The Rudolf Steiner Archive

17. The World-Historical Significance of the Blood Flowing on the Cross

[ 1 ] In eight days, on Easter Monday, I would like to speak to you about the mystery of Golgotha, and today we can perhaps make a little preparation for this reflection. Our discussion today will mainly refer to a word in the New Testament that is incomprehensible or at least difficult to understand for many people. At the very least, it is easy to see that this word is not associated with the deep meaning that, when one enters into esoteric Christianity, is certainly to be associated with it. At the same time, this word will introduce us even more deeply into the spirit and meaning of Christianity from another perspective. It is the well-known saying: “All sins can be forgiven, except the sin against the Holy Spirit.”

[ 2 ] In fact, such a word expresses the meaning of the mission of Christianity, and basically only the spiritual-scientific worldview, the world conception, is the right instrument to reveal such a deep meaning as lies in this word. Those who approach this worldview must become increasingly accustomed to learning about the great world mission of the spiritual science movement from a wide variety of sources, and the realization must increasingly gain ground in the world that this movement cannot exist to establish any new faith or even a new sect or the like. The times in which new creeds or new special religions could be founded within human development are over, and the future of religious development lies in the development of existing religions into one great unified religion of humanity. The movement for spiritual knowledge does not want to preach a new religion to people. It merely wants to be an instrument for comprehending and understanding the profound religious truths contained in the religious scriptures.

[ 3 ] I have often pointed out here that the trend today, both in theological and other religious circles, is to trivialize religious truths and not to understand them deeply enough. How content one is today in such circles to understand Christ Jesus as the “simple man from Nazareth,” a figure who is certainly gladly presented as a higher ideal of humanity, like Socrates or Plato or Goethe or Schiller; but one does not wish to place him too far above the average level of humanity. Today, people are far from asking themselves whether something beyond ordinary humanity dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Today's humanity seems to have moved far beyond the old Gnostic question. The old Gnostic question boiled down to calling upon all human wisdom to understand what actually happened in the year 1 of our calendar. And so people are satisfied when they try to grasp such a great truth as the sin against the Holy Spirit with a few moral phrases, a few rather trivial sentences.

[ 4 ] But religious documents are not there to be interpreted trivially. There is no depth deep enough and no wisdom wise enough to unveil the veil that lies over them. Nothing may be added to them if one seeks to understand their deep meaning. For the uneducated and unscientific person, it is not so difficult; but it is also true that religious texts are so profound that no wisdom is sufficient to completely unravel their meaning. No mind is simple enough that it cannot be greatly and powerfully impressed by true religious texts. Likewise, no wisdom is too high to rise above a true religious text. From this point of view and from this attitude, let us undertake to explain such a word.

[ 5 ] First, let us be clear about what is meant in true esoteric Christianity by the Holy Spirit, and what is meant by the other two aspects of the Godhead: the Son — the Word, the Logos — and the Father. One should not attempt to penetrate such things through speculation or reflection. These things are not there for everyone to arbitrarily assign meaning to. This meaning has been put there by those who are called Christian initiates, and we must now adhere to what has been taught in the schools of Christian initiates. Therefore, it is wrong to take the Bible at face value and speculate about what this or that word might mean. A true occultist will never do that. He works differently, knowing that there have been esoteric Christian schools of initiation where the deeper meaning of the Christian scriptures has been taught. This meaning has never been taught in any other way, so there are no different points of view regarding this teaching.

[ 6 ] If we want to stick to what has perhaps come to the surface of external history most in this regard, then it is the great esoteric Christian school founded by the Apostle Paul himself in Athens, the school of Dionysius the Areopagite. Scholars have become accustomed to speaking of a Pseudo-Dionysius, because writings bearing this name can only be traced back to the 6th century. Scholarship cannot get this point right as long as it does not realize that customs have changed significantly over time. Whereas today, a person who has a clever idea cannot wait for it to be put into print and flutter out into the world, in older times it was customary to keep the most sacred truths strictly hidden from the general public and not to throw them at everyone's head. Only those who were known and who had proven that they would receive such truths in a dignified manner and with a sense of truthfulness were allowed to receive them. At first, they were communicated only orally, because it was desired that whoever uttered such truths or even revealed the corresponding facts before the eyes of the students should only speak the word into devoted, genuine feelings, into warm, living hearts. What the students of such schools had to acquire was a certain mood, a certain attitude toward the highest truths.

