture we live by and from
Which our entire soul life is nourished the very first sense impression in fact all sense life must be included in the realm of cognition along with the highest formulations of the intellect under cognition we must include also the impulse to distinguish between the beautiful and the Ugly for
Although it is true in a certain sense that there is no disputing about taste yet cognition is involved when someone has adopted a certain judgment in a question of taste and can distinguish between the beautiful and the Ugly again our moral impulses those which prompt us to do good and abstain
From Evil must be seen as moral ideas as cognition or as impulses to do the one and avoid the other even what we call our conscience however vague the impulses from it may be comes Under The Heading of cognition in short the world we are consciously aware of whether it be
Reality or Maya the world we live in consciously everything we are conscious of all this can be embraced Under The Heading cognitive spiritual life everyone however must acknowledge that under the surface of this cognitive life something else can be discerned that in our everyday existence our soul
Life gives evidence of many things which are not part of our conscious life when we wake up in the morning our soul life is always strengthened and refreshed and newly born from sleep during the unconsciousness of sleep we have gained something which is outside the realm of conscious cognition but
Comes from a region where our soul is active below the level of Consciousness in Waking Life too we must admit that we are impelled by impulses instincts and forces which throw up their waves into our conscious life while they work and have their being below it we become aware that they work below
The conscious when they rise above the surface which separates the conscious from the subconscious and indeed our moral life also makes us aware of a subconscious Soul life of this kind for we can see how in the mor realm this or that ideal comes to birth it takes only a little self-
Knowledge to realize that these ideals do rise up into our soul life but that we are far from always knowing how our great moral ideals are connected with the deepest questions of existence or how they belong to the will of God in which they must ultimately be grounded we might indeed compare our
Soul life in its totality with a deep ocean the depths of this Oceanic Soul life throw up waves to the surface and those that break out into the realm of air which we can compare with normal Consciousness are brought within the range of conscious cognition all conscious life is rooted
In a subconscious Soul life fundamentally the whole evolution of mankind can be understood only if a subconscious Soul life of this kind is acknowledged for what does the progress of spiritual life signify save that many things which have long dwelt down below take form for the first time when they
Are brought to surface level so it is for example when an inventive idea arises in the form of an Impulse toward Discovery subconscious Soul life as real as our conscious life must therefore be recognized as a second element in our life of Soul if we place this subconscious Soul
Life in a realm that is at first unknown but not unknowable we must contrast it with a third element this element is immediately apparent to external exoteric observation for if we turn our attention to the outer world through our senses or approach it through our intellect or any form of mental
Activity we come to know all sorts of things but a more exact consideration of every age of cognition compels us to realize that behind everything we can know about the World At Large something else lies hidden something that is certainly not unknowable but in every Epoch has to be described as not yet
Known and this not yet known which lies below the surface of the known in the mineral plant and animal kingdoms belongs as much to ourselves as it does to external nature if it belongs to us in so far as we absorb and work up in our physical
Organism the materials and forces of the outer world and in as much as we have within us a portion of nature we have also within us a portion of the unknown in nature so in the world wherein we live we must distinguish a Triad our conscious spiritual life our
Subconscious Soul life below the threshold of Consciousness and that which as the unknown in nature and at the same time in man lives in us as part of the great unknown nature this Triad emerges directly from a rational observation of the world and if looking away from all dogmatic
Statements from all philosophical or theosophical traditions in so far as these are clothed in conceptual definitions or formulations we may ask how has the human mind always expressed the fact that this Triad is present not only in the immediate environment but in the whole world to which man himself
Belongs we must then reply man gives the name of spirit to all that can be known within the Horizon of the conscious he designates as the sun s o n or the logos that which works in the subconscious and throws up only its waves from down below and to that which belongs equally
To the unknown in nature and to the part of our own being which is of one kind with nature the name of the father principle has always been given because it was felt to express the relation of the third principle to the other two besides what has now been said
Concerning the spirit the Son and the father principle it can be taken for granted that other differentiations we have formerly made and also the differentiations made in this or that philosophy have their justifications but we can say that the most widely accepted idea of this differentiation corresponds with the account of it given
Here now let us ask how can we characterize the transition from that which belongs to the spirit and so plays Direct into the conscious life of the soul to the subconscious element which belongs to the sun principle we shall best grasp this transition if we realize that into ordinary human consciousness there plays
Quite distinctly the element we designate as will in contrast to the elements of idation and feeling if we rightly interpret the Bible saying quote the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak close quote it indicates that everything grasped by Consciousness lies in the realm of the
Spirit whereas by the flesh is meant everything that lies more in the subconscious as to the nature of the will we need only think of that which plays up from the subconscious and enters into our Consciousness only when we form concepts of it only when we transform into Concepts and ideas the
Dark impelling forces which are rooted in the elemental part of the Soul only then do they enter the realm of the spirit otherwise they remain in the realm of the sun principle and since the will plays through our feelings into the life of ideas we see quite clearly the breaking
Out into the conscious of the waves from the subconscious ocean in our three-fold soul life we have two elements idation and feeling which belong to conscious life but feeling descends directly into the realm of the will and the nearer we come to the impulses of will the further we descend into the
Subconscious the dark Realms into which we sink completely when Consciousness is engulfed in deep dreamless Sleep thus we see that the will element because it descends into the realm of the subconscious stands toward the individual being of man in a relationship quite different from that of cognition the realm of the
Spirit and so when we differentiate between spirit and sun we may be impelled to surmise that man’s relationship to the spirit is different from his relationship to the Sun how is this to be understood even in exoteric life it is quite easy to understand certainly the realm of
Cognition has given rise to all kinds of debate but if people would only come to understand one another concerning the concepts and ideas they formulate for themselves controversy over questions of cognition would gradually cease I have often emphasized that we no longer dispute over mathematics because we have raised mathematics entirely into
Consciousness the things we dispute about are those not yet raised into Consciousness we still allow our subconscious impulses instincts and passions to play into them so we see that in the realm of cognition we have to do with something more universally human than anything to be found in the subconscious
Realm when we meet another human being and enter into the most varied relationships with him it is in the realm of conscious spiritual ual life that understanding should be possible and a mark of a healthy Soul life is that it will always wish and hope to reach an understanding with the
Other person concerning things that belong to conscious spiritual life it will be unhealthy for the soul if that hope is lost on the other hand we must recognize the will element and everything in another person’s subconscious as something which should on no account be intruded upon it must be regarded as his innermost
Sanctuary we need consider only how unpleasant to a healthy Soul life is the feeling that the will of another man is being put under compulsion it is not only aesthetically but morally unpleasant to see the conscious Soul life of anyone eliminated by hypnotism or any other powerful means
Or to see The Willpower of one person working directly on the will of another the only healthy way to gain influence over another person’s will is through cognition cognition should be the means whereby one Soul comes to an understanding with another a person must first translate his wishes into a
Conceptual form then they may influence another person’s cognition and they should touch it will only by this indirect route nothing else can be satisfactory in the highest most ideal sense to a healthy life of Soul every kind of forcible working of will upon will must evoke an unpleasant
Impression in other words human nature strives in so far as it is healthy to develop in the realm of the spirit the life it has in common with others and to cherish and respect the realm of the subconscious in so far as it comes to expression in the human organism as an
Inviolable Sanctuary that should rest in the personality the individuality of each man and should not be approached save through the door of conscious cognition so at least a modern Consciousness attuned to our Epoch must feel if it is to know itself to be healthy in later lectures we shall see whether
This was so in all periods of human evolution what has been said today will help us to think clearly about what is outside us and what is within us at least for our own period this leads to the conclusion that fundamentally the realm of the sun embracing everything
That we designate as the sun or logos must be awakened in each individual as a quite personal concern and that the realm of common life where men may be influenced by one another is the realm of the spirit we see this expressed in the grandest most significant way in the New Testament
Accounts of the attitude of Christ Jesus toward his first disciples and followers from all that is told concerning the Christ event we can gather that the followers who had hastened to Jesus during his lifetime were bewildered when his life ended with the crucifixion with that form of death
Which in the land where the Christ event took its course was regarded as the only possible experation for the greatest crimes and although this death on the cross did not affect everyone as it did Saul who later became Paul and as Saul had concluded that someone who suffered
Such a death could not be the Messiah or the Christ for the crucifixion had made a milder impression on the disciples IES one might say yet it is obvious that the writers of the gospels wish to give the impression that Christ Jesus through his subjection to the shameful death on the
Cross had forfeited some of the effect he had had on the hearts of those around him but with this account something else is connected the influence that Christ Jesus had acquired an influence we must characterize more exactly ly during these lectures was restored to him after the resurrection whatever may be our present
Thoughts about the resurrection we shall have to discuss it here in the light of occult science and then if we simply go by the gospel narratives one thing will be clear for those to whom Christ appeared after the resurrection he had become someone who was present in a quite special way different entirely
From his previous presence in speaking on the gospel of St John I have already pointed out how impossible it would have been for anyone who knew Jesus not to recognize him after 3 days or to confuse him with someone else if he had not appeared in an altered form the evangelists wish particularly
To evoke the impression that the Christ appeared in this altered form but they also wish to indicate something else for the Christ to exert influence on human Souls a certain receptivity in those Souls was necessary and this receptivity had to be acted on not merely by an influence from
The realm of the spirit but by the actual sight of the Christ being if we ask what this signifies we must realize that when a person stands before us his effect Upon Us goes beyond anything we are conscious of whenever a human being or other being Works Upon Us unconscious elements
Affect our soul life they are produced by the other being indirectly through Consciousness but he can produce them only if he stands before us in actuality what the Christ brought about from person to person after the so-called Resurrection was something that worked up from the unconscious Soul powers of
The disciples into their soul life an acquaintance with the sun hence the differences in the portrayal of the Risen Christ hence too the variations in the accounts showing how the Christ appeared to one or other person according to the disposition of the person concerned here we see the Christ being
Acting on the subconscious part of the Soul of the disciples hence the appearances are quite individual and we should not complain because they are not uniform if however the significance of the Christ for the world was to be his bringing to all men something common to all of them then not only this
Individual working of the sun had to proceed from the Christ but the element of spirit which can Encompass something that belongs to all men men had to be renewed by him this is indicated by the statement that after the Christ had worked upon the logos nature of man he sent forth
The spirit in the form of the renewed or Holy Spirit thus was created that element common to all men which is characterized when we are told that the disciples after they had received the spirit began to speak in the most diverse tongues here we are shown how the common element
Resides in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and something else is indicated how different is this outpouring of the spirit from the simple imparting of the power of the Sun for in the Acts of the Apostles we are told that certain persons to whom the apostles came had
Already received the Jesus baptism and yet they had now to receive for the first time the spirit symbolically indicated by the laying on of hands in the characterization of the Christ event we are made very precisely aware of the difference between the working we have to designate as the
Christ working which acts upon the subconscious impulses of the soul and so must have a personal inward character and the spirit element which represents something common to all mankind it is this Spirit element that those who have named themselves rosar crucians have sought to preserve most carefully as far as human weakness
Permits the rosac crucians have always wished to adhere strictly to the rule that even in the highest regions of initiation nothing must be worked upon except the spirit element which as common between man and man is available in the evolution of humanity the initiation of the rosac
Crucians was an initiation of the spirit it was never an initiation of the will for the will of man was to be respected as a sanctuary in the innermost part of the Soul hence the individual was led to those initiations which were to take him beyond the stage of imagination inspiration and
Intuition but always so that he could recognize within himself the response which the development of the spirit element was to call forth no influence was to be exerted on the will we must not mistake this attitude for one of indifference toward the will the point is that by excluding all
Direct working upon the will the purest spiritual influence was imparted indirectly through the spirit when we come to an understanding with another man with regard to entering on The Path of Knowledge of the Spirit light and warmth are radiated from the spiritual path and they then enkindle the will but always
By the indirect path through the spirit never otherwise in Rosicrucianism therefore we can observe in the highest sense that impulse of Christianity which finds two-fold expression on the one hand in the sun element in the Christ working which goes down deeply into the subconscious on the other in the spirit
Working which Embraces all that falls within the Horizon of our Consciousness we must indeed bear the Christ in our will but the way in which men should come to an understanding with each other in life concerning the Christ can be found only in the rosac crusan sense through a conscious Soul life
Which penetrates ever more deeply into the occult in reaction against many other spiritual streams in Europe the opposite way was taken by those who are usually called Jesuits the radical fundamental difference between what we justifiably call the Christian way of the spirit and the Jesuit way of the spirit which gives
A one-sided exaggeration to the Jesus principle is that the intention of the Jesuit way is to work directly at all times upon the will the difference is clearly shown in the method by which the pupil of jesuitism is educated jesuitism is not to be taken lightly or merely exoterically but also
Esoterically for it is rooted in esotericism it is not however rooted in the spiritual life that is poured out through the symbol of Pentecost but it seeks to root itself directly in the Jesus element of the son which means in the will and thereby it exaggerates the Jesus element of the
Will this will be seen when we now inquire into the esoteric part of jesuitism its various spiritual exercises how were these exercises arranged the essential point is that every single pupil of jesuitism goes through exercises which lead into the occult life but into the will and within the
Field of occultism they hold the will in severe discipline they quote break it in close quote one might say and the significant fact is that this discipline of the will does not arise merely from the surface of life but from something deeper because the pupil has been led into the occult in
The way just indicated if now leaving aside the exercises of prayer Preparatory to all Jesuit exercises we consult these occult exercises at least in their Chief points we find that the pupil has first to call up a vivid imagination of Christ Jesus as the king of the worlds mark this carefully an
Imagination and no one would be received into the degrees of jesuitism who had not gone through such exercises and had not experienced experienced in his soul the transformation which such psychic exercises mean for the whole man but this imaginative presentation of Christ Jesus as king of the worlds has
To be preceded by something else the pupil has to call up for himself in absolute Solitude and seclusion a picture of man as he was created in the world and how by falling into sin he incurred the possibility of most terrible punishments and it is strictly prescribed how one must picture such a
Man how if he were left to himself he would incur the utmost of torturing penalties the rules are extraordinarily severe with all other Concepts or ideas excluded this picture must live uninterruptedly within the soul of the future Jesuit the picture of the godforsaken man the man exposed to the
Most fearful punishments together with the feeling quote that am I since I have come into the world and have forsaken God and have exposed myself to the possibility of the most fearful punishments close quote this must call forth the fear of being forsaken by God and detestation of
Man as he is according to his own nature then in a further imagination over against the picture of the outcast god-forsaken man must be set to picture of the God full of pity who then became Christ and who through his acts on Earth atones for what man has brought about by forsaking
The Divine path in contrast to the imagination of the god forsaken man there must arise that of the all merciful loving being Christ Jesus to whom alone it is due that man is not exposed to all possible punishments working upon his soul and just as vividly as a feeling of
Contempt for the forsaking of the Divine path had first to become fixed in the soul of the Jesuit pupil so must a feeling of humility and Contrition now take hold of him in the presence of Christ when these two feelings have been called forth in the pupil then for
Several weeks he has to practice severe exercises picturing to himself in imagination all details of the life of Jesus from his birth to the crucifixion and resurrection and all that can arise in the soul emerges when the pupil lives in rigorous seclusion and except for necessary meals lets nothing else work
Upon his soul than the pictures which the gospels give of the compassionate life of Jesus but these pictures do not really appear before him in thoughts and ideas they must work upon his soul in Vivid living imaginations only someone who really knows how the human soul is transformed through imaginations which work with
Full living power only he knows that under such conditions the soul is in fact completely changed such imaginations because they are concentrated in the most intense one-sided way first on sinful man secondly on the compassionate God and then only on the pictures from the New Testament evoke precisely through the
Law of polarity a strengthened will these pictures produce their effect directly at firsthand for any reflection upon them must be dutifully excluded it is solely a matter of holding before one’s mind these imaginations as they have just been described what then follows is this in the further exercises Christ Jesus and
Now we may no longer say Christ but exclusively Jesus is represented as the universal King of the worlds and thereby the Jesus element is exaggerated because Christ had to be incarnated in a human body the purely spiritual took part in the physical world but over against this participation stand the Monumental and
Most significant words qu my kingdom is not of this world close quote we can exaggerate the Jesus element by making Jesus into a king of This World by making him that which he would have become if he had not resisted the tempter who wished to give him quote
All the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof close quote then Jesus of Nazareth would have been a king who unlike other kings who possess only a portion of the Earth would have had the whole earth under his sway if we think of this King portrayed
In this guise his kingly power so increased that the whole Earth Is His domain then we should have the very picture that followed the other exercises through which the personal will of each Jesuit pupil had been sufficiently strengthened to prepare for this picture of King Jesus this ruler over all the kingdoms
Of the Earth the pupil had to form an imagination of Babylon and the plane around Babylon as a living picture and enthroned over Babylon Lucifer with his Banner this picture had to be visualized with great exactitude for it is a powerful imagination King Lucifer with his banner and his hosts of luciferic
Ang Angels seated amidst fire and dense smoke as he sends out his angels to conquer the kingdoms of the earth and the whole danger that issues from the banner of Lucifer must first of all be imagined by itself without casting a glance upon Christ Jesus the soul must be entirely
Engrossed in the imagination of the danger which issues from the banner of Lucifer the soul must learned to feel that the greatest danger to the world’s existence that could be conjured forth would be a victory for the banner of Lucifer and when this picture has had its effect the other imagination the
Banner of Jesus must take its place the pupil must now visualize Jerusalem and the plane around Jerusalem King Jesus with his hosts how he sends out his hosts how he conquers and drives off the hosts of Lucifer and makes himself King of the whole earth the victory of the banner of Jesus
Over the banner of Lucifer these are the strength-giving imaginations for the will which are brought before the soul of the Jesuit pupil this is what completely changes his will makes him such that in his will because it is trained occultly he turns away from everything else and surrenders
Absol abolutely to the idea King Jesus must become the ruler upon Earth and we who belong to his army have to employ every means to make him ruler of the earth to this we pledge ourselves we who belong to his host assembled on the plain of Jerusalem against the host of
Lucifer assembled on the plain of Babylon and the greatest disgrace for a soldier of King Jesus is to forsake his Banner close quote these ideas gathered up into a single resolution of the will can certainly give the will immense strength but we must ask what is it in the soul
Life that has been IND directly attacked the element that ought to be regarded as intrinsically holy the element that ought not to be touched the will element in so far as this Jesuit training lays hold of the will element while the Jesus idea seizes the will element completely and so far is the
Concept of the Dominion of Jesus exaggerated in the most dangerous way dangerous because through it the will becomes so strong that it can work directly upon the will of another for where the will becomes so strong through imaginations which means by occult methods it acquires the capacity for working directly upon the
Will of another and hence also along all the other occult paths to which such a will can have recourse thus we see how in recent centuries we encounter these two movements among many others one has exaggerated the Jesus element and sees in King Jesus the sole ideal of Christianity while the other looks
Solely at the Christ element and carefully sets aside anything that could go beyond it this second outlook has been such calumniated because it maintains that Christ has sent the spirit so that indirectly through the spirit Christ can enter into the hearts and minds of men in the development of civilization
During the last few centuries there’s hardly a greater contrast than that between jesuitism and Rosicrucianism for jesuitism contains nothing of what Rosicrucianism regards as the highest ideal concerning human worth and human dignity while Rosicrucianism has always sought to guard itself from any influence which could in the remotest sense be called
Jesuitical in this lecture I wish to show how even so lofty an element as the Jesus principle can be exaggerated and then becomes dangerous and how necessary it is to sink oneself into the depths of the Christ being if we wish to understand how the strength of Christianity must reside in esteeming to
The very highest degree human dignity and human worth and in strictly refraining from groping our clumsy way into man’s inmost Sanctuary Rosicrucianism even more than Christian mysticism is attacked by the Jesuit element because the Jesuits feel that true Christianity is being sought elsewhere than in the setting which
Offers merely King Jesus in the leading role but the imaginations here indicated together with the prescribed exercises have made the will so strong that even protests brought against it in the name of the spirit can be defeated the end of lecture one you are listening to Rudolf Steiner audio.com
As well you can hear these podcasts at Rudolf steiner.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org in America and rudol Steiner press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner into English and have given me permission to do these recordings please consider
Patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works volume 131 by Rudolph Steiner uh 11 lectures entitled from Jesus to Christ translated by Charles Davy this is lecture two given on the 6th of October 1911 and I think I missed that in the last lecture lecture one was given on
The 5th of October 1911 yesterday I tried to give you a picture of a form of initiation which ought not to exist according to our valuation of human nature this initiation as we have seen it in jesuitism leads to the acquisition of certain occult faculties but if we bring a cleansed and
Purified occult Vision to Bear upon these faculties they cannot be considered good it will now be my task to show that the rosar crucian way is characterized by all that high regard for human nature which we recognize as equally our own but we must first be clear on certain points from explanations given
Previously in various forms we know that the rosac crucian initiation is essentially a development of the Christian initiation so that we can speak of it as a Christian rosac crucian initiation in earlier lecture courses the purely Christian initiation with its seven degrees and the rosac crusan initiation also with seven degrees have been
Compared but now we must note that with regard to initiation the principle of the progress of the human soul must be strictly maintained we know that the rosac crucian initiation had its proper beginning somewhere about the 13th century at that time it was recognized by those individualities who have to
Guide the deeper Destinies of human evolution as the right initiation for the more advanced human Souls this shows that the initi iation of the Rose cross takes full account of the continuous progress of the human soul and must therefore pay particular attention to the fact that since the
13th century the human soul has developed further Souls which are to be led to initiation in our day can no longer adopt the standpoint of the 13th century I want especially to point this out because in our time there is such a strong desire to label everything with
Some Mark or other with some catch word from this bad habit and not for any Justified reason our anthroposophical movement has been given a label which could lead gradually to something like a Calamity it is true that within our movement the principle of Rosicrucianism can be found in all
Completeness so that we can penetrate into the sources of Rosicrucianism so it is that that persons who by means of our anthroposophical training penetrate into these sources can properly call themselves rosac crucians but it must be emphasized just as strongly that Outsiders have no right to designate as rosac crucian the
Anthroposophical stream we represent simply because our movement has been given consciously or unconsciously an entirely false label we are no longer stand ending where the rosac crucian stood in the 13th century and on to the following centuries for we take into account the progress of the human
Soul hence the way indicated in my book titled knowledge of the higher worlds as the way best adapted for gaining access to the higher worlds must not without further explanation be equated with what may be called the rosicrucian way through our Movement we can penetrate into true Rosicrucianism but our movement extends
Over a far wider domain for it Embraces the whole of theosophy hence it should not be labeled Rosicrucianism our movement must be described simply as the spiritual science of today the anthroposophical spiritual science of the 20th century Outsiders particularly will fall more or less unconsciously into some kind of misunderstanding
If they describe our movement simply as rosac crucian but an outstanding achievement of Rosicrucianism since the dawn of modern spiritual life in the 13th century has been to establish a rule which must also be ours the rule that all modern initiation in the deepest sense of the word must recognize and treasure the
Independence of the most holy element in man’s inner life his will Center as indicated yesterday the occult methods there described are designed to overcome and enslave the human will and to set it on a predetermined course hence a true occultism will rigorously avoid them before characterizing Rosicrucianism and present day
Initiation we must mention a decisively relevant point the Rosicrucianism of the 13th 14th and even of the 16th and 17th centuries has again had to be modified for our time the Rosicrucianism of those earlier centuries could not reckon with a spiritual element which has since entered into human
Evolution without this element today we can no longer understand rightly the fundamentals of all those spiritual streams which arise from the ground of occultism including therefore any theosophical stream for reasons we shall see more exactly in the course of these lectures the teaching of reincarnation and Karma
Of repeated Earth lives was excluded for many centuries from the external exoteric teachings of Christianity in the 13th century the teaching of reincarnation and Karma had not yet entered in the highest sense into the first stages of rosarian initiation one could go far up to the fourth or fifth degree one could go
Through what was called the rosar crucian studium the acquiring of imagination the reading of the occult script the finding of the philosopher stone and one could experience something of what is called the mystical death one could reach this stage and acquire exceptionally High occult knowledge but without needing to achieve
Full clarity concerning The Illuminating teach teachings of reincarnation and Karma we must be clear that human thinking progresses and now Embraces forms of thought which if only we follow them out logically and this can easily be done on the external exoteric level lead unconditionally to a recognition of
Repeated Earth lives and so to the idea of karma the words spoken through the lips of Strader in my second rosac crucian drama titled the Soul’s probation are absolutely true namely that a logical thinker today if he is not to break with everything that the thought forms of the last
Century have brought in must come finally to a recognition of Karma and reincarnation this is something deeply rooted in present day spiritual life just because this knowledge has been slowly prepared and has these Deep Roots it emerged emerges little by little as though independently in the west it is indeed
Remarkable how the necessity of recognizing repeated Earth lives has independently made itself felt though certainly only by outstanding individual thinkers we need only call attention to certain facts which are quite forgotten intentionally or unintentionally in our present day literature take for example what comes out so Wonder wonderfully in Ling’s
Title education of the human race we see how lesing that great mind of the 18th century who at the Zenith of his life gathered up his thoughts and wrote the education of the human race came as though by inspiration to the thought of repeated Earth lives so does the idea of repeated Earth
Lives find its way as though by Inner necessity into Modern Life it has to be taken into consideration but certainly not in the way that ideas of this kind are considered in our history books or in cultured circles nowadays for in such cases Resort is had to The Familiar formula that when a
Clever man grows old excuses must be made for him so it is said that although we may appreciate Ling in his earlier works we must allow that in later years when he came to the idea of repeated Earth lives he had become somewhat feeble in more recent times the idea occurs
Sporadically drossbach a 19th century psychologist spoke of it in the only way then possible without occultism simply by observing nature he tried in his own way as a psychologist to establish the idea of repeated Earth lives again in the middle of the last century a small Society offered a prize for the best
Essay on the immortality of the Soul this was a remarkable occurrence in German spiritual life and is very little known moreover the prize went to an essay by vidman which tried to prove the immortality of the soul in the sense of repeated Earth lives certainly an imperfect attempt but it could not be
Otherwise in the 50s of the last century when the necessary thought forms had not developed far enough one could quote various other instances where the idea of repeated Earth lives Springs up as though in response to a postulate a demand of the 19th century hence in my little book titled
Reincarnation in karma and also in my book titled theosophy the ideas of repeated Earth lives and of karma could be worked out in relation to the thought forms of Natural Science but with reference to human individuality in contrast to the animal species we must however be clear on one
Essential point there is an immense difference between the way and which Western men have come to this idea simply through thinking and the way in which it figures in Buddhism for instance it is most interesting to see how lesing came to the idea of repeated Earth lives the result can of course be
Compared with the idea of repeated Earth lives in Buddhism and even given the same name but the way taken by Ling is very different and is not generally known how did he come to this idea we can see this quite clearly if we go through the title education of the
Human race there is no doubt that human evolution gives evidence of progress in the strictest sense lesing argued that this progress is an education of humanity by the Divine Powers God gave into men’s hands a first Elementary Book the Old Testament thereby a certain stage of evolution was
Achieved when the human race had gone further it was given the second Elementary Book the New Testament and then lesing sees in our time something that goes beyond the New Testament an independent feeling in the human soul for the true the good and the Beautiful this marks for him a third
Stage in the education of the human race the thought of the education of mankind by the Divine Powers is worked out in a lofty style Ling then asks himself what is the one and only way to explain this progress he cannot explain it otherwise than by allowing Every Soul
To participate in each Epoch of human evolution if human progress is to have any meaning at all for it would have no meaning if one Soul lived only in the epoch of old Testament civilization and another Soul only in the New Testament Epoch it has meaning only of souls are
Taken through all the epochs of civilization and share in all the stages of human education in other words if the soul lives through repeated Earth lives the progressive education of the human race makes good sense so the idea of repeated Earth lives Springs up in Ling’s mind as something that belongs to human
Destiny in a deeper sense the following underlies his thinking if a soul was incarnated at the time of the Old Testament it took into itself whatever it could take when it reappears in a later time it carries the fruits of its previous life into the next life and the fruits of that life
Into the one following and so on thus the successive stages of evolution are interlocked and whatever a soul achieves is achieved not only for itself but For All Mankind humanity is a great organism and for Lessing reincarnation is necessary in order that the whole human race can progress thus it is historical Evolution
The concern of humanity as a whole that he takes as his starting point and from there he is impelled to a recognition of reincarnation it is different if we Trace out the same idea in Buddhism there a person is concerned merely with himself with his own psyche the individual says to
Himself I am placed in the world of Maya desire brought me into it and in the course of repeated incarnations I shall free myself as an individual soul from the necessity of living again on Earth this applies to the single individual all the attention is centered on him that is the great
Difference whether a person looks at the process from within as in Buddhism or from without as Ling does his gaze takes in the whole of human evolution in both cases the same idea emerges but in the west the path to it is quite different while the Buddhist limits
Himself to concern for the individual The Man of the West is concerned with the whole of humanity he feels himself bound up with all men as a single organism what is it that has taught Western man the necessity of realizing above all that his concern is with all
Mankind the reason is that into the sphere of the heart into his world of feeling he has received the words of Christ Jesus concerning human Brotherhood that it is beyond all nationality beyond all racial characteristics and that humanity is a great organism hence it is interesting to see
How drossbach although his thinking is still imperfect because the scientific ideas of the first half of the 19th century had not yet produced the corresponding thought forms does not take the buddhistic path but a universal Cosmic one trossbach starts from the thoughts of Natural Science and observes the soul in its
Cosmic aspect right he cannot think otherwise of the Soul than as a seed which goes through an external form and reappears in other external forms and so is reincarnated with him this idea turns into fantasy for he thinks that the world itself must be transformed whereas Ling thought correctly of short periods
Of time vidden manman too in his prize essay brings the immortality of the Soul into logical connection with the question of reincarnation so we see that these ideas appear quite sporadically and it is right that in spite of faulty modes of thinking they should spring up in Minds
Such as these and in others also the great evolutionary change which the human soul has undergone from the 18th to the 20th century is such that everyone today who Begins the study of world progress must above all assimilate those thought forms which lead quite naturally to the acceptance and making
Credible of the ideas of reincarnation in karma between the 13th and 18th centuries human thought was not sufficiently Advanced to come by itself to a recognition of reincarnation one has always to start from the stage reached by the most highly developed thought of the period today the starting point must
Must be that form of thinking which on the basis of Natural Science regards the idea of repeated Earth lives as logical which means hypothetically true so do the times Advance without describing the rosar crucian path in detail today we will bring out what is essential both to it
And to the way of knowledge at the present time the characteristic of both is that everyone who gives advice and guidance for initiation will value in the deepest sense the independence and inviolability of the sphere of the human will hence the essential point is that through a special kind of moral and
Spiritual culture the ordinary interweaving of the physical body etheric body astral body and ego must be changed and those directions which are given for the training of the moral feelings as also those for concentrate ation in thinking for meditation all this makes finally for the one goal of loosening the spiritual
Texture which binds together the physical and etheric bodies so that the etheric body does not remain so firmly fitted into the physical body as it naturally is all the exercises strive after this lifting out this loosening of the etheric body thereby another Union between the astral body and the etheric
Body brought about it is because in ordinary life the etheric body and the physical body are so firmly United that the astral body cannot normally feel or experience what is going on in the etheric body because the etheric body has its seat within the physical body our astral body and our ego perceive
Only what the physical body brings them from the world and enables them to think of through the inst instrument of the brain the etheric body is too deeply embedded in the physical body for it to be experienced in ordinary life as an independent entity as an independent instrument of cognition or as an
Instrument of feeling and willing the efforts in concentrated thinking according to the instructions given nowadays and given also by the rosac crucians the efforts in meditation the cleansing of the moral feelings all these finally produce on the etheric body the effect described in my book title knowledge of the higher
Worlds as we use our eyes for seeing and our hands for grasping So eventually we shall use the etheric body with its organs but for looking into the spiritual not the physical world the way in which we gather together and concentrate our inner life works for the Independence of the etheric
Body it is necessary however that we should first permeate ourselves at least tentatively with the idea of Karma and we do this when we establish a certain moral equilibrium a balance of the sole forces of feeling a person who cannot to a certain extent grasp the thought that quote in
The long run I myself am to blame for my impulses close quote will not be able to make good progress a certain Equanimity and understanding with regard to Karma even if only a purely hypothetical understanding are necessary as a starting point a person who never gets away from
His ego who is so dependent upon his narrowly limited ways of feeling and perception that when things go wrong he always blames others and never himself a person who is always filled with the idea that the world or a part of his environment is against him a man who
Never gets beyond the results of applying ordinary thinking to whatever can be learned from exoteric theosophy such a person will find progress particularly difficult hence it is well that in order to develop Equanimity and calmness of Soul we should make ourselves familiar with the idea that when something does
Not succeed particularly on the occult path we must blame not others but ourselves this does most to help our progress what helps least is always wanting to lay the blame on the world outside or always wanting to change our training methods our attitude in such matters is more important than perhaps appears it
Is better to test carefully at all times how little we have learned and and to seek The Fault in ourselves when progress is not made it is a quite significant Advance when we can make up our minds always to seek The Fault in ourselves then we shall see that we are
Making progress not only in farther off things but also in matters of external life those who have some experience in this field will always be able to testify that by accepting the blame for their own non-success they have found something that makes precisely their external life easy and
Bearable we shall get on much more easily with our environment when we can truly grasp this fact we shall rise above such grumbling and hypochondria above complaining and lamenting and pursue our way more calmly for we should reflect that in every True Modern initiation he who gives advice is under
The strictest obligation not to penetrate into to the innermost sanctuary of the Soul with regard to this most inward part of the Soul therefore we have from the start to undertake something for ourselves and we should not complain that we are perhaps not getting the right advice the advice may be right and
