The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] It may have seemed somewhat strange to the unprepared listener when yesterday the name of the Father Spirit of the world was mentioned in connection with the name of death. But you must remember that it was said at the same time that the form in which death appears to human beings in the physical world is not its true form, and that therefore, inasmuch as the outer sense world appears to us to be afflicted with death, this outer sense world, precisely because it is such that it must appear to be afflicted with death, is not a true form of what actually underlies it, not a true form of the spiritual-divine essence that actually underlies it. Basically, this means nothing other than that human beings surrender themselves to an illusion, a great deception, a Maya about what is spread out in space around them for their senses to perceive. If they recognized the true form, they would not have the sensory image, but would then have the spirit. If they recognized death in its true form, they would see in death the expression that this sensory world must have in order to be the expression of the divine Father-Spirit.

[ 2 ] In order for our earthly world to come into being at all, an earlier, super-earthly world had to condense in the earthly sense down to physical matter, down to physical substance. This enabled the outer world to become the expression of a divine-spiritual world, a divine-spiritual world that has something like creatures beside itself and outside itself. All earlier forms of our world existence were such that they were more or less within the divine essence. On the old Saturn, there was not yet our air, not our water, not our earth, that is, not our solid bodies. The whole Saturn was still a body consisting only of warmth; the old Saturn was a space of warmth. And everything that existed on Saturn was still in the bosom of the divine Father Spirit. It was the same on the old Sun, even though it had already condensed into air. This air planet, the old Sun, contained all its creatures in its womb, and thus in the womb of the divine-spiritual Being. And so it was with the old Moon. It was only on Earth that creation emerged from the womb of the divine-spiritual Being and became something alongside the divine-spiritual Being. But to that which now became beside the divine-spiritual Being, and which also became the garment, the covering, the physical body of man, everything that was present from the spirits that had remained behind gradually wove itself in and gradually became incorporated. But as a result, it did not become a creature as it should have been if it had become an image of the divine-spiritual entity. After carrying all creatures, our present mineral kingdom, plant kingdom, animal kingdom, and human kingdom, in its bosom, the divine-spiritual entity released them all, spreading them out like a carpet around itself. And this was now an image of the divine-spiritual entity. This is how it should have remained. But everything that had been left behind, everything that had previously been expelled by the divine-spiritual entity, became interwoven with it. All of this became integrated, and the creature was thus, as it were, clouded, made less valuable than it would otherwise have been.

[ 3 ] This clouding arose in the age when the moon separated from the earth, in that age of which we have said: If nothing else had come and the moon had not been cast out, the earth would have been desolate even then. But human beings were to be nurtured in such a way that they could attain their independence. He therefore had to incarnate in an outer, earthly-physical matter. From the Lemurian epoch through the Atlantean epoch, human beings had to be guided in such a way that they increasingly came to incarnate in physical-sensory matter. But within this physical, sensory substance was what remained of the beings that had been left behind. Human beings therefore had no choice but to be embodied in physical shells in which these beings remained.

[ 4 ] There were certain beings in the Atlantean epoch who were companions of human beings at that time. Human beings themselves were still in a soft substance during the Atlantean epoch. What is human flesh today was not yet as it is today. If one had looked at human beings in ancient Atlantis, where the air was completely filled with dense, heavy masses of water mist and where human beings were water creatures, one could have said that they were similar in nature to certain gelatinous animals in seawater today, which can hardly be distinguished from the surrounding water. That was the nature of human beings. All organs were already present. But only gradually did the organs harden, only gradually did humans develop bones and so on. So the fine material structures were present, but they only hardened over time.

[ 5 ] In the early period of the Atlantean evolution, there were still beings who were, so to speak, companions of human beings, inasmuch as human beings at that time were clairvoyant and could also see those beings who had actually taken up residence on the sun, but who shone toward them in the rays of the sun. For it was not merely physical sunlight that came toward humans, but within the physical sunlight came beings that humans could see. And when humans themselves were in a state that could be compared to sleep, they could say: Now I am out of my body and am in the sphere where sun beings walk.

[ 6 ] But then came the time, around the middle and last third of the Atlantean epoch, when the Earth became denser and denser in its physical matter, and when human beings developed the capacity to develop self-consciousness. Then such beings were no longer visible to human beings. Such beings had to withdraw from the Earth, from the view that human beings could have on Earth. The Luciferic influence drew human beings ever more powerfully down into dense matter. This made it possible for a being, which must be called the Luciferic being, to nestle itself so deeply into the human astral body that human beings descended more and more into a dense physical body. But the beings who had previously been their companions rose higher and higher. They said: We want nothing to do with the beings who have remained behind! They broke away from them. The Luciferic beings entered the human astral body. But the higher beings broke away from them and pushed them down, saying: You shall not continue upward with us; you shall see how you get along down below!