[ 7 ] Today, it is believed that one can receive truth in any mood. This is not a criticism; it must be so, for development brings this with it. At that time, a different view prevailed. It was not indifferent whether one received a mathematical or a physical truth in this or that mood. People were clear that it was a matter of this mood, so that even simple truths, which ultimately also reveal truths, were received in an elevated mood. They were accepted as a revelation of the divine world spirit. Thus, even mathematical truths, which were intended to teach divine revelations in relation to space, were accepted in this way. The school focused very much on creating the right attitude, the right emotional world.

[ 8 ] This was also the case in Paul's school, which only revealed the highest truths after intimate preparations. While Paul preached Christianity throughout the world, his disciples in Athens experienced the esoteric. And because the spirit of the school continued over long periods of time, the bearer of esoteric truth was always given the same name. The school of Athens continued through the centuries, and the one who was the highest teacher, the deepest initiate of the school, always bore the name Dionysius. Therefore, the one who wrote things down in the 6th century, when writing had become more common, also bore this name. Only those who know this can understand its significance for the Dionysius School.

[ 9 ] Now, in the spirit of true Christianity, let us learn about the three words: Father, Son, and Spirit. We have already discussed what lies behind these three words from another point of view when considering the Lord's Prayer. We have learned about what is expressed by the divine in the three higher members of human nature — Atman, Budhi, Manas. We have heard how these three higher realms of human nature are connected to the words “Name,” “Kingdom,” and “Will” in the Lord's Prayer. Today we want to consider these three human members from another point of view, as has been done in esoteric Christian training. Let us briefly recall the relationship between the lower and higher human nature. In this Christian training, it has always been taught that the human being consists of the physical body, the etheric or life body, and the astral body, and that within these three human bodies, as the innermost member of the human being, lives the I. This was once the so-called holy fourfold nature, which was always spoken of in those days: physical body, etheric or life body, astral body, and I.

[ 10 ] Now we have also learned how, in the course of human development, these three bodies are transformed by the I. We have seen that the I must first transform the astral body, which is the bearer of emotions, drives, passions, and sensations. This astral body could also be called the consciousness body. Esoteric Christianity has also taught that the ego is called upon to increasingly refine and purify the astral body in the course of development. And the extent to which a person has purified, cleansed, and refined their astral body is what esoteric Christianity calls the Holy Spirit in the human being. One could also say, in theosophical terms, that the part of the astral body that has been purified by the I is called in esoteric Christianity the part of the astral body that has been seized by the Holy Spirit.

[ 11 ] We then know that the I also has a transforming, ennobling, and purifying effect on the etheric or life body. While in ordinary external, material, and intellectual life, moral cultural life has a refining effect on the astral body, only that which a person absorbs in religion and art, where they sense the eternal in its temporal form, has a transforming and refining effect on the etheric body. The impulses of art have a stronger effect than moral education, stronger than what exists in humanity in the form of legal and political life, because the eternal and imperishable shines through in true works of art. However, religious impulses have the strongest effect on the etheric body. Under the influence of such impulses, a part of the etheric body separates out in order to transform itself into Budhi, into the Logos, the Word. In esoteric Christianity, this is called Christos.

[ 12 ] In considering this, we must always keep one thing in mind: that in pursuing spiritual science, we are not pursuing some gray “theory,” something detached from the world and alien to life, but that we are seeking in the spiritual realm that which can have a direct ennobling and purifying effect on these bodies. Only when we are able to grasp the spiritual and carry it down into life will we be able to permeate and spiritualize life from moment to moment with what we have explored in the spiritual realm. Then we are practicing practical spiritual knowledge. It is not a matter of clever reasoning, but of allowing the spirit to flow into our culture. Therefore, at a point where we are talking about the transformation of human bodies, it is appropriate to draw attention to something practical, namely what the consideration of such statements actually tells us.

[ 13 ] When you stand in life with your consciousness and walk through the streets and across the market to let the influences of life affect you, to let the impressions flow into you, then you will have only a part, a link in your total experience, in what you can experience. Those who do not take this into account can never grasp life and perhaps also certain important secrets of everyday life. Those who strive for spiritual knowledge must see more deeply than other people are able to see today with the usual external means of culture. Our different bodies, the etheric and astral bodies, also differ in that they are influenced in different ways by the external world. So everything you consciously take in, everything you pay attention to, and everything you know when you pass it by in life, so that it comes to your consciousness, everything you see outside or in your own room and that makes an impression on the astral body, is expressed in the surges and movements of the astral body. Everything you experience in conscious life can be traced by an occult personality in the movements and currents and in everything that is expressed within the astral body.

