The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] If we want to focus our entire course observations on the deeper understanding of the Gospel of John, on the words “Father and Mother of Jesus” and thus on the essence of Christianity in the sense of the Gospel of John in general, then we must now acquire the materials to understand the concept of Mother and Father in its spiritual sense, as it is meant in the Gospel of John, and at the same time in its real sense. For we are not dealing with allegorical and symbolic interpretations.

[ 2 ] First of all, we must understand what it means to unite with the higher spiritual worlds, to prepare ourselves to receive the higher worlds. We must consider the nature of initiation, especially with regard to the Gospel of John. Who is an initiate?

[ 3 ] At all times of post-Atlantean human development, an initiate was the one who could rise above the outer physical-sensual world and have his own experiences, his own experiences in the spiritual worlds, who thus experiences the spiritual world in the same way as man experiences the physical-sensual world through his outer senses, eyes, ears and so on. Such an initiate is therefore a witness to the spiritual worlds and their truth. That is one thing. But then there is something else essential which every initiate acquires as a special quality during initiation, namely, that he also rises above the feelings and sensations which are not only justified but also deeply necessary within the physical world, but which cannot be present in the same way in the spiritual world.

[ 4 ] Do not misunderstand this and do not take it as if the initiate who is able to experience the spiritual world in addition to the physical world must now give up all other human feelings and sensations that have value here in the physical world and exchange the other feelings for the higher worlds. It is not like that. He does not exchange one for the other, but acquires one in addition to the other. If, on the one hand, man must spiritualize his feelings, he must, on the other hand, have all the more strongly those feelings which make him useful for working in the physical world. In this sense it is to be understood when the word is used for the initiate: he must in a certain respect become a homeless person. Not as if he had to be alienated from his home and family in the slightest degree as long as he lives in the physical world, but the word has at most something to do with it insofar as the feelings for the physical world will experience a finer, more beautiful development through the appropriation of the corresponding feelings in the spiritual world. What is a “homeless person”? Without this predicate, no one can attain initiation in the true sense of the word. To be a “homeless person” means that a person may not develop any special sympathies in the spiritual world that are similar to the special sympathies that a person has here in the physical world for individual special areas and contexts. The individual in the physical world belongs to this or that people, to this or that family, to this or that national community; that is all right. He does not need to lose this, he needs it here. But if he wanted to apply these feelings in the spiritual world, he would bring a very bad dowry with him for the spiritual world. It is not a matter of developing any sympathy for something, but of allowing everything to have an objective effect on him, according to the value lying in the object. One could also say, if this were generally understood: The initiate must become an objective person in the full sense of the word.

[ 5 ] Now, precisely through its development on our earth, humanity has emerged from an earlier homelessness associated with the old dim clairvoyant consciousness. We have seen how mankind descended from the spiritual spheres into the physical world. In the original spiritual spheres there was no such thing as patriotism and the like. When men descended from the spiritual spheres, one part populated the earth here, the other part populated it there; and then the individual groups of men of certain regions became a copy of these regions. Do not think that the Negro became black merely for inner reasons, but that he also became black by adapting himself to his region of the earth, and it is the same with the whites. And just as the great differences in color and race, so also the smaller differences in the individualities of peoples have arisen from the fact that man has adopted something through the connection with his environment. But this is also connected with the specialization of love on earth. Because people have become dissimilar, love was first established in small communities. Only gradually, out of the small communities, can people develop into a great community of love, as it will develop concretely through the implantation of the spirit-self. Thus the initiate must, as it were, anticipate what the development of mankind is again urging: to overcome all barriers, to bridge them, to develop the great peace, the great harmony and brotherhood. The initiate, in his homelessness, must from the outset always take up the same germs of great brotherly love. This was symbolically indicated in ancient times by describing all the wanderings the initiate had undergone, for example in Pythagoras. Why was this described? So that with his feelings, which are formed within the inner community, he would become objective towards everything.

