The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] We have attempted to form an idea of what actually underlies the first chapters of the Gospel of Luke. Only if we are familiar with the events that took place within human evolution, and which we have had to discuss at such length, can we unravel what the writer of the Gospel of Luke recounts as a kind of prehistory to the great Christ event. This enables us to know who it was who, in the thirtieth year of his life, took on that world principle which we have also characterized: the Christ principle. In order to understand what the writer of the Gospel of Luke tells us about the personality and activity of Christ Jesus—that is, about the individuality that then worked in the world for three years and which represents the Christ within a human body — it is now necessary to point out in a few strokes the development of humanity and to take into account characteristics of this development of humanity of which our time has so little concept. Our time is in many respects extremely short-sighted and believes that everything that happens to humanity today or in the course of approximately two to three centuries, everything that underlies this time as laws of human development, has always been there, and that especially what does not apply today has never applied. That is why it is so difficult for people today to understand and accept without prejudice stories that refer to a past such as that in which Christ lived on earth.

[ 2 ] The writer of the Gospel of Luke tells us about the deeds of Christ on earth. He tells us in such a way that, if we really respond to the meaning of his descriptions, we must increasingly gain an understanding of what human evolution actually was at that time. We must draw attention once again to something that has often been said in the course of our anthroposophical considerations: that our present humanity took its starting point from the Atlantean catastrophe, that our ancestors—that is, our own souls in other bodies—lived in ancient Atlantis, on that continent which we must seek between Europe and Africa on the one hand and America on the other. Then came the great Atlantean catastrophe, which transformed the face of the Earth. The masses of people migrated from Atlantis to the east and west, thus populating the earth as we have described for the post-Atlantean period. Then, in the post-Atlantean period, the various cultures arose that we have characterized as the ancient Indian culture, the ancient Persian culture, the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, the Greek-Latin culture, and the culture in which we live today.

[ 3 ] Now, one has a completely false idea of human evolution if one believes that during this period of post-Atlantean evolution, human beings were always as they are today. He has changed again and again; tremendous changes have taken place in human nature. The external historical documents only tell us about a few millennia. Only those documents inaccessible to external research, which we call the Akashic Records and which we have also characterized a little in this cycle, give us information about the development since the Atlantean catastrophe. There we find that after the Atlantean catastrophe, the ancient Indian culture first developed, in which people lived more in their etheric bodies and not yet so strongly in their physical bodies as was later the case. The vast majority of the Indian population was clairvoyant, dimly and hazily so, without, of course, having developed the ego-consciousness of today. Their consciousness was similar to dream consciousness, but it was a consciousness that still looked into the depths of existence, into the spiritual world. Now, we are accustomed to emphasizing in our ideas how necessary it is for people today to know what is connected with knowledge and the form of knowledge, because this can help them move forward into the future. We always emphasize how our ancestors in ancient India perceived and viewed the world, how they were much more clairvoyant than in later times. But if we want to understand the Gospel of Luke, we must emphasize another characteristic of our ancestors.

[ 4 ] At that time, when the etheric body still extended much further beyond the physical body on all sides and was not yet as closely connected to it as is the case today, everything that constitutes the soul forces and qualities of the human being also had greater power over the physical body. But the more the etheric body penetrated into the physical body, the weaker it became and the less power it had over the physical body. In the ancient Atlanteans, the head part of the etheric body still protruded strongly beyond the physical body. To a certain extent, this was also still the case with the ancient Indians. This allowed them, on the one hand, to develop clairvoyant consciousness, but on the other hand, to have great power over the processes in the physical body.

[ 5 ] Although they are far apart, we can compare an ancient Indian body with a body of our time. In our time, the etheric body has penetrated deepest into the physical body and is most closely connected with the facts of the physical body. Today we are at the point where the etheric body is emerging again, freeing itself from the physical body and becoming more independent; and as humanity rushes toward the future, the etheric body will emerge more and more from the physical body. Today, humanity has already moved somewhat beyond the lowest point where the greatest communion between the etheric body and the physical body existed. If we compare an ancient Indian body with a present-day body, we can say that in the Indian body, the etheric body is still relatively free, and the soul can unfold forces that work into the physical body. The etheric body absorbs the forces of the soul because it is not yet so bound to the physical body; but in return it also has greater control over the physical body, with the result that the effects exerted on the soul at this time also have an enormous effect on the body. In Indian times, when a person who hated another person spoke a hateful word, that word stabbed the other person—it affected the physical structure. The soul still acted upon the etheric body, and the etheric body acted upon the physical body. Today, this power has been taken away from the etheric body. On the other hand, when a word of love was spoken, it had an expanding, warming, opening effect on the other person and thus also on the physical body. Therefore, it was very important in those days whether a loving or a hateful word was spoken, because it affected all the processes of the body. This effect diminished more and more in humanity as the etheric body entered the physical body. Today it is different. Today, a word we speak initially affects only the soul, and people have become quite rare who feel a hateful, unloving word as if it constricted them, or a loving word as if it expanded and blessed them. Those peculiar effects that we can still feel today in our physical hearts as the effect of a word filled with love or hatred were of tremendous intensity at the dawn of our post-Atlantean development. Therefore, one could, so to speak, do something completely different with these influences on the soul than one can do today. For today it does not depend on how a word is spoken. A word may be spoken with the warmest love, but if it strikes the modern human organization, it will always be rejected to a greater or lesser extent; it will not penetrate, for that depends not only on how it is spoken, but also on how it can be received.