[ 14 ] Now there are other influences on human beings, influences to which they do not usually pay full attention. I want to speak more radically in order to make completely clear what I mean. When you walk through the streets of the city, you cannot give your full attention to the numerous things you pass by. There are many things that you hardly know you have passed by afterwards. Just consider, when you walk along a street, what was in the shop windows on the left and right, what people passed you and what clothes they were wearing! Did you pay attention to all these things? Certainly not. But everything you don't consciously focus your attention on doesn't pass you by without leaving a trace; it still makes an impression on you. And further, let's assume that a person looks at the pages of a humor magazine or a poster. What they consciously pay attention to is not all they are doing. There are things on the pages of the comic magazine that they are not aware of, but which nevertheless make a certain impression on them. We say that these are impressions that remain below the threshold of consciousness. In reality, however, it is different. In reality, countless things affect people without them being aware of them, and these things that affect them without them being aware of them sometimes have a deeper and more significant effect on them than those they are aware of, because they first affect their etheric body. You constantly receive impressions on your etheric body. It is set in motion, waves and undulations are formed, even if they are of a more subtle nature than those formed by the astral body in conscious impressions, but they are there.

[ 15 ] From this you can see how infinitely significant for the whole of human development is that which human beings are basically not even aware of. Beneath the surface of our culture, things are constantly influencing the present senses of humanity by acting directly on the etheric body, bypassing the astral body, and evoking images that are of lasting significance. Such things are constantly influencing people beneath the surface of our culture. And this is where spiritual science must point to the finer foundations of our culture, where it must show how understanding can be brought into everyday life through the comprehension of the spiritual world.

[ 16 ] It is simply the case that one age has a completely different effect and spirit than another age. If the first age has horribly bad posters and satirical magazines that are vulgar, purely sensual, and calculated to shock, and if the other age does not have such satirical magazines, then these reflect the things that live in people's inclinations and usually also in their temperaments and character traits. Even the conscience is a mirror of secret influences exerted on human beings. Anyone who wanted to study the conscience, as well as the temperament, disposition, and inclinations of the Central European population, or indeed of the European population in general, in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, would have to trace this disposition, if he wanted to proceed in an occult manner, back to the architectural style, the type of paintings, and other cultural elements that surrounded the souls. A soul walking through the streets, where everything on the left and right was related to the soul, could be in a completely different mood than today, when one walks through the market and sees completely different things around oneself. One must not ignore what lies deeper than consciousness, precisely because such impulses, which are connected with the great epochs of human development, have a profound influence. We must therefore not underestimate the fact that, especially today, there are all kinds of things in the foundations of our culture, as I have just indicated, in which the real and true foundations of materialistic feeling and sensation lie. That is where they must be sought. And that is why one should not simply regard someone as reactionary if, from a deeper point of view, one wants the noble and meaningful to be expressed precisely in that which has such a profound effect on the human soul, that is, on the formative forces of the etheric body.

[ 17 ] So, as you can see, there is a way of looking at things that is not guided by the prejudices of the time, but by spiritual truths. And if we extend this way of looking at things to the harmful effects of materialistic thinking on our everyday surroundings, without people paying any attention to it, do you think we can achieve much with theories and teachings if these theories and teachings do not go down to these things? If you know how the higher teachings of Christianity have been reflected in painting, you will not be surprised that they were also reflected in what constantly surrounded people, even if they did not focus their attention on it.

[ 18 ] Now let us consider what is called the Father in Christian esotericism. We know that not only the astral body but also the etheric body and the physical body are transformed from the ego. They are transformed unconsciously by human beings, but the astral body, etheric body, and physical body are transformed consciously by esotericists or occultists, or when human beings are undergoing esoteric training.