[ 6 ] Now it is the task of Christianity to teach the impulse to this brotherhood, that which the initiate always had as an individual impulse, to all mankind. Let us consider the deepest idea of Christianity, that the Christ is the spirit of the earth and the earth is the body or the clothing of the Christ. And let us take this literally, for we have said that we must weigh such a document as the Gospel of John in its individual words. What do we learn with regard to “the garment” of the earth when we survey its development? We learn that at first this garment of the earth, that is, the solid parts of the earth, were separated. The one took possession of this, the other of that. The one belonged to this, the other to that. Possession, the expansion of the personality through the appropriation of property, that is what the garment worn by the Christ, the spirit of the earth, has been divided into in the course of time. Only one thing could not be divided, but belonged to all, that is the air envelope that is around the earth. And out of this air envelope, as is indicated in the myth of paradise, the living breath was blown into man. Thus we have the first creation of the I in the physical body. The air cannot be divided.

[ 7 ] Let us see if the one who describes Christianity most profoundly in the Gospel of John somehow hints at this:

"And they tore his garment, but his robe they did not tear.” (cf. 19, 23/24)

[ 8 ] Here you have the word that gives you information on how the earth as a whole, together with its air envelope, is the body or the garment and the skirt of Christ. The garment of Christ has been divided into continents and regions, but not the skirt. The air has not been divided, it belongs to all together. It is the outward material symbol of the love that surrounds the globe, which will later be realized.

[ 9 ] And in many other respects Christianity must bring men to absorb as mankind something of the ancient principle of initiation. If we want to understand this, we must first characterize initiation. It is sufficient for us to consider the three main types of initiation: the old yoga initiation, the specifically Christian initiation and the one that is actually the most suitable for people today, the Christian-Rosicrucian initiation. And now let us describe how the initiation proceeds in principle for all three forms of initiation, what it is and what it represents.

[ 10 ] How does a person become able to see into the spiritual worlds? Well, how did you become able to perceive the physical world? The physical body has sensory organs for this. If you trace the development of mankind far back, you will find that in primitive times man did not yet have eyes to see, ears to hear in the physical world, but that these were all still “undifferentiated, indifferent organs”, as Goethe says. As proof of this you can think of how certain lower animals still have these indifferent organs today. Certain lower animals have dots, which only enable them to distinguish between light and dark. And from these indifferent organs the eye and ear have gradually been sculpted, formed. This has been worked into the plastic substance of the physical body. And by sculpting your eye, the physical world of colors came into being for you, by sculpting your ear, the physical world of sounds came into being.

[ 11 ] No one has a right to say that a world is not real; he may only say: I do not perceive it. For to see the world in the real sense means: I have organs to perceive it. One may say: I only know this or that world; but one may not say: I do not accept the world that the other person perceives. For he who speaks in this way demands that the others must not perceive anything other than he does; he authoritatively demands that only what he sees is valid. If someone appears today and says: This is an anthroposophical 'reverie', there is no such thing as the anthroposophists claim, - he only proves that he and his kind do not perceive such worlds. We take the 'yes' standpoint of things. But he who only accepts what he perceives not only demands that we admit what he knows, but also wants to decide authoritatively about what he does not know. There is no worse intolerance than that which official science shows towards spiritual science today, and it will develop into something much worse than it has ever been. It appears in the most diverse forms. People have no awareness at all that they are saying something they should not be saying. You can hear it in many assemblies made up of quite good Christians: The anthroposophists talk of some secret Christian teaching, but Christianity does not need a secret teaching, for only that which the simple, unpretentious mind can perceive and understand is valid! - that is, of course, nothing other than what he, the individual who is speaking, can perceive and understand. So he demands that no one understands and perceives anything other than he does. The infallibility of the Pope is rightly not admitted in such Christian assemblies. But today the infallibility of one's own personality is claimed for one's own person to the widest extent, even among Christians. Anthroposophy is fought from the standpoint of the papacy, where everyone sets himself up as a kind of pope.

[ 12 ] If we consider that the physical-sensual world exists for us because the individual organs have been chiseled into the physical body, then it will no longer appear conspicuous when it is said: Perception in a higher world is based on the fact that such higher organs are built into the higher members of the human being, into the etheric body and the astral body. Today the physical body is already equipped with its organs in this way, the etheric and astral bodies are not yet; they must first be chiseled into them. Once they are in there, that which is called perception in the higher worlds arises.