[ 7 ] One of these beings is represented in Michael, who cast the Luciferic beings down into the abyss, so that they moved in the realm of the earth. And in the astral being of human beings they sought to exert their influence. And the place of these beings was no longer “heaven.” Those beings whose place was found in heaven, they cast down to earth. However, everything evil, everything bad has its good side and is also rooted in the wisdom of the world. These beings had to be left behind in the world so that they could pull humans down into physical matter, within which they could only learn to say “I” to themselves in order to develop their self-awareness. Without becoming entangled in Maya, human beings would not have learned to say “I” to themselves. But human beings would have perished in illusion if illusion and its powers — Lucifer and Ahriman — had succeeded in keeping them within illusion.

[ 8 ] I must now say something that I ask you to listen to with all the caution of knowledge. For only if you develop these thoughts further and take them literally, but not in the sense in which a materialistic view tends to take them literally, will you understand them correctly.

[ 9 ] What did the Luciferic-Ahrimanic beings intend with the physical world? What did they want with all the beings that are now in the world and on which they could work after they had once connected themselves with human development in the Atlantean epoch?

[ 10 ] These beings — Lucifer-Ahriman — wanted nothing less than to preserve all the beings that are on Earth in the form in which they are interwoven in dense physical matter. When, for example, a plant grows, sprouting from its roots, leaf by leaf, rising upward until it blossoms, Lucifer and Ahriman intend to continue this growth and development indefinitely, that is, to make this being that is developing resemble the physical form, to preserve it as it is, and thereby to snatch it away from the spiritual world. For if they succeeded in making this entity similar to the physical form, they would, so to speak, snatch heaven away from earth. And with all animals, too, the Luciferic-Ahrimanic entities have the tendency to make them similar to the body in which they are, and to make them forget their divine-spiritual origin within matter. And the same is true of human beings.

[ 11 ] To prevent this from happening, the divine-spiritual Father came and said: Although the beings of the earth have attained, in their highest form, the human being, external knowledge in the I, we must not now leave life to them! For life would then be shaped in such a way that the beings would be torn from their divine-spiritual roots in this life; human beings would become integrated into the physical body and forget their divine-spiritual origin forever. Only in this way could the divine Father Spirit save the memory of the divine origin by giving everything that strives toward matter the blessing of death. Thus it was possible for the plant, as it grows, to shoot up to the moment when fertilization occurs—and at that same moment the plant form withers, and a new plant form emerges from the seed. But when the plant enters the seed, it is for a moment in the divine-spiritual world and is refreshed by the divine-spiritual world. And so it is especially for human beings. Human beings would be bound to the earth and forget their spiritual-divine origin if death were not spread over the earth, if human beings did not always receive new sources of strength between death and new birth, so as not to forget their divine-spiritual origin.

[ 12 ] Death, when we examine it, where is it on earth? Let us ask any being that delights us as a plant. A being that delights our eyes with beautiful flowers—in a few months it is no longer there. Death has come upon it. Let us look at an animal that is faithful to us, or any other animal: in a short time it will no longer be. Death has come upon it. Let us look at a human being as he stands in the physical world: after some time, death will come upon him. He will no longer be, for if he were still there, he would forget his divine-spiritual origin. Let us look at a mountain. A time will come when the volcanic activity of our earth will have swallowed up the mountain: death will have passed over it. Let us look at whatever we want: there is nothing that death is not interwoven with. Everything on earth is immersed in death!

[ 13 ] Thus, death is the benevolent snatcher from an existence that would lead human beings completely out of the divine-spiritual world. But this human being had to come into the physical-sensory world. For only in the physical-sensory world was it possible for him to attain his self-consciousness, his human I-ness. If he always had to pass through death without being able to take anything with him from this realm of death, then he would indeed be able to return to the divine-spiritual world, but unconsciously, without I-ness. He must enter the divine-spiritual world with his I-ness. He must therefore be able to fertilize the earthly realm, which is completely interwoven with death, in such a way that death becomes the seed for an individuality in the eternal, in the spiritual.

[ 14 ] But this possibility, that death, which would otherwise be destruction, is transformed into the seed for eternal individuality, has been given through the Christ impulse. On Golgotha, the true form of death was first presented to humanity. And through the fact that Christ, the image of the Father-Spirit, the Son of the Father-Spirit, married death, death on Golgotha became the beginning of a new life and, as we saw yesterday, of a new sun. And now, in fact, everything that was previously the learning period for human beings, after human beings have conquered an ego for eternity, can now disappear, and human beings can enter the future with their saved ego, which will increasingly become a replica of the Christ ego.