Yet the results may not be satisfactory if we fail to make the resolve I have indicated this Equanimity this calmness once we have made our choice and the choice should come only from a serious resolve is a good ground for meditation concerned with thoughts and feelings in everything founded on
Rosicrucianism an important point is that in meditation and concentration we are always directed not to Dogma but to the universally human the deviation of which we spoke yesterday takes its start from subject matter that is first given to the aspirant for holding in his mind but what if this subject matter had
First to be tested by occult cognition what if it were not in any way firmly established in advance we must take our stand on rosac crusan principles one of which is that we are not in a position to decide about anything which is supported only by external documents for example the
Accounts of what took place as the event of golgatha we must come to know these things first by the occult path we may not assume them beforehand hence we should start from the universally human from that which can be justified by Every Soul a glance into the great world marveling at
The revelation of light in the sun feeling that what our eyes see of light is only the external veil of the light its external Revelation or as is said in Christian esotericism the glory of light and then yielding oneself up to the thought that behind the external sensible light something quite different
Is hidden all this is fundamentally human to think of to Gaze on the light spread out through Infinite Space and then clearly to feel that in this infinitely extended element of the light something spiritual must live something which weaves this web of light in space to concentrate upon these thoughts to
Live in them here we have something universally human presented not through Dogma but through Universal feeling or again to perceive the warmth of nature to feel how through the universe along with the warmth something moves in which there is Spirit then out of certain relationships in our own organism with a feeling of
Love to concentrate on the thought of how warmth can can exist spiritually how it lives pulsing through the world then to sink oneself into what we can learn from intuitions given to us by modern occult teaching then to take counsel with those who know something in this realm as to
Concentrating in the right way upon World thoughts Cosmic thoughts and further the ennobling the cleansing of moral perceptions whereby we come to understand that what we feel to be moral is reality so we rise above the Prejudice that these moral feelings are something transitory we realize that they live on
Are stamped into us as moral realities we learn to feel the responsibility of being placed in the world as conscious beings together with our moral feelings all esoteric life is fundamentally directed toward universally human experiences of this kind I will now describe how far we can go through exercises which take their start
In this way from Human Nature if only we devote ourselves to a clear-sighted examination of our own human nature from this beginning we come to a loosening of the connection between the physical body and the etheric body and to a new kind of knowledge we give birth as it were to a
Second man within ourselves so that we are no longer so firmly connected with the physical body as before and in the finest moments of life we feel the etheric and astral bodies as though enclosed in an external sheath and thereby know ourselves to be free from the instrument of the physical
Body that is what we attain we shall then be led to see our physical body in its true being and to recognize how it affects us when we are within it we become aware of the whole working of the physical body upon us only when we
Have in a certain sense come out of it like the snake which after casting its skin can look upon the skin from outside though feeling it as a part of itself through the first stages of initiation we learn in like manner to feel ourselves free from the physical
Body and learn to recognize it at this moment quite special feelings will steal over us which may be described as follows parenthesis there are so many different experiences along the path of initiation that it has not yet been possible to describe them all in title knowledge of the higher worlds you will
Find much on the subject but there is a great deal more close parenthesis the first Experience open to nearly everyone who turns from ordinary life to pursue The Path of Knowledge leads us to say in accordance with our feeling quote this physical body as it
Is as it appears to me has not been formed by myself most certainly I have not made this physical body through which I have been brought to be what I am in the world without this body the ego which I now regard as my great ideal would not
Have Arisen within me I have become what I am only through having kept my physical body riveted upon me close quote at first all this gives rise to something like resentment bitterness against the cosmic Powers it is easy to say quote I will not cherish this resentment close quote
But when there arises before us in Melancholy Majesty a picture of what we have become through being bound up with the physical body the effect is overwhelming we feel something like bitter hatred for the Cosmic powers on this account but now our occult training must be so far Advanced that we overcome this
Hatred and on a higher level can say with our whole being with our individuality which has already come down into repeated incarnations that we ourselves are responsible for what our physical body has become when we have mastered the bitterness we experience the perception already often described quote now I know
I am that very thing which appears there as the changed form of my physical being that I am myself but because my physical being was crushing me to death I knew nothing of it close quote we stand here before the significant meeting with the guardian of
The threshold but if we come so far if through the strenuousness of our exercises we experience what has just been said then from out of what is common to human nature we recognize that we are as we are in our present form as the result of preceding incarnations but we also recognize that
We can experience the deepest pain and must work our way out Beyond this pain to the overcoming of our present existence and for every man who is sufficiently far Advanced and has experienced these feelings in all their intensity who has looked upon the guardian of the threshold there arises
Of necessity an imaginative picture a picture not painted by constraint as in jesuitism from passages in the Bible but a picture that each man experiences through having felt in a general human sense what he is through these experiences he will quite naturally come to know the picture of the Divine idea
Man who like us lived in a physical body and who like us in this physical body felt all that a physical body can bring about the Temptation and the picture of it as presented to us in the synoptic gospels the leading of Christ Jesus to the mountain the promise of all external
Realities the desire to cling to these outer realities the temptation to remain attached to matter in short the temptation to remain with the guardian of the threshold and not to pass beyond him appears to us in the great imaginative picture of Christ Jesus standing on the mountain with a tempter
Beside him a picture that would have Arisen before us even if we had never heard of the gospels and then we know that he who wrote the story of the Temptation depicted his own experience of seeing in the spirit Christ Jesus and the tempter then we know it is true in the
Spirit that the writer of the Gospel has described something that we ourselves can experience even if we knew nothing of the gospels thus we shall be led to a picture which is similar to the picture in the gospels we gain for ourselves what stands in the gospels nothing is forced Upon Us
Everything is drawn forth from the depths of our own nature we proceed from the universally human and bring forth the gospels aresh through our occult life we feel ourselves at one with the writers of the gospels then there arises within us another feeling a Next Step along the
Occult path we feel how the tempter is grown into a powerful being who is behind all the phenomena of the world yes we learn indeed to know the tempter but by degrees we learn in a certain way to Value him we learn to say quote the
World spread out before us whether it be Maya or something else has its right to exist it has revealed something to me close quote then comes a second feeling a quite definite one for every person who fulfills the conditions of a rosarian initiation the feeling arises quote we
Belong to the spirit who lives in all things and with whom we have to reckon we cannot in the least comprehend the spirit if we do not surrender ourselves to it close quote then fear comes over us we experience fear such as every real knower must undergo a feeling for the
Greatness of the cosmic Spirit who pervades the world we are in the presence of this greatness and we feel our own powerlessness we feel also what we might have become in the course of the Earth’s history or in that of the cosmos we feel our own impotent existence so far
Removed from Divine existence we feel fear in face of the ideal we must come to resemble and of the magnitude of the effort which should lead us to that ideal as through esotericism we must feel the whole magnitude of the effort so must we feel this fear as a struggle
We take upon on ourselves are wrestling with the spirit of the cosmos when we feel our own littleness and the necessary struggle laid upon us to attain our ideal to become one with that which works and weaves in the world when we experience this with fear then
Only may we lay fear aside and betake ourselves to the path to the paths which lead us to our ideal and if we feel this completely and rightly there comes before us yet another significant imagination if we had never read a gospel if mankind had never had such an
External book a spiritual picture would rise before our cloan sight we are LED out into the Solitude which stands clearly before the inner eye ey and we are brought before the picture of the ideal man who in a human body experienced all the immeasurable fears and anguish that we
Ourselves can taste in this moment the picture of Christ in Gethsemane stands before us as he experienced fear to an overwhelmingly intensified degree the fear that we ourselves must feel on the path of initiation the fear that rung from his brow the bloody sweat that is the picture we encounter at a certain
Point on our occult path independently of all external documents so we have standing before us like two great pillars on the occult path the story of the Temptation experienced spiritually and the scene on the Mount of Olives experienced spiritually and then we understand the words watch and pray and live in prayer
So that you will never be tempted to remain standing at any one point but will continually stride forward this means that first of all we experience the gospel we experience everything so that we could write it down just as the writers of the gospels have described it for we do not need to
Take these two pictures from The Gospel we can take them out of our own inner Consciousness we can bring them forth out of the holy of holies of the Soul no teacher is needed to come and say quote you must place before yourself in imagination the Temptation and the
Scene on the Mount of Olives close quote we need only bring before ourselves that which can be developed in our Consciousness through meditation purification of our common human feelings and so on then without constraint from anyone we call forth the imaginations which are contained in the gospels in the Jesuit spiritual movement
The pupil had the gospels given to him first and afterward he experienced what the gospels describe the way we have indicated today shows that when a man has taken the path of the spiritual life he experiences occultly that which is connected with his own life and thereby can experience
Through himself the pictures the imaginations of the gospels the end of lecture two you are listening to Rudolf Steiner audio.com as well well you can hear these podcasts at Rudolf steiner.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org in America and rol Steiner press.com in England which are
The sole Publishers of Steiner into English and have given me permission to do these recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works volume 131 by Rudolph Steiner 11 lectures entitled from Jesus to Christ translated by Charles Davy this is lecture three given on October 7th
1911 we must now turn our attention to the relation between ordinary religious Consciousness and the knowledge that can be gained through higher clervoyant Powers concerning the higher worlds in general and in particular this is especially relevant to our theme concerning the relation of Christ Jesus to these higher
Worlds it will be clear to you all that the evolution of Christianity so far has been such that most persons have not been able to attain through their own clarant knowledge to the mysteries of the Christ event it must be granted that Christianity has entered into the hearts
Of countless human beings and to a certain degree its essential Nature has been recognized by countless Souls but these hearts and souls have not been able to look up up to the higher worlds and so to receive Clairvoyant vision of what really took place in human evolution through the
Mystery of golgatha and everything connected with it hence the knowledge that can be gained through clervoyant Consciousness itself or through a person having accepted on one or other ground the communications of the Seer concerning the mysteries of Christianity must be carefully distinguished from the religious inclination to Christ and the
Intellectual leanings toward him of a person who knows nothing of clervoyant Investigation now you will all agree that during the centuries since the mystery of golgatha there have been men of all degrees of intellectual culture who have accepted the mysteries of Christianity in a deep inner way and
From what has been said lately in various lectures you will have felt that this is quite natural for as has been emphasized again and again it is only in the 20th century that a renewal of the Christ event will take place for this is when a certain general heightening of
Human powers of cognition begins it brings with it the possibility that in the course of the next 3,000 years and without special Clairvoyant preparation more and more persons will be able to attain a direct vision of Christ Jesus this has never happened before until now there have been only two or
Later on today we may perhaps discover three sources of knowledge concerning the Christian mysteries for persons who could not rise by training to Clairvoyant observation One Source was the gospels and all that comes from the communications in the gospels or in the traditions connected with them the second source of knowledge
Arose because there have always been Clairvoyant individuals who could see into the higher worlds and through their own knowledge brought down the facts of the Christ event other persons followed these individuals receiving from them a quote NeverEnding gospel close quote which could continually come into the world through those who were
Clairvoyant these two seem at first to be the only two sources in the evolution of Christian Humanity up to the present time and now from the 20th century onward a third begins it arises because for more and more people an extension and enhancement of their cognitional powers not brought about through meditation concentration
And other exercises will occur as we have often said more more and more persons will be able to renew for themselves the experience of Paul on the road to Damascus hence we can say of the ensuing period that it will provide a direct means of perceiving the significance and the being of Christ
Jesus now the first question that will naturally occur to you is this what is the essential difference between The Clairvoyant vision of Christ which has always been possible as a result of the esoteric development described yesterday and the vision of Christ which will come to people without esoteric
Development in the next 3,000 years beginning from our 20th century there is certainly an important difference and it would be false to believe that what the Seer through his Clairvoyant development sees today in the higher worlds concerning the Christ event and what has been seen clairvoyantly concerning the Christ
Event since the mystery of golgatha is exactly the same as the vision which will come to an Ever greater and greater number of people these are two quite different things as to how far they differ we must ask Clairvoyant research how it is that from the 20th century onward Christ
Jesus will enter more and more into the ordinary consciousness of men the reason is as follows just as as on the physical plane in Palestine at the beginning of our era an event occurred in which the most important part was taken by Christ himself an event which has its
Significance for the whole of humanity so in the course of the 20th century toward the end of the 20th century a significant event will again take place not in the physical world but in the world we usually call the world of the etheric and this event will have as
Fundamental a significance for the evolution of humanity as the event of Palestine had at the beginning of our era just as we must say that for Christ himself the event of golgatha had a significance that with this very event a God died a god overcame death we will
Speak later concerning the way this is to be understood the deed had not happened before and it is an accomplish fact which will not happen again so an event of profound significance will take place in the etheric world and the occurrence of this event an event connected with the Christ
Himself will make it possible for men to learn to see the Christ to look upon him what is this event it consists in the fact that a certain office in the cosmos connected with the evolution of humanity in the 20 Century passes over in a heightened form to the
Christ occult Clairvoyant research tells us that in our Epoch Christ becomes the Lord of karma for human evolution this event marks the beginning of something that we find intimated also in the New Testament he will come again to separate or to bring about the crisis for the living and the dead footnote acts
10:42 to testify that he is the one ordained by God to be judged of the living and the Dead 2 Timothy 4:1 Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and to footnote only according to occult research this is not to be understood as
Though it were a single event for all time which takes place on the physical plane it is connected with the whole future evolution of humanity and whereas Christianity and Christian Evolution were hitherto a kind of preparation we now have the significant fact that Christ becomes the Lord of
Karma so that in the future it will rest with him to decide what our karmic account is how our credit and debit in life are related this has been common knowledge in Western ult ISM for many centuries and is denied by no occultist who knows these things but recently it has been verified
Again with the utmost Care by every means available to occult research we will now enter more exactly into these matters ask all those who know something of the truth about these things and you will find everywhere one fact confirmed but a fact which only at this present
Stage in the develop M of our movement could be made known everything which can make our minds receptive towards such a fact had first to be gathered together you can find in occult literature information concerning these matters if you wish to search for it however I shall take no account of
The literature I shall only bring forward the corresponding facts when certain conditions are described including those those I have dealt with myself a picture has to be given of the world a man enters on passing through the gate of death now there are a great many men especially those who have gone through
The development of Western Civilization these things are not the same for all peoples who experience a quite definite event in the moment following the separation of the etheric body after death we know that on passing through the gate of death we separate ourselves from the physical body the individual is at first still
Connected for a time with his etheric body but afterward he separates his astral body and also his ego from the etheric body we know that he takes with him an extract of his etheric body we know also that the main part of the etheric body goes another way generally it becomes
Part of the cosmic ether either dissolving completely this happens only under under imperfect conditions or continuing to work on as an enduring active form when the individual has stripped off his etheric body he passes over into the kamaloka region for the period of purification in the so
World before this however he under goes a quite special experience which has not previously been mentioned because as I said the time was not right for it now however these things will be fully accepted by all who are qualified to judge them before entering kamaloka the individual experiences a meeting with a
Quite definite being who presents him with his karmic account and this being who stood there as a kind of bookkeeper for the karmic Powers had for many men the form of Moses hence the medieval formula which originated in Rosicrucianism Moses presents man in the hour of death the phrase is not quite
Accurate but that is immaterial here Moses presents man in the hour of his death with the record of his sins and at the same time points to the quote Stern law close quote thus the man can recognize how he has departed from this Stern law which he ought to have
Followed in the course of our time and this is the significant point this office passes over to Christ Jesus and man will ever more and more meet Christ Jesus as his judge his karmic judge that is the super sensible event just as on the physical plane at
The beginning of our era the event of Palestine took place so in our time the office of karmic judge passes over to Christ Jesus in the higher world next to our own this event Works into the physical world World on the physical plane in such a way that men will develop toward
It the feeling that by all their actions they will be causing something for which they will be accountable to the Judgment of Christ this feeling now appearing quite naturally in the course of human development will be transformed so that it permeates the soul with a light which
Little by little will shine out from the individual himself and will illuminate the form of Christ in the etheric world and the more this feeling is developed a feeling that will have stronger significance than the abstract conscience the more will the etheric form of Christ be visible in the coming
Centuries we shall have to characterize this fact more exactly in the next few days and we shall then see that a quite new event has come to pass an event which works into the Christ development of of humanity with regard to the evolution of Christianity on the physical plane let
Us now ask whether for the non-clairvoyant Consciousness there was not also a third way over against the two already given such a third way was in fact always there for all Christian Evolution it had to be there the objective evolution of humanity is not directed in accordance with the opinions of men but
In ordance with objective facts concerning Christ Jesus there have been many opinions in the course of the centuries or the councils and church assemblies and theologians would not have disputed so much among themselves and in no period perhaps have so many people held various views of the Christ as in our
Own facts however are not determined by human opinions but by by the forces actually present in human evolution these facts could be recognized by many more people simply through noticing what the gospels have to say if people had the patience and perseverance to look at things really
Without prejudice and if they were not too quick and biased in considering the objective facts most people however do not want to form a picture of Christ according to the facts but when that suits their own likings and represents their own ideal and it must be said that in a
Certain respect theosophists of all shades of opinion do this very thing today when for example certain highly developed individuals who have attained an advanced stage of human evolution are spoken of in theosophical literature as Masters or adepts this is a fact that cannot be disputed by anyone who knows
The facts it applies to individuals who have had many incarnations through exercises and holy life they have pressed on in advance of mankind and have acquired Powers which the rest of humanity will acquire only in the future it is natural and right that a student of theosophy who has acquired
Some knowledge concerning the Masters the adepts should feel the highest respect for such lofty individuals if we go on to contemplate so Sublime a life as that of Buddha we must agree that Buddha should be looked on as one of the highest adeps and we shall then be able to gain
Through our minds and feelings an inward relationship to such a person now because the theosophist approaches the figure of Christ Jesus on the ground of this theosophical knowledge and feeling he will naturally feel a certain need and a very comprehensible need to connect with his Christ Jesus the same
Concept he has formed of a master of an Adept perhaps of Buddha and he may be impelled to say quote Jesus of Nazareth must be thought of as a greater Dept close quote this preconceived opinion would turn upside down any knowledge of the real nature of
Christ and it would be no more than a preconceived opinion only prejudice although an understandable one how shall someone who has won the deepest most intimate relationship to the Christ not place the bearer of the Christ being in the same rank as the master the Adept or the Buddha why
Should he not this must seem to us quite comprehensible perhaps to such a person it would seem like a depreciation of Jesus of Nazareth if we were not to do so but by applying this concept to Jesus of Nazareth we are LED away from directing our thought according to the
Facts at least as these facts have found their way to us through tradition anyone who examines without bias the traditional records disregarding all opinions offered by church councils and fathers and so on will not fail to recognize one fact Jesus of Nazareth cannot be called an adept
Where in Tradition do we find anything which allows us to apply to Jesus of Nazareth the concept of the Adept as we have it in theosophical teaching in the first periods of Christianity one thing was emphasized that Jesus of Nazareth was a man like any other a weak man like any
Other and those who uphold the saying Jesus was truly man close quote un understand most nearly who it was that came into the world thus if we pay proper heed to the tradition no idea of adept is to be found there and if you remember all that has
Been said in past lectures concerning the development of Jesus of Nazareth the history of the Jesus child in whom up to his 12th years zarathustra lived and the history of the other Jesus child in whom Zara thra then lived up to his 30th here you will certainly say here we have to
Do with a special man a man for whose existence the world’s history the world’s Evolution made the greatest preparations evident from the fact that two human bodies were formed and in one of them up to the 12th year and in the other from the 12th to the 30th year the zarathustra individuality
Dwelt since these two Jesus Figures were such significant individualities Jesus of Nazareth certainly stands high but not in the same way as an Adept does for the Adept goes forward continuously from Incarnation to Incarnation and apart from this in the 30th year when the Christ individuality enters into the body of
Jesus of Nazareth this very Jesus of Nazareth forsakes his body and from the moment of the bap APM by John even if we do not now speak of the Christ we have to do with a human being who must be designated in the truest sense of the
Word as a mere man save that he is the bearer of the Christ but we must distinguish between the bearer of the Christ and the Christ himself once the body which was to be the bearer of the Christ had been forsaken by the zarathustra individuality there there dwelt in it no
Human individuality who had attained any specially High development the stage of development shown by Jesus of Nazareth sprang from the fact that the zarathustra individuality dwelt in him as we know however this human nature was forsaken by the zarathustra individuality thus it was that this human nature directly the Christ
Individuality had taken possession of it brought against him all that otherwise comes forth from Human Nature the tempter that is why the Christ could go through the extremities of Despair and sorrow as shown to us in the happenings on the Mount of Olives anyone who leaves out of account
These essential points cannot come to a real knowledge of the being of the Christ the Christ bearer was truly man not an adept recognition of this fact will open for us a first glimpse into the whole nature of the events of golgatha the events of Palestine if we were to look upon Christ
Jesus simply as a high Adept we should have to place him in a line with other Adept Natures some people may perhaps tell us that we do not do this because from the very outset owing to some preconceived idea we want to place Christ Jesus beyond all other adeps as a still higher
Adept those who might say this are not aware of what we have to impart as the results of occult research in our time the question is not in the very least whether The Prestige of other adepts would be impaired within the world conception to which we must adhere according to the
Occult results of the present time we know just as well as others that there EX existed as a contemporary of Christ Jesus another significant individuality whom we regard as a true Adept and unless we go into exact details it is even difficult for us to distinguish inwardly this human being
From Christ Jesus for he really appears quite like him when for instance we hear that this contemporary of Christ Jesus was announced before his birth by a heavenly vision it reminds us of the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus as told in the gospels when we hear that he was not
Designated merely as of human birth but as a son of the Gods this reminds us again of the beginning of the gospels of Matthew and Luke when we hear that the birth of this individuality took his mother by surprise so that she was overwhelmed we are reminded of the birth of Jesus of
Nazareth and of the events in Bethlehem As Told in the Gospels when we hear that the individuality grew up and surprised all around him by his wise answers to the questions from the priests it reminds us of the scene of the 12-year-old Jesus in the temple when we are told that this
Individuality came to Rome and met there the funeral procession of a young girl that the procession was brought to a halt and that he awakened The Dead We Are reminded of an Awakening from the dead in the Gospel of Luke and if we wish to speak of Miracles numberless Miracles are recorded in
Connection with this individuality who was a contemporary of Christ Jesus indeed the similarity goes so far that after the death of this individuality he is said to have appeared to men as Christ Jesus appeared after his death to the disciples and when from the Christian side all possible reasons are brought
Forward either to depreciate this being or to to deny altogether his historical existence this is no less ingenious than what is said against the historical existence of Christ Jesus himself the individuality in question is appolloni of Tiana and of him we speak as a really high
Adept if we now ask about the essential difference between the Christ Jesus event and the appollonia event we must be clear what the important point in the appollonia event is apollonius of tyana is an individuality who went through many incarnations he won for himself High powers and reached a certain climax in
His Incarnation at the beginning of our era hence the individual we are considering is he who lived in the body of appollonia of tyana and had therein his Earthly field of action it is with him that we are concerned now we know that a human individuality takes part in the building
Up of his Earthly body hence we must say the body of this individuality was built up by him to a certain form for his particular use this we cannot say of Christ Jesus in the 30th year of Jesus of Nazareth the Christ came into the physical body etheric body and astral
Body of Jesus hence he had not himself built up this body from childhood the relationship between the Christ individuality and this body is quite different from that between the appollonia individuality and his body when in the spirit we turn our gaze to appolloni of tyana we say quote it is
The concern of this individuality and his concern plays itself out as the life of appollonia of Tiana close quote if we want to represent in a diagram a life course of this kind we can do it like this and there’s a diagram Let The Continuous individuality
Be shown by the horizontal line then we have in a a first incarnation in b a life between death and a new birth in C a second Incarnation followed Again by D A Life between death and a new birth then a third Incarnation e and so on that which passes through all these
Incarnations the human individuality is like a thread of human life independent of the sheathes of the astral body etheric body and physical body and also between death and a new birth independent of those parts of the etheric body and astral body which remain behind thus the life thread is always
Separated from the external Cosmos if we want to represent the nature of the Christ’s life we must draw it otherwise when we consider the preceding incarnations of Jesus of Nazareth the Christ life certainly develops in a certain way but when we draw the life thread we have to show that in the 30th
Year of the life of Jesus of Nazareth the individuality forsakes this body so that from now onward we have only the sheaths of physical body etheric body and astral body body the forces which the individuality develops however are not in the external sheaths they lie in the Life thread of
The ego which goes from Incarnation to Incarnation thus the forces which belonged to the zarathustra individuality and were present in the body of Jesus of Nazareth preparing that body pass out with the zarathustra individuality hence the sheaths which remain are a normal human organism not in any sense the organism of an
Adapt but the organism of a simple man a weak man and now the objective event occurs whereas in other cases the life thread simply goes farther as in A and B it now turns along a side path C this is a second diagram for through the baptism
By John in the Jordan the Christ being entered into the three-fold organism in this organism the Christ being lived from the baptism until the 33rd year until the event of golgatha as we have often described whose concern then is the Life of Christ Jesus from the 30th to the
33rd year it is not the concern of the individuality who went from Incarnation to Incarnation but of that individuality who from out of the cosmos entered into the body of Jesus of Nazareth the concern of an individuality a being who is never before connected with the Earth who from out of the
Universe connected himself with a human body in this sense the event which took place between the 30th and 33rd years of the Life of Christ Jesus between the John baptism and the Mystery of golgatha are those of the Divine being Christ not of a man hence this event was not a concern
Of the Earth but a concerned of the super sensible worlds for it had nothing to do with a man as a sign of this that it had to do with no man the human being who had dwelt in this body up to the 30th year forsook it these happenings have originally
Something to do with events that took place before such a life thread as our human one had passed into a physical human organization we must go back to the ancient Luman time into the age wherein Human individualities coming from Divine Heights incarnated for the first time in
Earthly bodies back to the event which is indicated for us in the Old Testament as the Temptation through the serpent this event is of a very remarkable kind from its outcome all men suffer as long as they are subject to Incarnation for if this event had not happened the whole evolution of mankind
And the Earth would have been different and men would have passed in a much more perfect condition from Incarnation to Incarnation through this event however they became more closely entangled in matter allegorically designated as the fall of Man but it was the fall that first called man to his present
Individuality so that as he goes as an individuality from Incarnation to Incarnation he is not responsible for the fall we know that the luciferic spirits were responsible for the fall hence we must say that before Man became man in the Earthly sense there occurred the Divine super sensible event
By which a deeper entanglement in matter was laid upon him through this event man has indeed attained to the power of love and to freedom but through it something was laid upon him that he could not lay upon himself by his own power this becoming entangled in matter
Was not a human act but a deed of the Gods which happened before men could cooperate in their own fate it is something which the higher powers of progressive Evolution arranged with the luciferic Powers we shall have to go into all these events and characterize them more
Exactly today we will place only the chief point before our minds what happened at that time needed a counter Poise the prehuman event the fall of Man needed a counterpoise but this again was a concern not of human beings but of the Gods among themselves and we shall see that this
Action had to take its course as deeply in matter as the first action had taken place above it the God had to descend as deeply into matter as he had allowed man to sink into matter let this fact work upon you with its full weight then you will understand that
This incarnation of the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth was something that concerned Christ himself and what part was man called upon to take in it first of all as spectator to see how the God compensates for the fall how he provides the compensating act it would not have been possible to
Do this within the personality of an Adept for an Adept is one who by his own efforts has worked his way out of the Fall it was possible only in a personality who was truly man who as man did not surpass other men this personality had surpassed them
Before he was 30 years of age but no longer through that which then took place a Divine event was accomplished in the evolution of mankind just as had been done at the beginning of human evolution in the lorean time and men were partakers in a transaction which had taken place among
Gods men could look upon it because the gods had to make use of the world of the physical plane in order to let their transaction play itself out to the end hence it is much better to say quote Christ offered to the gods the atonement which he could offer only in a
Physical human body close quote then to use any other form of words man was a spectator of a Divine occasion through this atonement something had happened for human nature men simply experienced it in the course of their development thereby the Third Way was opened besides the two already
Indicated men who have gone deeply into the nature of Christianity have often pointed out these three ways from among the large number of those who could be named I will mention only two who have given eminent testimony to the fact that Christ who from the 20th century onward
Will be seen through the more highly developed faculties can be recognized felt experienced through feelings which were not possible in the same form before the event of golgatha there is for example a man who in his whole cast of mind can be looked upon as a sharp opponent of what we have
Characterized as jesuitism blae Pascal a great figure in spiritual history standing forth as one who has set aside all that had Arisen to the detriment of the old churches but has also absorbed nothing of modern rationalism as always with great minds he really remained alone with his thoughts but what is the fundamental
Feature of his thinking at the beginning of the modern period when we look into the matter we see from the writings he left behind particularly from his inspiring PES a book accessible to anyone how he perceived and felt what man must have become if the Christ event had not taken place in the
World in the secrecy of his soul Pascal set himself the question what would have become of man if no Christ had entered into human evolution and he replied we can feel that in his soul man encounters two dangers one danger is that he should recognize God as identical with his own being
Knowledge of God in knowledge of man wheither does this lead when it arises so that man recognizes himself as God it leads to Pride haughtiness arrogance and man destroys his best powers because he hardens them in haughtiness and pride this is a knowledge of God that would always have been possible even if
No Christ had come even if the Christ event had not worked as an Impulse in the hearts of all men human beings would always have been able to recognize God but they would have become proud through this Consciousness in their own breasts or there might be human beings
Who hide themselves from the knowledge of God who want to know nothing about God their gaze falls on something else it falls on human powerlessness on human misery and then of necessity the there follows human despair that would have been the other danger the danger of those who had put
Away from them the knowledge of God only these two ways said Pascal are possible pride and arrogance or despair then the Christ event entered into human evolution and worked so that every man received a power which not only enabled him to experience God but the very God who would become like unto
Men who had lived with men that is the sole remedy for Pride when we turn our gaze upon The God Who bowed himself to the Cross when the soul looks to Christ bowing himself to death on the cross and that too is the only healing for
Despair for this is not a humility that makes a man weak but a humility that gives healing strength which transcends despair as the mediat between pride and despair there Dawns in the human soul the helper the Savior as Pascal understood him this can be felt by every man even without
Clairvoyance this is the preparation for the Christ who from the 20th century onward will be visible for all men who as the Healer for pride and despair will arise in every human breast but earlier could not be felt in the same way the second witness I would summon
From the long line of men who have this feeling a feeling that every Christian can make his own is one already mentioned in many other connections Vladimir salv salv also points to two powers in human nature between which the personal Christ must stand as a mediator there is a duality he says for
Which the human soul Longs immortality and wisdom or moral perfection but neither belongs to human nature from the start human nature shares the characteristic of all natures and nature leads not to immortality but to death in beautiful meditations this great thinker of modern times works out how external science shows that death
Extends over everything if we look at external nature our knowledge replies death is but within us lives the longing for immortality why because of our longing for Perfection we have only to glance into the human soul to see that a longing for Perfection lives in us just as truly
Says saloia as the red rose is endowed with red color so truly is the human soul endowed with a longing for Perfection and to strive after perfection without longing for immortality he continues is to give the lie to existence it would be meaningless if the soul were
To end with death as all natural being ends yet all natural existence tells us death is hence the human soul is under the necessity of going Beyond natural existence and seeking the answer elsewhere proceeding from this thought saloia says look at the natural scientists what answer do they give when
They wish to teach the connection of the human soul with nature a mechanical natural order they say prevails and man is part of it and what do the philosophers answer that the spiritual meaning an empty abstract thought World which pervades all the facts of nature is to be recognized philosophically neither of these
Statements is an answer for a man who is conscious of himself and asks from out of his Consciousness what is perfection if he is conscious that he has a longing for Perfection a longing for the life of truth if he asks what power can satisfy this longing there opens for him an
Outlook into a realm the realm of Grace over and above nature which at first stands before the soul as a riddle and unless the answer to it can be found the soul is constrained to regard itself as a false falsehood no philosophy no natural science can connect the realm of Grace with
Existence for Natural Forces work mechanically and thought Powers have only thought reality but what is it that is able with full reality to unite the soul with nature he who is the personal Christ working in the world and only the living Christ not one that is merely thought of can give the
Answer anything that works merely in the soul leaves the soul alone for the soul cannot of itself give birth to the kingdom of Grace that which transcends nature which like nature itself stands there as a real fact the personal historic Christ he it is who gives not an intellectual answer but a real
Answer and now saloia comes to the most complete the most fully spiritual answer that can can be given at the end of the period now closing before the doors open to that which has so often been intimated to you the vision of Christ which will have its beginning in the 20th
Century in the light of these facts a name can be given to the Consciousness which Pascal and saloia have so memorably described we can call it Faith so too it has been named by others with the concept of faith we can come from two directions into a strange conflict regarding the human
Soul go through the evolution of the concept of faith and see what the critics have said about it today men are so far Advanced that they say faith must be guided by knowledge and a faith not supported by knowledge must be put aside Faith must be dethroned as it were and replaced by
Knowledge in the Middle Ages the things of the high worlds were apprehended by faith and Faith was held to be justified on its own account the fundamental principle of protestantism also is that Faith alongside knowledge is to be looked upon as Justified faith is something which Goes