[ 19 ] Everything that only affects the astral body is merely preparation for actual esoteric training, for actual occult training. Occult training begins where we learn to work into the etheric or life body, where the human being is enabled, through the guidance given to him by the occult teacher, to transform his temperaments, inclinations, and habits, where the human being becomes a different person. Only then does the insight into the real higher world come, that the human being becomes a different person. One can learn physics theoretically, but that only affects the astral body. One can learn all kinds of things, but that only affects the astral body. Only when the teachings have such an impact that they transform the human being do the organs form from within to look into the higher world. This is how the transformation of the etheric body takes place, and this is also how the transformation of the physical body takes place. And because the physical body is transformed from the breathing process, through the rhythmization of the breathing process, the physical body illuminated by consciousness is called Atman, the Atman. Christian esotericism calls this the Father.

[ 20 ] So within Christian esotericism we have to distinguish between: the Holy Spirit: the Christian has as much of the Holy Spirit within him as he has ennobled the astral body; then the Son, Logos, the Word: the Christian has as much of the Son, of the Logos, of the Word within him as he has transformed the etheric body; and thirdly, the Father: the Christian has as much of the Father within him — only an initiate can consciously have the Father within him — as his physical body has been transformed and made eternal.

[ 21 ] Now, if we want to distinguish what is sin or blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, against the Son, or against the Father, and to understand Christian usage, we must remember the mission of Christianity as it has been understood by the esoteric Christian teachers. I have often pointed out that the deeper mission of Christianity is expressed in the words: “Whoever does not forsake father, mother, brother, sister, cannot be my disciple.” This is expressed differently in the words of Mark: "And his mother and his brothers came and stood outside, sent for him and asked him to come out. And the people sat around him. And they said to him, ‘Behold, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers? And he looked around at his disciples sitting in a circle around him and said, 'Behold, my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’" — Similar words are also found in Luke: “He replied, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear God's word and do it.’”

[ 22 ] In such words we have expressed the true mission of Christianity. We will understand them when we consider the course of human development. This will also provide us with the best preparation for what we will discuss next Monday as the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 23 ] If we go far back in the course of human development, we encounter the period in our Earth's development that we call the Lemurian period. You know, we go back through the Atlantean period to the ancient Lemurian period. There we find the four-membered, we might say, semi-animal human being, the human being who already consists of the fourfold nature — physical body, etheric body, astral body, and the beginnings of the ego — but who was not yet able to work on his three sheaths in the slightest. For the power that is necessary for human beings to work on their sheaths in the sense indicated had to first enter into these carriers of the actual nature of human beings. What you now call your ego, what veils your soul, your deepest nature, which already contains something of what has been transformed from the three sheaths of the human being, was not yet there at that time; it was only then beginning to enter into development. The I was still a hollow space, ready to receive what is now the deepest inner being of the human being, what is called the immortal part of the human being, which passes through all incarnations, which can pass with the earth into another planetary existence. At that time, this was just beginning to descend into the human shell. Before that, it was in the bosom of the Godhead; it formed part of the divine nature.

[ 24 ] I have already used the image of how this ensoulment of human beings took place at that time, this pouring of divine drops into the individual human shells. I said: Take a glass of water; there are many drops in it as a liquid quantity of water. Now take a thousand little sponges and put them in, so that each sponge absorbs a drop of water. Then we have dabbed up many drops of water from the glass, and we have distributed what was previously flowing uniformly in the glass among the various sponges. What is now within us and what was previously in the bosom of the Godhead, as in an all-flowing element, was then distributed among the individual human bodies, so that today everyone has a drop of this uniform divine substance within them. In this way, that which was previously only a limb of the general divine nature became individualized. Just as my ten fingers are members of my organism, so the souls that are in human bodies today are members of the Godhead. And just as each finger became individualized, each finger received its own life by surrounding itself with other coverings, so the drops resting in the bosom of the Godhead became human inner beings.

[ 25 ] These human inner beings dwelt in the human bodies prepared for them at that time. Those human bodies looked very different then than they do today. Perhaps no one would believe me if I were to describe those human bodies that walked around waiting to be animated by the divine. Even though those who listen to these lectures are accustomed to many things, some would be quite astonished if I told them what those bodies were like at that time and how those forms, which would be considered grotesque by today's standards, have been transformed into the bodies of today. Who made them look the way they do today? The inner soul itself did that. The shape and form of the human soul worked from within. One can get an idea of how this soul worked by looking at the last remnants of the soul's distinctive formation in the body of today's human beings.