[ 15 ] Let us take as an example of what has just been said a seven-branched candlestick that is gradually being lit, and let us consider the first flame of its sevenfold nature as a symbol of the first period of human evolution, the Saturn evolution. Every development proceeds in seven smaller subdivisions. Thus, in the first flame of the sevenfold candlestick, we have a symbol of the forces that flowed to human beings during the Saturn period. If we go to the second flame within the sevenfold candlestick, we find a symbol of the forces that flowed to human beings from the ancient Sun evolution. In the same way, in the third flame of the sevenfold structure we have a symbol for the forces that flowed to human beings during the ancient lunar period. And in the fourth we have a symbol of everything that has flowed to human beings from the Earth's development. Now let us imagine the middle light shining brightly, the others still burning in dark flames: where the middle light is, there is the point in time when the Christ light entered into evolution. The other lights could never have been lit, the subsequent stages of evolution could never have come about, if the Christ impulse had not entered into human evolution. They are still dark today.

[ 16 ] If we now wanted to represent future evolution in the same symbolic way, we would have to let the first light fade as the next light after the middle one lights up and becomes brighter and brighter. As the next one lights up, we would have to let the second one fade away, and so on. For here is the beginning of a new solar evolution! And when the lights burn down to the last one, we will be able to see the first ones go out, because their fruits have flowed into the last lights and passed into the future.

[ 17 ] Thus you have a development in the past that received its powers from the Father-Spirit. If the Father-Spirit were to continue working in this way, all the lights would gradually go out because Lucifer-Ahriman has interwoven himself. But through the coming of the Christ impulse, a new light now shines forth. A world sun begins.

[ 18 ] Yes, death had to be woven into all natural existence because Lucifer-Ahriman is woven into it. And without Lucifer-Ahriman, humanity would not have attained independence. But with Lucifer-Ahriman alone, independence would have become stronger and stronger and would finally have led to the forgetting of the divine-spiritual origin. That is why death had to be mixed into our bodies. We could not even take our individuality with us into eternity if death were not mixed into the outer expression of individuality, which lies in the blood.

[ 19 ] We have within us the blood of life: the red bloodstream. And we have within us the blood of death: the blue blood. At every moment, in order for our ego to live, the life that flows in the red blood must be killed in the blue blood. If it were not killed, human beings would perish in life in such a way that they would forget their divine-spiritual origin. Western esotericism has a symbol for these two types of blood, two pillars, one red and one blue: one symbolizing life flowing from the divine Father-Spirit, but in a form where it would lose itself; the other symbolizing the destruction of that same life. Death is the stronger, the more powerful, that which brings about the destruction of that which would otherwise lose itself. But the destruction of that which would otherwise be lost means calling forth resurrection!

[ 20 ] Thus you see how, through a correct interpretation of the Gospel of John, we look into the meaning of the whole of life. What we have gained yesterday and today is therefore nothing other than that at the moment of our time development, which the Christian calendar begins with a new “1,” something has occurred that is of the utmost importance for the entire development of the Earth and, insofar as cosmic development is connected with the Earth, also for cosmic development. Yes, with the event at Golgotha, a new center has been created. Since then, the Christ Spirit has been united with the earth. Little by little, it has come, and since that time it has been in the earth. And it is important that people learn to recognize that the Christ Spirit has been in the earth since that time, that the Christ Spirit is in every product of the earth, and that they recognize everything from the point of view of death if they do not see the Christ Spirit in it, but recognize everything from the point of view of life if they see the Christ Spirit in it.

[ 21 ] We are only at the beginning of that development which is the Christian development. The future of this development consists in our seeing the body of Christ throughout the earth. For since that time Christ has entered into the earth, has created a new center of light in the earth, and permeates the earth, shines out into the world, and is eternally woven into the earth's aura. Therefore, when we look at the earth today without the Christ Spirit underlying it, we see the decaying, rotting earth, the decomposing corpse. When we see the earth split into countless tiny particles, if we do not understand Christ, we see the decomposing corpse of the earth. Wherever we see only matter, we see untruth.

[ 22 ] Thus, you will not find the truth when you study the human beings of the earth; you are only studying their decomposing corpses. If you study his corpse, then you can only judge the elements of the earth by saying: “The earth consists of material atoms” — it does not matter whether these are spatially extended atoms or centers of force, it does not matter. When we see atoms, of which our earth is supposed to consist, then we see the corpse of the earth, that which is constantly decomposing and which will one day cease to be when the earth ceases to be. And the earth dissolves.

[ 23 ] Only then do we recognize the truth, when we see in every atom a part of the Christ Spirit, which has been there since that time. What has the earth consisted of since the Christ Spirit permeated it? Since Christ permeated it, the earth has consisted of life right down to the atom! Every atom has value only because of this and can only be recognized because you see in it a shell that encloses something spiritual. And this spiritual element is a part of Christ.

[ 24 ] Now take anything from the earth. When do you recognize it correctly? When you say, “This is a part of the body of Christ!” What could Christ say to those who wanted to recognize him? By breaking the bread that comes from the grain of the earth, Christ could say, “This is my body!” What could he say to them by giving them the juice of the vine, which comes from the sap of plants? “This is my blood!” Because he became the soul of the earth, he could say to what is solid, “This is my flesh,” and to the sap of plants, “This is my blood,” just as you say of your flesh, “This is my flesh,” and of your blood, “This is my blood.” And those people who are able to grasp the true meaning of these words of Christ form mental images that attract the body and blood of Christ in the bread and grape juice, which attract the Christ Spirit within them. And they unite themselves with the Christ Spirit.