Forth from the human soul and alongside of it is the knowledge which ought to be common to all it is interesting to see how Kant whom many consider a great philosopher did not get Beyond this concept of Faith his idea is that what a man should attain concerning such matters as God
Immortality and so forth are to shine in from quite other regions but only through a moral faith not through knowledge the highest development of the concept of faith comes with saloia who stands before the closed door as the most significant thinker of his time pointing already to the modern
World for saloia knows a faith quite different from all previous concepts of it wheither has the prevailing concept of Faith LED Humanity it has brought Humanity to the atheistic materialistic demand for mere knowledge of the external World in line with Lutheran and Conan ideas or in the
Sense of the monistic philosophy of the 19th century to the demand for the knowledge which boasts of knowled and considers Faith as something that the human soul had framed for itself out of its necessary weakness up to a certain time in the past the concept of faith has finally
Come to this because Faith was regarded as merely subjective in the preceding centuries Faith had been demanded as a necessity in the 19 century faith is attacked just because it finds itself in opposition to the UN universally valid knowledge which should stem from the human soul and then
Comes a philosopher who recognizes and prizes the concept faith in order to attain a relationship to Christ that had not previously been possible he sees this faith in so far as it relates to Christ as an act of necessity of inner Duty for with salov if the question is
Not quote to believe or not to believe close quote faith is for him a necessity in itself his view is that we have a duty to Believe In Christ for otherwise we paralyze ourselves and give the lie to our existence as the crystal form emerges in a mineral substance so does faith arise
In the human soul as something natural to itself hence the soul must say quote if I recognize the truth and not a lie about myself then in my own soul I must realize faith faith is a duty laid upon me but I cannot do otherwise than come to it
Through my own free act close quote and therein saloia sees the distinctive Mark of the Christ deed that faith is both a necessity and at the same time a morally free act it is as though it were said to the soul you can do nothing else if you
Do not wish to extinguish the self within you you must acquire faith for yourself but it must be by your own free act and like Pascal saloia brings that which the soul experiences in order not to feel itself a lie into connection with a historic Christ Jesus as he
Entered into human evolution through the events in Palestine because of this saloia says if Christ had not entered into human evolution so that he has to be thought of as the historic Christ if he had not brought it about that the soul perceives the inwardly free act as much as the lawful necessity
Of Faith the human soul in our postchristian times would feel itself bound to extinguish itself and to say not I am but I am not that according to this philosopher would have been the course of evolution in postchristian times an inner Consciousness would have permeated the human soul with the quote
I am not close quote directly the soul pulls itself together to the point of attributing real existence to itself it cannot do otherwise than turn back to the historic Christ Jesus here we have for exoteric Thought also a step forward along the path of faith in establishing the Third Way
Through the message of the gospels a person not able to look into the spiritual world can come to recognition of Christ through that which the consciousness of the Seer can impart to him he can likewise come to a recognition of the Christ but there was also a third way
The way of self- knowledge and as the witness cited together with thousands and thousands of other human beings can testify from their own experience it leads to a recognition that self- knowledge in post-christian time is impossible without placing Christ Jesus by the side of man and a corresponding recognition that the soul
Must either deny itself or if it Wills to affirm itself it must at the same time affirm Christ Jesus why this was not so in pre-christian times will be shown in the next few days the end of lecture three you are listening to Rudolf Steiner audio.com as well you can hear
These podcasts at Rudolf steiner.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org in America and rudol Steiner press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner into English and have given me permission to do these recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of
Collected works volume 131 by Rudolph Steiner entitled from Jesus to Christ 11 lectures translated by Charles Davy this is lecture 4 given on October 8th 1911 we can perhaps sum up the outcome of the last lecture in the following way from the mystery of golgatha until
The coming of the epoch at whose portal we now stand a man could attain by various exoteric means to an experience of the Christ impulse an experience preceding any actual initiation one of these exoteric ways is through the gospels through the New Testament the contents of the gospels
When they are received into our souls and permitted to work upon us can in fact bring about for each one of us an inner experience and this inner experience May indeed be called the Christ experience the second way for the exoteric was described as that of accepting
What an esotericist he who in a certain sense has been initiated could make known from the spiritual Worlds by this way also the man who as yet was standing before the Gate of initiation could come to the Christ event not through the traditional gospels but through continuous Revelations from the spiritual
Worlds yesterday too we spoke of a third way that of the inner deepening of heart and soul and we pointed out that this way must arise in the soul from feelings but with a Proviso that if a man feels within him only the Divine spark he may be driven to pride and
Arrogance on the other hand if he is not conscious of his connection with the Divine he can be driven to despair we have seen how in fact the swaying between despair on the one hand and pride and arrogance on the other if at the same time time a man fixes his
Gaze upon the events in Palestine can lead on to the birth of the Christ event within him it was then pointed out that within the next 3,000 years beginning from our own Epoch everything concerning the evolution of humanity will change we also indicated the significant event which follows from the mystery of
Golgatha but will be seen only in the super sensible worlds we we pointed out that the capacities of human beings will be enhanced and that from our own Epoch onward a sufficiently large number of persons will grow up able to look on the Christ that which has hitherto at a
Justified place in the world as faith will be replaced by what may be called the vision of Christ now it will be our task to show further how from the US ual way of experiencing Christ as an experience of the heart the path opens out quite naturally to what may be called the
Christian initiation in the next few days we shall speak more exactly about the gradual building up of the Christian initiation and we shall also need to characterize more closely the nature of the Christ event thus a picture of the Christian initiation and of the Christ event from
The baptism by John to the consummation of the mystery of golgatha should come before our souls if you keep this summary in mind the following quite Justified question may arise what is the relation between external Christianity Christian Evolution as it appears in world history and the Christ event itself to everyone who stands
Consciously in the present who has gone through no special soul experience of a mystical kind or has perhaps the preliminary stages of esotericism behind him it must appear strange that in every human being a quite definite kind of Soul experience should be so dependent upon an historical fact the events in Palestine
On golgatha and that previously for these human Souls something was not possible which afterward through these events became possible namely the inner Christ experience the leaders of the first Christians and also the first Christians generally had a very distinct consciousness of these facts and in preparation for the coming days it will
Be well to consider a little how these things appear to their minds one can easily believe and later this belief turned more and more into to an orthodox very one-sided view the human beings of the pre-christian times were radically different from those of the postchristian period that this view is one-sided you
Can gather from the words of Augustine quote what we now call the Christian religion existed already among the Ancients and was not lacking in the earliest days of the human race when Christ appeared in the flesh the True Religion which was already in existence received the name of Christianity close
Quote in the days of Augustine it was well known that there was not so radical a difference between pre-christian and post-christian times as Orthodoxy maintained Justin Martyr too makes a quite remarkable statement in his writings juson who is recognized by the church as one of the fathers and a
Martyr enlarges upon the relation of Socrates and heraclitus to Christ with a certain simple Clarity he sees in Christ that which we set forth yesterday in the relation of Christ to Jesus of Nazareth and he works out his idea of the Christ being accordingly in his title
Apologia he says in the context of his own time something we can repeat today in the same words Christ or the logos was incarnated in the man Jesus of Nazareth Justin then asks was the logos not present in eminent personalities of pre-christian times was man in pre-christian times quite unacquainted with the
Logos to this question Justin Martyr answers no Socrates and heraclitus were also men in whom the logos lived they did not possess the logos completely but through the Christ of EV it became possible for a man to experience inwardly the logos in its complete original form from such a passage by a recognized
Father of the church we can gather first that the early Christians were acquainted with something which after having been as Augustine says always there had entered into the evolution of the Earth in an enhanced form through the mystery of golgatha secondly we have an answer from the earliest Christian centuries to the
Question we ourselves have raised today men such as Justin Martyr were still near to the event of golgatha and they knew much more than we can about the nature of those who were but a few centuries removed from them as heraclitus and Socrates were Justus held that in the time of
Socrates although such an eminent man could experience the logos within himself self he could not experience it fully in its most intense form and that is important as testimony from those Early times it indicates if we look away from the event of golgatha how it was felt that between the centuries before and
After Christ there was something whereby pre-christian men could be distinguished from postchristian it can be shown from numerous other historical instances that men in earlier centuries consciously said quote Human Nature has indeed changed it has acquired another quality close quote someone living in the 3rd Century
After Christ looking back to men who had lived in the third Century before Christ could say that although in their own way they could penetrate deeply into the secrets of existence yet something that could happen in men living after the time of Christ could not have happened previously the message of John the
Baptist quote change your outlook on the world your idea of the world for the times have become other than they were close quote a statement confirmed by occult science continued to be strongly and intensely felt it must be grasped quite clearly that if we want to understand human evolution we must give
Up the false idea that man has always been as he is today for apart from the fact that in the west no meaning could then be attached to the idea of reincarnation tradition and occult science are at one and showing that in Early Times human beings really possessed something which now exists
Only in the subconscious namely a certain power of Clairvoyance that later they descended from this height of Clairvoyance and at the lowest point in this descending Evolution when those forces develop which obscured the old Clairvoyant Powers lies in the time of the mystery of golgatha we know that in the material
Sphere a great quantity of fluid can be affected by the infusion of a very small quantity of a given substance if you put a drop of some substance into a suitable fluid it spreads through the fluid and colors the whole of it in the material sphere everyone understands
This but it is impossible to understand spiritual life if this principle is not understood in a spiritual sense our Earth is not merely the material body we see with our eyes it has a spiritual sheath as we ourselves have an aetheric body and an astral body so the Earth has
Such higher bodies and just as a small quantity of substance spreads through a fluid so that which RAID forth spiritually from the ACT golgatha spread through the spiritual atmosphere of the earth permeated it and is still there something new has thus been imparted to our Earth and since Souls do not really live
Everywhere enclosed by matter but are like drops in the sea of the Earthly spiritual even so are human beings embedded in the spiritual atmosphere of our Earth which is permeated by the Christ impulse that was not so before the mystery of golgatha and it marks the great difference between pre-christian and post-christian
Life if a person cannot imagine such a thing happening in spiritual life he is not yet far enough Advanced to grasp Christianity truly as a mystical fact the full meaning of which can be recognized and acknowledged only in the spiritual World anyone who looks back over the unedifying disputes concerning the being
And personality of Jesus of Nazareth and the being and individuality of the Christ we’ll be able to feel everywhere in the Gnostic and mystical views of the early Christian centuries that the most advanced of those who were concerned to extend Christianity stood with reverent awe before this mystical
Fact even though the words and phrases of Christian teachers are often an abstruse we can see clearly that these teachers stand in reverent awe before all that came to pass for the world’s Evolution through Christianity again and again they declare that weak human understanding and the feeble powers of human feeling
And perception are inadequate to express truly the immense significance and depth of all that happened through the mystery of gatha a powerlessness to give real expression to the highest truths that man has to grope for this is something that passes like a magic breath through the first Christian
Teachings the reading of such writings is a good lesson for anyone even in our times we can learn thereby to exercise a certain modesty with regard to the highest truths if we have the necessary humility and modesty toward things that are more easily recognized at the portal of a new
Christian Epoch than they were in the first Christian centuries we can say certainly it is now possible to know more than could be known then but no one who Ventures to speak of the mysteries of Christianity should remain unconscious of the fact that what we are able to say today concerning the deepest
Truths of human evolution will in a comparatively short time be imperfect again and as we wish to come gradually to a deeper characterization of Christianity we must pay special attention at this juncture to a person’s inward attitude toward the spiritual world if he accepts or wishes to spread
Abroad the truths which since the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century can stream into US thus even if we do not speak much about the concept of Grace we must make great use of it in practice every occultist today clearly understands that this concept of Grace must belong to his
Inner practice of life in a quite special degree what does this mean it means that today investigations can be made concerning the deepest truths of Christianity quite independently of the gospels and of every tradition everything however which is connected with a certain thirst for knowledge with a passion for gaining as
Quickly as possible a certain number of ideas will lead if not into complete error quite certainly to a distortion of the truth anyone who says that since he is occultly prepared he must provide an explanation for example of the Pauline Epistles or the gospel of Matthew showing how their content is to be
Understood anyone who set out to do that and believed he could complete plead it within a fixed time would quite certainly deceive himself in a human way we can go deeply into these documents but all that can be known about them cannot be made known today for there is a golden saying which
Applies precisely to the occult investigator quote have patience and wait until you no longer wish to grasp the fruits by your own efforts but they come to you close quote many a person can approach the poine Epistles feeling himself ready to understand this or that because in the
Spiritual World it meets his opened eyes should he wish at the same time to understand another passage perhaps quite close to it he may not be able to do so a curbing of this thirst for knowledge is necessary today one should rather say to oneself qu Grace has brought me to a certain
Number of truths I will wait patiently until further truths flow to me close quote today there is really more need for a certain passive attitude toward these truths than there was perhaps 20 years ago this attitude is necessary because our minds must first completely ripen in order to allow truths to enter
Into us in their right form this is a practical lesson regarding investigation of the spiritual worlds especially in their relation to the Christ event it is fundamentally wrong when people think they can grasp at that which ought to stream toward them in a certain passive
Way for we must be conscious that we can be what we ought to be only in so far as we are judged worthy by the spiritual powers to be this or that and all that we can do by way of meditation contemplation and so forth is
Really done only to open our eyes not in order to seize the truths but to let them come to us for we may not run after them those who through this inward passivity have developed feelings of wholehearted devotion in the sense described and with no other feelings can one enter the spiritual
World are ready to understand the fact we have placed in the Forefront of our subject today the fact that something like a drop of spiritual substance flowed from the deed on golgatha in our times souls are right for this understanding if it were not so we would
Have lacked many things that our modern period has brought forth I need mention only one example if the soul of rard Vagner had not ripened in a certain passive way if concern concerning the mystery of golgatha he had not in some sense surmised the flowing forth of that
Which came drop by drop into the spiritual atmosphere of Earthly Humanity we could not have had his parsifal we can discern this in the passages where he refers to the significance of the blood of Christ in our day we can find many such Minds which show how the spiritual
Substance which hovers in the atmosphere is grasped by the souls into which it penetrates spiritual science is here because many more souls now have the possibility of being able without realizing it to gather from the spiritual world the influences described above but they need to have their difficulties lightened by an
Understanding of the spiritual World in fact no one whose heart is unripe enters into spiritual science no one who has not more or less of a sincere Longing To Know Something of what has just been mentioned it may indeed be that some are impelled into our Movement by curiosity
Or the like but those who come in with upright Hearts feel the longing to be able to open their souls toward that which is making ready for the future Epoch of human evolution which begins in our time people need spiritual science to today because their souls are becoming
Different from what they were a short time ago just as Souls underwent a great change during the period in which the event of gatha fell so will they again experience a great change in this Millenium and in the succeeding ones the rise of our movement is connected with the fact that Souls even
If they are not clearly conscious of it have an obscure feeling that something of the kind is going going on in our time for this reason it became necessary on the ground of anthroposophical development that a certain explanation of the foundations of the gospels should be begun and if you can convince yourselves
Through honest inner feeling that there is something true in the Christ event as it was described in the last lecture you will find you can understand what has happened as regarding the explanation of the Gospels you will understand that the anthroposophical interpretation of the gospels differs radically from all previous
Interpretations anyone who takes up our printed lecture Cycles on the gospels or recalls them from memory will see that everywhere a return has been made to true meanings which can no longer be found simply by reading the present day gospel texts from the existing translations in fact
We can no longer reach that which the gospels wish to indicate to a certain extent as they exist today they are no longer fully of use what then has been done toward reaching an explanation of the Christ event and what must be done to those who approach an
Understanding of the Christ event by the path of spiritual science it must be clear that these gospels were written by men who could look upon the Christ event spiritually with spiritual eyes hence they had no wish to write an external biography but followed the old initiation writings parenthesis this
Connection is shown in Greater detail in my book titled Christianity is Mystical fact Clos parenthesis they maintained that what had taken place in the depths of the Mysteries had in the Christ event occurred on the plane of History through through the Divine ordering of human evolution what had happened on a small
Scale within the Mysteries to the candidates for initiation was carried out by the being we call the Christ on the great stage of world history without the preparation that was necessary for human beings and without the seclusion of the Mysteries that which had previously been seen only by the pupil of the Mysteries
In their innermost Sanctuary was enacted before all eyes this again is something for which the first Christian teachers felt a reverential awe when they considered what the gospels ought to be there arose in the genuine Christian teachers a feeling of their own unworthiness of their inability to grasp the true kernel and
Meaning of the gospels this fact is the cause of something else connected with the necessity of interpreting the gospels as we do today in our movement if you have followed the explanations of the gospels given here you will have noticed that the traditional books of the gospels are not
In the first place taken as the basis for what they say is regarded as something altogether unreliable instead through the reading of the akashic record we are taken back to the spiritual writing as it is given out of those who can themselves read spiritually only when explanatory
Reference is made to some passage do we take into account the sentence as it stands in the printed books we then examine whether or how far it agrees with the form that can be recovered from the akashic record the gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke must be reconstructed in this way
From the akashic record only a comparison of the tradition with the original form can show how this or that passage must be read every tradition which rests only upon the printed text is bound to go astray and to fall into error in the future the gospels must be not only
Explained but first reconstructed in their true original form then when anyone examines what is there set forth he will no longer be able to say that this may or may not be true for where agreement is shown it will be clear why for us it is only the reading in the
Akashic record which can guarantee the right text of the gospels and then the gospels will again be evidence for the correctness of what stands written there this can be shown in numberless passages as an example let us take the following when at the condemnation of Christ Jesus
He was asked whether he was a king sent from God he replied quote thou sayest it close quote now anyone who thinks straightforwardly and does not wish to explain the gospels according to the professorial methods of the present day must admit that with this answer of Christ Jesus no clear sense can be
Connected in terms either of feeling or of reason from the side of feeling we must ask why Christ Jesus speaks so indefinitely that no one can recognize what he means by saying quote thou sayest it close qu if he means qu Thou Art right close qu there is no meaning
In it for the words of the interrogator are not a declaration but a question how then can this be an answer full of meaning or from the side of Reason how can we think that he whom we imagine to be possessed of all comprehending wisdom should choose such a form for his
Answer when however these words are given as they stand in the akashic record they have quite another sense for in the akashic record it is not quote thou sayest it close quote but quote this thou alone mayest give as answer close quote which means when we understand it rightly to thy question I
Should have to give an answer that no one May ever give with reference to himself it can be given only by someone who stands opposite him whether the answer is true or not true of that I cannot speak the acknowledgment of this truth lies not with me but with thee thou must
Say it then and then only would it have a meaning close quote now you may say quote that may be true or may not be true close quote as an abstract judgment that would certainly be correct but if we look at the whole scene and ask ourselves quote can we
Understand it better when we take the version from the akashic record close quote it will be apparent to everyone that this scene can be understood only in this way we can say too that the last transcriber or translator of this passage did not understand it because of its difficulty and so wrote down
Something in accurate anyone who knows how many things in the world are inexactly written down will not be surprised that here we have to do with an inaccurate version have we then no right when a new Epoch of humanity is beginning to lead the gospels back to their original form
Which can be authenticated from the akashic record the whole thing comes out clearly and this can be shown even from external history if we consider in this connection the Matthew gospel the best that has been said about the origin of the Matthew gospel may be read in the third volume of blavatsky’s
Title secret Doctrine a work which must be understood if we are to judge and value it correctly there was a certain father of the church Jerome who wrote toward the end of the 4th Century from what he writes we learn something that can be fully confirmed by occult research the gospel of Matthew
Was originally written in Hebrew in the copy that Jerome had obtained or as we should perhaps say nowadays in the addition he possessed he had before him the original language of this gospel written in the Hebrew letters still in use though its language was not the customary Hebrew of that
Time Jerome’s Bishop had given him the task of translating this version of the Matthew gospel for his Christian as a translator Jerome behaved in a most singular way in the first place he thought it would be dangerous to translate this Gospel of Matthew as it was because there were things in it
Which those who up to then had possessed it as their sacred writing wished to keep from the profane world he thought that this gospel if it were translated complete would cause disturbance rather than edification so he omitted the things which according to his own and the ecclesiastical views of that period
Might have a disturbing effect and replac them by others but we can learn still more from his writings and this is the most serious aspect of the whole proceeding Jerome knew that the gospel of Matthew could be understood only by those who were initiated into certain
Secrets he knew too that he was not one of those in other words he had admitted that he did not understand this gospel yet he translated it thus the Matthew gospel lies before us today in the dress given to it by a man who did not understand it but who became so
Accustomed to this version that he afterward condemned his heresy anything asserted about this gospel if it was not in accord with his own rendering these are absolute facts the next point of Interest we must examine is the following why in the very earliest days of Christianity did those who held
Specially to the gospel of Matthew communicated only to such persons as were initiated into the secret meaning of certain things it is possible to understand why this was so only if we are somewhat familiar with the character of initiation such things have often been spoken of to you in one connect or
Another and in particular you have heard that initiation when by means of it the man attains Clairvoyant power leads him to acquire knowledge of certain fundamental truths concerning the world these fundamental truths are such that to the ordinary Consciousness they at first appear absurd all it can say about them is that
Is a paradox but there is more to it than that if the highest truths that is those accessible to an initiate were to become known to an unprepared individual either if he were to conjecture them which in a certain case might be possible or if
They were imparted to him when he was in an imperfect condition to receive them then even if they were the most Elementary truths they would be in the highest degree dangerous for him even if the purest the highest truth concerning the world were set before him it would work destructively on him and
On his surroundings for this reason anyone today who is in possession of the highest truths knows that it cannot be right merely to call someone to him and impart to him the highest Mysteries of the world the highest truths cannot be so imparted that a mouth simply pronounces
Them and an ear simply hears them the way in which the highest truths are imparted is quite different a person who wishes to become a pupil is slowly and gradually prepared and this preparation takes place in such a way that the last conclusion the imparting of the mystery does not pass
From mouth to ear at a definite point of time the pupil is so conditioned by preparation that the secret the mystery Rises up before him it does not need to be pronounced by a mouth nor does it need to be heard by an ear it must be born in the soul through
What has passed between teacher and pupil there are no means of ringing from ananti at the last things of the Mysteries for no one can be compelled by any means available on the physical plane to betray with his mouth anything of the higher Mysteries so it is with
The higher Mysteries and if that which should be born from the soul as the higher Mysteries must be were to be communicated to an unright person through the mouth of another it would be full of danger for this other person also for he who had imparted the knowledge would be given completely into
The power of His hearer for the rest of his Incarnation this however can never happen if the teacher simply prepares the pupil and the pupil allows the truths to be born from out of his own soul when we know this we understand that the original Gospel of Matthew
Could not be imparted without further preparation because men were not ripe to receive what was in it for if Jerome a father of the church was himself not ripe for what it contained then certainly other men were not those who were origin Ally in possession of these communications the
Aites did not impart them because if received by unright persons they would have been so distorted that they must have led to what Jerome meant when he said that they would serve not for edification but for Destruction now Jerome understood this yet he allowed himself to impart in a
Certain way the gospel of Matthew to the world hence we must realize that this go gospel has been imparted in a certain way and has had a corresponding effect upon the world now if we look round and see what influence it has had then in the light
Of occult truths we shall find many things comprehensible who standing on the ground of occultism would care to say that all the persecutions and so on in the Christian world could be connected with the principles of Christ Jesus who standing on the ground of a cultism would not say that into external
Evolution there must have flowed something not in accordance with Christian evolution in short a great misunderstanding must here exist we mentioned yesterday how in the ground of Christianity we should speak for example of apollonius of cayana we set before us his greatness and significance and even called him an
Adept yet when we go through early Christian literature we find everywhere accusations against appolonia as though everything he did everything he accomplished had been achieved only under the influence of the devil there we have something that must be called misrepresentation not only a misunderstanding of the personality and acts of apollonius of
Tiana this is only one example among many we understand it only when we see that the gospels have been handed down in a way that must lead to misunderstandings and that today on the ground of occultism our task is to go back to the true meaning of Christianity
Concerning which the first teachers made many mistakes it will then appear understandable that the next Epoch of Christianity will be experienced differently from the earlier epochs on the other hand as already indicated many things are stated here which can be said only because the listeners have taken part in the
Development of our spiritual science during the last few years or are rightly disposed to enter into it persons in whose Souls there is a corresponding feeling and mood which will allow what is imparted to work upon them because Souls have gone through at least one period of teaching one
Incarnation between the mystery of golgatha and the present time the go gospels can be spoken of today without fear that harm may result thus we have before us the singular fact that the gospels had to be communicated but that Christianity could be understood only in its most imperfect
Form hence the gospels have been subject to a method of research which can no longer determine what is historical and what is not so that finally everything is denied in their original form they must enter our hearts and souls and this must give rise to a new power whereby the findings
That will now be presented to men can be accepted by those who have been able worthily to feel the events from the baptism of John to the event of golgatha an interpretation of the Christ event from the occult standpoint is thus a necessary preparation for the souls that
In the near future are to experience something new Souls that are to look out on the world with new faculties the old form of the gospels will first receive its true value through our learning to read the gospels with the aid of the akashic record through this alone will their full value be
Restored in particular the true significance of the event of golgatha can be fully demonstrated only by occult research only when when the original significance of this event is understood through occult research will the results it can have for human Souls be recognized our task in the next two days
Will be to throw light as far as is possible in one short lecture cycle on everything the human soul can experience under the influence of the Christ impulse so that we may come to a deeper knowledge than was previously possible of all that took place in Palestine and on golgatha
The end of lecture four you are listening to Rudolph Steiner audio.com as well you can hear these podcasts at Rudolf steiner.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org in America and rudol Steiner press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner into English and
Have given me permission to do these recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works volume 31 by Rudolph Steiner 11 lectures entitled from Jesus to Christ translated by Charles Davy this is lecture five given on October 9th 1911 if you recall that in the course of
Our lectures we have come to look upon the Christ impulse as the most profound event in human evolution you will doubtless agree that some exertion of our powers of Mind and Spirit is needed to understand its full meaning and range of influence certainly in the widest
Circles we find the bad habit of saying that the highest things in the world must be comprehensible in the simplest terms if what someone is constrained to say about the sources of existence appears complicated people turn away from it because quote the truth must be simple close
Quote in The Last Resort it certainly is simple but if at a certain stage we wish to learn to know the highest things it is not hard to see that we must first clear the way to understanding them and in order to enter into the full greatness the full significance of the
Christ impulse from a particular point of view we must bring together many different matters we need only turn to the Pauline Epistles and we shall soon see that Paul who sought especially to bring within range of human Minds the super sensible nature of the Christ being has drawn into the concept the
Idea of the Christ the whole of human evolution so to speak if we let the paulan Epistles work upon us we have finally something which through its extraordinary Simplicity and through the deepest penetrating quality of the words and sentences makes a most significant impression but this is so only because Paul through
His own initiation had worked his way up to that Simplicity which is not the starting point of what is true but the consequence the goal if we wish to penetrate into what Paul was able finally to express in wonderful Monumental simple words concerning the Christ being we must come
Nearer to an understanding of human nature for whose fur the development on Earth the Christ impulse came let us therefore consider what we already know concerning human nature as shown through occult sight we divide the life of man into two parts the period between birth and death
And the period which runs its course between death and a new birth let us first of all look at man in his physical body we know that occult sight sees him as a four-fold being but as a four-fold being in process of development occult sight sees the physical body etheric body astral body
And the ego we know that in order to understand human evolution we must learn the occult truth that this ego of which we become aware in our feelings and perceptions when we simply look away from the external world and try to live within ourselves goes on from Incarnation to
Incarnation but we also know that this ego is as it were in sheathed although in sheathed is not a good expression we can use it for the present by three other members of human nature the astral body the etheric body and the physical body of the astral body we know that in
A certain respect it is the companion of the ego through the various incarnations for though during the Comm look at time much of the astral body must be shed it remains as a kind of force body which holds together the moral intellectual and aesthetic progress we have stored up during an
Incarnation whatever constitutes true progress is held together by the power of the astral body is carried from one Incarnation to another and is linked as it were with the ego which passes as the fundament mentally Eternal in us from Incarnation to Incarnation further we know that from
The etheric body too very much is cast off immediately after death but an extract of this etheric body remains with us an extract we take with us from one Incarnation to another in the first days directly after death we have before us a kind of backward review like a great Tableau of
Our life up to that time and we take with us a concentrated etheric extract the rest of the etheric body is given over into the general etheric World in one form or another according to the development of the person concerned when however we look at the fourth member of the human being the
Physical body it seems at first as if the physical body simply disappears into the physical world one might say that this can be externally demonstrated for to external sight the physical body is brought in one way or another to dissolution the question however which everyone who occupies himself with
Spiritual science must put to himself is the following is not all that external physical cognition can tell us about the fate of our physical body perhaps only Maya the answer does not lie very far away for anyone who has begun to understand understand spiritual science when a man can say to
Himself quote all that is offered by sense appearance is Maya external illusion close quote how can he think it really true that the physical body delivered over to the Grave or to the fire disappears without Trace however crudely the appearance May obtrude on the senses perhaps behind the external Maya
There lies something much deeper let us go further into this you will realize that in order to understand the evolution of the earth we must know the earlier embodiments of our planet we must study the Saturn Sun and Moon embodiments of the earth we know that the Earth has gone through its
Incarnations just as every human being has done our physical body was prepared in the course of human evolution from the Saturn period of the Earth with regard to the ancient Saturn time we cannot speak at all of etheric body astral body and ego in the sense of the present
Day but the germ for the physical body was already sown was embodied during the Saturn Evolution during the sun period of the Earth this germ was transformed and then in this germ in its altered form the etheric was embodied during the moon period of the Earth the physical body was again
Transformed and in it at the same time in the etheric body which also came forth in an altered form the astral body was incorporated during the Earth period the ego was incorporated and is it conceivable that the part of us which was embodied during the Saturn period our physical body
Simply decomposes or is burned up and disappears into the elements after the most significant Endeavors had been made by Divine Spiritual Beings through millions and millions of years during the Saturn Sun and Moon periods in order to produce this physical body if this were true we should have
Before us the very remarkable fact that through three planetary stages Saturn Sun Moon a whole host of divine beings worked to to produce a cosmic element such as our physical body is and that during the Earth period this Cosmic element is destined to vanish every time a person
Dies it would be a remarkable drama if Maya and external observation knows nothing else we’re right so now we ask can Maya be right at first it certainly seems as though occult knowledge declares Maya to be correct for strangely enough occult knowledge seems in this case to harmonize with
Maya when we study the description given by spiritual knowledge of the development of man after death we find that scarcely any notice is taken of the physical body we are told that the physical body is thrown off is given over to the elements of the earth we are
Told about the etheric body the astral body the ego the physical body is not further touched upon and it seems as though the Silence of spiritual knowledge were giving tacit Ascent to Maya knowledge so it seems and in a certain way we are justified by spiritual science in speaking thus for
Everything further must be left to a deeper grounding in christology for concerning what goes beyond Maya with regard to the physical body we cannot speak at all correctly unless the Christ impulse and everything connected with it has first been sufficiently explained if we observe how this physical body was experienced at some
Definite moment in the past we shall reach a quite remarkable result let us inquire into three kinds of folk Consciousness three different forms of human consciousness concerning all that is connected with our physical body during decisive periods in human evolution we will inquire first of all among the
Greeks we know that the Greeks were that remarkable people who Rose to their highest development in the fourth post- Atlantean Epoch of civilization we know that this Epoch began about the 8th Century before our era and ended in the 13th 14th and 15th centuries after the event of
Palestine we can easily confirm what is said about this period from external information tradition itions and documents the first dimly clear accounts concerning Greece hardly go back farther than the sixth or seventh century before our era though legendary accounts come down from still earlier times we know that the greatness of the
Historical period of Greece has its source in the preceding period the third post- Atlantean Epoch The Inspired utterances of Homer reach back into the period preceding the fourth post- atlantian Epoch and escalus who lived so early that a number of his Works have been lost points back to the drama of
The mysteries of which he offers us but an echo the third post Atlantean Epoch extends into the Greek age but in that age the fourth Epoch comes to full expression the wonderful Greek culture is the purest expression of the fourth post Atlantean Epoch now there falls upon our ear a
Remarkable saying from this land of Greece a saying which permits us to see deeply into the soul of the man who felt himself truly a Greek the saying of the hero footnote Achilles in The Odyssey quote better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the land of Shades close
Quote here is a saying which betrays the Deep suscepti ility of the Greek Soul one might say that everything preserved to us of Greek classical Beauty and classical greatness of the gradual formation of the human ideal in the external world all this resounds to us from that saying let us recall the wonderful
Training of the human body in Greek gymnastics and in the great games which are only caricatured in these days by persons who understand nothing of what Greece really was every period has its own ideal and we must keep this in mind if we want to understand how this development of the
External physical body as it stands there in its own form on the physical plane was a peculiar privilege of the Greek spirit so too was the creation of human ideals in plastic art the enhancement of the human form in sculpture and if we then look at the character of