[ 26 ] Consider the feeling of shame, consider fear, dread, terror! The feeling of shame causes a blush of shame to rise to the face; the face changes color. The same is true of fear, dread, and terror. In one case, the face turns red; in the other, it turns pale. In the lecture on “Blood is a very special juice,” I showed that blood is the external expression of the inner workings of the individual human being. What is expressed there as the most intimate essence shoots into the blood: whoever has blood has the I, and whoever has the I has blood. That is why it is a very special juice. But this only applies to warm blood, as opposed to cold-blooded blood. Just as today, when we feel shame, fear, or terror, the I that has this feeling acts on the blood and changes the body in this clear, intimate way, as in the blush of shame and the pallor of fear, so it also acted in those days. The effect on the blood was great and powerful in the early days of human development. At that time, the blood intimately and precisely expressed the inner power that entered the I as its divine content. Through this, the I was formed through the races. Just as today a person can turn pale or red, so the inner feeling formed the whole human body from within. When humans were still soft — they did not yet have fingers at that time — the ego formed the shape from within through the blood. Blood is what humans still express today. The plastic shaping power works from the ego, indirectly through the blood, on the structure of the human body. Thus we come to know this blood as the carrier of the ego in its most manifold form.

[ 27 ] In other lectures, I have drawn attention to a secret hidden in the oldest descriptions in the Bible: I have drawn attention to the image of Adam living for centuries. This is based on what we call consanguinity, marriage within the bloodline. We find this in the early days of every people. Of course, we have to go back a long, long way. We find small groups within the earth's population everywhere that are related by blood, and marriage only takes place within these small blood-related groups. This has an important consequence. In order to express what needs to be said more clearly, I once referred you to a conversation that Anzengruber had with Peter Rosegger. You will remember that Rosegger, who is a good and popular poet, describes his farmers from an external perspective, portraying them as he sees them. Anzengruber, however, is the one who describes them more vividly, portraying his farmers as standing firm and secure on their feet, as if carved in stone, completely true and certain. Once, the two poets, who were friends, went out together. Rosegger said to Anzengruber: “You would be able to portray the farmers much better if you went out to the countryside and took a look at them.” Anzengruber replied: “I have never seen such a farmer. But I describe them because it is in my blood. My father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and uncles were farmers. And it's in my blood.” So Anzengruber didn't need to have seen the farmers at all. The blood had an effect across generations, so that it came out in the description of the farmers.

[ 28 ] So you see how the spirit works through the detour of blood, and how a limited self does not end in the personality, but grows stronger and spreads through the father, grandfather, and so on. This was the case with Anzengruber because people there only married among farmers. A certain degree of awareness of this remained. The degree of this awareness was even higher at the time of the first parts of the Bible. There was still a real memory, a remembrance of the experiences of the ancestors. There was a time when people not only remembered what they themselves had experienced in their youth as children and young people, but also remembered what their fathers and grandfathers had done. As incredible as this may seem to people today, it is nevertheless true that in ancient times, when a small group of strict blood relatives was maintained and it was not permitted to marry outside the community without committing a sin, the ego not only attained that consciousness of the peasant character, but the son said of what the father, the grandfather, and so on had experienced: I have experienced it. — So it was that those who were descended from Adam after nine centuries said, with regard to Adam's experiences: I have experienced it. — It was a kind of group ego that passed through the generations. Adam and Abraham were names given to this passing on of the ego.

[ 29 ] This is also hidden behind the descriptions in the first chapters of the Old Testament. But you can see from this that this blood is to be regarded as the outer expression of the inner creative soul. How did human beings lose this upward gaze into the generations? How did their consciousness and memory become limited to their own lives? They became limited because their blood relationship was broken. The old blood relationship loosened, and the closer circles became wider. The small family circle expanded into a tribe, the tribe into a people. Humanity could not have developed as far as it has without families forming tribes, tribes forming peoples, without the close blood ties being broken. Memory itself reaches back through the generations.

[ 30 ] If you remember how often I have said that memory is carried by the etheric body, that it reproduces what is expressed in memory, then you will understand the connection between the blood and the etheric body. The ego expresses itself in the etheric body by expressing itself externally in blood surges, in what rushes into the blood. But if you now remember that anyone who wants to become an initiate has to work into the etheric body, then you will not be far from what is deeply connected with the mystery cults of pre-Christian times. These mystery cults of pre-Christian times also have to do with blood. Today we want to learn what all this has to do with blood.