[ 25 ] Thus the symbol of the Last Supper becomes a reality.

[ 26 ] Without the thought that connects to Christ in the human heart, no attraction to the spirit of Christ can be developed during the Last Supper. But through this thought form, such an attraction is developed. And so, for all those who need the outer symbol to perform a spiritual act, namely union with Christ, the Lord's Supper will be the way, the way to the point where their inner strength is so strong, where they are so filled with Christ that they can unite with Christ without the outer physical mediation. The preparatory school for mystical union with Christ is the Lord's Supper—the preparatory school. This is how we must understand these things. And just as everything develops from the physical to the spiritual under the influence of Christianity, so too must the things that were there first as a bridge develop under the influence of Christ: the Lord's Supper must develop from the physical to the spiritual in order to lead to true union with Christ. — We can only speak of these things in hints, for only when they are taken in their full sacred dignity can they be understood in the right sense.

[ 27 ] That through the event of Golgotha, Christ has been with the earth since that time was a task for human beings to recognize. They were to recognize this more and more and allow themselves to be permeated by this knowledge.

[ 28 ] But this required a mediator. And one of the first great mediators was the one who had become Paul out of Saul. What could Saul know, since he was a kind of Jewish initiate? We can express what Saul could know in the following words.

[ 29 ] He knew what belonged to the Hebrew secret teaching. What Zarathustra had seen as Ahura Mazdao, what Moses had seen in the burning bush and in the thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai as “Ehjeh asher Ehjeh,” as Yahweh or Jehovah, he knew had come to earth, had drawn near and would one day be in a human body and bring about a renewal of the earth in that human body. But now he was under the impression of the judgment of his time and the Jewish laws. He had witnessed the events of Golgotha. But he could not tell himself that the one who had died on the cross was the bearer of Christ. The events he had experienced and witnessed could not convince him that the one he had to expect according to Jewish initiation was embodied in Jesus of Nazareth. What did he have to experience in order to become convinced that the immortal Christ Spirit had truly been present in the dying body of Jesus of Nazareth on Golgotha?

[ 30 ] He knew from his Hebrew initiation that when the Christ Spirit had been in a human body and that human body was dead, the Christ must be present in the earth aura. Then it must be possible for someone who can see into the earth aura with spiritual eyes to see the Christ. He knew this. Only, until then, he had not become capable of looking into the earth's aura. He was indeed a ring initiate into wisdom, but not a clairvoyant. However, he had a prerequisite for becoming a clairvoyant in an abnormal way, and he himself expresses this prerequisite. He expresses it as a grace bestowed upon him from above: he says of himself that he was a premature birth, which is usually translated as “an untimely birth.” He was not carried to term in his mother's womb; he descended from the spiritual world into the physical world before he was completely immersed in all the elements of earthly existence. He came into the world earlier than is usual for those who are still unconsciously connected to spiritual powers. The event in Damascus was made possible by the opening of his spiritual eyes as a birth that had come into the world untimely. Thus, as a premature birth, his spiritual eye was opened; he looked into the earth's aura and saw that Christ was there. Therefore, the time when this Christ had walked in a physical human body must already have been at hand. The proof had been given to him that Christ had died on the cross. For the one whom he knew would overcome death on earth had appeared to him as spiritually alive. He now understood the significance of the event at Golgotha. He knew that Christ had risen! For the one he had seen could not previously be seen in the earth's aura. Now he understood the words:

“It will be hard for you to kick against the goad.” (Acts 9:5)

[ 31 ] What is the goad? Paul himself said it: ‘Death, where is your sting?’ (1 Cor. 15:55). You will kick against the goad in vain. For if you do, you will only recognize death. But you can no longer kick against death, for you have seen the one who has overcome death.

[ 32 ] Thus Paul became the proclaimer of Christianity who above all proclaimed the living, spiritually living Christ.

[ 33 ] How was Christ visible in the earth's aura? Because in Christ Jesus, as the first impulse of earth's development into the future, the etheric body was once again completely permeated by Christ. Of course, the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth was completely permeated by Christ. Therefore, it was such an etheric body that had complete control over the physical body, and because it was the complete ruler of the physical body, it was able to restore the physical body after death, that is, to appear in such a form that everything that was in the physical body was there again, but out of the power of the etheric body. Therefore, when Christ was seen after death, it was the etheric body of Christ. But for those who, through the power they had gained through the events, were able to recognize not only a physical-sensory body as a real body, but also an etheric body with all the appearances of the physical body, Christ rose as a bodily being. And He was in reality.