[ 13 ] We will now speak of how these organs are built into the etheric and astral bodies. We said that the higher organs are modeled in those who strive for and receive initiation. How is this done? It is a matter of capturing the astral body of the human being where it can be found in its purity. While the astral body is submerged in the physical body during the waking hours, the forces of the physical body act on the astral body, so it is not free. There it follows what the physical body wants, so you can't do anything with it, so to speak. You can do something with it, you can only model it when it is out of the physical body in sleep. The astral body of a human being can only be given the higher sense organs by chiseling them into it while it is outside the physical body, in sleep. But you cannot tamper with a sleeping person. That would not be possible with today's man if he is to perceive what is happening to him. If you have him in an unconscious state, he cannot perceive it. There seems to be a contradiction here, for the astral body is not conscious of its connection with the physical body while the human being is asleep. But it can be done indirectly by acting on the physical body during daytime waking, so that the impressions which the physical body receives during daytime waking remain in the astral body when it withdraws. Just as otherwise the impressions which it receives through the surrounding physical world are impressed into the astral body, so something quite specific must be done with the physical body so that this is impressed into the astral body and then formed in the appropriate way. This happens when the human being does not always live into the day, as is usually the case, and allows impressions to come in from here and there, but by taking his inner life into his own hands in the way prescribed by a methodical training. This is called meditation, concentration or contemplation. These are exercises that are just as strictly prescribed in the relevant schools as microscopy and so on in laboratories. When a person does such exercises, they have such an intensive effect on him that the astral body, when it slips out during sleep, transforms itself plastically. Just as the sponge here, as long as I have it in my hand, adapts itself to the forms of the hand, but as soon as I let it go again, it forms itself again according to the forces that are in it, so it is with the astral body: When it emerges from corporeality during sleep, it follows the astral forces that are invested in it. Thus, during the waking hours of the day, one must undertake those spiritual activities through which the astral body forms itself so plastically during the night that it forms within itself the organs for higher perception.

[ 14 ] Now this meditation can be arranged in three ways. One can pay more attention to the thought material, to what is called wisdom elements, pure thought elements, which is then the yoga training that works mainly with the thought element, contemplation. But you can also work more on the feeling through its special training, which is the specifically Christian direction. And you can work by combining feeling and will, which is the Christian Rosicrucian method. To go into the yoga training would be going too far; it would also have no connection with the Gospel of John. Let us use the specifically Christian initiation to clarify what this initiation is based on. You must understand that a person in today's social circles could hardly undergo this initiation. It requires a temporary isolation of the person. But the Rosicrucian method is precisely there to enable man to work his way up into the higher worlds without violating his duties. But what is true in principle can also be fully understood by the Christian initiation.

[ 15 ] This method of initiation works exclusively with the feelings, and I shall have to give you seven emotional experiences, seven emotional stages, through the experiencing of which the astral body is really so influenced that it develops its organs during the night. Let us see how the Christian disciple must live in order to pass through these stages.

[ 16 ] The first stage is what is called the “washing of the feet”. Here the disciple is told by the teacher: “Look at the plant. It is rooted in the soil; the mineral soil is a lower being than the plant. If the plant could hold its being up to itself, it would have to say to the soil: “I am indeed the higher being, but without you I could not exist; for from you, soil, I draw the greater part of my nourishment. And if the plant could translate this into feelings, it would have to lean down to the stone and say: “I lean towards you, you lower being, stone, because I owe my existence to you. -- And if we ascend to the animal, then in a similar way the animal should behave towards the plant and say: “I am higher than the plant, but I owe my existence to the lower realm. - And if we ascend further in this way and come to man, then everyone who stands a little higher on the social ladder would have to lean down to the lower level and say: I owe my existence to the lower level! - And so it goes up to Christ Jesus. The twelve who surround him are one step lower than him; but just as the plant grows out of the stone, so Christ Jesus grows out of the twelve. He bends down to the twelve and says: I owe my existence to you.

[ 17 ] When the teacher had explained this to the pupil, he told him: For weeks you must give yourself to this cosmic feeling, as the higher must bend to the lower; and when you have thoroughly developed this in yourself, then you will experience an inner and an outer symptom. - These, however, are not the essentials, but only indicate that the person concerned has practiced sufficiently. When the physical body has been sufficiently influenced by the soul, this is shown to him in the outer symptom that he has a feeling as if water were washing over his feet. This is a very real feeling. And another real feeling is that in a powerful vision in the astral he has before him the washing of the feet, the bowing down of the higher self to the lower self. There the human being experiences in the astral what is described in the Gospel of John as a historical fact.