[ 31 ] We know that a person who was to receive pre-Christian initiation had to be prepared for it. We know how such an initiation took place. The initiate was given the task of transforming the qualities and habits he had, which then made him the person he had to be in order to become an initiate. I have also said that the initiates trace back to the adepts of ancient Atlantean times, and that after the disciple had been prepared in the appropriate manner, he was put into a kind of sleep for three and a half days, a sleep that made it possible to lift not only the astral body out of the physical body, but also the etheric body. The sage who initiated the student guided the entire procedure. The etheric body was lifted out, and this gave the initiator the opportunity to instill in the student the power of spiritual experiences, enabling him to have a real view and experience of the higher world. Because the person had been prepared, the etheric body was set in motion, enabling the student to look into the higher worlds. When he was then brought back, he was able to bear witness to the truth and reality of the spiritual world. One thing was involved here: the person had to lower their consciousness, dampen it, and the dampening of consciousness was connected with bringing out the etheric body. They were completely under the influence of the initiator.

[ 32 ] Now let us consider the process. All existing laws, institutions, and social structures ultimately led back to initiation. At the top of the social structure stood the great initiator. The goals and directions emanated from him. The disciples carried the revealed wisdom out into the world, and those who heard it outside aligned themselves with it and also organized social life according to it. Everything was under the authority of the initiation, of the initiator; everything depended on it. It was the principle of authority based on truth and wisdom, lived out to the highest degree and in the best sense. Only those who were the great, wise leaders of humanity were allowed to exercise such authority. And this happened without any harm being done to humanity in any way.

[ 33 ] Now it was a matter of extracting the etheric body from the physical body in the right way. This could not be done easily with every human being. Anyone who tells you that this can be done with every human being is describing things in the abstract, not describing them truthfully. Achieving these things requires a long preparation. It was important that the blood had the right mixture. That is why such great importance was attached to ensuring that the priestly generation did not mix with others. Over centuries, preparations were made to ensure that there was always a suitable descendant who could one day become a true initiate in this way. It was a treatment of the human body on a grand scale, in an immensely mysterious way, in the most beautiful sense of the word. The greatest initiates have been prepared for centuries in terms of their physical principle with regard to their blood mixture. This whole preparation for initiation is characteristic of pre-Christian initiation, but it could not always, it could not eternally exist in the course of human development. For what was this principle of initiation connected with? It was connected with the clarity of the blood community. The closer we come to this, the more we arrive at principles of this kind.

[ 34 ] In the most ancient times, initiation was based on the blood principle. It was increasingly broken down, from family to family, from tribe to tribe, from people to people. And now what will happen in the future was to come: that all such blood ties would be broken. For where did the principle of community live that man had when he came from the bosom of the deity? One could say that it ran through the blood, and if one wanted to initiate a person, one had to take the blood into consideration.

[ 35 ] When warm blood made it possible for the ego to integrate itself into the divine soul character, the divine soul character flowed through the blood: “I am who was, who is, and who will be.” It is precisely the one who speaks as God Jehovah who says: I am who was, who is, and who will be. — And where did he work most powerfully? He worked most powerfully in the blood. And how was man guided when he was initiated? He was guided by treating his blood. These are deep and far-reaching mysteries of antiquity. Those who regard Christianity merely as an external process have a poor understanding of it. It was with full deliberation that my book was not called “The Mysticism of Christianity,” but “Christianity as a Mystical Fact”; that is, Christianity itself is a mystical fact and can only be understood if one knows that with the appearance of Christ Jesus, the entire spiritual configuration of our planet Earth changed.

[ 36 ] Imagine yourself on a distant planet and imagine that you could look down on Earth as a seer, on the atmosphere of Earth, on the astral body of Earth, on what is the general astral body of Earth and what is bubbling and bubbling and surging and undulating from the astral bodies of animals and humans. And then imagine that you could look down several centuries before the birth of Christ and follow events into the distant future. If you could follow this, you would see something peculiar. You would see that with the appearance of Christ Jesus, the astral atmosphere changes thoroughly, makes a powerful shift, so that for all future it takes on a different shade, a different color. Something new entered the earthly spiritual atmosphere. Anyone who does not admit that there is now something spiritually different on earth than there was thousands of years ago does not understand Christianity and its preparation. Only those who see it as something real and tangible that has come as a new influence know what happened at the beginning of Christianity.