The Greek Consciousness as it held sway in a paricles for example when a man had a feeling for the universally human and yet could stand firmly on his own feet and feel like a Lord and King in the domain of his City when we let all this work upon us then
We must say that the real love of the Greek was for the human form as it stood there before him on the physical plane and that Aesthetics too were turned to account in the development of this form where this human form was so well loved and understood one could give
Oneself up to the thought quote when that which gives to man this beautiful form on the physical plane is taken away from Human Nature one cannot value the remainder as highly as the part destroyed by death close quote this supreme love for the external form led unavoidably to a pessimistic
View of what remains of man when he has passed through the gate of death and we can fully understand that the Greek Soul having looked with so great a love upon the outer form felt sad when compelled to think quote this form is taken away from the human individuality the human
Individuality lives on without this form close quote if for the moment one looks at had it solely from the point of view of feeling then we must say we have in Greece that branch of the human race which most loved and valued the human body and underwent the deepest sorrow
When the body perished in death now let us consider another Consciousness which developed about the same time the Buddha Consciousness which had passed over from Buddha to his followers there we have almost the opposite of the Greek attitude we need only remember one thing the kernel of the four Great truths of
Buddha is that human individuality is drawn by longing by desire into the existence where it is enshrouded by an external form into what kind of existence into an existence described in the Buddha teaching as quote birth is sorrow sickness is sorrow old age is sorrow death is sorrow close close
Quote the underlying thought in this kernel of Buddhism is that by being enshrouded in an external bodily sheath our individuality which at Birth comes down from Divine spiritual Heights and returns to Divine spiritual Heights at death is exposed to the pain of existence to the sorrow of
Existence only one way of salvation for men is expressed in the four Great hly truths of Buddha to become free from external existence to throw off the external sheath this means transforming the individuality so that it comes as soon as possible into a condition which will permit this throwing
Off we note that the active feeling here is the reverse of the feeling dominant among the Greeks just as strongly as the Greek loved and valued the external etal bodily sheath and felt the sadness of casting it aside just as little did the adherent of Buddhism value it regarding
It as something to be cast aside as quickly as possible and linked with this attitude was the struggle to overcome the craving for existence an existence enshrouded by a bodily sheath let us go a little more deeply into these Buddhist thoughts a kind of theoretical View meets Us in Buddhism
Concerning the successive incarnations of man it is not so much a question of what the individual thinks about the theory as of what has penetrated into the consciousness of the adherence of Buddhism I have often described this I said that we have perhaps no better opportunity of feeling what an adherent
Of Buddhism must have felt in regard to the continual incarnations of man than by immersing ourselves in the traditional conversations between King Melinda and a Buddhist Sage quote thou Hast come in thy Carriage then reflect o great king said the sage nagasa that all thou Hast in the
Carriage is nothing but the wheels the shaft the body of the carriage and the seat and Beyond these nothing else exists except a word which covers Wheels shaft body of carriage seat and so on thus thou canst not speak of a special individuality of the carriage but thou
Must clearly understand that in quotes Carriage is an empty word if thou thinkest of anything else than its parts its members close quote and another simile was chosen by nagasa for King Melinda quote consider the Almond fruit which grows on the tree and reflect that out of of another fruit
A seed was taken and laid in the earth and has decayed out of that seed the tree is grown and the Almond fruit upon it can thou say that the fruit on the tree has anything else in common other than name and external form with the
Fruit from which the seed was taken and laid in the Earth where it decayed close quote a man nagasa meant to say has just as much in common with the man of his preceding Incarnation as the Almond fruit on the tree has with the Almond fruit which as seed was laid in the
Earth anyone who believes that the form which stands before us as man and is wafted Away by death is anything else than name and form believes something as false as he who thinks that in the carriage in the name Carriage something else is contained than the part of the
Carriage the wheels shaft and so on from the preceding Incarnation nothing of what man calls his ego passes over into the new Incarnation that is important and we must repeatedly emphasize that it is not to the point how this or that person chooses to interpret this or that saying of the
Buddha but how Buddhism worked in the consciousness of the people what it gave to their souls and what it gave to their souls is indeed expressed with intense clearness and significance in this parable of King Melinda and the Buddhist Sage of what we call the ego in quotes and of which we
Say that it is first felt and perceived by man when he reflects upon his inner being the Buddhist says that fundamentally it is something that flows into him and belongs to Maya as much as everything else that does not go from Incarnation to Incarnation I have elsewhere mentioned
That if a Christian Sage were to be compared with the Buddhist one he would have spoken differently to King Melinda the Buddhist said to the king consider the carriage Wheels shaft and so on they are parts of the carriage and Beyond these parts Carriage is only a
Name and form with the word carriage thou Hast named nothing real in the carriage if thou Wilt speak of what is real thou must name the parts close quote in the same case the Christian Sage would have said quote Oh wise King Melinda thou Hast come in thy Carriage
Look at it in it thou can see only the wheels the shaft the body of the carriage and so on but I ask thee now can thou travel hither with the wheels only or with the shaft only or with the seat only thou canst not travel hither
On any of the separate parts so far as they are Parts they make the carriage but on the parts thou can not come hither in order that the assembled Parts can make the carriage something else is necessary than there being merely Parts there must first be the quite
Definite thought of the car marage for it is this that brings together Wheels shaft and so on and the thought of the carriage is something very necessary thou canst indeed not see the thought but thou must recognize it close quote the Christian Sage would then turn
To man and say quote of the individual person thou can see only the external body the external acts and the external soul experiences thou seest in man just as little of his ego as in the name Carriage thou seest its separate parts something quite different is established within the parts namely that
Which enables thee to travel hither so also in man within all his Parts something quite different is established namely that which constitutes the ego the ego is something real which as a super sensible entity goes from one Incarnation to another close quote how can we make a diagram of
The Buddhist teaching of reincarnation so that it will represent the corresponding Buddhist Theory with the circle we indicate a man between birth and death the man dies the time when he dies is marked by the point where the circle touches the line AB now what remains of all that has been
Spellbound within his existence between birth and death a summation of causes the results of Acts of everything a man has done good or bad beautiful or ugly clever or stupid All That Remains over in this way works on as a set of causes and so forms the causal nucleus C for the next
Incarnation round this causal nucleus new body sheathes d are woven for the next Incarnation these body sheaths go through new experiences as did the body sheaths around the earlier causal nucleus from these experiences there remains again a causal nucleus e it includes experiences that have come into it from earlier incarnations
Together with experiences from its last life hence it serves as the causal nucle nucleus for the next Incarnation and so on this means that what goes through the incarnations consists of nothing but causes and effects there is no continuing ego to connect the incarnations nothing but causes and effects working over from one
Incarnation into the next so when in this Incarnation I call myself an ego in quotes this is not because the same ego was there in the preceding Incarnation what I call my ego is only a Maya of the present Incarnation anyone who really knows Buddhism must picture it in this way and
He must clearly understand that what we call the ego has no place in Buddhism now let us go on to what we know through anthroposophical cognition how has man ever been able to develop his ego through the Earth evolu Evolution only in the course of the earth
Evolution has he reached the stage of developing his ego it was added to his physical body etheric body and astral body on the earth now if we remember all we had to say concerning the evolutionary phases of man during the Saturn Sun and Moon periods we know that during the moon
Period the human physical body had not yet acquired a quite definite form it received this first on Earth hence we speak of the earth existence as the epoch in which the spirits of form first took part and metamorphosed the physical body of man so that it has its present
Form this forming of the human physical body was necessary if the ego were to find a place in man the physical Earth body set down on the physical Earth provided the foundation for the dawn of the ego as we know it if we keep this in mind what follows will no longer seem
Incomprehensible with regard to the valuation of the ego among the Greeks we saw that for them it was expressed externally in the human form let us now recall that Buddhism according to its knowledge sets out to overcome and cast off as quickly as possible the ex external form of the human physical
Body can we then wonder that in Buddhism we find no value attached to anything connected with this bodily form it is the essence of Buddhism to Value the external form of the physical body as little as it values the external form which the ego needs in order to come
Into being indeed all this is completely set aside Buddhism lost the form of the ego through the way in which it undervalued the physical body thus we see how these two spiritual currents are polaric opposed the Greek current which set the highest value on the external form of the physical body
As the external form of the ego and Buddhism which requires that the external form of the physical body with all craving after existence shall be overcome as soon as possible so that in its Theory it has completely lost the ego between these two opposite World philosophies stands Ancient hebraism
Ancient hebraism is far from thinking so poorly of the ego as Buddhism does in Buddhism it is heresy to recognize a continuous ego going on from one Incarnation to the next but ancient hebraism held very strongly to this so-called heresy and it would never have entered the mind of an adherent of that
Religion to suppose that his personal Divine spark with which he connected his concept of the ego is lost when he goes to the gate of death if we want to make clear how the ancient Hebrew regarded the matter we must say that he felt himself connected in his inner being with the godhead
Intimately connected he knew that through the finest threads of his sole life as it were he was dependent on the being of this godhead with regard to the concept of the ego the ancient Hebrew was quite different from the Buddhist but in another respect he was also very different from the
Greek when we survey those ancient times as a whole we find that the estimation of human personality and hence that valuation of the external human form which was peculiar to the Greek is not present in ancient hebraism for the Greek it would have been absolute nonsense to say quote Thou
Shalt not make to thyself any image of thy God close quote he would not have understood if someone had said to him Thou shalt not make to thyself any image of thy Zeus or thy Apollo close quote for he felt that the highest thing was the external form and that the highest
Tribute a man could offer to the gods was to clothe them with this human form which he himself valued so much nothing would have seemed more absurd to him than the Commandment quot Thou shalt make to thyself no image of God close quote as artist the Greek gave
His human form to his Gods he thought of himself as made in the likeness of the Divine and he carried out his contests his wrestling his gymnastics and so on in order to become a real cop of the God but the ancient Hebrew had the Commandment Thou shalt make to thyself
No image of God close quote this was because he did not value the external form as the Greeks had done he regarded it as unworthy in relation to the Divine the ancient Hebrew was as far removed on the one side from the disciple of Buddhism who would have much
Preferred to cast off the human form entire IR L on passing through death as he was on the other side from the Greek he was mindful of the fact that it was this form that gave expression to the commands the laws of the Divine being and he clearly understood that a in
Quotes righteous man handed down through the following Generations what he as a righteous man had gathered together not the extinguishing of the form but the handing on on of the form through the generations was what concerned the ancient Hebrew his point of view stood midway between that of the Buddhist who had
Lost the value of the ego and that of the Greek who saw in the form of the body the very highest and felt it as sorrowful when the bodily form had to disappear with death so these three views stand over against one another and for a closer understanding of ancient hebraism we
Must make it clear that what the Hebrew valued as his ego was in a certain sense also the Divine ego the god lived on in humanity lived within man in his Union with the god the Hebrew felt at the same time his own ego and felt it to be coincident with the
Divine ego the Divine ego sustained him the Divine ego was active within him the Greek said quote I value my ego so greatly that I look with horror on what will happen to it after death close quote the Buddhist said that which is the cause of the external form of man
Must fall away from man as soon as possible close quote the Hebrews said I am United with God that is my fate and as long as I am United with him I bear my fate I know nothing else than the identification of my ego with the Divine
Ego close quote this old judaic mode of thought standing midway between Greek thought and Buddhism does not involve as Greek thought does from the outset a predisposition to tragedy in face of the phenomenon of death but tragic feeling is indirectly present in it it is truly
Greek for the hero to say quote better a beggar in the upper World close qu that is with the human bodily form qu than a king in the realm of Shades close quote but a Hebrew could not have said it without something more for the Hebrew knows that when in
Death his bodily form Falls away he remains United with God he cannot fall into a tragic mood simply through the fact of death still the predisposition to tragedy is present in directly in ancient hebraism and is expressed in the most wonderfully dramatic story ever written in ancient times the story of
Job we see there how the ego of job feels bound up with his God how it comes into conflict with his God but differently from the way in which the Greek ego comes into conflict we are shown how Misfortune after Misfortune falls upon job Al although he is conscious that he is a
Righteous man and has done all he can to maintain the connection of his ego with the Divine ego and while it seems that his existence is blessed and ought to be blessed a tragic fate breaks over him job is not aware of any sin he is conscious that he has acted as a
Righteous man must act toward his God word is brought to him that all his possessions have been destroyed all his family slain then his external body this Divine form is stricken with Grievous disease there he stands the man who can consciously say to himself quote through
The inward connection I feel with my God I have striven to be righteous before my God my fate decreed to me by this God has placed me in the world it is the acts of this God which have fallen so heavily upon on me close quote and his wife stands there beside
Him and calls upon him in strange words to deny his God these words are handed down correctly they are one of the sayings which correspond exactly with the akashic record qu renounce thy God since thou Hast to suffer so much since he has brought these sufferings upon
Thee and die close quote what endless depth lies in these words lose the consciousness of the connection with thy God then thou Wilt fall out of the Divine connection like a leaf from the tree and thy God can no longer punish thee but loss of the connection
With God is at the same time death for as long as the ego feels itself connected with the god death cannot touch it the ego must first tear itself away from connection with God then only can death touch it according to outward appearance everything is against righteous job his
Wife sees his suffering and advises him to renounce God and die his friends come and say quote you must have done this or that for God never punishes a righteous man close quote but he is aware as far as his personal Consciousness is concerned that he has done nothing
Unrighteous through the events he Encounters in the external world he stands before an immense tragedy the tragedy of not being able to understand human existence of feeling himself bound up with God and not understanding how what he is experiencing can have its source in God let us think of all this lying with
Its full weight upon a human soul let us think of this Soul breaking forth Into The Words which have come down to us from the traditional story of Job quote I know know that my redeemer liveth I know that one day I shall again be clothed with my bones with my skin and
That I shall look upon god with whom I am United close quote this consciousness of the indestructibility of the human individuality breaks forth from the soul of job in spite of all the pain and suffering so powerful is the consciousness of the ego as the inner content of the ancient Hebrew
Belief but here we meet with something in the highest degree remarkable quot I know that my redeemer liveth says job I know that one day I shall again be covered with my skin and that with mine eyes I Shall Behold The Glory of my God close quote job brings into connection with
The Redeemer thought the external body Skin and Bones eyes which see physically strange suddenly in this conscious ious that stands midway between Greek thought and Buddhism this ancient Hebrew Consciousness we meet a consciousness of the significance of the physical bodily form in connection with the Redeemer thought which then becomes the
Foundation the basis for the Christ thought and when we take the answer of job’s wife still more light falls on everything job says quot renounce thy God and die close quote this signifies that he who does not renounce his God does not die that is implied in these words but then what
Does die in quotes Mean To Die means to throw off the physical body external Maya seems to say that the physical body passes over into the elements of the earth and so to speak disappears thus in the answer of job’s wife there lies the following quote do
What is necessary that thy physical body may disappear close quote it could not mean anything else or the words of job that follow would make no sense for man can understand anything only if he can understand the means whereby God has placed Us in the world if that is he can understand the
Significance of the physical body and job himself says for this too lies in his words quote Oh I know full well that I need not do anything that would bring about the complete disappearance of my physical body for that would be only an external appearance there is a possibility that
My body may be saved because my redeemer liveth this I cannot express otherwise than in the words my skin my bones will one day be recreated with my eyes I Shall Behold The Glory of my God I can lawfully keep my physical body but for this I must
Have the Consciousness that my redeemer liveth close quote so in this story of job there comes before us for the first time a connection between the form of the physical body which the Buddhist would strip off which sadly the Greek sees pass away and the ego Consciousness we meet for the first time
With something like a prospect of Deliverance for that which the host of God s from ancient Saturn Sun and Moon down to the Earth itself have brought forth as the form of the physical body and if the form is to be preserved if we are to say of it that
What has been given us of Bones skin and sense organs is to have an outcome then we must add quote I know that my redeemer liveth close quote this is strange someone might now say does it really follow from the story of job that Christ awakens the dead and
Rescues the bodily form which the Greeks believed would disappear and is there perhaps anything in the story to indicate that for the general evolution of humanity it is not right in the full sense of the word that the external bodily form should Disappear Completely may it not be interwoven with
The whole human evolutionary process has this connection a part to play in the future does it depend upon the Christ being these questions are set before us and they mean that we shall have to widen in a certain connection what we have so far learned from spiritual
Science we know that when we pass to the gate of death we retain at least the etheric body but we strip off the physical body entirely we see it delivered up to the elements but its form which has been worked upon through millions and millions of years
Is that lost in nothingness or is it in some way retained we will consider this question in the light of the explanations you have heard today and tomorrow we will approach it by asking how is the impulse given to human evolution by the Christ related to the significance of the external physical body
That body which throughout earth evolution is consigned to the Grave the Fire or the air although the preservation of its form is necessary for the future of mankind the end of lecture five you are listening to Rudolf Steiner audio.com as well you can hear these podcasts at rudol steiner.com please
Consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org in America and Rudolph Steiner press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner into English and have given me permission to do these recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works swine
131 by Rudolph Steiner 11 lectures entitled from Jesus to Christ translated by Charles Davy this is lecture 6 given on October 10th 1911 by taking our start from what was said yesterday we shall be able to come nearer to the fundamental questions of Christianity and to penetrate into its
Essential nature we shall see that only by this means can we see Into the Heart of what the Christ impulse has become for the evolution of humanity and what it will become in the future people are always insisting that the answers to the highest questions must not be complicated
The truth must be brought directly to each person in the simplest way in support of this they argue for example that the Apostle John in his last years expressed the quintessence of Christianity in words of truth quote children love one another close quote no one however should conclude that a
Person who simply pronounces the words children love one another knows the essence of Christianity and of all Truth for or men before the Apostle John was entitled to pronounce these words he had fulfilled various preconditions we know it was at the end of a long life in his 95th year that he
Came to this utterance only by then in that particular Incarnation had he earned the right to use such words indeed he stands there as a witness that this saying if it came from any chance individual would not have the power it had from him for he had achieved something else
Also although the critics dispute it he was the author of the John gospel the apocalypse and the Epistles of John throughout his life he had not always said children love one another he had written a work which belongs to the most difficult Productions of man the apocalypse and the John gospel which
Penetrates most intimately and deeply into the human soul he had gained the right to pronounce such a saying only through a long life and through what he had accomplished if anyone lives a life such as his and does what he did and then says as he did children love one another
There are no grounds for objecting to it we must however be quite clear that although some things can be compressed into a few words so that these few words signify very much the same few words may also say nothing many a person who pronounces a Word of Wisdom which in its proper
Setting would perhaps signify something very deep believes that by merely uttering it he has said a very great deal the writer of the apocalypse and of the John gospel in his greatest age could speak the words children love one another out of the essence of Christianity but the same words from the
Mouth of another person may be a mere phrase we must gather matters for the understanding of Christianity from Far a field so that we may apply them to the simplest truths of daily life yesterday we had to approach the question so fateful for modern thought
What are we to make of the physical body in relation to the four-fold being of man we shall see how the points brought out yesterday and looking at the differing views of the Greeks the ancient Hebrews and the Buddhists will lead us further toward understanding the nature of
Christianity but if we are to learn more concerning the fate of the physical body we must first take up a question which is Central to the whole Christian Cosmic conception a question which lies at the very core of Christianity how it is with the resurrection of
Christ must we not assume that for the understanding of Christianity it is essential to reach an understanding of the Resurrection to see how important this is we need only recall a passage in the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians 1 Corinthians 15 14-20 quote if Christ has not been
Raised then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain we are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified of God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised for if the dead
Are not raised then Christ has not been raised if Christ has not been raised your faith is futle and you are still in your sins then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished if in this life we who are in Christ have
Only hope we are of all men most to be pied but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep close quote we must remember that Christianity in so far as it has extended over the world began with Paul and if we are
Disposed to take these important words seriously we cannot simply pass them over by saying that we must leave the question of the Resurrection unexplained for what is it that Paul says that the whole of Christianity has no justification and the whole Christian Faith No meaning if the resurrection is not
True that is what is said by Paul with whom Christianity as a fact of history had its starting point and it means that anyone who is willing to give up the resurrection must give up Christianity as Paul understood it and now let us pass over almost 2,000
Years and ask people of the present day how according to the requirements of modern culture they stand with regard to the question of the Resurrection I shall not now take note of those who simply deny Jesus entirely it is naturally quite easy for them to be clear regarding the question of the
Resurrection if Jesus never lived one need not trouble about the resurrection leaving such persons aside we will turn to those who about the middle or in the last third of the 19 Century had accepted the current ideas of our time the time in which we are still
Living we will ask them what they think in Conformity with the whole culture of our day concerning the question of the Resurrection we will take a man who has gained great influence over the way of thinking of those who consider themselves best informed David friederich Strauss in his work on
Rus a thinker of the 18th century we read quote the resurrection of Jesus is really a shth concerning which not only the various conceptions of Christianity but the various World philosophies and stages of spiritual Evolution are at variance close quote and in a Swiss Journal almost of
The same date we read quote as soon as I can convince myself of the reality of the resurrection of Christ this absolute miracle I tear down the modern conception of the world this breach in what I believe to be the inviolable order of nature would make an
Irreparable rent in my system in my whole thought World close quote let us ask how many persons of our present time who according to the modern standpoint must and do subscribe to these words would say qu if I were obliged to recognize the res direction as historical fact I would tear down my
Whole system of thought philosophical or otherwise close quote let us ask how should the resurrection as historical fact fit in with a modern man’s outlook on the world let us recall something indicated in my first public lecture on this subject that the gospels are to be taken first and foremost as initiation
Writings the leading events depicted in the gospel are fundamentally initiation events events which had formerly taken place within the secret places of the temples of the Mysteries when this or that person who had been deemed worthy was initiated by the heropants such a person after he had
Been prepared for a long time went through a kind of death and a kind of Resurrection he had also to go through certain situations in life which reappear for us in the gospels in the story of the Temptation the story set on the Mount of Olives and other similar
Ones that is why the accounts of ancient initiates which do not aim to be biographies in the usual Sense Show such resemblance to the gospel stories of Christ Jesus and when we read the history of the greatest initiates of aalon of tyana or indeed even of Buddha or zarathustra
Or the life of of Osiris or of orus it often seems that important characteristics of their lives are the same as those narrated by of Christ Jesus in the gospels but although we must grant that we have to seek in the initiation ceremonies of the old mysteries for the
Prototypes of important events narrated in the gospels on the other hand we see quite clearly that the great teachings of the Life of Christ Jesus are saturated throughout with individual details which are not intended as a mere repetition of initiation ceremonies but make it very plain that what is described is actual
Fact must we not say that we receive a remarkably factual impression when the following is pictured for us in the Gospel of John 20 1-10 quote now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the the tomb early while it was still dark and saw
That the stone had been taken away from the tomb so she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple the one whom Jesus loved and said to them they have taken the Lord out of the Tomb and we do not know where they have laid him
Close quote Peter then came out with the other disciple and they went toward the tomb they both ran but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first and stooping to look in he saw the linen cloths lying there but he did not go in then Simon Peter came
Following him and he went into the tomb he saw the linen cloths lying and the napkins which had been on his head not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself then the other disciple who reached the tomb first also went in and
He saw and believed for as yet they did not know the scripture that he must rise from the dead dead then the disciples went back to their homes but Mary stood weeping outside the tomb and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in
White sitting where the body of Jesus had Lain one at the head and one at the feet they said to Heroman why are you weeping close qu she said to them because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him close quote saying
This she turned and saw Jesus standing but she did not know that it was Jesus Jesus said to her quote woman why are you weeping whom do you seek close qu supposing him to be the gardener she said to him qu sir if you have carried
Him away tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away close quote Jesus said to her Mary she turned and said to him in Hebrew raboni which means teacher Jesus said to her quote do do not hold me for I have not yet ascended
To the father but go to my brethren and say to them I am ascending to my father and your father to my God and your God close quote and close complete quote here is a situation described in such detail that if we wish to picture it in imagination there’s hardly
Anything lacking when for example it is said that the one disciple runs faster than the other or that the napkin which had covered the head was laid aside in another place and so on in every detail something is described which would have no meaning if it did not refer to a
Fact attention was drawn on a former occasion to one detail that Mary did not recognize Christ Jesus and we asked how was it possible that after 3 days anyone could fail to recognize in the same form a person previously known hence we had to note that Christ
Appeared to Mary in a changed form or these words would have no meaning here therefore a distinction must be kept in mind first we have to understand the resurrection as a translation into historic fact of the Awakening that took place in the Holy mysteries of all times only with the
Difference that he who in the Mysteries raised up the individual pupil was the hierophant while the gospels indicate that he who raised up Christ is the being whom we designate as the father that the father himself raised up the Christ here we are shown that what had
Formerly been carried out on a small scale in the depths of the Mysteries was now and once for all enacted for Humanity by Divine spirits and that the being who is designated as the father acted as hant in the raising to Life of Christ Jesus thus we have here enhanced to the
Highest degree something which formerly had taken place on a small scale in the Mysteries that is the first point the other is that interwoven with matters which carry us back to the Mysteries there are descriptions so detailed that even today we can reconstruct from the gospels the situations even to their minute particular
As we have just seen in the passage read to you but this passage includes one detail that calls for particular attention there must be a meaning in the words quote for they did not as yet know the scripture that he must rise from the dead then the disciples went back to
Their homes close quote let us ask of what had the disciples been able so far to convince themselves it is described as clearly as any anything can be that the linen wrappings are there but the body is not there is no longer in the grave the disciples had not been able to convince
Themselves of anything else and they understood nothing else when they now went home otherwise the words have no meaning the more deeply you enter into the text the more you must say that the disciples who were standing by the grave were convinced that the linen wrappings
Were there but that the body was no longer in the grave grave they went home with the thought quote where has the body gone who has taken it out of the Grave close quote and now from the conviction that the body is not there the gospels lead us slowly to the
Events through which the disciples were finally convinced of the Resurrection how were they convinced through the fact that as the gospels relate Christ appeared to them by degrees so that they could say qu he is there close quote and this went so far that Thomas called the doubter could
Lay his finger in the prince of the wounds in short we can see from the gospels that the disciples became convinced of the Resurrection through Christ having come to them after it as the Risen one the proof for the disciples was that he was there and if these disciples who had gradually come
To the conviction that Christ was alive although he had died had been asked what they actually believed they would have said qu we have proofs that Christ lives close quote but they certainly would not have spoken as Paul spoke later after he had gone through his experience on the road to
Damascus anyone who allows the gospels and the Pauline Epistles to work upon him will notice the Deep underlying difference between the fundamental tone of the gospels as regards the understanding of the Resurrection and the Pauline conception of it Paul indeed draws a parallel between his conviction of the resurrection and that of the
Gospels for in saying Christ is risen he indicates that Christ after he had been crucified appeared as a living being to sephus to the 12 then to 500 Brethren at one time and last of all to himself Paul as to one born out of Due Time Christ
Had appeared from out of the fiery glory of the spiritual Christ had appeared to the disciples also Paul refers to that and the events lived through with the Risen one were the same for Paul as they had been for the disciples but what Paul immediately
Joins to these as the outcome for him of the event of Damascus is his wonderful and easily comprehensible theory of the being of Christ what from the event of Damascus onward was the being of Christ for Paul the being of Christ was for him the second adom and he immediately
Differentiates between the first Adam and the second Adam the Christ he calls the first Adam the progenitor of men on Earth because he sees in him the first man from whom all other men are descended for Paul it is Adam who has bequeathed to human beings the body
Which they carry about with them as a physical body all men have inherited their physical body from Adam this is the body which meets Us in external Maya and is Mortal it is the body inherited from Adam the corruptible body the physical body of man that decays in
Death with this body men are clothed in quotes the second adom Christ is regarded by Paul as possessing in contrast to the first The Incorruptible The Immortal body Paul then affirms that through Christian Evolution men are gradually made ready to put on the second adom in place of the first adom The
Incorruptible body of the second adom Christ in place of the corruptible body of the first adom what Paul seems to require of all who call themselves true Christians is something that violates all the old conceptions of the world as the first corruptible body is descended from Adam so must the
Incorruptable body originate from the second adom from Christ every Christian could say quote because I am descended from Adam I have a corruptible body as Adam had but in that I set myself in the right relationship to Christ I receive from him the second adom an Incorruptible body close quote
For Paul this view shines out directly from the experience of Damascus we can perhaps Express what Paul wishes to say by means of a simple diagram here we have XXXX a number of people at a given time Paul would Trace them all back to the first adom from whom they are all
Descended and by whom they are given the corruptible body according to Paul’s conception however something else is possible just as human beings can say qu we are related because we are all descended from the one progenitor adom close quote so they can say quote as without any action of ours through the relationships
Of human generation lines can be traced back to adom so it is possible for us to cause something else to arise within us something that could make us different beings just as the natural lines lead back to Adam so it must be possible to represent lines which lead not to the corruptible
Body of the fleshly atom but to the body that is Incorruptible through our relationship to Christ we can according to the Pauline view bear this Incorruptible body within us just as through Adam we bear the corruptible body close quote there is nothing more uncomfortable for the modern Consciousness than this
Idea for looking at the matter quite soberly what does it demand from us it demands something which for modern thought is really monstrous modern thought has long disputed whether all human beings are descended from one primeval human being but it may be allowed that all are descended from a single human being who
Was the first on Earth as regards physical consciousness Paul however demands the following he says quot if you desire to be a Christian in the true sense you must conceive that within you something can arise which can live in you and from which you can draw spiritual lines to a
Second atom to Christ to that very Christ who on the third day Rose from the grave just as all men can trace lines back to the physical body of the first adom close quote so Paul demands that all who call themselves Christians should cause something within them to arise something
Leading to that entity which on the third day rose out of the grave in which the body of Christ Jesus had been laid anyone who does not Grant this cannot come to into any relationship with Paul he cannot say he understands Paul if man as regards his corruptible
Body is descended from the first atom then by reing receiving the being of Christ into his own being he has the possibility of having a second ancestor this ancestor however is he who on the third day after his body had been laid in the earth rose out of the
Grave let us clearly understand that Paul makes this demand however displeasing it may be to Modern thinkers from this Pauline statement we will indeed approach the modern thinker but one ought not to have any other opinion concerning that which meets us so clearly in the Pauline writings one ought not to twist the
Meaning of something so clearly expressed by Paul certainly it is Pleasant to interpret something allegorically and to say it was meant in such and such a way but all these interpretations make no sense if we wish to connect to meaning with a Pauline statement we are bound to
Say even if modern Consciousness regards it as Superstition that according to Paul Christ rose from the dead after 3 days let us go further an assertion such as this made by Paul after he had reached the summit of his initiation through the event of Damascus the assertion concerning the
Second Adam and his rising from the grave could be made only by someone whose whole mode of thought and Outlook had been derived from Greek thought by one whose Roots were in Greece even if he were also a Hebrew by one who in a certain respect had brought all his hebraism as an
Offering to the Greek mind for if we come closer to all this what is it that Paul really declares looking with inner Vision on that which the Greeks loved and valued the external form of the human body concerning which they had the tragic feeling that it comes to an end when the
Individual passes through the gate of death Paul says quote with the resurrection of Christ the body has been raised in Triumph from the grave close quote if we are to build a bridge between these two world outlooks we can best do it in the following way the Greek hero said from his Greek
Feeling quote better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the land of Shades close quote he said this because he was convinced that the external form of his physical body so highly cherished by the Greeks was lost forever in passing through the gate of
Death on this same soil out of which this tragic mood of intoxication with beauty had grown Paul appeared he who first proclaimed the gospel to the Greeks we do not deviate from his words if we Translate at them as follows quote that which you value above all the human
Bodily form will no longer be destroyed Christ is risen as the first of those who are raised from the dead the form of the physical body is not lost but is given back to humanity through the resurrection of Christ close quote that which the Greeks valued most
Highly was given back to them with the resurrection by Paul the Jew who had been steeped in Greek culture only a Greek would so think and speak but only someone who had become a Greek with all the preconceptions derived from his Jewish ancestry only a Jew who had become a Greek could speak
In this way no one else but how can we approach these things from the standpoint of spiritual science for we have reached the point of knowing that Paul demands something which thoroughly upsets the calculations of the modern thinker let us Endeavor from this standpoint of spiritual science to get
Nearer to what Paul demands let us collect what we know from spiritual science so as to bring an idea to meet Paul’s statement when we review the very simplest spiritual scientific truths we know that man consists of physical body etheric body astral body and ego if now you ask someone who has
Studied spiritual science a little but not very thoroughly whether he knows the physical body of man he will be sure to answer I know it quite well for I see it when a person stands before me the other members are super sensible invisible and one cannot see them but the physical
Human body I know very well close quote is it really the physical body of man that appears before our eyes when we meet a man with our ordinary Vision I ask you who without Clairvoyant Vision has ever seen a physical human body what is it that people have before
Them if they see only with physical eyes and physical understanding a human body but one consisting of physical body etheric body astral body and ego and when a man stands before us it is as an organized assembly of physical body etheric body astral body and
Ego it would make as little sense to say that a physical body stood before us as it would if when giving someone a glass of water we were to say quote there is hydrogen in that glass close quote water consists of hydrogen and oxygen as man consists of physical aetheric and astral
Bodies and ego their assemblage is visible just as water is but the hydrogen and oxygen are not anyone who said he saw hydrogen in the water would be obviously mistaken so is anyone who thinks he sees the physical body when he sees a man in the external world what he normally sees
Is not a physical human body but a for membered being he sees the physical body only in so far as it is permeated by the other members of the human human being and it is then changed in the same way that hydrogen is changed when it is permeated with oxygen in