[ 34 ] But we are also told in the Gospel that when a person has progressed so far that the perishable develops into the imperishable, he then also has a higher vision. And it is also said that those people who had already developed a higher vision at that time were able to recognize Christ. This is stated clearly enough, but people do not have the will to really read what is written in the Gospel. Take, for example, the first appearance of Christ after his death. It says:

“Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she looked into the tomb

And she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been laid, one at the head and the other at the feet.

And they said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' She said to them, 'They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.

And as she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there,

not knowing that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” She thought he was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). (20:11-16)

[ 35 ] Now imagine this: You saw someone a few days ago, and you see them again after a few days. Do you think you would recognize them? Would you dare to ask him if he is the gardener and where he has actually been laid, if you saw him yourself? But you must believe that Mary, or the one who is referred to here as Mary, would dare to do so, if you want to assume that every physical eye would have recognized Christ and seen him in the same way as a physical eye had seen him before. Read the Gospels according to the spirit!

[ 36 ] First, the holy power of the words had to penetrate the woman as a force. That was necessary! Then the echo of the words resounded within her, and they rekindled everything she had seen before. And that enabled her spiritual eye to see the risen Christ. Does not Paul tell us the same thing?

[ 37 ] With Paul, you will never doubt that he saw Christ with his spiritual eye when this Christ was again only in the heights of the spiritual, in the earth's aura. But what does Paul say? As proof that Christ lives, he cites the fact that he appeared. And he cites as equivalent appearances, first

“...that he was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve.

After that, he was seen by more than five hundred brothers at once, many of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Last of all, he was also seen by me, as one born out of due time.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle.” (1 Cor. 15:5-9)

[ 38 ] He presents the apparitions that the others had as exactly the same as his own, which were possible to the spiritual eye. Therefore, Paul says literally: “As I have seen Christ, so have the others seen him.” Through what they experienced, Paul says, the power was kindled in them to see Christ as one who had risen.

[ 39 ] Now we understand what Paul means. And Paul's view is such that it is immediately recognized as anthroposophical-spiritual, that is, it tells us: There is a spiritual world. When we look at this spiritual world with the impulse given to us by the Christ force, we penetrate it so deeply that we also find Christ himself in this spiritual world, the one who went through the event of Golgotha. That is what he meant. And human beings can, especially through what is called “Christian initiation,” gradually, with patience and perseverance, become, so to speak, followers of Paul, gradually acquiring the abilities to look into the spiritual world and see Christ from spiritual face to spiritual face.

[ 40 ] In other lectures, I have often explained the initial stages through which we ascend to see the Christ being itself. Here, the disciple must live out what is outlined for us in the Gospel of John. Only in the briefest outline will I indicate how human beings can develop upward into the spiritual world, where the light of Christ has been kindled since the event of Golgotha, when human beings decide to go through a certain scale of feelings.

[ 41 ] The first thing is that human beings say to themselves: I look at the plant. It grows out of the mineral soil, it grows and blossoms. But if the plant could develop consciousness like man, it would have to look down at the stone realm, at the mineral earth from which it grows, and say: You stone are a lower being among the present beings of nature than I am, but without you, lower realm, I cannot exist! And likewise, if the animal approached the plant and could feel what the plant has as the foundation of its existence, it would have to say to itself: I, as an animal, am a higher being than you, plant, but without you, plant, I could not exist! And in humility, the animal would have to bow down to the plant and say: To you, lower plant, I owe my existence! And in the human realm it would have to be like this: everyone who has climbed higher on the ladder would have to look down in spiritual relation to those below them and say: You belong to a lower world, but just as the plant must bow to the stone and the animal to the plant, so the human being on a higher level must say: I owe my existence to you, lower being!

[ 42 ] Then, when man, through weeks and months, perhaps through years, under the guidance of his appropriate teacher, has completely immersed himself in such feelings of universal humility, he comes to the point where he knows what the “washing of the feet” means. For before him stands an immediate spiritual vision of what Christ did when, as the higher being, he bowed before the Twelve and washed their feet. And the whole meaning of this event then dawns on the disciple as a vision, so that he knows that this event of the washing of the feet took place. The bond of knowledge leads him to the point where he needs no further proof, but now he looks directly into the spiritual world and sees Christ in the scene of the washing of the feet.

[ 43 ] Then such a person can be guided by the teacher to have the strength to say: I will steadfastly endure all suffering and pain that may come my way in the world and not complain. I will steel myself so that such suffering and pain are no longer suffering and pain for me, but that I know: these are necessities in the world! When the person has become sufficiently steadfast in their soul, the feeling of “flagellation” springs from this observation in their soul, and the person feels the flagellation spiritually within themselves. But this opens their spiritual eye to see the flagellation as it is described in the Gospel of John.