[ 37 ] If you look at it this way, you will also find the expression for the transformation of the Earth planet in the spiritual realm and will have to say to yourself: All close blood ties are breaking, everything that has held people together in small blood communities is gradually breaking apart. The small brotherhoods are gradually expanding into the great brotherhood that is to encompass all people on earth, where every person calls every other person brother, where people “leave their mother and father and brother and sister.” Everything that blood had prepared in a kind of group ego, in an ego that goes beyond the ordinary ego, must disappear from the earth. And when the earth is ready to become a new astral sphere, then the fruit will have ripened, all bonds will have been broken, and a single great bond will encompass humanity. The task of giving the impulse, the power to establish this brotherhood, was set by Christ Jesus. Therefore, the mission of Christ Jesus and the ideal of Christianity are expressed in the words: “Whoever does not leave father, mother, brother, and sister cannot be my disciple.” Hence also the rejection: “This is not my mother; my mother and my brothers are those who do the will of my Father.” This is the new spirit that is to come into humanity in place of blood.

[ 38 ] I ask you to take what I am about to say not as an image, not as a symbol, but as reality. Today's materialistic humanity finds it difficult to regard such things as reality, but they are. And now let us consider the raised cross, above all the blood flowing from the wounds. Be clear about what this blood flowing from the wounds means in world history! Why does it flow? Why is there any talk at all of the flowing blood of Christ Jesus? What founded all the close-knit communities? What brought the small tribes together? What must its significance lose within these narrow boundaries if all humanity is to expand into a brotherhood? The blood. No longer can what affects the I, what pulsates in the I, depend on the blood when the whole of humanity has matured into a brotherhood. Therefore, through Christ's wounds, the superfluous I-blood, the blood that prevents humanity from expanding its I into the universal I, must flow as selfish blood, as egotistical blood. It flows out. Do not regard this as an image, but as reality. Consider the amount of blood that flowed from Christ's wounds as the amount that had to flow so that blood would lose its tendency to form close communities and thus gain the possibility of spreading the brotherhood across the whole earth.

[ 39 ] Perhaps no one has touched on this mystery exoterically as closely as Richard Wagner in his essay on the conception of “Parsifal.” There, an exotericist touches on the deepest esoteric truths of the mysteries. If you look at it this way, you will see that the meaning of Christianity lies, on the one hand, in dissolving what is bound in tribes, families, and narrowly defined communities, and, on the other hand, in splitting people into individuals, so that the individual feels, on the one hand, as an individual and, on the other hand, as a member of the whole of humanity. These two things exist side by side as polarities. In ancient times, when small circles of blood kinship prevailed, people felt themselves to be members of the family, members of the tribe. And to the same extent that blood kinship dies out, individual independence will grow and increase.

[ 40 ] You can see that this effect was exerted by the event on Golgotha from the fact that from then on, when the event was to encompass the whole earth, the religious impulse became of the utmost importance. Everything that happened there was prepared and is preparation. The effect begins with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. When one speaks in such a way that one speaks from the soul of others, that is, no longer selfishly, this is best reflected in the apostles speaking to all people in all tongues. Thus, the Holy Spirit prepares what is to be accomplished through the blood of the Son, the Logos, the Christ.

[ 41 ] Now we return to the old principle of initiation. It was based on authority. Everyone looked up to the initiates and received their inspiration from them. This principle of authority is gradually coming to an end. There is an apparent contradiction here: the fragmentation of humanity into individuals and the complete breakdown of the old principle of authority — and at the same time, the establishment of a complete brotherhood. How is this to be established? By grasping what has flowed out as spirit. What does it consist of? It was enough for the old initiator to have all wisdom and truth and to let it flow into all humanity. Now it will only be enough for the individual, raised to the highest level, to have the truth. Every human being must be the possessor of truth and wisdom. At that time, truth flowed from the highest point into the individual who had to attain it. The spread of wisdom must go hand in hand with development, and the individualization of humanity with the establishment of the great brotherhood of humanity. These two things cannot go side by side; they must go together.