Water for hydrogen is a gas and oxygen also from the two gases united we get a liquid why should it be incomprehensible that the man who meets Us in the physical world is quite unlike his single members the physical etheric and astral bodies in the ego just as water is quite unlike
Hydrogen and so he is hence we cannot rely upon the Maya which appears to us as the physical body we must think of the physical body in a quite different way if we want to draw nearer to its nature the observation of the physical human body in itself belongs to the most
Difficult clar voyant problems the hardest of all suppose we allow the external world to to perform on man the experiment which is similar to the disintegration of water into hydrogen and oxygen in death this experiment is performed by the great world we then see how man lays aside his physical body but
Does he really lay aside his physical body the question seems absurd for what could be clearer than the apparent fact that at death man lays aside his physical body but what is it that he lay lays aside it is something no longer imbued with the physical body’s most important possession during life its
Form directly after death the form begins to withdraw from the dead body we are left with decaying substances no longer characterized by the form the body laid aside is composed of substance es and elements which we can trace also in nature in the natural order of things they would not produce a human
Form yet this form belongs quite essentially to the physical human body to ordinary Clairvoyance it seems evident that at death a person simply discards these material substances which are then handed over to Decay or burning and that nothing of the physical body is left The Clairvoyant then observes how after
Death the ego astral body and etheric body remain connected during the person’s review of his past life then he sees how the aetheric body separates itself how an extract of it remains while the main portion dissolves in one way or another into the general Cosmic ether it does indeed seem that the
Person has laid aside his physical body with its substances and forces and then after a few days the etheric body when The Clairvoyant follows the person further through the kamaloka period he sees how an extract of the astral body goes with him during the life between death and a new birth while
The rest of the astral body is given over to the cosmic astral so we see that physical etheric and astral bodies are laid aside and that the physical body seems to drain away completely into materials and forces which through Decay or burning or some other form of dissolution are returned to the
Elements but the more clar avoyan is developed in our time the clearer will it be that the physical forces and substances laid aside are not the whole physical body for its complete configuration could never derive from them alone to these substances and forces there belongs something else best called
The Phantom of the man this Phantom is the form shape which has a spiritual texture works up the physical substances and forces so that they fill out the form which we encounter as the man on the physical plane the sculptor can bring no statue into existence if he merely takes marble
Or something else and Strikes away wildly so that single pieces spring off just as the substance permits as the sculptor must have the thought in quotes which he impresses on the substance so is a thought in quotes related to the human body not in the same way as the thought of the artist
For the material of the human body is not marble or plaster but as a real thought the Phantom in the external world just as the thought of the plastic artist is stamped upon his material so the Phantom of the physical body is stamped upon the substances of the earth
Which we see given over after death to the Grave or the fire the Phantom belongs to the physical body as its enduring part a more important part than the external substances the external substances are merely loaded into the network of the human form as one might load apples into a
Cart you can see how important the Phantom is the substances which fall aunder after death are essentially those we meet externally in nature they are merely caught up by the human form if you think more deeply can you believe that all the work of the Great Divine spirits through the Saturn Sun
And Moon periods has merely created something which is handed over at death to the elements of the earth no that which was developed during the Saturn Sun and Moon periods is not the physical body that is laid aside at death it is the Phantom the form of the physical
Body we must be quite clear that to understand the physical body is not an easy thing above all this understanding must not be sought for in the world of Illusion the world of Maya we know that the foundation The Germ of this Phantom of the physical
Body was laid down by the Thrones during the Saturn period during the sun period the spirits of wisdom worked further upon it the spirits of movement during the moon period and the spirits of form during the Earth period and it is only in this period that the physical body received the Phantom
We call these Spirits the spirits of form because they really live in the Phantom of the physical body so in order to understand the physical body we must go back to the Phantom if we look back to the beginning of our Earth existence we can say that the hosts from the ranks
Of the higher hierarchies who had prepared the physical human body in its own proper form during the Saturn Sun and Moon periods up to the Earth period had from the outset placed this Phantom within the earth evolution in fact the Phantom which cannot be seen with the
Physical eye ey Yee was what was first there of the physical body of man it is a transparent body of force what the physical eye sees are the physical substances which a person eats and takes into himself and they fill out the invisible Phantom if the physical eye looks upon a
Physical body what it sees is the mineral part that fills the physical body not the physical body itself but how has this mineral part found its way into the Phantom of man’s physical body to answer this question let us picture once more the Genesis the first becoming of man on
Earth from Saturn Sun and Moon there came over that network of forces which in its true form form meets us as the invisible Phantom of the physical body for a higher Clairvoyance it appears as Fantom only when we look away from all the external substance that
Fills it out this is the Phantom which stands at the starting point of man’s Earth existence when he was invisible as a physical body let us suppose that to this Phantom of the physical body the etheric body is added will the Phantom then become visible certainly not for the etheric body is
Invisible for ordinary sight thus the physical body as Phantom plus etheric body is still invisible to external physical sense and the astral body even more so hence the combination of physical body as Phantom with the etheric and astral bodies is still invisible and when the ego is added it would certainly become perceptible
Inwardly but not externally visible thus as man came over out of the Saturn Sun and Moon periods he was still visible only to a clairvoyant how did he become visible but for the occurrence described in the Bible symbolically and factually in occult science as the entry of the
Lucifer influence he would not have become visible what happened through that influence read what is said in title occult science out of that path of evolution in which his physical etheric and astral bodies were still Invisible Man was thrown down into denser matter and was compelled under
The influence of Lucifer to take this denser matter into himself if the Lucifer Force had not been introduced into our astral body and ego this dense materiality would not have become as visible at as it has become hence we have to represent man as an invisible being made visible in matter
Only through forces which entered into him under the influence of Lucifer through this influence external substances and forces are drawn into the domain of the Phantom and permeated as when we pour a colored fluid into a transparent glass so that the glass looks colored so we can imagine that the Lucifer influence
Poured forces into the human Phantom with the result that man was adapted for taking in on Earth the requisite substances and forces which make his form visible otherwise his physical body would have remained always invisible the Alchemists always insisted that the human body really consists of the same substance that constitutes the
Perfectly transparent crystalclear in quotes philosophers Stone the physical body is itself entirely transparent and it is the Lucifer forces in man which have brought him to a non-transparent state and placed him before us so that he is opaque and tangible hence you will understand that man has become a being who takes up
External substances and forces of the earth which are given off again at death only because Lucifer tempted him and certain forces were poured into his astral body it follows that because the ego entered into connection with the physical aetheric and astral bodies under the influence of Lucifer Man
Became what he is on Earth and otherwise would not have been the bearer of a visible Earthly organism now let us suppose that at a certain point of time in life the ego were to go out from a human organism so that there stood before for us physical
Etheric and astral bodies but not the ego this is what happened in the case of Jesus of Nazareth in the 30th year of his life the human ego then left this cohesion of physical etheric and astral bodies and into this cohesion the Christ being entered at the baptism in
Jordan we now have the physical etheric and astral bodies of a man and the Christ being the Christ being being had now taken up his Abode in a human organism as otherwise the ego would have done what now differentiates this Christ Jesus from all other men on Earth it is
This that all other men bear within them an ego that once was overcome by Lucifer’s temptation but Jesus no longer Bears an ego within him instead he Bears the Christ being so that from this time beginning with the baptism in Jordan Jesus Bears within himself the residual
Effects that had come from Lucifer but with no human ego to allow any further luciferic influences to enter his body a physical body an etheric body and astral body in which the residue of the earlier luciferic influences was present but into which no more luciferic influence could enter and the Christ
Being thus was Christ Jesus constituted let us set before us exactly what the Christ is from the baptism in Jordan until the mystery of gotha a physical body an etheric body and an astral body which makes this physical body together with the etheric body visible because it still contains the
Residue of the luciferic influence because the Christ being had the astral body that Jesus of Nazareth had had from birth to his 30th year the physical body was visible as the bearer of the Christ thus from the time of the baptism in Jordan we have before us a physical body which as such
Would not be visible on the physical plane an etheric body which as such would not have been perceptible the astral body which makes the other two bodies visible and so makes the body of Jesus of Nazareth into a visible body and within this organism the Christ being we will inscribe firmly in our
Souls this four-fold nature of Christ Jesus saying to ourselves every person who stands before us on the physical plane consists of physical body etheric body astral body and ego and this ego is such that it always works into the astral body up to the hour of death the Christ Jesus being however stands
Before us as one who had physical body etheric body and astral body but no human ego so that during the 3 years up to his death he was not subject to the influences that normally work upon human beings the only influence came from the Christ being from this starting point we will
Continue tomorrow the end of lecture six you are listening to Rudolph Steiner audio.com as well you can hear these podcasts at Rudolf steiner.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org and America and rudol Steiner press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner into
English and have given me permission to do these recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works volume 131 by Rudolph Steiner 11 lectures entitled from Jesus to Christ translated by Charles Davy this is lecture s given on October 11th 1911 yesterday we saw that in a certain
Respect the question of Christianity is the question of the resurrection of Christ Jesus in particular we spoke of Paul the proclaimer of Christianity who from his knowledge of the essential nature of the Christ impulse recognized immediately that after and since the event of golgatha Christ lives we saw that for Paul after his
Experience on the road to Damascus a powerful magnificent picture of human evolution opened up from this point we went on to build up a picture of what Christ Jesus was directly after the baptism in Jordan by John our next task will be to inquire into the course of events from the
Baptism to the mystery of golgatha but if we are to rise to an understanding of the mystery of golgatha we must clear away certain hindrances from all that has been said concerning the gospels in the course of years and also from what has been said already in these few
Lectures you will have been able to gather that certain theosophical ideas which in some quarters are este de sufficient are really not sufficient to answer the question with which we are here concerned before everything else we must take quite seriously what has been said about the three streams of human thought
The stream which has its source in ancient Greece the stream which comes down from ancient hebraism and lastly the stream which found expression in gaama Buddha half a millennium before our era we have seen that this Buddha stream especially as it developed among his followers is least of all adapted to an
Understanding of the mystery of golgatha to the modern man whose Consciousness is filled with the intellectual culture of the present day the stream of thought which finds expression in Buddhism certainly offers something very pleasant hardly any other form of thought suits so well the concepts of
The present day in so far as they prefer to remain silent in face of the greatest question that Humanity has to grasp the question of the Resurrection for with this question the whole evolutionary history of mankind is connected now in Buddhist teaching the real being of the ego which in the true
Sense we can call the fourth member of Human Nature has been lost certainly in these matters one can employ all kinds of interpretations one can twist them in all sorts of ways and plenty of people will find fault with what has been said here about Buddhist teaching but that is not the
Point for such things as I have quoted from the heart of Buddhism for example the conversation between King Melinda and the Buddhist Sage nagasa testify clearly that the ego nature cannot be spoken of in Buddhism as we must speak of it for a genuine follower of Buddhism it
Would indeed be heretical to speak of the ego nature as we must represent it on this very account we must ourselves be clear regarding the ego nature the human ego which in the case of every human being even of the highest Adept passes from Incarnation to
Incarnation is a term which as we saw yesterday can be applied to Jesus of Nazareth only from his birth to the baptism in Jordan after the baptism we still have before us the physical body the etheric body and the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth but these external human
Sheaves are now indwelt not by a human ego but by a cosmic being the Christ being through years of endeavor we have tried by means of words to bring the Christ being nearer to our understanding as soon as one comprehends the whole nature of Christ Jesus it is
Obvious that for him one must rule out any kind of physical or bodily reincarnation the expression employed in my mystery drama titled the Soul’s probation about Christ having been present once only in a body of Flesh must be taken seriously and quite literally accordingly we must first concern
Ourselves with the being the nature of the ordinary human ego the Christ Jesus being was completely independent of the human ego from the baptism to the mystery of golgatha in earlier lectures it was shown that the evolution of the Earth was preceded by a Saturn existence a sun existence and a moon
Existence and these three planetary embodiments were followed by the fourth our Earth embodiment you know from those lectures that only during the Earth existence the fourth of the planetary conditions which were necessary to bring into existence our Earth with all its creatures could the human ego enter into connection with human
Nature just as in the ancient Saturn period we speak of the beginning of the physical body so in the period of the ancient Sun we speak of the first first development of the etheric body in the moon period of the first development of the astral body and only in the earth
Period of the unfolding of the ego in this way the whole matter is brought cosmically and historically into view but how is it when we look at the history of peoples through our former studies we know that although the seed kernel of the ego was laid down in human beings
During the luran time the possibility of attaining to Ego Consciousness arose only toward the end of the Atlantean period And that even then this ego Consciousness was very dim and vague indeed after the atlantian time through the various periods of civilization which preceded The Mystery of golgatha the ego Consciousness was
Still dull dreamlike dim but if you turn your attention to the with the development of the Hebrew people it will be clear to you that here the ego Consciousness found expression in a very unusual way a kind of folk ego lived in each single member of the ancient Hebrew
People in fact every member of this people traced his ego back to his ancestor In the Flesh to Abraham the ego of the ancient Hebrew people was still such that we can designate it as a group ego a folk group ego Consciousness had not yet penetrated as far as the separate individuality in
Each man why was this so each part of the four membered human being we now regard as normal developed gradually in the course of the Earth’s evolution it was only toward the end of the Atlantean period that part of the etheric body which until then had been external to the physical body was
Gradually drawn into the body this led toward the condition now recognized by claravine Consciousness as normal namely that the physical body and the etheric body approximately coincide and only then was it possible for man to develop his ego Consciousness let us slowly and gradually form an impression of the very
Peculiar way in which this ego Consciousness meets Us in man I described yesterday how people speak of the Resurrection when they approach it with all the intellectual preconceptions of the present day if they say I had to Ascent to the real Pauline teaching about the resurrection
I would have to tear up my whole conception of the world that is what they say these up-to-date people who have at their command all the resources of modern intellectualism to people who speak thus what must now be said will seem very strange but is it not possible that such
A person might reflect yes if I am to accept the resurrection I shall have to tear up all my intellectual Concepts but is that a reason for setting this question aside because we cannot understand the resurrection and have to regard it as a miracle must we assume that the only way
Out of this difficulty is to pass it by is there no other way close quote the other way is far from easy for a modern man for he would have to admit to himself qu Perhaps it is not the fault of the Resurrection that I am unable to understand it perhaps the
Reason is that my intellect is unfitted to understand it close quote so little is this matter taken seriously in our day that we may say modern man is prevented by his pride and just because he does not suspect ECT that Pride could come into it from admitting that his intellect may be
Incompetent to Fathom this question for which is more reasonable to say that I am setting aside something that shatters my intellectual Outlook or to admit that it may be beyond my understanding Pride however forbids this admission of course an anthroposophist must have trained himself to Rise Above
This Kind of Pride it should not be far from the heart of a true anthroposophist to say quotes perhaps my intellect is not competent to form an opinion about the resurrection close quote but then he has to face another difficulty he now has to answer the question why the human mind is not
Adapted to comprehend the greatest fact in human evolution to answer this question we must go somewhat more closely into the real nature of human understanding understanding here I should like to remind you of my Munich lectures titled Wonders of the World of which I will now
Give a resume as far as we need one the elements that go to make up our soul life our thoughts feelings and perceptions are not to be found in our present day physical body they penetrate only as far as the etheric body in order to be clear about this let
Us imagine our human nature in so far as it Con consists of ego astral body and etheric body enclosed in an ellipse we will take this diagram to represent schematically what we call our inward life and can experience in our souls the diagram shows it coming to expression only in the streams and
Forces of the etheric body if we experience a thought or perception it has three lines of action in our soul nature as indicated in the the following diagram within our soul nature there is nothing that is not present in this way now if a man’s ordinary Earthly Consciousness were restricted to Soul
Experiences within the confines of the diagram the experiences would occur but he would not be conscious of them they would remain unconscious our soul experiences become conscious only through a process which an analogy will help us to understand stand imagine you are going in a certain direction looking straight ahead your name is
Smith while you are going straight ahead you do not see Smith yet you are he you experience him you are the person Smith imagine that someone puts a mirror in front of you now Smith stands before you what you had previously experienced you now see it meets you in the
Mirror so it is with the soul life of man a person has an experience but he does not become conscious of it without a mirror the mirror is the physical body the perceptions the thoughts are thrown back by the sheath of the physical body thereby we become conscious of
Them hence in the diagram we can represent the physical body as the enclosing sheath for us as Earthly men the physical body is in truth a reflecting apparatus if in this way you go more and more deeply into the nature of the human soul and of human consciousness it will
Be impossible for you to consider as in any way dangerous or significant all those things which are brought forward again and again by materialism in opposition to the spiritual conception of the world if through any damage to the reflecting apparatus the soul experience is no longer perceived by the
Consciousness it is absolute nonsense to conclude that the soul experience itself is bound up with the mirror if someone breaks a mirror in which you see yourself he does not break you you merely disappear from your own field of vision so it is when the reflecting
Apparatus for the soul life the brain is Disturbed perception ceases but the soul life itself in so far as it goes on in the etheric body and the astral body is not in the least Disturbed but have we not come to a point when we must consider closely the nature of the physical
Body you will agree that without Consciousness we could not be conscious of the ego in order to make ego Consciousness our own during life on Earth our physical body with its brain brain organization has to be a reflecting apparatus we learn to become conscious of ourselves through our own mirrored
Reflection if we had no mirror apparatus we could not be conscious of our own selves what is this mirror we are shown by occult investigations which reach back through reading the akashic record as far as the origin of our Earth existence that in the beginning of Earth existence this reflecting apparatus the
External physical body came under luciferic influence and was changed yesterday we saw what this physical body has become for Earthly man it has become something that falls to Pieces when he passes through the gate of death we have said that the body which Falls to Pieces is not the body which
Divine Spirits had prepared through four planetary Evolutions so that that it should become the physical body on Earth what the Divine Spirits prepared which yesterday we called the Phantom belongs to the physical body as a form body which permeates and at the same time holds together the material parts
That are woven into our physical body if no luciferic influence had intervened then at the beginning of his Earth existence man would have received this Phantom in full strength together with his physical body but into the human organization in so far as it consists of physical body etheric body and astral body the
Luciferic influence penetrated and the consequence was the disorganization of the Phantom of the physical body as we shall see this is symbolically expressed in the Bible as the fall together with the fact related in the the Old Testament that death followed the fall death was indeed the result of the
Disorganization of the Phantom of the physical body the outcome is that when man goes through the gate of death he has to see the dissolution of his physical body this crumbling physical body lacking the strength of the Phantom is indeed born by man from birth to death the crumbling away goes on all
The time and the decomposition the death of the physical body is only the final stage of a continuous process for if the disintegration of the body preceded by the disorganization of the Phantom is not countered by processes of reconstruction death finally ensues if no luciferic influence had come in the destructive and
Reconstructive forces in the physical body would have remained in Balance but then everything in Earthly human nature would have been different there would for example have been no mind incapable of comprehending the resurrection for what kind of understanding is it that cannot grasp the resurrection it is the kind that is
Bound up with the decadence of the physical body and is what it is because the individual has incurred through the luciferic influence the progressive destruction of the Phantom of the phys physical body in Consequence the human understanding the human intellect has become so thin so threadbear that it
Cannot take in the great processes of cosmic Evolution it looks up at them as Miracles or says it cannot comprehend them if the luciferic influence had not come and the upbuilding forces in the human body had held the destructive forces in Balance then the human understanding equipped with all that was
Intended for it would have seen into the upbuilding forces rather as one follows a laboratory experiment but our understanding is now such that it remains on the surface of things and has no insight into the cosmic depths anyone therefore who wishes to characterize these conditions correctly
Must say in the beginning of our Earth existence the physical body was prevented by the luciferic influence from becoming what it should have become according to the will of the powers who work through Saturn Sun and Moon instead it took into itself a destructive process since the beginning
Of the earth existence man has lived in a physical body which is subject to destruction a body which cannot adequately counter the destructive forces with upbuilding building forces so there is truth in something which appears to the modern man as such Folly that a hidden connection exists
Between what has to come to pass through the working of Lucifer and death and now let us look at this working what was the effect of this destruction of the real physical body if we had the complete physical body as was intended at the beginning of the Earth existence our soul Powers
Would reflect themselves in quite another way we should then know in truth what we are as things are we do not know what we are because the physical body is not given us in its completeness we do certainly speak of the nature and being of the human ego
But how far does man know the ego so problematic is the ego that Buddhism can even Den deny that it goes from one Incarnation to another so problematic is it that Greece could fall into the tragic mood which found expression in the those words of the Greek hero quote
Better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of Shades close quote so it was that when a Greek saw the treasured physical body the body shaped by the Phantom given over to destruction he felt a sadness in face of the darkening the fading away of the ego
For he felt that it could exist only together with the ego Consciousness and when he saw the form of the physical body falling into decadence he shuddered at the thought that the ego would grow dark and dim this ego which is reflected by the form of the physical
Body and when we follow human evolution from the beginning of the Earth to the mystery of gatha we find that the process we have just indicated shows itself in an ever increasing degree in earlier times for example no one would have preached the annihilation of the physical body in so radical a
Fashion as did Gama Buddha for such teaching to be given it was necessary that the decadence of the physical body its complete annulment as regards its form should have become more and more nearly complete so that the human mind no longer had any idea that the entity which becomes conscious through the
Physical body that is through the form can pass over from one Incarnation to another the truth is that man in the course of the earth evolution lost the form of the physical body so that he no longer has what the Divine beings had intended for him from the beginning of the the
Earth this is something he must regain but it had first to be imparted to him once more and we cannot comprehend Christianity unless we understand that at the time when the events of Palestine took place the human race on Earth had reached a stage where the decadence of
The physical body was at its peak and where because of this the whole evolution of humanity was threatened with the danger that the ego Consciousness the specific achievement of the earth evolution would be lost if this process had continued unchanged the destructive element would have penetrated ever more deeply into
The human bodily organism and Men born after the time when the events of Palestine were due would have had to live with an ever duller feeling of the ego everything that that depends on perfect Reflection from the physical body would have become increasingly worn out then came the mystery of golgatha it
Came as we have characterized it and through it something happened which is so hard to grasp for an intellect bound up with the physical body only a body in which the destructive forces preponderate it came to pass that one man who was the bearer of the Christ had gone through such a death
That after 3 days the specifically mortal part of the physical body had to disappear and out of the Grave There Rose the body which is the force bearer of the physical material Parts the body that was really intended for Man by the rulers of Saturn Sun and
Moon the pure Phantom of the physical body with all the attributes of the physical body this it was that rose out of the grave so was given the possibility of that spiritual genealogy of which we have spoken let us think of the body of Christ that rose out of the Grave Just
As from the body of Adam the bodies of Earth men are descended in so far as these men have the body that crumbles away even so are the spiritual bodies the Phantoms for all men descended from that which rose out of the grave and it is possible to establish a
Relationship with Christ through which an Earthly human being can bring into his otherwise decaying physical body this Phantom which rose out of the grave of golgatha it is possible for man to receive into his organism those forces which then Rose from the grave just as through his physical
Organism at the beginning of the earth evolution as a consequence of the luciferic forces he received the organism of Adam it is this that Paul wishes to say just as man through his place in the Stream of physical Evolution inherits the physical body in which the destruction of the Phantom the force
Bearer is gradually taking place so from the pure Phantom that rose out of the Grave he can inherit what he has lost he can inherit it he can clothe himself with it as he clothed himself with the first Adam he can become one with it thereby he can go through a
Development by means of which he can climb upward again even as before the mystery of golgatha he had descended in evolution in other words that which had been taken from him through the luciferic influence can be given back to him through its presence as the Risen
Body of Christ that is what Paul wishes to say now just as it is very easy from the standpoint of modern Anatomy or physiology to refute what has been said in this lecture apparently to refute it so is it very easy to raise another objection some such question as this
Might be asked if indeed Paul really believed that a spiritual body had risen what has this spiritual body which had risen out of the Grave to do with what every man now bears in himself this is not hard to understand we need only understand the analogy offered by the coming into existence of
A human individual as physical human being he begins from a single cell a physical body consists entirely of cells which are all children of the original cell all cells which compose a human body are traceable to the original cell now imagine that through what we may call a mystical christological
Process man acquires a body quite other than the one he has gradually acquired in his downward Evolution then think of each of these new bodies as having an intimate connection with the pure Phantom that Rose from the grave somewhat as the human cells of the physical body are connected with the original cell
That is we must think of the Phantom as multiplying itself as does the cell which gives rise to the physical body so in the evolution which follows the event of golgatha every man can inwardly acquire something which is spiritually descended from The Phantom which rose from the grave just as to
Echo Paul the ordinary body which falls into dissolution is descended from Adam of course it is an insult to the human intellect which thinks so arrogantly of itself at the present time when one says that a process similar to the multiplication of the cell which if need
Be can be seen takes place in The Invisible this outcome of the mystery of golgatha however is an occult fact to someone who contemplates Evolution with occult sight it is apparent that the spiritual cell the body which overcame death the body of Christ Jesus has risen
From the grave and in the course of time imparts itself to anyone who enters into the corresponding relationship with the Christ to anyone resolved to deny super sensible happenings altogether this statement will naturally seem absurd but to anyone who grants the super sensible the event with which we are here conern
Concerned must be presented in the way described the Phantom which rose from the grave communicates itself to those who make themselves fitted for it this then is a fact that everyone who grants the super sensible can understand if we can inscribe upon our souls what is in very truth the Pauline
Teaching we come to regard the mystery of golgatha as a reality that took place and had to take place in the evolution of the Earth for it signifies literally the rescue of the human ego we have seen that if the process of evolution had continued along the path
It had followed up to the time of the events of Palestine the eagle Consciousness could not have been developed it would not only have failed to advance but would have gone down ever further into darkness but the path turned upward and will continue to ascend in proportion as men find their relation to
The Christ being now we can understand Buddhism very well about 500 years before the events of Palestine a truth was proclaimed quote everything that envelops a man as his physical body and makes him a being incarnated in the flesh all this must be looked upon as worthless it is fundamentally a leftover
Were from the past and must be cast off close quote certainly up to that time conditions were such that Humanity would have had to set its course toward this philosophy of life if nothing else had intervened but there came the event of golgatha an event which completely restored the Lost principles of human
Evolution in so far as man takes into himself The Incorruptible body we spoke of yesterday and have brought before our souls in closer detail today if he clothes himself with this Incorruptible body he will become more and more clearly aware of his ego Consciousness and of that part of his
Nature which Journeys on from one Incarnation to another that which came into the world with Christianity must therefore not be regarded merely as a new teaching this must be specially emphasized and not as a new Theory but as something real something factual hence when people insist that everything Christ taught had been known
Previously this signifies nothing for a real understanding of Christianity the important thing is not what Christ taught but what he gave his body for the body that Rose from the grave of gotha had never before entered into human evolution never before had there been present on Earth through the death of a
Man that which came to be present as the Risen Body of Christ Jesus previously after men had passed through the gate of death and had gone through the period between death and a new birth they had brought to Earth with them the defective Phantom given over to
Deterioration no one had ever caused a perfect Phantom to arise here we can refer to the initiates and adepts they always had to receive initiation outside their physical bodies by overcoming their physical bodies but this overcoming never went as far as a resuscitation of the physical phantom No pre-christian initiations
Went farther than the outermost limits of the physical body they did not touch the forces of the physical body except in so far as the inner organism impinges in a general way on the outer no one having gone through death had ever overcome death as a human Phantom similar things had certainly
Occurred but never this that a man had gone through a complete human death and that the complete Phantom had then gained victory over death just as it is true that only this Phantom can give rise to a complete Humanity in the course of human evolution
So is it true that this Phantom took its beginning from the grave of golgatha that is the important fact in Christian Evolution hence the commentators are not at fault when they say again and again that the teaching of Christ Jesus has been transformed into a teaching about
Christ Jesus it had to be so for the important thing is not what Christ Jesus taught but what he gave to humanity his resurrection is the coming to birth of a new member of human nature an Incorruptible body but for this to happen this Rescue of the human Phantom through death two
Things were necessary it was necessary first that the being of Christ Jesus should be such as we have described it constituted a physical body etheric body and astral body and instead of a human ego the Christ being secondly it was necessary that the Christ being should have resolved to
Descend into a human body to Incarnate in a human body of Flesh for if we are to contemplate the Christ being in the right light we must seek him in the time before the beginning of man on Earth the Christ being was of course existent at that time he did not enter
Into the course of human evolution he dwelt in the spiritual World Humanity continued along its ever decreasing path at a point in time when the crisis of human evolution had been reached the Christ being Incorporated himself in the body of a man that is the greatest sacrifice that
Could have been brought to the earth evolution by the Christ being and the second thing we must learn to understand is wherein the sacrifice consisted yesterday we dealt with one part of the question concerning the nature of Christ confining Our study to the time after the baptism by John in the
Jordan we must now go on to ask what is the significance of the fact that at the baptism the Christ being descended into a body of Flesh and how did Death come about in the mystery of golgatha this question will occupy Us in the coming days the end of lecture s
You are listening to Rudolf Steiner audio.com as well you can hear these podcasts at Rudolf Steiner podbean.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org in America and rudol Steiner press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner into English and have given me permission to do these
Recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works volume 131 by Rudolph Steiner 11 lectures entitled from Jesus to Christ translated by Charles Davy this is lecture 8 given on October 12th 1911 yesterday we indicated that it was now necessary to answer the question
What really happened to that being whom we designate as Christ Jesus from the baptism by John in Jordan to the mystery of golgatha to answer this question as far as possible possible we must recall briefly what we know from former lectures concerning the life of Jesus of Nazareth
Who in his 30th year became the bearer of the Christ the essential points are given in my recently published book title the spiritual guidance of mankind we know that in Palestine at the time which concerns us not one but two Jesus children were born one of them
From the Solomon line of the house of David this is the Jesus child of whom the Matthew gospel speaks the peculiar contradiction between the beginnings of the Matthew and the Luke gospels derise from the fact that the writer of the Matthew gospel was concerned with one of
The Jesus Children the one born from the Solomon line then at almost but not quite the same time another Jesus child was born from the Nathan line of the House of David the important thing is to understand clearly what kind of beings these two children were occult investigation shows that the
Individuality who was in the Solomon Jesus child was none other than zarathustra after zarathustra’s most important mission of which we have spoken in connection with the ancient Persian civilization he had been incarnated again and again lastly during the Babylonian cic civilization and now as the Solomon Jesus child this zarathustra individuality
With all the Great and Powerful inner forces which in the nature of things he had brought over from earlier incarnations had to Incarnate in a body descended from the Solomon side of the House of David a body adapted for working up and further developing the great faculties of zarathustra in the
Way that human faculties when they are already at a very high level can be brought further on in so far as they belong to the being who is going from Incarnation to Incarnation we are concerned therefore with a human body which did not wait until later years to work on these
Faculties but could do so in a youthful childlike and yet powerful organism hence we see the zarathustra individuality growing up in such a way that the faculties of the child developed comparatively early the child soon showed an extent of knowledge which would normally have been impossible at his
Age one fact however we must keep firmly in mind the Solomon Jesus child although the encarnation of so lofty an individuality was only a highly developed man hence he was encumbered as even the most highly developed man must be with certain liabilities to error and moral difficulties though not exactly vices or
Sins then we know that in his 12th year the individuality of zarathustra by an occult process known to everyone who has made himself conversent with such facts forsook the body of the Solomon Jesus child and went over into the body of the Nathan Jesus child now the body of this Nathan Jesus
Child or better his three-fold bodily organization physical body etheric body astral body was formed in a quite special manner in fact this body was such that the child showed capacities exactly contrary to those of the Solomon Jesus child whereas the latter was remarkable because of his great gifts in relation
To things one can learn externally it might almost be said that in this respect the Nathan Jesus child was untalented you will understand that saying this implies not the slightest deprecation the Nathan Jesus child was not in a position to familiarize himself with the products of human culture on
Earth by contrast the remarkable fact is that he could speak as soon as he was born a faculty which belongs more to the physical body was thus present in him from his birth but according to a good tradition which can be occultly confirmed the language he spoke could be understood by
His mother only the child’s most strongly marked characteristics were qualities of the heart he had an immense capacity for love and a disposition capable of immense self-sacrifice and the remarkable thing is that from the first days of his life his M presence or his touch had beneficent effects magnetic effects one
Might perhaps call them nowadays thus all the qualities of heart were manifest in this child enhanced to such a degree that they could have a beneficent magnetic influence on his environment we know also that active in the astral body of this child were the forces which had once been acquired by
The bodhisatwa Who became gutama Buddha we know indeed and in this respect the Oriental tradition is absolutely correct for it can be confirmed by occult science that The bodhisatwa Who on becoming Buddha five centuries before our era no longer needed to Incarnate further on Earth worked from the
Spiritual world upon all those who devoted themselves to his teachings it is characteristic of such an individuality who Rises to Heights from which he need no longer incarnate in a body of Flesh that he can then take part in the Affairs and Destiny of our Earth existence from out of the spiritual worlds
This can happen in the most manifold ways in fact the bodhisatwa who went through his last Incarnation on the earth as gaama Buddha has taken an essential part in the further evolution of humanity our human spiritual World stands continually in connection with all the rest of the spiritual world the
Human being not only eats and drinks and so takes into himself the substance of the physical Earth he continually receives sole spiritual nourishment from the spiritual world in the most varied ways forces continually flow into physical Earthly existence from out of the spiritual World such an inflow of the forces which
Buddha had gained for himself came into the wider stream of humanity through the fact that the Buddha forces permeated the astral body of the Nathan Jesus child we know too from earlier lectures that the words we still have today as a Christian message quote the Divine reveals itself from the Heights and on