[ 18 ] The second stage consists of the disciple being told: You must develop another feeling within yourself. You must imagine what it would be like if all possible pains and sufferings of the world were to approach you, - feel what it would be like if you were exposed to the onslaught of all possible obstacles, and you must put yourself in the feeling that you must stand upright, even if all the misery of the world is approaching you! Then, if the disciple has practiced this sufficiently, there are again two symptoms: One is a feeling as if he were being beaten from all sides, and the second is an astral vision of “scourging”. - I am telling you something that hundreds of people have experienced, whereby they have attained the ability to ascend into the spiritual worlds.

[ 19 ] The third thing the disciple had to imagine was that the most sacred thing he had, for which he stood up with his whole self, was being showered with mockery and scorn. Then he had to say to himself: Whatever may come, I must stand upright and stand up for what is sacred to me! - When he had settled into this, he had something like stitches in his head, and as an astral vision he experienced the “crowning of thorns”. Again it must be said: It is not the symptoms that matter, but they occur as a result of the exercises. And it is also ensured that there can be no question of suggestion and autosuggestion.

[ 20 ] The fourth thing is that the body which the pupil has must become as foreign to him in his feeling as an external object, for example a piece of wood, and that he does not say “I” to his body. It must become his feeling in such a way that he says: I carry my body around with me, just as I carry my skirt around with me! He no longer connects his “I” with his body. Then something occurs which is called the “blood test”. What in many cases can be a pathological condition is in this case, because everything pathological must be eliminated, a consequence of meditation. On the feet, on the hands and on the right side of the chest the so-called blood stains appear; and as an inner symptom he sees the “crucifixion” in an astral vision.

[ 21 ] We can only briefly describe the fifth, sixth and seventh emotional stages.

[ 22 ] The fifth stage consists of what is called “mystical death”. Through the feelings that the pupil experiences at this stage, he experiences something that appears to him as if in a moment a black curtain were placed in front of everything physically visible and as if everything disappeared. This moment is also important because of something else that one must have experienced if one really wants to penetrate to Christian initiation in the true sense of the word. One then experiences that one can dive down into the primal depths of evil, pain, sorrow and suffering. And all the evil that lives at the bottom of the human soul can be savored when one descends into hell. This is the “descent into hell”. Once you have experienced this, it is as if the black curtain is torn asunder - and you see into the spiritual world.

[ 23 ] The sixth is what is called the “burial and resurrection”. This is the stage where the disciple feels at one with the whole earthly body; he feels as if he has been placed in it and belongs together with the whole earthly planet. His life has expanded into planetary life.

[ 24 ] The seventh feeling cannot be described in words. Only he could describe it who would be able to think without the instrument of the physical brain; and for this there is no language, because our language has only designations for the physical plan. Therefore we can only refer to this level. It transcends everything that man can otherwise imagine. It is called the “ascension” or the complete absorption into the spiritual world.

[ 25 ] There ends the scale of feelings into which the disciple must place himself during the day's awakening in complete inner concentration. When the disciple has surrendered to these experiences, they have such a strong effect on the astral body that during the night the inner organs of perception develop and take on a plastic form. - In the Rosicrucian initiation, this seven-part scale of feelings is not gone through, but the same effect is there that we have just discussed.

[ 26 ] So you see that in the initiation it is important to influence the astral body in a roundabout way through the daytime experiences in such a way that, when it is completely free, it gives itself a new plastic form at night. When man has given himself a plastic form as an astral being in this way, the astral body has actually become a new member of man's being. It is then completely permeated by manas or spirit self.

[ 27 ] When the astral body is structured in this way, it is a matter of what has been plastically formed in it also being brought into the etheric body. Just as when you press on sealing wax with a seal and then the name of the seal is not only in the seal but also in the sealing wax, so the astral body must immerse itself in the etheric body and press what it now has into the etheric body.

[ 28 ] The first process, the working of the astral body, is the same in all initiation methods. Only in the transfer to the etheric body do the individual methods differ. We shall speak of this difference tomorrow and show how the three methods of initiation, which have arisen as the deepest impulses of development in the course of the post-Atlantean period, differ from one another, and what significance initiation has for the development of mankind in general. Then those parts of the Gospel of John that we have not yet been able to discuss will also become completely clear to us.