[ 42 ] As we consider this, we gradually see the effect of the Holy Spirit. As long as people listened to the one authority, they, as individuals, could leave themselves to life. They could live in a narrow circle. The authoritative leadership took care of the whole. They can no longer do this when the principle of authority is broken. Then each individual must ensure cohesion in the brotherhood. Each individual must be able to ensure social cohesion within the brotherhood. They must accept what is generally available, what each person prepares. What can that be? We need only remember how the ancient religions came into being. All initiates had the same primordial wisdom of humanity. But as this wisdom was carried to individual people, it took on special characteristics and different forms from the state, the clergy, and so on. Buddhism and Zoroastrianism arose in this way. The smaller the communities were, the more specialization was necessary. In order to establish the great brotherhood, what the initiate knew must be able to flow out to all of humanity, so that now everyone can take care of what the initiates used to take care of.

[ 43 ] Thus wisdom flows down to all of humanity. Wisdom is one. And so we see that in this wisdom, in this knowledge, we have that which is distributed among individual, fragmented human beings who have “left father, mother, brother, sister, and child.” They will have this again, precisely because wisdom is one. Those who can understand that wisdom is one and the same understand the word of the Holy Spirit.

[ 44 ] But people are not yet at that stage, for they still say: That is my point of view, that is what I think; others may have a different point of view. — That is a point of view that must be overcome. People had to be fragmented into the I, into egoism. They have not yet found union with unified wisdom. People will find this by truly approaching this unified wisdom and becoming as strong as possible as individuals. When they gain the unified spirit of wisdom, they will lose the habit of saying: That is my point of view, that is my opinion. Only when one has become clear that there is no particular standpoint in relation to unified wisdom, that standing on a particular standpoint is nothing other than not having advanced far enough, can one comprehend the idea of the Holy Spirit. Only the imperfect human being has a standpoint. The human being who approaches the spirit of wisdom has no standpoint. They know that they must devote themselves selflessly to the one wisdom. Just as all plants incline toward the one sun, so will human beings unite, inclining toward the One, because the one spirit of wisdom lives within them. If that which originally connected human beings in blood has flowed out of Christ, then wisdom reunites us in the brotherhood.

[ 45 ] This was expressed in such a wonderful way in the miracle of Pentecost that the apostles expanded the brotherhood to a human brotherhood and spoke in a language that everyone understood. This must be expressed more and more, and indeed in the highest form of individuality. We are all united by the spirit of truth. All other aspects of human nature will undergo their development much later, in other planetary incarnations. But what will remain effective and alive until the earth has reached its completion is the unifying wisdom that has been revealed to us, as it was previously revealed only to the initiated. Whoever sins against wisdom, against the wisdom that forms the brotherhood, cannot be forgiven for this sin, because by doing so he hinders the Earth in its development, for the Earth can only pass into the astral state if humanity is brought together in the brotherhood. It is the spirit that brings humanity together that has been poured out into the future. If we fill our astral body with this spirit of unified wisdom, then we can take it up into the astral body of the earth.

[ 46 ] Now we can understand: there is something in which the whole world can be united. Therefore, the content of wisdom is positive theosophy, which must be expressed in the spiritual-scientific worldview. This does not happen by saying to people: We must unite. — It is not enough to preach brotherhood to humanity; mere moral preaching is useless rhetoric. Just as you have to feed the stove with fuel if you want it to get warm, so you have to give humanity wisdom; that unites them in brotherhood. Talking to people about brotherhood is like talking to the stove, telling it to give off heat. Really teaching, concept by concept, idea by idea, conveying the wisdom of the development of the world and the nature of human beings: that is what will take us forward. Preaching compassion and even having compassion means nothing if one does not have wisdom. What good is it to someone who has fallen and broken a leg if fourteen people from the street stand around, overflowing with compassion and love, and none of them can set the leg? All fourteen are of no use. But the one who can do it can help when he comes, and he will do so if he is a spiritual being.

[ 47 ] Ethical principles come all by themselves; they do not need to be taught first. But the one wisdom about which there can be no dispute, towards which there is no point of view, the wisdom that in Christianity is described as that which completely transfigures and purifies the astral body, that is what must flow into humanity through the spiritual scientific movement. This is expressed in the mission of Christianity; this expresses the mission of Christianity.

[ 48 ] People should become freer and freer, less and less subject to authority, and they should flow more and more toward the one universal truth. The brotherhood of humanity will form quite naturally when people recognize the one original Christian word, the freest, the highest Christian word: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

[ 49 ] There are no two occultists who can truly see who have two different views. There are no two assertions about one and the same thing among those who are truly initiated. And there will not be two thoughts about it either when humanity has ascended to the path of the unification of humanity, of brotherhood not as a word but as an inner force!