[ 6 ] So today it is not possible to influence the human soul so directly that it really penetrates into its entire physical organization. That is not possible directly. But in a certain sense it will be possible, because we are approaching a future in which the spiritual will once again have its significance. We can already point out today how this will be in the future. In our present human cycle, we can do very little in this field to ensure that what lives in our own souls in the form of love, goodwill, and wisdom flows directly into other souls and gains the strength there that works its way into the physical body. We must tell ourselves today that we can only bring about such an effect gradually. But this spiritual mode of action is beginning again. And it is beginning precisely on the ground where the spiritual scientific worldview is being planted, for this worldview is the beginning of the strengthening of the soul's effects. Today, it is only possible in a few cases for a word to have physical effects. But it is possible for people to come together to take a sum of spiritual truths into their souls. These spiritual truths will gradually strengthen, gain power in the souls, and thereby also the power to work into the physical organization and shape it according to their own nature. In the future, the soul-spiritual will once again gain great power over the physical, and the physical will shape itself in its image.

[ 7 ] In those ancient times of Indian primitive culture, for example, what we call “healing” was something different than it was later, because it is all connected with what has just been said. Because what affected the soul could have an enormous effect on the body, it was possible to influence the soul of another person with words imbued with the right impulse of will, so that this soul in turn transferred the effect to the etheric body and this again to the physical body. If one had an idea of the effect one wanted to have on another soul, one could exert the right effect on the soul in the manner indicated in the case of a diseased organization, and thereby on the physical body, which then brought about health. Now imagine this intensified to the highest degree, so that the Indian physician had mastered those soul influences and effects that come into question here, then you must realize that all healing in Indian times was a much more spiritual process than it can be today — it is expressly stated: than it can be today. But we are approaching such modes of action again. What is brought down from cosmic, spiritual heights as a worldview, as a sum of truths that correspond to the great spiritual content of the world, will flow into human souls and, as humanity lives toward the future, will itself be a remedy for health from the innermost being of the human being. Spiritual science is the great remedy for souls in life as it extends into the future. We must only understand that humanity has been on a downward path of development, that spiritual influences have receded more and more, that we are at a low point in our development, and that we can only gradually raise ourselves up to the heights where we once stood.

[ 8 ] Very slowly, those effects that were so eminent in ancient India were lost. A similar organization—such that one soul could influence another—still existed, for example, in ancient Egyptian culture. The further back we go in Egyptian culture, the more we find that there was a direct effect from one soul to another, which could then pass over into the physical organization. It was much less present in ancient Persian times. For the latter had a different task; it was called upon to give the first impetus for penetration into the physical world. In terms of the characteristics I have just described, Egyptian culture is much closer to Indian culture than to Persian culture. In Persian culture, the soul begins, so to speak, to close itself off more and more, to have less and less power over the external organization, because it is supposed to develop self-consciousness more and more within itself. Therefore, a different cultural current had to converge with the one that had preserved the dominion of the spiritual over the physical, a current that was primarily aimed at inner deepening and the development of self-consciousness; and these two currents found a kind of balance in what we call Greek-Latin culture. This is the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period. Humanity has already descended so far into the physical world that a kind of balance between the physical and the soul-spiritual is now emerging. This means that in this fourth cultural period, the spirit and the soul have about as much dominion over the body as the body has over the soul. A kind of balance has been established between the two: humanity has descended to a state of equilibrium.

[ 9 ] Now, however, humanity must first undergo a kind of world trial in order to be able to ascend again to the spiritual heights. This is why humanity has actually descended even deeper into physical materiality since the Greek-Latin period. Everything that has to do with the physical has descended even deeper. In the time in which we live, in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, human beings have basically been driven below the line of equilibrium and could initially only rise within themselves, could take up a consciousness of the spiritual world that was of a more theoretical nature. They had to strengthen themselves inwardly.