[ 44 ] Then the person is guided to develop that power which is still one step higher, where they are not merely able to endure the suffering and pain of the whole world, but to say to themselves: I have something most sacred for which I devote my whole person. Let the whole world pour scorn and ridicule upon me, this is most sacred to me. Mockery and ridicule from all sides will not deter me from this most sacred thing, even if I stand alone. I stand up for it! Then the person experiences the “crowning with thorns” spiritually within themselves. And without a historical document, their spiritual eye conveys to them the scene in the Gospel of John that is described as the crowning with thorns.

[ 45 ] And when, under appropriate guidance, the person then comes to view his physical existence in a completely different way than he did before, when he learns to view his own body as something he wears externally; when it has become a natural feeling and a natural sensation for him to say: I carry my physical body through the world like an external tool!—then he has reached the fourth stage of Christian initiation, the “carrying of the cross.” He has not become a weak ascetic; rather, we learn to handle what we have as a physical instrument much more skillfully than before. When you have learned to regard the body as something you carry, then you have reached the fourth stage of Christian initiation, which is called the carrying of the cross. And then you gain the insight to see spiritually the scene where Christ carries his cross on his back, just as you have learned to carry your body like a piece of wood through your heightened soul power.

[ 46 ] But then something happens that can be regarded as the fifth stage of Christian initiation, which is called the “mystical death.” Through our inner maturation, everything around us, the entire physical-sensory world, appears to us as if it has been wiped out. Darkness surrounds us. And then a moment comes when this darkness is torn apart like a curtain, and we see behind this physical world into the spiritual world. But during this moment, something else happens. We have now come to know everything that is sin and evil in its true form, that is, we have come to know at this stage what the “descent into hell” is.

[ 47 ] And then we learn not only to regard our body as something foreign, but to regard everything else as belonging to us just as much as our body—to regard everything on earth as belonging to us, just as it was once done in ancient clairvoyance. And we also learn to regard the sufferings of other people as belonging to us, as belonging to a great organism. But then we are united with the earth to the degree that we recognize this. Then we experience being “laid in the earth,” the “burial.” And by being united with the earth, we are also resurrected from it. For then we have tasted what it means: The earth is in a new sun-becoming!

[ 48 ] Through these fourth, fifth, and sixth degrees of Christian initiation, however, we have attained what enables us to see the event of Golgotha with our own eyes, to live ourselves into the event of Golgotha. We then no longer need a document. The document has served to lead us up the rungs.

[ 49 ] Then comes the seventh stage, which is called the “Ascension,” or, in other words, the revival in the spiritual world. This is the stage of which it is rightly said that it cannot be expressed in words taken from our language, that it can only be imagined by those who have become capable of thinking without the instrument of the brain. The miracles of the resurrection can only be thought of by those who are no longer dependent on thinking through the instrument of the physical brain.

[ 50 ] Because those who were present as believers when the event of Golgotha took place were people whose spiritual eyes were open and who could see what was happening, they were able to see Christ as I have described to you, namely, when he communicated himself to their open spiritual eyes within the earth's aura. They would have been able to see Christ in this way—even if He had always remained in the same form He had at that time—if He Himself, Christ, as a spiritual being, had not also achieved something by overcoming death! And now we come to a concept that is indeed difficult to grasp.

[ 51 ] Human beings learn incessantly by developing further and further on the stage they have reached. But it is not only man; every being, from the lowest to the highest divine being, learns by developing further and further. What Christ did as a divine being in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, we have described so far in its effect and in its fruit for humanity. But now we ask ourselves: Did Christ thereby also experience something in himself that led him to a higher stage? Yes, he did. Divine-spiritual beings also experience something that leads them to a higher level. But what he experienced, his ascent into a world even higher than the one he was in before, he allowed those who were his companions on earth to see as his ascension into heaven. Therefore, even those who live as uninitiated, non-clairvoyant beings through the instrument of the physical brain can understand, even if they cannot see for themselves, the first six stages of Christian initiation. But the seventh stage, the ascension, can only be understood by the clairvoyant who is no longer bound to the instrument of the physical brain, who has once seen for himself what it means to think without the brain and to see without the brain. This is how these things are connected.

[ 52 ] This is how the world developed in the time we have had the opportunity to discuss in these fourteen lectures.

[ 53 ] We have already seen that Christ had indicated that in the one who was born blind and whom he healed, what had sinned in him in a previous life was to become apparent. Christ thus stood before humanity in such a way that he taught them, as far as they were able to understand, the idea of reincarnation. He taught karma, the passing on of causes from one life incarnation to another. He taught it as one does when teaching practically for life. He wanted to say: There will be a future when all people will recognize karma, when they will understand that when a person does something evil, he does not need to be punished by an external earthly power, for this evil necessarily brings about compensation in this or a subsequent incarnation. But then we simply need to record his deed in the great law book of the Akashic Records, in the spiritual world. Then we do not need to condemn him as a human being; then we can stand before him as human beings and leave what he has done to the spiritual laws, so that it remains in the spiritual world; we can leave him to karma!