Earth peace will spread in the hearts of men of good will close quote originate in essence from the influence which flowed down into human evolution through the immersion of the Buddha powers in the astral body of the Nathan Jesus child thus we see the Buddha forces working further in the dream of Earth
Existence which took its start from the events of Palestine and it is interesting that precisely the researches made by Western occultism in quite recent years have led to the recognition of a very important connection between European civilization and the Buddha forces for a long time these Buddha forces have been working from the
Spiritual worlds particularly upon everything in western civilization which is Unthinkable without the specific influence of Christianity all those philosophical streams which have developed during recent centuries up to the 19th century in so far as they are Western spiritual currents are permeated by the Christ impulse but the Buddha has always
Been working into them from out of the spiritual worlds hence the most important thing that European Humanity can receive from Buddha to day does not depend on the handing down of the teaching that Buddha gave to men about 500 years before the Christian era but on what he has become
Since that time for he has not remained at a standstill he has progressed and it is through this progress as a spiritual being in the spiritual worlds that he has in the highest sense been able to take part in the further evolution of Western Civilization the outcome of our own occult
Investigation harmonizes in a wonderful way with much that had been known previously before this important influence could be investigated again for we know that the same individuality who appeared as gatama Buddha in the East had previously worked in the west and that certain Legends and traditions connected with the name of
Buddha or Wan have to do with this same individuality just as Buddhism has with gaama Buddha in the East hence the same field of action in human evolution which had been prepared earlier by the same individuality has again been occupied in a certain sense thus are interlaced the ways taken
By the spiritual currents within the evolution of humanity today the most important thing for us is to establish that in the astral body of the Jesus child described by Luke we have the Buddha forces at work and when this Nathan Jesus child was 12 years old the zarathustra individuality passed over into his
Three-fold being why is it then that this Jesus child had the remarkable qualities we have just characterized it was because he was not a human individuality like every other but in a certain respect quite different and in order to understand him we must go back to the ancient luran time in
Which strictly speaking the earth evolution of man took its start we must clearly understand that everything before the luran time was really only a repetition of the Saturn Sun and Moon periods only in the luran time was the first germ condition laid down in man as a
Potentiality so that during the Earth of Evolution he could receive the fourth member of his being the ego we can say the extension of mankind over the earth a subject dealt with more precisely in the title outline of occult science is to be traced to certain human ancestors in the lorean period the
Period with which our present Earth took its start it is only after a certain point of time in this lorean period that we can speak correctly in a modern sense of the human race before this those egos who have since continued to Incarnate were not present in men on Earth they
Were not yet separate from the substance of that hierarchy which had first brought the human ego into being the hierarchy of the spirits of form we can now picture to ourselves occult research shows this that part of the substance of the spirits of form entered into the incarnations of of men
For the building up of the human ego but when in due time man was given over to his physical incarnations on the earth something was held back a certain ego substance was not brought into the stream of physical incarnations if we were to represent the stream of physical human incarnations
Beginning with him whom the Bible calls Adam the progenitor of the human race we should have to draw a genealogical tree with wides spreading branches instead let us simply imagine that the substance poured down from the spirits of form now flows onward but that something was held back an ego that
Was now protected from entering into physical incarnations Instead This ego preserved the form the substantiality which man had had before proceeding to his first Earthly Incarnation this Eagle lived on collaterally with the rest of humanity and at the time of which we are now speaking when the event of Palestine was
To take place it was still in the same condition if we wish to speak according to the Bible as was the ego of Adam before his first embodiment in flesh in examining what occult science knows about this ego which naturally for a modern man is something extremely
Foolish we see that this ego which was as it were held back in reserve in quotes was given into the care of the Holy Mysteries through Atlantean and post- Atlantean times it was preserved in an important mystery Center as in a tabernacle and because of this it had quite special characteristics it was
Untouched by everything that a human ego could have learned on Earth it was therefore Untouched by any luciferic and armonic influence fluences it was indeed something we can think of in contrast to other human egos as an empty sphere still completely virginal with regard to all Earth
Experiences a nothing a negative in this respect hence it seemed as though the Nathan child described in the Luke gospel really had no ego as though he consisted only of physical etheric and astral body and it is quite adequate if at first we say that an ego developed as
Egos had developed in Atlantean and post- Atlantean times was not there at all in the Luke Jesus child we speak in the true sense of the words when we say that in the Matthew Jesus child we have to do with a completely human being whereas in the
Nathan Jesus child of the Luke gospel we have to do with a physical an aetheric and an astral body which are interrelated in the harmonious Unity that belonged to man when he emerged from the Saturn Sun and Moon Evolutions hence this Jesus child as the akashic record tells us was untalented
For all that human culture had developed he could not receive it because he had never been among it external abilities and adaptations to existence are the outcome of certain experiences in earlier incarnations anyone who had never shared in such experiences would show himself without talent for all that men have
Accomplished during the earth evolution if the Nathan Jesus child had been born in our time he would have been totally Ungifted for learning to write since in adamic times writing was Unknown by contrast the Luke Jesus child revealed in a high degree the qualities he had brought with him quality that had
Not fallen into decadence through the luciferic influence even more interesting is the remarkable language he spoke here we must bring to mind something I mentioned entitled the spiritual guidance of mankind that the languages which are now spread over the Earth took their rise comparatively late in evolution they
Were preceded by what can truly be called a primal human language it is the disuniting spirits of the luciferic and armonic world who have made many languages out of the Primal language the Primal language is lost and can be spoken today by nobody with an ego which in the course of earth
Evolution has passed from Incarnation to Incarnation this Jesus child who had not gone through human incarnations acquired from the starting point of evolution The Faculty of speaking not this or that language but a language of which we can rightly say that it was not comprehensible to those
Around him but because of the inner qualities of heart that lived in it it was understood by his mother’s heart this points to a phenomenon of immense significance in the case of the Luke Jesus child we have seen that when this Luke Jesus child was born he was provided
With everything that had not been influenced by the Lucifer armonic forces he did not possess an ego that had been through a series of incarnations therefore nothing had to be discarded when in his 12th year the individuality of zarathustra passed over from the Solomon Jesus child into the Nathan Jesus
Child I have already said that the human element which had remained behind and up to this time had developed in the Mysteries by the side of the rest of humanity was bornn for the first time in the Palestine period as the Nathan Jesus child there was a transference from a
Mystery Center in Western Asia where this human kernel had been preserved into the body of the Nathan Jesus child this child grew on and in his 12th year the individuality of zarathustra passed into him we know also that this passing over is in intimated in the scene of the 12-year-old Jesus in the
Temple it was quite natural that the parents of the Nathan Jesus child who were accustomed to regard him in the light we have described should find a remarkable change when they discovered him in the temple after he had been lost for that was the moment when zarathustra passed over into this 12-year-old
Child from the 12th to the 30th year therefore we have to do with the individual uality of zarathustra in the Luke Jesus child now in the Luke gospel we have a remarkable expression which indicates something that can be made clear only by occult investigation you know that in the Luke
Gospel after the description of the scene with the 12-year-old Jesus in the temple there is a passage quote and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man close quote Luke 2:52 in truth this passage stands as follows when we restore the text of the gospels from the akashic
Record the 12-year-old child increased in everything wherein an astral body can increase that is in wisdom in everything wherein an aetheric body can increase that is in all the qualities of kindliness goodness Etc and in everything wherein a physical body can increase that is in all that pours itself into external beauty of
Form in this passage therefore a special indication is given that the Jesus child not having gone from Incarnation to Incarnation had up to his 12th year remained untouched and could not be touched in his individuality by the luciferic and armonic forces the Luke gospel inter Ates this again by tracing the sequence of
Generations back through Adam to God thus indicating that the substance in question was uninfluenced by all that had taken place in human evolution so this Jesus child lived on increasing in all that was possible for a three-fold organism not touched by the contamination which has affected the three-fold bodies of other
Men and this Ena abled the individuality of zarathustra from the 12th to the 30th year of life to pour into this three-fold human being all that could come from the heights to which he himself had previously attained hence we form a correct idea of Jesus of Nazareth up to the 30th year of
His life when we think of him as a lofty human individuality for whose coming into existence the greatest possible preparations had been made but we must now be clear about one thing if we want to understand how the fruits of a development we go through in our bodies are of benefit to the
Individuality our bodies enable our individuality to absorb the fruits of our life for its future Evolution when in death we forsake our bodies we do not usually leave in them what we have achieved and gained for ourselves as individuals later on we shall see under what special conditions something may remain in the
Bodies but it is not the rule that the individuality should leave behind in his bodies whatever he has won for himself when zarathustra forsook the three-fold bodily being of Jesus of Nazareth in the 30th year he left behind the three bodies physical etheric and astral but all that he had been able to
Gain through these instruments went into the individuality of zarathustra and lived on further with him to his benefit something however was gained by the three-fold bodily organism of Jesus of Nazareth his human nature still free as it always had been from luciferic and armonic influences was conjoined for a period with the individuality
Who had unequaled insight into the spirituality of the cosmos think what this zarathustra had experienced while he was founding the ancient Persian civilization and looking up to the great son Spirit he was even then gazing out into the cosmic Realms of the spiritual through successive incarnations his development went
On when the innermost part of human nature together with the most intensive powers of sympathy and love had become manifest through the unsullied human substance which had been preserved until the birth of the Nathan Jesus and when the astral body had permeated itself with the forces of Gama
Buddha there was present in this child what we may call the most intimate inwardness of man and then into this body Godly nature there entered the individuality who above all others had seen most clearly and deeply into the spirituality of the macrocosm by this means the bodily instrument the entire organism of the
Nathan Jesus was so transformed that it could be the vehicle capable of receiving into itself the Christ extract of the macrocosm if this bodily nature had not been permeated by the zarathustra individuality up to the 30th year the eyes would not have been able to endure the substance of the Christ from the
30th year up to the mystery of golgatha the hands would not have been capable of being permeated with the substance of the Christ in the 30th year to be able to receive the Christ this bodily nature had to be prepared expanded through the individuality of zarathustra thus in Jesus of Nazareth as
He was at the moment when zarathustra took leave of him and the Christ individuality entered into him we have to do neither with an Adept nor with anything like a higher human being for an Adept is an Adept because he has a highly developed individuality
And it was just this that had passed out of the three-fold bodily nature of Jesus of Nazareth we have simply the bodily nature so prepared through the indwelling of zarathustra that it could take into itself the Christ individuality but now through the union of the Christ individuality with this
Bodily Nature by necessity the following consequence came about during these three years from the baptism by John in Jordan onward to the mystery of golgatha the development of the physical body the etheric body and the astral body was quite different from the bodily development of other human beings since the Nathan Jesus had
Received no influence from the luciferic and armonic Powers the possibility was given that from the baptism in Jordan onward now that there was in Jesus of Nazareth no human ego but solely the Christ individuality everything which is normally at work in a human organism was not developed we said yesterday that the
Human Phantom the Primal form which draws into itself the material elements that fill out the physical body and are laid aside at death had degenerated in the course of time up to the mystery of golgatha at the beginning of human evolution it was intended that the Phantom should remain Untouched by the material
Elements that man takes for his nutrition from the animal plant and mineral kingdoms but it did not remain untouched for the luciferic influence brought about a close connection between the Phantom and the forces which man absorbs through his Earthly Evolution a connection particularly with the ashy constituents the result was that the
Phantom while continuing to accompany man during his further Evolution was strongly drawn to these ashy constituents and instead of adhering to the etheric body it attached itself to these products of disintegration but where the luciferic influences had been kept away as they were from the Nathan Jesus no force of
Attraction arose between the Phantom and the material elements that had been taken into the the bodily organism throughout the 3 years from the baptism up to the mystery of golgatha the Phantom remained Untouched by these elements in occult terms we can say the human Phantom according to its intended
Development through the Saturn Sun and Moon periods should not have been attracted to the ashy constituents but only to the dissolving salt constituents so that it would have taken the path of volatilization in so far as the salt constituents dissolved in an occult sense one can say
That it would have dissolved and passed over not into the Earth but into the volatile constituents the remarkable fact is that with the baptism in Jordan and the entry of the Christ individuality into the body of the Nathan Jesus all connection of the Phantom with the ashy constituents was wiped out only the
Connection with the salt constituents remained this is alluded to in the passage where Christ Jesus wishes to explain to his first chosen disciples quote through the way in which we feel ourselves United with the Christ being a certain possibility for the future evolution of humanity will come about it
Will be possible for the one body risen from the grave the spirit ual body to pass over into men close quote that is what Christ wished to say when he used the phrase quote you are the salt of the earth close quote all these words we find in the gospels
Reminding us of the terminology and craft language of the later Alchemists the later occultism had the deepest imaginable significance and in fact this significance was well known to the med evil and later Alchemists not to the charlatans mentioned in the history books and not one of them spoke of these
Connections without feeling in his heart a connection with Christ thus it followed that when Christ Jesus was crucified when his body was nailed to the cross you will notice that here I use the exact words of the gospel for they are confirmed by true occult research when this body of Jesus of
Nazareth was fastened to the cross the Phantom was perfectly intact it existed in a spiritual bodily form visible only to Super sensible sight and was much more Loosely connected with the body’s material content of Earth elements than has ever happened with any other human being in every other human being a
Connection of the Phantom with these elements has occurred and it is this that holds them together in the case of Christ Jesus it was quite different the ordinary law of inertia sees to it that certain material portions of a human body hold together after death in the form man has given
Them until after some time they crumble away so that hardly anything of them is visible so it was with the material portions of the body of Christ Jesus when the body was taken down from the cross the parts were still coherent but they had no connection with the
Phantom the Phantom was completely free of them when the body became permeated with certain substances which in this case worked quite differently from the way in which they affect any other body that is embalmed it came to pass that after the burial the material Parts quickly volatilized and passed over into the
Elements hence the disciples who looked into the grave found the linen cloths in which the body had been wrapped but the Phantom on which the evolution of the ego depends had risen from the grave it is not surprising that Mary of magdala who had known only the earlier Phantom when
It was permeated by Earthly elements did not recognize the same form in the Phantom now freed from terrestrial gravity when she saw it clav voyant it seemed to her different moreover we must clearly understand that it was only through the power of the companionship of the disciples with the Christ that all the
Disciples and all those persons of whom the same is told could see the Risen one for he appeared to them in the spiritual body the body of which Paul says that it increases as a grain of seed and passes over into all people Paul himself is convinced that it
Was not a body permeated by the Earthly Elements which had appeared to the other Apostles but that the same which had appeared to him had also appeared to them as he says in the following passage quote for I have delivered unto you as of first importance what I also received
That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to sephus then to the 12 then he appeared to more than 500 Brethren at one time most of whom are
Still alive though some have fallen asleep then he appeared to James then to all the apostles last of all as to one untimely born he appeared also to me close quote 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8 but what was it that convinced Paul in a certain sense Paul was an initiate
Before before the event of Damascus his initiation had combined the ancient Hebrew principle and the Greek principle he knew that an initiate became in his etheric body independent of the physical body and could appear in the purest form of his etheric body to those who were capable of seeing
It if Paul had had the vision of a pure etheric body independent of a physical body he would have spoken differently he would have said that he had seen someone who had been initiated and would be living on further in the course of earth evolution independently of the physical
Body he would not have found this particularly surprising what Paul experienced on the road to Damascus could not have been that he had experienced something which he knew could be experienced only when the scriptures were fulfilled when a perfect Human family Phantom a human body risen from the grave in a super
Sensible form would appear in the spiritual atmosphere of the earth and that is what he saw that is what appeared to him on the road to Damascus and left him with the conviction quote he was there he is risen for what is there could come only
From him it is the Phantom which can be seen by all human individualities who seek to relate themselves to the Christ close quote this is what convinced him that Christ was already there that he would not come first in the future but was actually present there in a physical
Body and that this physical body had rescued the Primal form of the human physical body for the Salvation of all men that this deed could be accomplished only through the greatest unfolding of divine love and in what sense it was an act of love and then in what sense the
Word salvation is to be understood in the further evolution of humanity this will be our subject tomorrow the end of lecture 8 you are listening to Rudolf Steiner audio.com as well you can hear these podcasts at rudol steiner.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses
Steiner books.org in America and Rudolf Steiner press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner into English and have given me permission to do these recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works volume 131 by Rudolph Steiner 11 lectures entitled from Jesus to Christ translated by
Charles Davy this is lecture nine given on October 13th 1911 the lectures given so far have led essentially to two questions one relates to the objective event connected with the name Christ Jesus to the nature of that impulse which as the Christ impulse entered into human evolution the other question is how can
An individual establishes connection with the Christ impulse in other words how can the Christ impulse become effective for the individual the answers to these two questions are of course interrelated for we have seen that the Christ event is an objective fact of human earth evolution and that something real
Something actual comes forth to meet us in the resurrection with Christ there rose out of the Grave a kind of seed kernel for the Reconstruction of our human Phantom and it is possible for this seed kernel to incorporate itself in those individuals who find a connection with the Christ impulse
That is the objective side of the relationship of the individual to the Christ impulse today we wish to add the subjective side we will try to find an answer to the question quote how does the individual Now find it possible gradually to take into himself that which comes forth through the
Resurrection of Christ close quote to answer this question we must first distinguish between two things when Christianity entered into the world as a religion it was not merely a religion for those who wish to approach Christ by one or other of the spiritual paths it was to be a religion which all
Men could accept and make their own a special occult or esoteric development was not necessary for finding the way to Christ we must therefore fix our attention first on that path to Christ the exoteric path which Every Soul every heart can find in the course of time we must then distinguish this path
From the esoteric path which right up to our own time has revealed itself to the soul who desired to seek the Christ by gaining access to occult Powers we must distinguish between the path of the physical plane and the path of the super sensible worlds in hardly any other Century has there
Been such obscurity concerning the outward exoteric way to Christ as in the 19th and this obscurity increased during the second half of the century more and more men came to lose the knowledge of the way to Christ those imbued with the thought of today no longer form the right Concepts
Such concepts for example as Souls even in the 18th century formed on their way to the Christ impulse even the first half of the 19th century was illumined by a certain possibility of finding the Christ impulse as something real but for the most part in the 19th
Century this path to Christ was lost to men and we can understand this when we realize that we are standing at the beginning of a new path to Christ we have often spoken of the new way way now opening for Souls through a renewal of the Christ event in human evolution it always
Happens that a kind of low Point must be reached in any Trend before a new light comes in once more the Turning Away from the spiritual worlds during the 19th century was only natural in face of the fact that in the 20th century a quite new Epoch for the spiritual life of men
Must begin in in a special sense we have often mentioned to those who have come to know something of spiritual science our movement often appears to be something quite new if however we look away from the enrichment that spiritual Endeavors in the west have experienced recently through the inflow of the concepts of
Reincarnation in karma bound up with the whole teaching of repeated Earth lives and its significance for human evolution we must say that in other respects ways into the spiritual World similar to our theosophical way are by no means new in Western history anyone however who tries to rise into the
Spiritual World along the present path of theosophy will find himself somewhat estranged from the manner in which theosophy was cultivated in the 18th century at that time time in this neighborhood boten and especially in wenberg much theosophy was studied but everywhere an illuminated view of the teaching concerning repeated Earth lives was
Lacking and thereby a cloud was cast over the whole field of theosophical work for those who could look deeply into occult connections and particularly into the connection of the world with the Christ impulse what they saw was overshadowed for this reason but within the whole Horizon of Christian philosophy and Christian Life
Something like theosophical Endeavors arose continually this striving toward theosophy was active everywhere even in the outward exoteric Paths of men who could go no further than sharing externally in the life of some congregation Christian or otherwise how theosophical endeavors penetrated Christian Endeavors is shown by figures such as bengle and etinger
Who worked in verberg men who in their whole way of thinking if we remember that they lacked the idea of reincarnation reached all that man can reach of higher views concerning evolution in so far as they had made the Christ impulse their own the ground roots of theosophical
Life have always existed hence there is much that is correct in a treaties on theosophical subjects written by Ettinger in the 18th century in the preface to a book on Ettinger’s work published in 1847 Roa who taught in heidleberg University wrote quote what theosophy really wants is
Often difficult to recognize in the case of the older theosophists but it is nonetheless clear that theosophy is far as it has gone today can claim no scientific status and therefore cannot extend its influence more widely it would be very Hasty to conclude that theosophy is only an ephemeral phenomenon and entirely
Unjustifiable from a scientific standpoint history already testifies loudly enough to the contrary it tells us how this enigmatic phenomenon has never been able to accomplish anything and yet unnoticed it is continually breaking through aresh held together in its most varied forms by the chain of a dying tradition close
Quote now we must remember that the man who wrote this learned about theosophy only in the 40s of the 19th century as it had come over from many theosophists of the 18th what came over was certainly not clothed in the forms of our scientific thought it was therefore difficult to
Believe that the theosophy of that time could affect wider circles apart from this such a voice coming to us out of the 40s of the 19th century must appear significant when it says quote the main thing is that once theosophy has become a real science and has thus clearly yielded definite
Results these will gradually become matters of general and even popular conviction and will be regarded as accepted truths by people who could not follow the paths by which they were discovered and by which alone they could be discovered close quote after this certainly comes a pessimistic paragraph with which in its
Bearing on theosophy we cannot now agree for anyone familiar with the present form of spiritual scientific Endeavors will be convinced that this theosophy in the form in which it desires to work can become popular in the widest circles even such a paragraph May therefore Inspire us with courage when
We read further quote still this rests in the lap of the future and there we will not encroach for the present we will gratefully rejoice in what our valued etinger has so beautifully set forth and which may certainly count upon a sympathetic reception in a Wide Circle close
Quote thus we see that theosophy was a Pious hope of those who came to know something of the old theosophy that was handed down from the 18th century after that time the stream of theosophical life was buried under the materialistic trends of the 19th century only through what we may now
Accept as the dawn of a new age do we again approach the true spiritual life and now in a form which can be so scientific that in principle every heart and every soul can understand it during the 19th century there was a complete loss of understanding for something that the theosophists of the
18th century still fully possessed they called it centralen Inner Light etinger who worked in morat near Carro was for a Time the pupil of a quite simple man in turingia named fulker whose pupils knew that he possessed what was called Inner Light in quotes what in those days was this Inner
Light it was none other than that which now arises in every man when earnestly and with iron energy he works through the content of my book titled knowledge of the higher worlds it was fundamentally nothing else that this simple man of turingia possessed what he brought into existence
For his time a very interesting theosophy was the teaching which influenced etinger it is difficult for a man of the present day to reconcile himself to the knowledge that a deepening of theosophy occurred so recently and gave rise to a rich literature buied though this is in libraries and among
Antiquarians something else is equally difficult for a man of today to accept the Christ event as first of all an objective fact how much discussion of this matter there was in the 19th century it is impossible in a short course to indicate even in outline how many and diverse are
The views of the 19th century concerning Christ Jesus Jus and anyone who takes the trouble to inquire further into opinions concerning Christ Jesus whether those of theologians or of layman will encounter some very real difficulties if the views of the 19th century on this question are considered in relation to the times in
Which better traditions still prevailed in the 19th century it even became possible for persons to be regarded as great theologians when they were far removed from any acceptance of an object of Christ who entered into and worked in the history of the world and here we come to the
Question What relationship to the Christ can be found by an individual who takes no esoteric path but remains entirely in the field of the exoteric so long as we keep to the standpoint of those 19th century theologians who held that human evolution can take its course purely in
The inner being of man and has nothing to do with the external world of the macrocosm we cannot reach an objective appreciation of Christ Jesus we come to all kinds of grotesque ideas but never to a relationship with the Christ event for anyone who believes that he can reach the highest human ideal
Compatible with earth evolution merely by an inner soul path through a kind of self-redemption a relationship with the object of Christ is impossible we may also say that wherever the Redemption of man is thought of as a matter for psychology to deal with there is no relationship to the
Christ anyone who penetrates further into Cosmic Mysteries soon finds that when a man believes that he can attain his highest ideal of Earth existence solely through himself only through his own inner development he cuts off altogether his connection with the macrocosm such a person believes that he
Has the macrocosm before him as a kind of Nature and that his inner soul development side by side with the macrocosm is something running parallel with it but a connection between the two he cannot find this is just what is so terribly grotesque in the evolution of the 19th
Century the connection that should exist between microcosm and macrocosm has been torn aunder if this had not happened we should not have seen all those misunderstandings that have Arisen over the terms theoretical materialism on the one hand and Abstract idealism on the other just consider the sundering of microcosm and
Macrocosm has led men who care for the inner life of the soul to assign it as well as the external life of the body to the macrocosm thus making everything subject to material processes others aware that there is nevertheless an inner life have fallen gradually into abstractions concerning
Everything of significance to the human soul to be clear regarding this difficult matter let us recall something very significant that was learned in the Mysteries how many people today believe in their innermost Consciousness quote if I think something for instance if I entertain a bad thought about my
Neighbor it has no significance for the outer world the thought is only in myself it has a quite different significance if I give him a box on the ears this is something that happens on the physical plane the other is a mere feeling or a mere thought close quote or
Again how many people there are who when they fall into sin or a lie or an error say quote this is something that happens in the human soul close quote and by contrast if a stone falls from the roof quote this is something that takes place externally close quote and they will
Readily explain using crude sense Concepts that when a stone Falls perhaps accidentally into water it sets up ripples which spread out far and wide so that everything produces effects which continue unobserved but anything that has occurred in the soul is shut off from the world outside people could therefore come to
Believe that to sin to ER and then to put it right again is entirely a concern of the individual soul to anyone with an Outlook of this kind something many of us have witnessed in the last two years must seem grotesque let me recall to you the scene
In the rosac crucian drama titled the portal of initiation where capesius and strodder enter the astral world and it is shown that what they think speak and feel is not without significance for the objective world the macrocosm but actually releases storms in the elements for Modern Man it is absurd to
Suppose that destructive forces can strike at the macrocosm through somebody having had wrong thoughts in the Mysteries it was made very clear to the pupil that when for for example anyone tells a lie or falls into error this is a real process which does not concern himself
Only the Germans say quote thoughts are dutyfree close quote because they see no Customs barrier when the thoughts arise thoughts belong to the objective World they are not merely experiences of the soul the pupil of the mystery saw quote when you tell a lie it signifies in the
Super sensible world the dark in of a certain light when you perpetrate a Loveless action something in the spiritual world is burnt up in the fire of lovelessness with errors you extinguish light in the macrocosm close quote the effect was shown to the pupil through objective experience how through
An error something is extinguished on the astral plane and darkness follows or how through a Loveless action something acts like a burning and destroying fire in exoteric life man does not know what is going on around him he’s like an ostrich with its head in the sand he
Does not see effects which nevertheless are there the effects of feeling are there and they would be visible to Super sensible sight if the man were led into the Mysteries it was not until the 19th century that anyone could say quote everything in which a man has sinned
Everything in which he is weak is his personal Affair only Redemption must come about through an experience in the soul and so Christ also can be only an experience in the soul close quote what is necessary in order that man may not only find his way to Christ
But that he may not Sunder his connection with the macrocosm is the knowledge quote if you incur error and sin these are objective not subjective event and because of them something happens outside in the cosmos close quote and in the moment when a man becomes conscious that with his sin with
His error something objective happens when he knows that what he has done what he has given out from himself is not connected merely with himself but with the whole objective course of cosmic development then he will no longer be able to say to himself that compensation
For what he has brought about is only an inner concern of the Soul there is indeed a good and significant possibility that a man who sees that thoughts and feelings are objective may also see that what has brought and brings people into mistakes through successive Earth lives is not an inward
Affair related to a single life but is the consequence of karma now an event which was outside history and outside human responsibility as was the luciferic influence in the old lorean period could not possibly be expunged from the World by a human event through the luciferic event man
Gained a great benefit he became a free being but he also incurred a liability the propensity to deviate from the path of the good and the right and from the path of the true what has happened in the course of incarnations is a matter of karma but
All that has crept down from the macrocosm into the microcosm all that the luciferic forces had given to man is something that man cannot deal with by himself to compensate for the objective luciferic event another objective Act was needed in short man must feel that what
He incurs as error and sin is not merely subjective and that an experience in the soul which is merely subjective is not sufficient to bring about Redemption anyone who is convinced of the objectivity of error will thus understand also the objectivity of the act of redemption one cannot by any means treat
The luciferic influence as an objective Act without treating in the same manner the compensating act the event of golgatha a theosophist can only choose between two things everything may be set on the foundation of karma of course that is quite right as regards everything that man himself has brought
About but then we come to the necessity of stretching out the repeated lives forward and backward as far as we like with no end to it in either direction it always goes round and round like a wheel the other thing the alternative choice is the concrete idea of evolution
We must hold that there was a Saturn a sun and a moon existence which were quite different from the earth existence that in the earth existence the kind of repeated Earth Life as we know it first occurred that the luciferic event was a single unrepeated event all this alone gives real content
To our theosophical Outlook all this however is inconceivable able without the objectivity of the event of golgatha in pre-christian times men were as you know different in various ways one particular difference was that when they came down from spiritual worlds into Earthly incarnations they brought with them as substance some of the Divine
Element for this reason when a man reflected on his own weakness he always felt that the best part of him had had originated in the Divine sphere from which he had descended but the Divine element gradually became exhausted in the course of further incarnations and it was quite exhausted
When the events of Palestine Drew near the last after effects of it continued to be felt but none of it was left when John the Baptist declared quote change your conception of the world for the times have changed now you will no longer be able to rise up into the
Spiritual as in the past for the vision that could see into the old spirituality is lost change your thinking and accept the Divine being who is to give a new to men what they have had to lose through their descent to Earth close quote consequently you may deny this if
You think in the abstract but not if you look at history in concrete terms the feelings and perceptions of men changed altogether at the turning point of the old and new epochs a point marked by the events of Palestine after these events men began to feel forsaken they felt forsaken when
They approached the hardest questions those which concerned most directly the innermost part of the Soul when for example they asked themselves quot what will become of me when I go through the gate of death with a number of Deeds that have not been made good close quote Then There came to meet them
A thought which certainly might be born from the longing of the soul but could be allayed only when the soul could say to itself quote yes a being has lived who entered into the evolution of mankind and to whom you can hold fast he is working in the outer Cosmos where you
Cannot go he is working to bring about compensation for your Deeds he will help you to make good the evil results of the luciferic influence close quote through this feeling oneself Forsaken and then feeling oneself rescued by an objective power there enters into Humanity an intuitive
Feeling that sin is a real power an objective fact and that the act of redemption is also objective an act that cannot be accomplished by an individual for has not invoked the luciferic influence but only by one who works in the worlds where Lucifer is consciously
Active all that I have thus set before you in words drawn from spiritual science was not grasped intellectually as knowledge it resided in feelings and intuitive perceptions and from this Source came the need to turn to Christ for those who felt this need there was of course the possibility of
Finding in Christian communities Ways by which they could deepen all such perceptions and feelings after man had lost his Primal connection with the gods what did he find when he looked out at the M material world through his descent into the material realm his perception of the spiritual of the physical manifestation
Of the Divine in the cosmos steadily declined the remnants of the old Clairvoyance Faded by degrees and nature for him was in a certain sense deprived of the Divine a merely material world was spread out before him and in face of this material Universe he could in no way maintain a
Belief that the Christ principle was at work there the 19th century Kant llas Theory whereby our solar system developed out of a cosmic nebula and eventually life arose on individual planets has led f finally to the universe being regarded as a collaboration of Adams if we try to think of Christ in
This setting as conceived by materialistic scientists it makes no sense there is no place for the Christ being in this cosmogeny no place for anything spiritual you remember someone saying I read you the passage that he would have to tear up his whole conception of the
Universe if he had to believe in the resurrection this shows that in contemplating nature or in thinking about nature all possibility of penetrating into the living essence of natural facts has disappeared when I speak like this it is not by way of disapproval the time had to come when
Nature would be deprived of the Divine deprived of the spirit so that man could formulate the totality of abstract thoughts required to comprehend external nature nature as the Outlook of cernus Kepler and Galileo enabled him to do the web of thoughts which has led to
Our age of Machinery had to take hold of Humanity on the other hand it was necessary that this age should have a compensation for the fact that it had become impossible in exoteric life to find a direct path from the Earth to the spiritual for if man had been able to
Find this path he would have been able to find the path to Christ as he will find it in the coming centuries there had to be a compensation the question now is what had become necessary as an exoteric path for man to Christ during the centuries in which an atomistic conception of the
Universe became gradually accepted a conception which alienated nature more and more from the divine and in the 19th century grew into the study of nature deprived of the Divine a two-fold remedy was required a spiritual vision of the Christ could be found exoterically in two
Ways one way was to show that all matter is completely foreign to man’s inner spiritual being he could be shown that it is untrue to say that everywhere in space where matter appears only matter is present how could this come about in no other way than by something
Being given to man which is at one and the same time spirit and matter something which he knows is spirit and yet sees to be matter therefore the transformation the eternally valid transformation of spirit into matter of matter into Spirit had to continue as a vital fact and this came to pass because
The Holy Communion has been celebrated has been maintained through the centuries as a Christian ritual and the further we go back in the centuries toward the institution of the Holy Communion the more can we Trace how in the older times not yet so materialistic it was better understood in regard to higher things