“But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

And early in the morning he came back to the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.

But the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and they placed her in the middle,

And they said to him, 'Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. What do you say?'

They said this to test him, so that they might have something to accuse him of. But Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.” (8:1-6)

[ 54 ] What did he write? He wrote the sin into the spiritual world. And the sin will find its compensation out of the spiritual world! But he reminds the others whether they themselves are conscious of any sin. For only if they had nothing to compensate for could they say that they had no connection with the sin of this woman and could judge her. But they do not know whether they themselves have laid the cause in a previous life for what is now befalling them; they cannot know whether they did not cause this woman to break her marriage in a previous life, whether they themselves did not commit this sin in a previous life or lay the causes for it. Everything is written in karma. Jesus wrote on the earth, which he had already permeated with his spiritual light; that is, he entrusted to the earth what karma should be for the adulteress. He wanted to say: Walk in the paths that I am now showing you! Become such that you say: We do not judge, we leave what is in man to karmic compensation! If people follow this, they will come to karma. Karma does not need to be taught as dogma. It has been taught through action. This is how Christ taught.

[ 55 ] However, only someone who had been initiated by him himself could write such things to his disciples and followers: Lazarus John. Therefore, only this disciple understood to the right degree how it works when a being has worked to gradually gain mastery over the physical body in the etheric body from the baptism of John onwards, making the etheric body the animator. Therefore, the writer of the Gospel of John also understood that it is possible to transform something that still looks like water on the outside so that when a person drinks it, it is transformed into wine through its absorption into the human organs. That is why he understood that it is possible to have a small number of fish and loaves of bread and, through the power of the etheric body, to work in such a way that people are satisfied. But the writer of the Gospel of John told us this, if we only take the Gospel seriously. Does he tell us anywhere that even the few loaves of bread and the few fish were eaten as they are normally eaten physically? Nowhere does he say that, if you go through the entire Gospel of John. He tells you clearly and distinctly, if you take every word literally, that Christ broke the bread, but that he offered a prayer of thanksgiving to heaven:

“But Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to those who were reclining, and as many as they wanted of the fish.” (6:11)

[ 56 ] But the meaning of these words, if we take them in the original text—it is poorly rendered in the English words—is something like this: The disciples passed on the loaves and the fish, and let everyone do with them as they wished; but no one wanted to do anything else at that moment except to feel what emanated as power from the mighty etheric body of Christ Jesus. No one wanted anything else. And how were they satisfied? In verse 23 it says:

“And other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.”

[ 57 ] Through the Lord's prayer they had eaten the bread! They had eaten bread without the physical act having taken place. And this enabled Christ Jesus to interpret what had happened afterwards, saying, “I am the bread of life!”

[ 58 ] So what had they eaten? They had eaten the power of the Christ body! What could remain? Only the power of the Christ body could remain! It was so powerful that it could be gathered up afterwards.

[ 59 ] According to occult knowledge, every body consists of twelve members. The highest member is called the ram; the member that follows it is the bull; the member where the two hands are is the twins; the chest is called the crab; what is in the region of the human heart is the lion; what follows downward in the trunk is the virgin; then the hips, the scales; then downward comes the scorpion; then further on: Sagittarius, the thigh; Capricorn, the knee; Aquarius, the lower leg, and the feet are the Pisces.

[ 60 ] The human body is divided into twelve members—this is well established. If one now gathers what remains after the power of the Christ body has been used to its full, one must gather it in twelve measures!

“And they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.” (6:13)

[ 61 ] They had not eaten the barley loaves. They had eaten the power that had come from Christ. And they had been satisfied by the power that had come from Christ through the thanksgiving, through Christ's appeal to those spheres from which he had come down.

[ 62 ] This is how we must understand the effect of the spiritual world on the physical world. And this is how we can understand how individual events fit into the fundamental event of the sun's becoming on Earth. They all fit into the sun's becoming on Earth as powerful events of force. That is why we will also be able to understand that what communicated itself to the earth at that time as a powerful impulse could only come to human beings slowly and gradually. It must therefore be imparted to humanity slowly and gradually.

[ 63 ] As was indicated yesterday, the Gospel of Mark was initially suited to bringing the great truths closer to people who were ready for them. That was in the first centuries. Human beings were to regain through their own efforts that from which they had departed. Let us try to understand how human beings themselves descended from divine-spiritual heights to the lowest point that had been reached at the time when the event of Golgotha once again brought about the upward striving. It had the effect of a powerful impulse drawing human beings upward again. Human beings had descended from divine spiritual heights, and they had come further and further down. Then, through the Christ impulse, after they had become saturated with the newly born spiritual light, they received the strength to gradually regain everything they had lost, in the following way: In the times immediately following the Christ event, human beings had to regain what they had lost in the last centuries before Christ. They were able to do this through the Gospel of Mark. What they had lost in an even earlier time, they had to regain in the time that followed through a gospel that directed them more toward inner life. That was the Gospel of Luke.