When people begin to discuss something it is a proof as a rule that they no longer understand it even simple matters as long as they are understood are not much discussed discussions are a proof that the point at issue is not understood by a majority of the people
Involved thus it was with the Holy Communion as long as it was known that the Holy Communion furnished a living proof that matter is not merely matter but that there are ceremonial acts through which which the spirit can be United with matter as long as people knew that this interpenetration of
Matter with Spirit as it finds expression in the Holy Communion is a union with the being of Christ so long was the Holy Communion accepted without argument but then came the time when materialism arose when people no longer understood what lies at the foundation of the Holy Communion then they disputed whether the
Bread and Wine are really symbols of the Divine or whether divine power actually flows into them for anyone who can see more deeply all the disputes which arose on this account at the beginning of the new Epoch signify that the original understanding of the ritual had been
Lost for those who desired to come to Christ the Holy Communion was a complete equivalent of the esoteric path if they could not take that path and thus in the Holy Communion they could find a real Union with Christ for all things have their time certainly just as it is true in
Regard to the spiritual life that a quite new age is Dawning so is it true that the way to Christ which for centuries was the right one for many people will remain for centuries more the right one for many things pass over gradually into one another and what was formerly right will
Gradually pass over into something else when people are ready for it the aim of theosophy is to work in such a way that we shall grasp in the spirit itself something concrete Something Real by means of meditation concentration and all that we learn as the knowledge of higher worlds men
Become ripe in their inner being not merely to experience thought worlds or worlds of abstract feelings and perceptions but to permeate themselves inwardly with the element of the spirit thereby they will experience the communion in the spirit thereby thoughts meditative thoughts will be able to live
In man they will even be the very same only from within outward as the symbol of the Holy Communion the consecrated bread has been from without Inward and as the undeveloped Christian can seek his way to Christ through the Holy Communion so the developed Christian who through Progressive
Knowledge of the spirit has learn to know the form of the Christ can raise himself in spirit to what will indeed be in the future an exoteric path for men that will be the force which is to bring to men a widening of the Christ impulse but then all ceremonies will
Change and that which formerly came to pass pass through the attributes of bread and wine will come about in the future through a spiritual communion the thought of the sacrament the Holy Communion will remain only it must be made possible that certain thoughts which flow to us through what is imparted within our
Movement certain inner thoughts and feelings shall permeate and spiritualize our inner being thoughts and feelings as fully consecrated as in the best sense of inner Christian development the Holy Communion has spiritualized the human soul and filled it with the Christ when this becomes possible and it will be
Possible we shall have progressed a stage further in evolution and then we shall see the real proof that Christianity is greater than its external form for a poor opinion of Christianity is held held by anyone who thinks it will be obliterated when the external forms of the Christianity of a certain
Period are Swept Away a true opinion will be permeated with the conviction that all churches which have cherished the Christ thought all external thoughts all external forms are temporal and therefore transitory while the Christ thought will live in ever new forms in the hearts and souls of men in the future little as
These new forms are evident today thus we are first taught by spiritual science how along One exoteric path the Holy Communion had its significance in earlier times the other exoteric path was through the gospels and here again we must realize what in earlier times the gospels still were for
Men it is not very long since the gospels were not read as they were in the 19th century in those days they were read as a lifegiving fountain whence something substantial passed over into the soul they were not read in the way described in the first lecture of this course when
We were speaking of a false path but so that a person saw approaching from outside something for which his soul was panting with thirst they were so red that his Soul found pictured therein the real Redeemer of whom the soul knew that he must be there in the wide
Universe those who understood how to read the gospels in this way never thought of asking the endless questions which first became questions for the intelligent clever people of the 19th century you need only recall how many times in speaking of these questions in one form or another we have had to say
That for quite clever people who have all science and learning at their fingertips the thought of Christ Jesus and the events of Palestine are truly not compatible with the modern conception of the universe in an apparently enlightened way they say that when men were not aware that the Earth is a quite small
Heavenly Body they could believe that with the cross of golgatha a special new event took place on Earth but since Copernicus taught that the Earth is a planet like others can one still believe that Christ came to us from another planet why should we believe that the Earth is so exceptionally situated as
Was formerly thought a simile is then brought in quote since our conception of the universe has been so much enlarged it seems as though one of the most important artistic presentations had taken place not on the great stage of a capital city but on the small stage of
Some provincial theater close quote so that is how it looks to these people the Earth is such an insignificant little Cosmic body that the events of Palestine appear like the performance of a great Cosmic drama on the stage of a small provincial theater we can no longer imagine such a
Thing because the Earth is so small in comparison with The Great universe it seems so clever when something like that is said but after all there is not much cleverness in it for Christianity never asserted what is here apparently contradicted Christianity has never placed the beginning of the Christ
Impulse in the Magnificent places of the earth it has always seen a certain deep seriousness and the fact that the bearer of the Christ was born in a stable among poor Shepherds not not only the little Earth but a very obscure place on Earth was sought out in Christian tradition to
Place the Christ therein Christianity from the very first answered the questions of the clever people but they have not understood the answers which Christianity itself has given because they could no longer let the living force of the great Majestic pictures to work upon the soul nevertheless through the gospel pictures
Alone without the Holy Communion and all that is connected with it for the Holy Communion stands at the center of all Christian Cults an exoteric path to Christ could not have been found for the gospels could not then have been widely enough popularized for a finding of the way to Christ to depend
On them alone and when the gospels were popularized we can see that it was not an unmixed blessing for at that same time arose the great misunderstanding of the gospels they were taken superficially and then all that the 19th century made of them came about and indeed speaking quite objectively it was bad
Enough I think anthroposophists will understand what is meant here by quote bad enough close quote no censure is intended for we cannot but acknowledge the diligence which the 19th century brought to the task of scientific investigation including all the work in Natural Science the tragedy is that this very
Science and anyone familiar with it will grant this owing to its deep seriousness and its tremendous devoted industry which one can only admire has led to a complete splitting up and destruction of what it wished to teach when in the future course of evolution people look back at our time
They will feel it to be particularly tragic that men sought to conquer the Bible by means of a science worthy of endless admiration and succeeded only in losing the Bible thus we can see that as regards these two aspects of the exoteric we are living in a transitional period and in
So far as we have grasped the spirit of theosophy the Old Paths must lead over into others and having now considered the exoteric paths of the past to the Christ impulse we shall see tomorrow how this relationship to Christ takes form in the realm of the esoteric we will then conclude our study
By showing how we can come to grasp the Christ event not only for the whole evolution of humanity but for each individual man we shall be able to review the esoteric IC path more briefly because we have assembled building stones for it during past years we will Crown our
Endeavors by fixing our gaze upon the relationship of the Christ impulse to every individual human soul the endend of lecture nine you are listening to Rudolf Steiner audio.com as well you can hear these podcasts at Rudolf steiner.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org in
America and rol Steiner press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner and English and have given me permission to do these recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works volume 131 by Rudolph Steiner 11 lectures entitled from Jesus to Christ translated
By Charles Davy actually it’s a lecture cycle of 10 lectures with an appendix which will be the 11th lecture and I am am now reading the last lecture lecture 10 from the cycle given on October 14th 1911 yesterday we tried to characterize the path to Christ that can still be
Taken today as it could especially in earlier Times by exoteric means we will now touch briefly on the esoteric path the path which leads to Christ in such a way that he can be found within the super sensible worlds first of all we must note that this esoteric path to Christ Jesus was
Also the way of the evangelists of those who wrote the gospels for although the writer of the John gospel had himself witnessed many of the events he describes as you can see from the lecture cycle on this gospel his chief object was not merely to relate what he remembered for this
Applies only to those minute exact details which surprise us in his gospel the great Majestic crowning features of the work of redemption of the mystery of golgatha were drawn by the writer of this gospel from his Clairvoyant Consciousness also consequently although the gospels are really revived mystery rituals this is
Shown in my titled Christianity as mystical fact they are so because the writers of the gospels following their esoteric path could procure for themselves out of the super sensible world a picture of the events in Palestine which led to the mystery of golgatha ever since the mystery of golgatha up to
Our own times a person who desires to come to a super sensible experience of the Christ event had to go through the stages which you will find described in earlier lecture Cycles as the seven stages of our Christian initiation the washing of the feet the scourging the crowning with
Thorns the Mystic death the burial the Resurrection the Ascension today we will make clear to ourselves what the pupil can attain by going through this Christian initiation first of all one essential Point as you can convince yourselves by reading the lectures on this subject Christian initiation is very different
From the incorrect method of initiation described in the first lecture of this course in Christian initiation certain feelings which belong to humanity in general are first invoked and they lead to an imagination of the washing of the feet thus the picture of this in the
John gospel is not the first thing to Be Imagined the aspirant Begins by trying to live for a long time with certain feelings and perceptions I have often characterized this by saying that the person concerned should gaze upon the plant which grows out of the mineral ground takes into
Itself the materials of the mineral Kingdom and yet raises itself Above This Kingdom as a higher being than the mineral if the plant could speak and feel it would bow down to the mineral Kingdom and say quote certainly I was destined within the economy of the cosmos to
Attain a higher stage than you mineral but you give me the possibility of existence in the order of beings you are certainly a lower being than myself but I have to thank you for my existence and I bow myself in humility before you close quote in the same way the animal would
Have to bow down to the plant although the plant is a lower being than the animal and say quot I thank you for my existence I acknowledge it in humility and I bow myself before you close quote and so would each being that climbs upward have to bow down to the
Other standing below and also he who has risen by way of a spiritual ladder to a higher level must bow down to the beings who alone have made this possible for him a person who permeates himself with a feeling of humility in regard to the lower who thoroughly incorporates this
Feeling in his own being and lets it live there for months perhaps even for years we’ll see that it spreads itself out in his organism and so pervades him that he experiences a transformation of this feeling into an imagination and this imagination corresponds exactly to the scene
Represented in the John gospel at as the washing of the feet where Christ Jesus who is the head of the twel Stoops to those who stand here below him in the order of the physical world and in humility acknowledges that he thanks those who are below him for the
Possibility of his higher Ascent he acknowledges before the 12 quote as the animal thanks the plant so do I thank you for what I was able to become in the physical world close quote a person who permeates himself with this feeling comes not only to an imagination of the washing of the feet
But also to a quite pronounced feeling as though water were washing over his feet this can be felt for weeks it shows How Deeply imbued our human nature is with such Universal human feelings which nevertheless can raise man above himself further we have seen that we can
Go through the experience which leads to the imagination of the scourging when we place the following vividly before us quote much suffering and pain will meet me in the world yes from all sides suffering and pain may come no one escapes them but I will so steal my will
That suffering and pain the scourgings that come from the world may do their worst I will stand upright and bear my fate resignedly as it comes to pass for had it not come to pass as as it has done as I have experienced it I should not have
Been able to reach the height I have attained close quote when the person in question makes this a matter of his perception and lives within it he actually feels something like sharp pains and woundings like Strokes of a Scourge against his own skin and the imagination arises as
If he were outside himself and was watching himself scourged according to the example of Christ Jesus in line with his example one can experience the crowning of thorns the Mystic death and so on this has often been described what is attained by a man who thus seeks within himself to experience
First the four stages and then when his karma is favorable the others also making in all seven stages of Christian initiation from the foregoing description you can gather that the whole scale of feelings we go through ought to strengthen us and give us power and ought to make us into quite another
Nature so that in the world we feel ourselves standing strong powerful and free and also capable of Every Act of devoted love in Christian initiation this ought in a deep sense to become a second nature to us for what has to happen Perhaps it is not yet occurred to
All those those of you who have read the earlier Elementary cycles and so have met with Christian initiation in its seven stages that owing to the intensity of the experiences which must be undergone the effects go right into the physical body for through the strength and power
With which we go through these feelings it really is at first as if water were washing over our feet and then as if we were transfixed with wounds we actually feel as if thorn s were pressing into our head we feel all the pain and suffering of the
Crucifixion we have to feel this before we can experience the mystical death the burial and the resurrection as these also have been described even if we have not gone through these feelings with sufficient intensity they will certainly have the effect that we become strong and full of
Love in the right sense of the word but what we then in incorporate can go only as far as the etheric body when however we begin to feel that our feet are as though washed with water our body as if covered with wounds then we have succeeded in driving these
Feelings so deeply into our nature that they have penetrated as far as the physical body they do indeed penetrate the physical body and then the Stigmata the marks of the bleeding wounds of Christ Jesus may appear we drive the feelings inward into the physical body and know that they develop their
Strength in the physical body itself we consciously feel ourselves more in the grip of our whole being than if the Impressions were merely in the astral body and etheric body the essential thing is that through a process of mystical feeling we work right into our physical body and when we
Do this we are doing nothing less than making ourselves ready in our physical body to receive the Phantom that went forth from the grave on golgatha hence we work into our physical body in order to make it so living that it feels a relationship with an attractive Force
Toward the Phantom that rose out of the Grave on gotha and here I would make an incidental remark in spiritual science one must accustom oneself to becoming acquainted with Cosmic secrets and Cosmic truths gradually anyone who is not prepared to wait for the relevant truths will not make good progress of
Course people would like to have spiritual science all at once preferably in one book or in one course of lectures but that cannot be so as you will see from an example how long is it since in earlier lectures Christian initiation was first described you heard that such and such
Takes place and that the individual through the feelings which affect his soul works right into his physical body everything said in those earlier lectures was intended to provide some elements for understanding the mystery of golgatha and now for the first time it is possible to describe how an individual through the requisite
Exercises of feeling in the course of Christian initiation makes himself ripe to receive the Phantom which rose from the grave of golgatha we had to wait until the union of the subjective with the objective could be found and for this many Preparatory lectures were necessary even today there
Are many things that can be indicated only as in quotes half truths anyone who has patience to continue with us whether in this or in another Incarnation each according to his karma will have seen how he could advance from the description of the mystical path in the Christian sense to
The description of the objective fact and so to the real meaning of this Christian initiation and he will see also that still higher truths will be brought to light from out of spiritual science in the course of the coming years or the next age lus we see the aim the goal of
Christian initiation through what has been characterized as rosar crucian initiation that is what an individual can have of it as initiation today the same thing in a certain sense is also attained only by somewhat different means a bond of Attraction is formed between the individual in so far as he
Is Incorporated in a physical body and that which arose as the real prototype of the physical body from the grave of golgatha now we know from previous lectures that we are at the starting point of a world Epoch in which we must expect an event that will not take place on the the
Physical plane as did the event of golgatha but in the super sensible World an event which nevertheless stands in a close and true connection with the event of golgatha the latter was designed to give back to man his real physical Force body the Phantom which had degenerated from the beginning of the earth
Evolution and for the giving back of it a series of events on the physical plane had to occur but for that which is now to happen an event on the physical plane is not necessary an incarnation of the Christ being in a human body of Flesh could
Take place only once in the course of the earth evolution when people announce a repetition of the Incarnation of this being it simply means that the Christ being is not understood the event now to come which can be observed only in a super sens ible world has been characterized in the
Words quote Christ becomes for men the Lord of Karma close quote this means that in future The Ordering of karmic transactions will come about through Christ ever more and more will men of the future feel qu I am going to the gate of death with my
Karmic account on one side stand my good clever and beautiful Deeds my clever beautiful good and intelligent thoughts on the other side stands everything evil Wicked stupid foolish and loathsome but he who in the future will have the office of Judge for the incarnations which will follow in human
Evolution in order to bring order into this karmic account of men is the Christ close quote and truly we have to picture this in the following way after we have gone through the gate of death we shall be incarnated ated again in a later period we shall then
Have to encounter events through which our Karma can be balanced for every man must reap what he has sown karma is a just law but what the karmic law has to fulfill is not there only for individual men Karma does not only balance the accounts of each ego but in every case
The balancing must be arranged so as to be in the best possible Accord with the concern of the whole world it must enable us to give all possible help to the advancement of mankind on Earth for this we need Enlightenment not merely the knowledge that the karmic fulfillment of our deed must come
About the Fulfillment can take a form which will be either less or more useful for the general progress of humanity hence we must choose those thoughts feelings or perceptions which will pay off our Karma and at the same time serve the collective progress of mankind in the future it will fall to
Christ to bring the balance of our Karma into line with the general Earth Karma and the general progress of humanity and this happens principally in the time between death and a new birth but it will also be prepared for in the epoch of time we are now approaching
Before whose door we stand because men will more and more more acquire the capacity for a special experience very few are capable of it now but from the middle of this Century onward through the next 1,000 years more and more people will have the following experience a person has done this or
That he will feel constrained to reflect on his action and something like a dream picture arising in his mind will make a quite remarkable impression on him he will say to himself quot I cannot identify this as a recollection of something I have done yet it feels like
An experience of my own close quote like a dream picture it will stand there before him closely concerned with him but he cannot recall that he has experienced or done it in the past if he is an anthroposophist he will understand the matter otherwise he will have to
Wait until he comes to anthroposophy and learns to understand it the anthroposophist will know quote what you see as an apparent consequence of your actions is a picture that will be fulfilled in the future the balancing of your actions is shown to you in advance close
Quote we are at the beginning of an Epoch in which men directly after they have committed a deed will have a premonition a feeling perhaps even even a significant picture of how this deed will be karmically balanced thus in closest connection with Human Experience enhanced capabilities for Humanity will arise during the
Coming Epoch these capabilities will give a powerful stimulus to human morality and this will signify something quite different from the voice of conscience which has been a preparation for it the individual will no longer believe quote what I have done will die with me close quote he will know quite
Exactly quot my action will not die when I die it will have a consequence which will live on with me close quote and there is much else that the individual will know the time during which the doors of the spiritual world have been closed to men is nearly
Over men must again climb up into the spiritual World their Awakening capacities will enable them to participate in the spiritual World Clairvoyance will always be different from this participation just as there was an ancient dreamlike Clairvoyance so will there be a future Clairvoyance that is not dreamlike the
Clairvoyance of people who know what they are doing and what it signifies something else too will come about the individual will know quot I am not alone every where there are Spiritual Beings who stand in a relationship to me close quote men will learn to communicate with these beings and to live with
Them and in the next 3,000 years the truth that Christ is acting as karmic judge will become apparent to a sufficiently large number of people Christ himself will be experienced by men as an ethic form like Paul before Damascus they will know quite intimately that that Christ lives and is the source
For The Reawakening of the physical prototype we received at the beginning of our Evolution and indeed if the ego is to attain full development if through the mystery of gatha something happened which gave the greatest impetus to human evolution on the other hand it came at the time when
The human mind the human soul were in their darkest condition there were indeed ancient periods of evolution when men could know with certainty because they had an ancestral memory that the human individuality goes to repeated Earth lives in the gospels the teaching of repeated Earth lives is apparent only
When we understand the gospels and can discern traces of it there that was the time when men were least fitted to comprehend this teaching in the later times when men sought for Christ along the path indicated yesterday everything had to take the form of a childlike preparation men could not then be made
Acquainted with experiences concerning reincarnation they were not right for it and it would only have led them into error Christianity had to develop for nearly 2,000 years without being able to indicate the teaching of reincarnation we have shown in these lectures how different it was in Buddhism and how in Western
Consciousness the thought of repeated Earth lives arises as something self-evident certainly many misund understanding still Prevail but whether we take this idea from lesing or from the psychologist dolbok we become aware that for the European Consciousness the teaching of reincarnation concerns Humanity at large whereas in Buddhism the individual
Regards the question of how he goes from Life To Life how he can free free himself from the thirst for existence as concerning only his personal inner life the Oriental makes what is given to him as teaching about reincarnation into a path of individual Redemption whereas for Lessing the essential question was
Quote how can the whole of humanity move forward close quote according to Ling we must distinguish successive periods of time within the progressive development of humanity something new is given to humanity in each Epoch we see from history that new civilizing actions keep on emerging in the course of human
Development how could one speak of the evolution of the whole of humanity says Ling if a soul lived in only one Epoch whence could the fruits of civilization come if human beings were not born again if what they had learned in one Epoch were not carried over into the next and
Its fruits into the following Epoch and so on thus for Lessing the idea of repeated Earth lives is not only a concern of the individual soul it concerns the whole course of Earthly civilization and in order that an advanced civilization may arise a soul which lives in the 19th century must
Carry over into its present existence whatever it had previously gained for the sake of the earth and its civilization human beings must be born again that is Ling’s thought but in this thought of reincarnation as concerning all mankind the Christ impulse has been at work woven into it for the Christ impulse
Makes everything a man does or can do into an action of universal relevance not something that touches him only as an individual he only can be Christ’s disciple who says quot I do it for the least of the Brethren because I know thou feest as though I had done it for thee close
Quote as the whole of humanity is bound up with Christ so does he who confesses Christ feel that he belongs to all mankind this thought is worked into the thinking feeling and perception of the whole human race and when the idea of reincarnation reappeared in the 18th century it appeared as a Christian
Thought and although vidman treated reincarnation clumsily in an embryonic way yet in his prize essay of 1851 his thought of reincarnation is permeated by the Christian impulse he devotes a special chapter to showing the connection between Christianity and the teaching of reincarnation it was necessary in human evolution that Souls should first accept
The other Christian impulses so that the thought of reincarnation might come to our Consciousness in a ripe form and indeed this thought of reincarnation will so connect itself with Christianity that it will be felt as something that leads a person on through successive incarnations we shall understand how individuality which is completely lost
According to the Buddhist view as we saw from the conversation of King Melinda and the s nagasa first receives its true content by becoming permeated with Christ we can Now understand why the Buddhist view about 500 years before the appearance of Christ lost the human ego while retaining the teaching of successive
Incarnations we have reached a time in which the human organism must understand accept permeate itself with a thought of reincarnation for the progress of human evolution does not depend on what teachings are promulgated or find a new foothold other laws come into consideration and they do not depend upon
Ourselves in the future human nature will develop certain powers which will have the effect that the individual as soon as he has reached a certain age and has become properly conscious of himself will have the feeling quote there is something in me which I must understand close quote This Feeling will take hold
Of men more and more in past times even when human beings were fully aware of themselves the Consciousness which is now to come did not exist it will Express itself somewhat as follows quote I feel something within me which is connected with my personal ego strangely it will
Not fit in with all that I have come to know since birth close quote one man will understand what is at work here another will not a man will understand it if he has carried the teachings of spiritual science into his life then he will know quote what I am
Now feeling is foreign to me because it is the ego that has come over from earlier lives close quote this will oppress the heart will cause fear and anxiety in those who cannot explain it by repeated Earth lives these feelings which are not merely a theoretical uncertainty but a starving a cramping of
Life will disappear through the perceptions given to us by spiritual science which tell us quote you must think of your life as extended over earlier Earth lives close quote then men will see what it means for them to experience the connection with the Christ impulse for it is the
Christ impulse which will give life to the whole retrospective View the whole perspective of the past a man will feel quote here was this Incarnation there that one close quote then he will come to a Time Beyond which he will be unable to go without clearly understanding quote the Christ impulse
Was then on Earth close quote incarnations will be followed further back to a time when the Christ event was not yet there this illumination of the retrospective view through the Christ impulse will be needed by men for their Assurance in the future as a necessity and a help which can flow into later
Incarnations this transformation of the human soul will derive from the event which begins in the 20th century and may be called the second Christ event so that those persons in whom higher faculties have awakened will look upon the Lord of karma some of you may say that when the
Christ event of the 20th century takes place many of those now living will be with those who have fallen asleep will be in the time between death and a new birth but whether a person is living in a physical body or in the time between
Death and a new birth if he has prepared himself for the Christ event he will experience it the vision of the Christ event does not depend on whether we are incarnated in a physical body but the preparation for the Christ event does so depend just as it was necessary that the
First Christ event should take place on the physical plane in order that the salvation of man could be accomplished so must the preparation be made here in the physical world the preparation to look with full understanding with full illumin ation upon the Christ event of the 20th
Century for a person who looks upon it unprepared when his powers have been awakened will not be able to understand it the Lord of karma will then appear to him as a fearful judgment in order to have an illuminated understanding of this event the individual must be prepared the spreading abroad of the
Anthroposophical world conception has taken place in our time for this purpose so that men can be prepared on the physical plane to perceive the Christ event either on the physical plane or on the higher ples those who are not sufficiently prepared on the physical plane and then go unprepared through the life between
Death and a new birth will have to wait until in the next Incarnation they can be further prepared through anthroposophy for the understanding of Christ during during the next 3,000 years the opportunity will be given to Men of going through this preparation and the purpose of all anthroposophical
Development will be to render men more and more capable of participating in that which is to come thus we understand how the past flows over into the future when for example we recall how the Buddha permeated the astral body of the Nathan Jesus child we see how the activity of the Buddha Force
Continued after he himself no longer needed to Incarnate again on Earth and when we remember how influences not directly connected with the Buddha worked on in the west we see how the spiritual World penetrates the physical all this preparation is connected with the fact that men are
Always drawing nearer to an ideal which dawned in ancient Greece an ideal formulated by by Socrates that when a man grasps the idea of the good the moral the ethical he feels this idea as so magical an Impulse that he becomes capable of living in accordance with it as an
Ideal today we are not so far Advanced that this ideal can be realized we are only so far on that in certain circumstances a man may very well form a concept of the good he may be very clever and wise and yet he need not be morally good the direction of inner Evolution
However is such that the ideas we hold of the good will immediately become moral impulses that is the intent of the evolution we shall experience in the approaching times and the teachings given on Earth will increasingly be such that in the course of future centuries and Millennia
Human speech will come to to have an effect unimaginably greater than it has now or ever had in the past today in the higher worlds anyone can see clearly the connection between intellect and morality but as yet there is no human speech which works so magically that
When a moral principle is stated it sinks down into a man as a new idea so that he perceives it as directly moral and cannot do otherwise than act upon on it as a moral impulse after the next 3,000 years it will be possible to use a form of speech
That could not now be entrusted to our heads it will be such that everything intellectual will at the same time be moral and this moral element will penetrate into the hearts of men during the next 3,000 years the human race will become as though permeated with magical morality
Otherwise men would not be able to Bear such an evolution they would only misuse it for the special preparation of an evolution of this kind we must look at a much slandered individuality who lived about a century before our era he is mentioned though certainly in a distorted form in Hebrew teachings as
Jesu Ben Pandera Jesus the son of Pandera from once given in Burn some of you will know that this Jesu Ben pandira worked in preparation for the Christ event by training pupils among whom was one who became the teacher of the writer of the Gospel of Matthew Jesu Ben pandura a noble asene
Figure preceded Jesus of Nazareth by a century Jesus of Nazareth himself only went among the ases whereas Jesu Pand was altogether an aene who was Jesu pandira the successor of that bodhisatwa who in his final Earthly Incarnation had risen in his 29th year to be gaama Buddha was incorporated in the physical
Body of Jesu Ben Pandera every bodh satva who Rises to the rank of a Buddha has a successor this Oriental tradition called corresponds exactly with occult research the batva who worked at that time in preparation for the Christ event was re-embodied again and again one of his re-embodiment is fixed for the 20th
Century it is impossible to speak here more exactly concerning the re-embodiment of this batva something however can be said about the way in which such a bodhisatwa may be recognized through a law which will be demonstrated and explained in future lectures it is a peculiarity of this
Bodhisatwa that when he reappears in a new embodiment and he always reappears thus in the course of the centuries he is quite dissimilar in his youth from what he comes to be in his later activities at a quite definite point of time in the life of this bodhisatwa
Something like a revolution a great transformation always takes place to express it more in detail in some place or other there is a more or less gifted child in whom it is not noticeable that he has to do anything special in preparation for the future evolution of humanity ult research confirms that no
One during his childhood and youth gives so little sign of what he really is as he who is to incorporate a bodhisatwa for at a certain point of time in his life a great change comes over him if an individuality from the remote past Moses for example is
Incorporated it is not the same with him as it was with the Christ individuality to whom Jesus of Nazareth left the sheaves in the case of a bodhisatwa there certainly will be something like an exchange but the individuality remains in a certain sense and the individuality who comes from the remote past as
Patriarch or another and is to bring new forces for the evolution of humanity descends and the human being who receives him experiences an immense transformation this transformation occurs particularly between the 30th and 33rd years it can never be known beforehand that this body will be taken possession of by the
Bodhisatwa the change never shows itself in youth the distinct Ive features precisely that the later years are so unlike the youthful ones he who was incorporated in Jesu and pandira the bodis satva who was repeatedly reincarnated and who succeeded gaama Buddha has prepared himself for his bodhisatwa Incarnation so that he can
Reappear and rise to the Buddha dignity exactly 5,000 years after the illumination of Gama Buddha under the Bodhi Tree here again occult investigation fully agrees with Oriental tradition so 3,000 years from now this bodhisatwa looking back on all that has happened in the new Epoch and looking back on the Christ
Impulse and all that is connected with it will speak in such a way that his speech will make into a reality what has just been characterized intellectuality will become directly moral the future bodhisatwa who will place all that he has at the service of the Christ impulse will be a bringer of
The good through the word through the logos he will speak in a language as yet possessed by no man but a language which is so holy that he who speaks it can be called a bringer of the good this also will not show itself in his youth but
Approximately in his 31st year he will appear as a new man and will yield himself up as the one who can be filled with a higher individuality the experience of one single incarnation in the flesh holds Good only for Christ Jesus all bodhisattvas go through various successive incarnations on the physical
Plane this bodhisatwa 3,000 years hence will have advanced so far that he will be a bringer of the good a bet tra Buddha who will place his words of goodness at the service of the Christ impulse which a sufficient number of men will by then have made part of their
Lives the perspective of the future development of man tells us this today what was necessary so that human beings could come gradually to this Epoch of evolution this we can make clear as follows if we wish to make a graphic picture what happened in ancient lorea
For the earth evolution of man we can say that was the time when man descended from Divine Heights it was ordained for him that he should develop further in a certain way but through the luciferic influence he was cast down more deeply into matter than he would have been
Without that influence thereby his path and evolution became different when man had gone downward to the lowest stage a powerful impetus in the upward Direction was required this impetus could come about only because in the higher Worlds the being whom we designate as the Christ being had formed
A resolution which he would not have needed to take for his own Evolution for the Christ being would also have attained his Evolution if he had taken a path far far above the path that men were pursuing he could have passed by so to speak far above the evolution of
Humanity but if the upward impulse had not been given human evolution would have been compelled to continue on its downward path the Christ would have had an Ascend but Humanity a downfall only because the Christ being had taken the resolution to unite himself at the time of the events of
Pales INE with a man to embody himself in a man and to make the upward path possible for Humanity only this could bring about the Redemption of humanity as we may now call it Redemption from the impulse brought by the luciferic forces and designated symbolically in the Bible as in quotes original
Sin the Temptation by The Serpent and the original sin that was its consequence Christ accomplished something that was not necessary for himself what kind of an Act was this it was an act of divine love we must be quite clear that no human feeling is capable of realizing
The intensity of love that was needed for a God to make a decision a decision he had no need to make to work upon Earth in a human body thereby by through an act of love the most important event in human evolution was brought about and when men grasp this act of
Love by a god when they try to grasp it as a great ideal in contrast with which every human Act of love can be but small then through this feeling of utter disproportion between human love and the Divine love needed for the mystery of golgatha they will draw near to the
Building up to the giving birth within them of those imaginations which place before our spiritual gaze the momentous event of golgatha yes verily it is possible to attain to the imagination of the mount on which the cross was raised that cross on which hung a God in human body a God who out
Of his own free will out of love accomplished the ACT where by the Earth and Humanity could reach their goal if the God who is designated by the name of the father had not at one time permitted the luciferic influences to come to man man would not have developed the free
Ego with the luciferic influence the conditions for the free ego were established that had to be permitted by the father God but just as the ego for the sake of Freedom had to become entangled in matter so then in order that the ego might be freed from this
Entanglement the entire love of the son s o n had to lead to the act of golgatha through this alone the freedom of man the complete Dignity of man first became possible for the fact that we can be free beings we have to thank a Divine Act of
Love as men we may feel free beings but we may never forget that for this Freedom we have to thank this act of love then in the midst of our feeling the thought will arise quote you can attain to the value the Dignity of a man
But one thing you may not forget that for being what you are you have to thank him who has brought back to you your human prototype through the Redemption on golgatha close quote men should not be able to lay hold of the thought of freedom without the thought of redemption through
Christ only then is the thought of Freedom Justified if we will to be free we must bring the offering of thanks to Christ for our freedom then only can we really perceive it and those who consider that their dignity as men is restricted when they thank Christ for it should recognize
That human opinions have no significance in face of cosmic facts and that one day they will very willingly acknowledge know that their freedom Was Won by Christ what we have been able to do in these lectures is not very much for gaining a closer understanding of the
Christ impulse and of the whole course of human evolution on Earth from the standpoint of spiritual science we can only bring together single building stones but if the effect upon our souls is something like a renewed stimulus to further effort to further development along Ong The Path of
Knowledge then these stones will have done their work for the great spiritual Temple of humanity and the best we can carry away from a spiritual scientific study such as this is that once more we have learned something toward a certain goal that we have again somewhat enriched our knowledge and our high goal
Is this that we may know more exactly how much we still need to know then we shall be more and more permeated with the truth of the old C itic saying quote the more a man learns the more he knows how little he knows close quote but this conviction is good only
When it is not a confession of passive easygoing resignation but testifies to a living will and effort toward an Ever extending knowledge we ought not to acknowledge how little we know by saying quote since we cannot know everything we would rather learn nothing so let us fold our hands in our lap close