[ 64 ] But we have also said that six hundred years before Christ appeared on earth, everything that had been given to humanity spiritually in earlier centuries and which it had gradually lost was summarized by the great being Buddha. At that time, six centuries before Christ, the Buddha being lived and summarized what was available in the world in terms of ancient wisdom, what humanity had lost, and what the Buddha became a herald of. That is why we are told that when the Buddha came into the world, his birth was foretold to his mother Maya. It is further told that someone came to us and announced about the child: This is the child who will become the Buddha, the savior, the guide to immortality, freedom, and light! Then, in some Buddha legends, we are told that the Buddha went missing as a twelve-year-old boy and was found again under a tree, surrounded by the singers and sages of ancient times, whom he taught. In my book Christianity as Mystical Fact, you will see how, six centuries after Buddha, the same legends told about Buddha reappear in the Gospel of Luke, and how what was revealed by Buddha reappears in a new form through the Gospel of Luke. Therefore, what was already contained in the legends of Buddha appears in the Gospel of Luke. To this degree, things coincide when we consider them in the light of spiritual research.

[ 65 ] This gives us the view that a document such as the Gospel of John and the Gospels that follow it contain infinite depths. We have considered these depths in a series of lectures. If we could continue these lectures and make them twice as long as they have been, we could always bring out new and new depths from the Gospels. And if we could double the time again, and double the time twice again, we would be able to open up new depths! And we would gain an inkling that, as humanity's future unfolds, ever new depths can be found in the depths of these documents. Human beings truly never cease to learn from interpreting these documents. We need not add anything to them; we need only prepare ourselves, through occult truths, to discover what really lies in the Gospels. Then the entire universal context of humanity is revealed to us in the Gospels, and in turn the connection of this human context with the cosmos, and we learn to look deeper and deeper into the spiritual world.

[ 66 ] But when we have heard a cycle of such lectures, we must say to ourselves: We have not only gained a sum of knowledge, not only absorbed a sum of individual truths. That would be, although indispensable, the lesser necessity of the matter; but we cannot obtain the other without this. What should emerge from such considerations as a special fruit is that everything we have taken in with our mind, when we now sink it into our heart, becomes a feeling for the matter, into sensations, into impulses of the will itself. When the warmth of the heart becomes what we have taken in through the mind, then it becomes a power within us, a healing power for the spiritual, the soul, and the physical. And then we say to ourselves: During our spiritual contemplations, we have been immersed in spiritual life. We have acquired many things through this spiritual life during a fortnight of contemplation, but we have not only acquired empty concepts and ideas, but truths, concepts, and ideas that are capable of welling up in the soul to become a living strength of our feelings and sensations. And these feelings and sensations will remain with us; they are irretrievable for us; with them we continue to live in the world. We have not only learned something, but we have become more alive through what we have learned. — If we leave this cycle by taking such feelings into ourselves, then spiritual science will become a purpose in life for us; then spiritual science will become something that does not withdraw us from outer life, but will become something like a reflection of the highest that has been characterized for us in these lectures. We have been characterized by the fact that death must exist in the world, but that our view of death is not the right one; that Christ taught us the right view of death. Through this, death has become the seed for a higher life.

[ 67 ] Outside, beyond the scope of these lectures, life springs forth, external existence flows. Human beings live in it. Spiritual research will not diminish this life by a single atom, take anything away from it. But the view that people usually have of their lives before they see them through with the spirit is incorrect, and this incorrectness must appear to us as the illusion of life. We must let this illusion of life die within us; then the seed that we have acquired through an illusion will become a higher life within us. But this can only happen if we take the living spiritual view into ourselves. In this way we do not become ascetic in life, but precisely through this we learn to recognize life in its true form and carry into life a true mastery of life, a true fruit. In this way, we Christianize life to the extent that we experience spiritual science itself as Christian, and we experience a reflection of how death becomes a reflection of life. To the same extent that we make spiritual science our attitude, we do not alienate ourselves from life, but learn to recognize what is incorrect in our views of this life. And then we go out into this life strengthened by a correct view, we go into life as hard workers, not withdrawing from it after we have gained strength and power within such a contemplation that introduces us to the spiritual world.

[ 68 ] If these lectures have been somewhat successful in making them fruitful in life, in contributing a little, even if only a little, so that you learn to feel spiritual knowledge as an elevation of life, as warmth of life in your feeling, thinking, and willing, in your work, then the light that we have drawn from the anthroposophical worldview can shine as the fire of life warmth, as the fire of life. And if this fire is strong enough to continue burning in your life, then what I set out to achieve when I decided to give these lectures will have been accomplished.

[ 69 ] With these words, I would like to commend to you the feelings I have just expressed as a subject for inner meditation, and say, “Goodbye, until we meet again on another occasion.”