Quote that would be a false result of spiritual scientific study the right result is to be more and more inspired to further striving to regard every new thing learned as a step toward the attainment of yet higher stages in these lectures we have perhaps had to say much about the Redemption
Thought without often using the word this Redemption thought should be felt by a Seeker after the spirit as it was felt by a great Forerunner of our spiritual science that it is related and entrusted to our souls only as a consequence of our striving after the highest goals of knowing feeling and
Willing and as this great Forerunner connects the word Redemption with a word striving and has expressed it in the Line quote IM close quote he who never gives up striving he it is whom we can redeem so should the anthroposophist always feel the true Redemption can be grasped
And felt and willed in its own realm only by someone who never gives up may this lecture cycle which has been specially laid upon my heart because so much has to be said in it concerning the Redemption thought be a stimulus to our further endeavors may we find ourselves
Ever more and more united in our endeavors during this Incarnation and in later ones may this be the fruit which comes from such studies with this we will close taking with us as a stimulus the thought that we must continually exert ourselves in order that we may see
What the Christ is on the one hand and on the other may it draw nearer to Redemption which is being set free not merely from the lower Earth path and Earth fate but free also from everything that hinders man from attaining his dignity as man these things are written
Down truly only in the annals of the spiritual for the script that can be read in spiritual Realms is the only true writing let us therefore strive to read the chapter concerning the Dignity of man and the mission of man in the script where these things stand written
In the spiritual Worlds the end of lecture 10 that is the end of the lecture cycle from Jesus to Christ translated by Charles Davy there is an appendix which I will read it’ll be lecture 11 and it’s a public lecture delivered at Carl’s R end of lecture
10 you are listening to Rudolf Steiner audio.com as well you can hear these podcasts at Rudolf steiner.com please consider becoming a patron there are two publishing houses Steiner books.org in America and Rudolph Stein press.com in England which are the sole Publishers of Steiner into English and given me
Permission to do these recordings please consider patronizing them as well this is a reading of collected works volume 131 by Rudolph Steiner titled from Jesus to Christ 11 lectures translated by Charles Davy this is the last lecture which is really uh in the appendix it’s a public
Lecture delivered at Carl’s Rua the day before the cycle itself started so this is given on the 4th of o October 1911 as our subject is arousing the very widest interest everywhere it seems justifiable to approach it from an anthroposophical standpoint the manner in which it is being discussed and brought to public
Notice is of course very far removed from this point of view if it is true that anthroposophy is little understood and liked today it may be said at once that the treating of this them in an anthroposophical manner presents peculiar difficulties it is unusual in our age
For the feelings to be so attuned as to appreciate anthroposophical truths bearing on the more obvious matters of spiritual life and it is directly repugnant to our present day Consciousness when a topic has to be discussed which calls for the application of anthroposophy or spiritual science to the most difficult and holiest subjects
It may be safely affirmed at the outset that the being around whom our thoughts are about to Center has been for many centuries the turning point of all thought and feeling and moreover that he has called forth widely differing judgments emotions and opinions countless are those who for
Centuries have held firmly as a rock to all that is connected with the name of Christ and of Jesus Beyond number also are pictures of him which have moved souls and occupied thoughtful men ever since the event in Palestine always the picture has been modified according to the general views
Of the times to what was felt and considered true at any given period thus when the way had been prepared by the intellectual currence of thought of the 18th century it came about in the course of the following Century that what could be intellectually grasped as Christ withdrew into the background as compared
With what was later called the historical Jesus it is around the historical Jesus that the widespread controversy has arisen and which has here in carlsro its most important protagonists and its most vigorous combatants for this reason it is as well to give a short indication of the current position of the controversy
Before entering on the subject of Christ Jesus we might say that the historical Jesus of 19th century thought originated under the influence of the intellectual current that takes a merely external view of spiritual life and judges it by means of external documents that there is evidence of his
Having lived at the beginning of our era in Palestine that he was crucified and according to the faithful rose again it is quite in line with the character and nature of the present era now approaching its termination that in the case of theological research Faith limited
Itself to what it was thought could be confirmed by historical documents in the same way as any ordinary event is confirmed by independent writings it may be said that all the historical written Traditions elsewhere than in the New Testament could in the opinion of one of the most important
Judges be quote easily contained in a quto page close quote all the other references to the historical Jesus in any documents whatever such as for example in Josephus or tacitus may be put out of court for they can never be used from the standpoint of that historical science which holds good
Today Beyond these there are only the gospels and the Pauline Epistles how did the historical research of the 19th century examine the gospels regarded purely externally how do they appear if taken like other records such as those of military engagements and so forth they seem to be very contradictory documents of the
Physical plane the four-fold presentation of which cannot be brought into harmony in face of what we call historical criticism these appears Fall to Pieces for it must be allowed that everything which the earnest and diligent research of the 19th century collected out of the gospels themselves
In order to gain a true picture of Jesus of Nazareth has crumbled away through the presentation of the kind of research brought forward by Professor Drews as to all that can be said against the gospels as facts of History it is evident that nothing can come to light
About the person of Jesus of Nazareth if we apply the methods whereby accurate science and strict criticism ratify other historical facts we can only be considered very diletant scientists if we do not make this concession to the science of the day is it not a possibility that those who in the 19th
Century presented the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth and wanted to to arrive at an historical portrait of him had an entirely false conception of the gospels were the gospels really intended to be historical records in the sense understood in the 19th century whatever was to be said on this
Subject I endeavored to State many years ago in my work titled Christianity as mystical fact and our present question as to what was the real object of the gospels was intended to receive re its answer not merely through the contents of that book but through the title
Itself for the title was not quote the mysticism of Christianity close quote nor quote the mystical contents of Christianity close quote its object was rather to show that Christianity in its origin and it its whole being is not an external fact but a fact of the spiritual world and one
That can only be comprehended by insight into a realm lying behind the world of sense and behind what can be corroborated by historical records it was shown that the forces and causes which brought about the event of Palestine were not to be found in that region wherein external historical events take
Place and thus that possibly not only May Christianity have a mystical content but that mysticism the actual gazing into the spiritual is necessary to disentangle the threads that were woven behind the event in Palestine and made it possible in order to realize what Christianity is and what it can and must
Be in the soul of man today if he is to understand it all right let us see how deeply grounded in the spiritual facts of human development were the words of St Augustine quote that which we now called the Christian religion already existed among the Ancients and was never absent from the
Beginning of the human race up to the time when Christ appeared in the flesh from which time forward the True Religion which was already there received the name of the Christian religion close quote thus does a standard Authority point to the fact that it was not something new which came into Humanity
With the events of Palestine but that in a certain sense a transformation had taken place in that which from time immemorial The Souls of men had sought and striven for as knowledge something was given to humanity which had always been in existence though hither to along other lines than the
Christian if we wish to test the other way in which the preceding ages could come to the truths and wisdom of Christianity we are referring by the historical development of humanity to the mysteries of antiquity or the ancient Mysteries what is meant by these Expressions is little understood today
But it will become clearer the more men grasp the conception of the cosmos as presented by spiritual science attention must be focused not merely upon the external religions of the people of antiquity but upon what was practiced in pre-christian times in those Mystic abodes designated by the name of the
Mysteries in the book titled occult science an explanation is to be found from the aspect of spiritual science and there are also numbers of secular writers who have declared publicly what was the secret of mankind in Antiquity we read that only a few were admitted to the schools which were
Designated the Mysteries and that these schools were the homes of of the Cults also there was a small circle of men admitted to the Mysteries by the Priestly sages and for them this meant a kind of retirement from the outer World they realized that if they were to reach what
Was to be attained they must lead a different life than they had so far lived openly and above all that they must accustom themselves to another way of thinking these Mysteries existed all over the world among the Greeks and Romans and other peoples as may be confirmed by referring to extensive
Literature which already exists the pupil admitted to the Mysteries were taught something comparable with what is now called science or knowledge but they did not receive it in the same way for by what they experienced they became quite other beings to them came the conviction that in every man There lives deeply hidden
And slumbering so that the ordinary consciousness knows it not a higher man just as the ordinary man experiences the world through his senses and uses his thinking to reflect upon such experiences so can this other man at first unknown to external Consciousness but capable of being awakened in the depths of his
Nature recognize Another World unattainable by external sight and thought this was called quote the birth of the Inner Man man close quote the expression is still used though in these days it is dry and Abstract in character and regarded lightly but when the disciple of the Mysteries applied it to himself it stood
For a tremendous event to be compared in some measure with being born in the physical sense as man in the physical world is born out of a dark substratum be it one of nature according to the materialistic idea of a spiritual substratum in the view of spiritual science so physically
Speaking there was really born through the processes of the Mysteries a higher man who previously had been as little present as was the human being before birth or conception the disciple was a newborn being the present view of knowledge as given everywhere in answer to a deeply philosophic question is
Exactly the opposite of that which formed the C central point of the whole idea and Outlook of the Mysteries today we ask in the sense of Kant and schopenhauer quote where lie the limits of knowledge what is it in the power of man to know close quote we need only
Take up a newspaper to meet the answer that here or there lie the limits and that Beyond them it is impossible to go certainly it was admitted in the Mysteries that there were problems which man could not solve but it would never have been held in the sense of Kant or
In schopenhauer’s title theory of cognition that quote man cannot know close quote this or that what would have been appealed to was man’s capability of development to the powers lying dormant within him which must be evoked so that he might rise to higher capacities of knowledge the question in those times
Resolved itself into what was to be done in order to get Beyond that which in normal life is the boundary of knowledge how to develop deeper powers in human nature something more is needed if we are to feel the whole Magic charm of the Mysteries that like a breath pervades
The Works of the exoteric writers Plato aristedes Plutarch and Cicero here we must be clear that the kind of mental comprehension present in the forming of the discip of the Mysteries was quite different from that of the men of today when they confront scientific truths what we now call science is open
To anybody and everybody in any condition of receptivity whatever it is just here that we recognize the characteristic of truth that it is independent of mood and feeling for the pupil of the Mysteries the most necessary thing was that before he was brought to the great truths he
Should go through something whereby his soul was transformed in his feelings and Impressions what today appears as a simple scientific truth would not have been put to him so that he could grasp it externally with his understanding but his natural temperament would have been prepared beforehand so that he could
Draw near with reverential awe to what could approach him consequently his preparation was not one of learning it was a gradual radical transformation and education of his soul the question was how the soul approached the great truths and wisdom and how it reacted to them and hence arose the conviction that through the
Mysteries man was bound up and United with the very foundations of the cosmos and with what flowed from the Springs of all Cosmic Beginnings thus was the disciple prepared for the experiencing of something that is described Des cribed by aristedes anyone who has lived through what these disciples experienced as
Described in my title knowledge of higher worlds and its attainment can confirm this himself he knows that the words of aristedes correspond with the truth when he writes quote I seemed to be approaching God I seemed to feel his presence and I was in a state between waking and sleeping my
Spirit was quite light so light that no one who was uninitiated could describe or understand it close quote there was a way therefore to the Divine foundations of the universe which was neither science nor one-sided religion but consisted in a thorough preparation of the Soul enabling it to
Sense the thoughts of the Gods permeating the evolution of the universe so that it might draw near to God and those spiritual foundations as we take in the external air with our breath and make it a part of our body so did the Disciples of the Mysteries receive into his soul that which
Pulsates spiritually through the universe until he was United with it and so became a new man permeated by the Divinity now however anthroposophy or spiritual science shows that what was then possible was only an historical phenomenon on in human evolution and when the question arises as to whether the ancient mysteries of
Pre-christian times are still possible in the same way it can only be said that historical research verily proves that what has just been described did really exist but that it exists no longer in the same form the pre-christian method of initiation is now not possible a man must indeed be
Shortsighted if he believes that the human soul is the same in all epochs or that the spiritual path of the olden times holds good for the present the path to the Divine and Primal sources of the world has now become another and intellectual historical research shows that it did so
In its very essence at the time ascribed by tradition to the events of Palestine these events made a deep incision in the evolution of man something entered into human nature in the postchristian period which entirely differed from what was there before such a method of thinking as is possible
Nowadays the method of drawing nearer to the universe through scientific thought did not exist in pre-christian ages the Mysteries did not conduct man in the manner described to the very highest Treasures of wisdom in order that he might do something in secret or acquire something special for himself as
A member of a small circle but because our Modern Way of combining thoughts through logic was not possible at that time a glance at the history of humanity will show that in the course of two centuries during the time of the Greek philosophers the present mode of thinking was gradually
Prepared and that only now has it reached the point of embracing external nature so wonderfully thus the entire form our Consciousness takes and the way we create our conceptions of the universe differ entirely from pre-christian times for the moment we are only concerned with this fact as showing that
Human Nature has changed a careful review of human evolution makes it clear that Consciousness has altered in the course of evolution the results arising from research are to be found in my title ult science the men of old did not regard things and think about them as we do
With our senses and understanding they had a kind of Clairvoyance but this was of a dim and dreamlike nature here in lies the import of evolution that an old Clairvoyance which in primitive times was spread over all Humanity gave way to that form of thought which we possess today the
Ordinary inhabitants of every country had this kind of Clairvoyant power and a path leading from that to higher stages was provided in the Mysteries thereby development was given to the normal soul faculties of man observation of the World by what we call reasoning and logic having displaced the old
Clairvoyance the latter is no longer a natural faculty but it lasts did right through the historical period and reached its culmination in the Greco Roman era during which the appearance of Christ occurred at that point of time Collective Humanity everywhere had come so far in its Evolution that the old
Clairvoyant had passed away and the old Mysteries were no longer possible what then took the place of the old Mysteries and what did man acquire through the Mysteries these were of two kinds the one proceeded from that Center of civilization which was afterward occupied by the ancient
Persians and the other was to be met with in its purest form in Egypt and Greece they were entirely different throughout those times it was the Endeavor of all the Mysteries to produce in man an extension of his sole Powers but this was achieved in a different way in Greece and Egypt
Than in Persia in the two former which agreed essentially the object was to effect in the disciples a transformation of their soul Powers this transformation took place under a certain supposition which must be understood before anything else it was that in the depths of the Soul there Slumbers another a Divine man
This hidden man originated from the same sources from which the rock forms into C and the plant breaks forth in the spring plants however had already utilized all that was contained within them whereas man in so far as he had understood himself and worked with his own powers had remained an imperfect
Being and that which was within him had only come to the four after much Endeavor appeal therefore in the Egyptian and Greek Mysteries was made to a spiritual a divine Inner Man and when this was referred to illusion was made also to the powers within the Earth for according to the Views held
The Earth was not regarded as the lifeless Cosmic body of modern astronomy but as a spiritual planetary being in Egypt when one wished to contemplate the origin and source of what could be experienced as manifestation of the Inner Man reference was made to the wonderful spirit forces
And nature Force called by the names of Isis and Osiris in Greece this Primal Source was referred to under the name of dionisis as a consequence of this profane writers asserted that the nature and being of things were the objects sought for and in the Greek Mysteries
They called what was found of the forces of human nature the quote sub Earthly close quote portion of man not the in quotes super Earthly the nature of the great Dions was spoken of and under this title was represented all that worked on the earth of the nature of spiritual
Forces the nature of these Dions in a good sense was sought for through that which man was to bring forth from himself then the disciple had to go through all the feelings and perceptions that were possible for him in the course of evolution he had to experience what
Was meant by quote going down into the depths of his soul close quote to learn that a fundamental feeling so dominated All Soul being that in ordinary life no conception of it could be formed and that that feeling was a deep egoism the almost unconquerable selfishness lying
Within the inner recesses of a human being by means of struggling against and conquering all selfishness and egoism the disciple had to go through something for which we have today only an abstract expression that is the feeling of all inclusive love and compassion for men and
Beings compassion in so far as the human soul was capable of it was to take the place of selfishness it was clearly understood that if the disciple evoked this compassion which belonged in the first place to the forces of the world of feeling it could draw out from the
Depths of his soul the Divine Powers slumbering therein it was held moreover that as he looked out upon the world with his ordinary understanding he must soon become aware of his powerlessness as a man with reference to the cosmos and that the further he projected his conceptions and ideas the stronger
This feeling grew until in the end he was led to doubt what indeed could be called knowledge that is nosis arrived at that point he must then overcome this feeling of emptiness in his soul whenever he desired to Encompass the cosmos with his ideas this consciousness of a void was
Accompanied by fear and anxiety and consequently the Greek disciple of mysticism first filled himself with the dread of the unknown and then by coupling this with compassion Drew forth the Divine Powers lying within him so did he learn to transform fear into awe and reverence and to realize
How the highest kind of awe and reverential devotion for all the phenomena of the universe was able to penetrate every substance and conception that lay beyond the scope of ordinary knowledge thus the Greek Mysteries as also those of Isis and Osiris in the Egyptian Mysteries worked outward from
The inmost nature of man and sought to lead him into the spiritual worlds it was a living apprehension of the quote God in man close quote a real acquaintance was formed between man and God and immortality ranked not as mere abstract Theory and philosophy but as something known
Something as firmly grounded as the knowledge of external colors and this was experienced as an intimate connection with external things with no less certainty was this experienced also in the Persian or mithraic Mysteries whereas man was led in the Greek and Egyptian Mysteries through the unfettering of his so
Powers he was confronted at once with the universe itself in the mithraic Mysteries not only did the universe work upon him through the Great and Mighty nature which is overlooked by by those who regard the world in its external aspect but by gaining a deep intimacy with nature he could gaze upon phenomena
That lay outside the limits of the human understanding by the methods then used the most terrible and magnificent Powers were brought before the pupil from Universal space whereas the Greek disciple was affected by a deep feeling of reverence to the mithraic disciple alone was given the knowledge of the terrible and awe
Inspiring powers in nature so that he felt himself infinitesimally small in comparison so powerful was this impression consequent upon his alienation from the Primal source of being that he felt that in its vastness the universe could at any moment overwhelm and annihilate him the first impulse that came from his
Being led through a comprehens ensive astronomy and science away from external things to the greatness of the phenomena of the universe and what he further developed in the Mysteries was then more a consequence of the truth in all its ramifications when Nature in her details science in the old sense of the word
Worked upon his soul the Greek disciple became Fearless through the setting free of his powers the my iic disciple was brought so far that he drank in the greatness of cosmic thought and thereby his soul also became strong and courageous a knowledge of the dignity and value of a human being was gained
And with it a feeling for truth and Fidelity the disciple learned to recognize that man must always hold himself under control during his Earthly existence such were the benefits obtained especially through the mythra Mysteries and whereas the Greek and Egyptian Mysteries are to be found spread over Greece and Egypt the
Mithraic are diffused from Persia as far as the Caspian Sea along the danub into Germany and even to the south of France to Spain and to England Europe was indeed permeated by the mithraic Mysteries and everywhere it was seen clearly that something streamed into man from the universe if only he
Could learn to to understand it and this that could be received was Mithra the god that streams through the world in all worlds it was to this power of action that courage was aroused the Warriors the Roman legionaries were filled with the mithraic service or Cult of Mithra both leaders and men were
Initiated into the Mysteries thus was God sought on the One Hand by the freeing of the individual soul powers and it was quite evident that through this process something streamed out from the depths of the Soul on the other hand however it was equally evident that when
Man sought God by devoting himself to the great Cosmic phenomena something streamed into his soul as the essence the finest life sap contained in the world there were found the primordial forces of the universe God came as it were into human Souls through this Dev velopment which was attained in the mystery
Schools a veritable process is to be seen here each Soul became a door for the entrance of the godhead into human evolution on Earth few were able to undergo such a development and a special preparation for it was necessary the teaching consisted in showing that what was hidden in external
Nature Mithra as also in the Inner Man of the Greek poured through the word world as a stream of divine consecration the evolution of man has now changed and the entire method of initiation is different here we touch upon what must be called the mystical fact of the Christ
Event to penetrate deeply into history is to see that the early Christians were more or less dimly conscious that the same Force which entered the soul only through Devotion to the Mysteries to the Divine principle of the universe streaming forth from Cosmos as Mithra or out of the depths of the Soul as
Dionisis was as the deed of a unique Cosmic Divinity in one single fact in the evolution of the earth that which was sought for Beyond this and was not to be found except by those who alienated themselves from Outer life in the Mysteries was at a given time time incorporated into the
Earth by the Divinity no human effort was needed for the Divinity once and for all permeated the being of the earth and henceforth even those who had lost the power to penetrate to the Divine principle of the cosmos could meet him in another way The God Who Could now penetrate into
The human soul neither as methra from without nor dionis from within was himself a fusion of methra and dionis and also was related to human nature in its depths he was embraced and encompassed by the name of Christ methra and dionisis were United in the being who entered Humanity in the event of
Palestine and Christianity was the Confluence of both Cults the Hebrews who were chosen that they might provide the necessary body through which this event might take place had become acquainted with the mithraic and dionan Cults but they remained far removed from either the Greek thought of himself as a weak man
Who must develop deeper Powers before he could penetrate into the depths of his soul while the follower of methra felt that by letting the whole surrounding sphere of the air work upon him he might become United with the Divine qualities of the universe the Hebrew on the other hand held that
The deeper human nature with all that was hidden within it was already there in the first man and the ancient Hebrews called this Primal man Adam according to Old hebraic ideas that which man could seek and which joined him with the Divine was present originally in Adam but in course of evolution the
Descendants of each generation became further and further removed removed from the source of existence being quote subject to Original Sin close quote as they put it meant that man had not remained as he was and had been ejected from the sphere of the Divine regarding himself as standing below Adam he sought
The reason in original sin but though less than that which lived in the depths of human nature he could unite himself with the deeper powers and thereby be raised again this point of view that once man had stood higher and that through the qualities connected with the Blood Ties
He had lost something was an historical one what the adherent of the mithraic Mysteries saw in humanity as one whole the Hebrew saw in his own nation and was conscious that his original Source had been lost so that while among the Persians there was a kind of training of the
Consciousness there was among the ancient Hebrews a consciousness of an historical development Adam by falling into sin had fallen from the heights where he once stood consequently the Hebrews were the best prepared for the thought that that which had happened at the initial point of evolution and which had brought about
A deterioration in humanity could only be raised again through an historical event that is by something actually taking place in the spiritual substr F of the Earth’s being the ancient Hebrew who rightly understood Evolution felt that the methra god equally with a God who is evoked from the depths of the human soul
Could come down without man going through a development in the Mysteries thus in these people and above all in the case of John the Baptist there arose a consciousness of the fact that what the Mysteries had handed down in the form of dionis and methra was
Born at one and the same time in one man those of them who felt this in a deeper sense held that even as through Adam The Descent of Man into the world was brought about all men having descended from one forefather and inherited from him all the deeper forces
That led to sin and error so through one being who descends from the spiritual worlds as the union of methra and dionisis must the initial point be formed to which men can look when they have to rise again as in the Mysteries human nature was developed through the setting free
Of the deeper Soul forces or through a view of the cosmos the Hebrews now saw in The God Who came down into physical being him on whom the soul must look and believe for whom it must develop the deepest love and who is the great example could lead them back to their divine
Origin he who had the profoundest knowledge of this fact of Christianity was Paul the Apostle recognized that as men looked to Adam as their physical progenitor they could through the Christ impulse look to the Christ as the great example and so attain to what was striven for in the Mysteries and must be
Born again if they were to know their or origal nature the knowledge that was kept within the recesses of the temples and can only be attained after athetic training was set forth neither in mundane documents nor is some external fact but as having been accomplished as
A mystical fact The God Who pervaded the world having actually appeared in one single form what the Disciples of the mithraic Mysteries acquired through looking upon the greatest model had now been attained through Christ the courage self-control and energy acquired by those disciples had also to be acquired by those who
Could no longer be initiated in the old mithraic sense through the model of the historical Christ and the gazing upon him the impulse toward this fortitude was now to pour itself out upon the soul in the mithraic Mysteries as has been shown the whole universe was in a
Certain sense born in the soul of the disciple and the courageous Soul was fired with all the inner forces of initiative in the baptism of John something was poured down from above of which human nature could be the vehicle when man was permeated with the thought that his nature was capable of
Assimilating the profoundest harmony of the universe the view of the baptism aroused within him the understanding that Mithra could be born in human nature those therefore who grasp the original meaning of Christianity acknowledged that the end of the Mysteries had come The God Who formerly had poured himself into the Mysteries
Had now flowed directly into the being of the earth through the personality who stood at the beginning of a new era our present one the connection with the Greek or dionan Mysteries is now to be considered through the fact that the human gaze was guided to Jesus of
Nazareth in whom Mithra lived and who then passed through death an indication was given that Mithra the bestow of Courage self-control and energy had himself died with the death of Jesus it was further seen that because Mithra had so vanished that which man found in his deepest nature
And had attained earlier through the dionan Mysteries had now become in Jesus of Nazareth The Immortal conqueror over death here in lies the true Christian meaning of the Resurrection if it is grasped in its spiritually scientific sense the baptism by John in the Jordan demonstrated that the old Mithra had
Entered into man that thereby human nature had won the victory over death and that by the example so created the soul could unite itself in the deepest love in order to come to that which lived in its own depths in the Risen Christ was seen the
Fact that man by living according to the event that had taken place in history could rise above the level of ordinary Humanity thus in the center of the history of the world was set an historical event in the place of that which had been sought in the Mysteries times without number the great
Revelation that came to St Paul was that human nature had thereby become different and this was concealed within what is known as the event of Damascus writing of what he experienced before Damascus the Apostle relates how he learned to understand not from external documents but through a purely spiritual Clairvoyant
Experience that the moment when the Incarnation itself should take place in an historical personage had already passed the existence of Christ as a real man could never be experienced by Paul through an external fact and what he could learn in Palestine did not convince him that the
Union of Mithra and dionis had lived in Jesus of Nazareth but when before Damascus his spiritual sight was opened it became clear that a God who could be called by the name of Christ not only worked through the world as a super sensible being but had actually come to Earth and conquered
Death henceforth he preached that what for the initiates had previously been a streaming substance was now to be found as continuous historical fact this lies at the basis of his words quote if Christ be not risen then is our preaching Vain and your faith is also
Vain close quote such was the path by which Paul came to Jesus by the indirect way of Christ it being clear to him that something had taken place in Palestine which previously could only be experienced in the Mysteries and this still applies today because Christ is the focus of all
Human development and the highest example for the inmost powers of the soul the bond established with him must be of the most intimate kind to become a disciple it is required of a man that he set little value upon his own life and so it must be regarded
As of small importance to lay aside all documentary evidence and historical traditions in order to come to Christ indeed there is cause for thankfulness that the fact that there ever was an historical Christ Jesus cannot be established for no document could prove that he was the most
Significant of all that has passed into Humanity the connection between Christ and the ancient Mysteries is therefore quite clear the Disciples of the latter had to go through what may be called intimate Soul experiences in order to come to God their inner feelings and Sensations were more lively and intense
Than those of the ordinary man and so they became aware Ware that they were set fast in a lower nature which hindered them from arriving at the sources of being this lower nature was indeed a Seducer leading them away from the upward path and that which so allured them had
Also become their own lower nature and herein lay the Temptation that came to every disciple of the Mysteries at the moment when God awoke within them they became aware also of their lower or sensual Natures it was as though some strange unknown being were urging them not to follow the unsubstantial and Airy
Heights of the spiritual world but to seize the coarse and material things that lay close at hand each disciple had to pass through a time when everything spiritual seemed unreal in comparison with The Ordinary way of looking at things and all that was connected with the senses appeared alluring as against
The strp of spiritual effort at another stage in Mystic development these lower forces were overcome a higher Outlook being attained with the growth of invigorated powers of courage and so forth all this teaching was clothed in certain instructions that may be verified from the writings of exoteric
Authors as also in the methods of initiation given by spiritual science and set forth in titled occult science there were various methods both in the Greek and in the mithraic Mysteries finally the disciples experienced the at onement with him who was the Divine man but here the methods
Were different and varied widely in the many countries where initiation existed in my title Christianity as mystical fact the purpose is to show that in the gospels nothing is to be met with but a re re birth of old initiation instructions what took place externally had already taken place similarly in the
Course of the Mysteries and therefore the Divine being who was in Jesus of Nazareth after The Descent of the mythra being had to experience the temptation as the tempter came on a small scale to the pupil of the Mysteries so did he also confront the god become
Man all that was true in the Myst is to be found repeated in the gospel records which were new versions of the old inscriptions and instructions given in the initiations the writers of the gospels saw that once that which hither two had Lain only in the Mysteries had been
Enacted on the plane of cosmic history it was permissible to describe it in the same words as those in which their directions for initiation were recorded it is for this very reason that the gospels were not intended to be biographies of him who was the vehicle
For the Christ this is just the mistake of all modern criticisms of the gospels at the time they were written the sole object was to lead the human soul to a real love for the Great Soul the source of the world’s existence strangely enough a clear consciousness of this PR failed almost
To the end of the 18th century it is pointed out in isolated writings of remarkable interest that through the gospels the soul can be so transformed as to find the Christ old Meister eart writes quote some people want to look at god with their eyes as they look at a
Cow and want to love God as they love a cow they love God as an outward possession and an inward Comfort but these people do not love him a right simple folk imagine they ought to see God as if he stood there and they hear
It is not so God and I are one in recognition close quote in another passage he writes quote a master says God has become man and thereby the whole human race is raised in dignity we may Rejoice that Christ our brother has through his own power passed
Beyond the choir of angels and sits at the right hand of the father close quote continue quote this master has spoken rightly but verily I do not pay much attention to it what help would it be to me if I had a brother who was a
Rich man and I was at the same time a poor one how would it help me if I had a brother who was a wise man and I myself a fool the heavenly father begat his only son in himself and in me why in
Himself and in me I am one with him and it is not possible for him to exclude me in the same way the Holy Ghost received his being and is from me as from God why I am in God and if the Holy Ghost does not receive his being from me neither
Does he receive it from God I am in no way excluded close quote that is the point that man through Mystic development without external mystery but through the simple evolution of the soul will in later times be able to experience that which was once experienced in the Mysteries this however will only be
Possible because the Christ event took place even if there were no gospels no records and no Traditions he who experiences the Christ in himself along with the being filled with Christ has the certainty as St Paul had it that at the beginning of our era Christ was incarnated in a physical
Body an historical biography of Jesus of Nazareth can never be gathered out of the gospels but through the right unfolding of his sole Powers man can and must raise himself up to the Christ and through the Christ to Jesus thus only can be understood what
Was the aim of the gospels and what was lacking in the whole of the 19th century researches on the subject of Jesus the picture of the Christ was allowed to recede into the background in order to present a tangible Jesus quite externally from the historical records the gospels were misunderstood
And consequently the methods of Investigation crumbl to Pieces herewith the way is at the same time made clear to spiritual science its object is to show what are the deeper powers that have Lain in man since the coming of Christ and which he can develop not in the depths of externally
Appointed Mysteries but in the Stillness of his room man can attain by devoting himself to what happened in Palestine that which was attained by the Disciples of the Mysteries by experiencing the Christ within himself he gains in Courage and energy and in ACC consciousness of his dignity as man and comes to the
Knowledge of how he has to take his place in humanity in the right sense and at the same time he experiences as could the adherent of the Greek Mysteries the universal love which lives in Christ and Embraces all external creatures he learns never to be afraid
Or to despair in the face of the world and freely and humbly devotes himself to the secrets of the universe all this comes to the man who permeates himself with the mystical fact of Christianity the successor of the old Mysteries simply through a cognitional development of these fundamental
Thoughts the historical Jesus becomes a fact for those who have a deep knowledge of Christ in Western philosophy it was said that without eyes none could see color nor hear without ears the universe would be without light and sound true as this is with regard to seeing
And hearing it is equally true that without light no I ey Yee could have come into existence nor could man have had any perceptions connected with it as Gerta says quote if the eye were not born of like nature to the sun it could never look upon the sun close quote and
Quote the eye is a creation of the light close quote the mystical Christ spoken of by those whose spiritual sight is opened and who Behold Him as Paul did was not always in man in pre-christian times he was unattainable in any development through the mysteries in the way in
Which he was to be found after the mystery of golgatha that there might be an inner Christ and that the higher man could be born and historical Christ was needed the Incarnation of the Christ in Jesus as the I Yee can originate only through the effect of light so in order that
There could be a mystical Christ the historical Christ must have been there had there been no documents containing a biography of Jesus of Nazareth this could still be said and felt for Jesus is not to be recognized through external writings this fact was long known in the
Evolution of the West and will again be known spiritual science will so formulate it that it can draw together from out of its various spheres what will lead to a real understanding of the Christ and thereby to an understanding of Jesus it has come about that Jesus has
Been actually alienated from the world and the methods of the Jesus investigations have melted away but the deepening of ourselves in the Christ being in the Christ as a being will lead to a recognition of the greatness of Jesus of Nazareth this path by which the Christ is first recognized through inward Soul
Experience leads through what really has developed out of the soul to the understanding of the mystical fact of Christianity and of the gradual development of humanity as being such that the Christ event must take place within it as the most significant point in in the evolution of
Man the way leads through the Christ to Jesus the Christ idea Bears fruitful seed that will bring Humanity not merely to the apprehension of a general pantheistic Cosmic Spirit but the individual man to the understanding of his own history as he feels his Earth to be bound up with all Cosmic existence so
Will he recognize that his past is bound up with a super sensible and super historical event this event is that the Christ being stands as a super sensible mystical fact at the middle of human evolution he will be recognized as such by the humanity of the future apart from
All external historical research and documents Christ will remain the strong Cornerstone of Mankind’s Evolution man will bring the forces out of himself to renew his own history and therewith also the history of the evolution of the world that is the end of the appendix lecture
11 and the end of the book from Jesus to Christ 11 lectures translated by Charles Davy collected works volume 131