[ 10 ] Thus, we see a relative state of equilibrium in Greek-Latin culture, whereas now, in our time, the physical has gained the upper hand and dominates the spiritual-soul realm. We see that the spiritual-soul realm has become powerless in a certain sense; it can only be grasped theoretically. Throughout the centuries, the inner life of human beings has had to limit itself to strengthening itself in a way that does not take place in the conscious mind. Little by little, it must become stronger and more powerful so that a new consciousness can develop above it. And when it has reached a certain strength — which will be the case in the sixth post-Atlantean cultural period — then the spiritual-soul life, through the fact that human beings have taken in more and more spiritual nourishment, will no longer have a theoretical wisdom from this spiritual nourishment, but a living wisdom, a living truth. Then this spiritual element will be so strong that it will in turn — now from the other side — gain dominion over the physical body.

[ 11 ] How, then, can we explain the mission of spiritual science for humanity from this point of view? If, in our time, spiritual science increasingly becomes something that lives inwardly in the soul, something that is capable not only of stimulating the mind and intellect of human beings, but also of warming the soul more and more, then the soul will become so strong that it will gain dominion over the physical. Of course, certain transitions are necessary for this; many things are necessary that at first appear to be a decline, even damage. But these are transitional forms that will give way to a future state in which human beings will take up spiritual life in their ideas and in which the entire human race will enter a state that will mean the dominion of the soul-spiritual over the physical-material. And every person who is interested in spiritual science today, not only because it stimulates their intellect, but because they can be enchanted by spiritual scientific truths, who can find inner, living satisfaction in them, will be a forerunner of those people who will in turn have gained the right dominion of the soul over the body.

[ 12 ] In our time, we can already set forth the great truths about such events as we have allowed to come before our souls in recent days, those mighty events of the merging of the Buddha element with the Zarathustra element, everything that took place at the beginning of our era in Palestine. We have been able to show how, in the progress of the world, wisdom created those two childhood figures of the Nathanic and the Solomonic Jesus, and through these great, powerful events brought together those world currents that had previously flowed separately over the earth.

[ 13 ] There can be a twofold view of everything that has had an effect on us in recent days. Someone might say: At first glance, this seems somewhat fantastical to today's consciousness, but when I weigh up all the external effects, it seems very plausible to me, and only then can I explain the Gospels if I accept what I am told in the Akashic Records. Someone may be interested in what is told them, for example, about the two figures of Jesus and so on, and it may satisfy their interest. They may say: Now I can explain many things that I could not explain before. And another person might then say: For me, there is now something else. When I look at all these processes, when I look at everything that occult research says about the wonderful descent of the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha, which is the basis of the proclamation of the shepherds and so on, and when I also take the other current and see how the star guided the followers of Zarathustra when their leader reappeared on earth, when I see how world currents flow into world currents, how what was once separated is reunited, when I let all this sink into my soul, then I have one impression above all: the impression that all this is indescribably beautiful in the course of the world's becoming! — One can also have the impression that it is glorious, powerful, magnificent. There is truly something that sets our soul on fire, that can make us glow with enthusiasm for the real processes of the world.

[ 14 ] And that is the best we can gain from the great truths. The small truths will satisfy our need for knowledge, and the great ones will warm our soul, and we will say: What passes through the processes of the world is at the same time something immensely beautiful. When we perceive it in its beauty, in its glory, then it begins to take root in us, then it penetrates beyond mere theoretical understanding. — How does Christ Jesus say it in the Gospel of Luke?

“The sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air ate it up; and some fell on rocky ground, and when it sprang up, it withered away because it had no moisture; and some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it; and some fell on good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold” (Luke 8:5-8).

[ 15 ] So it is with the anthroposophical worldview. What Christ Jesus gave his disciples as an explanation of this parable of the sower applies to it. The seed is the kingdom of the gods, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of the spirit. This kingdom of the spirit is to flow into human souls as seed and become effective on earth. Now there are people who have within themselves only those soul forces that repel the spiritual worldview, the kingdom of divine-spiritual beings. It is devoured by the obstacles in the human soul and is rejected before it can germinate in any way. This is true for many people with regard to the words of Christ Jesus, and it is true today for many with regard to what anthroposophy has to bring into the world: it is rejected, the birds devour it, so to speak, and do not allow it to penetrate the soil. — But then it can be spoken to a soul — be it the word of Christ Jesus or the word of spiritual wisdom — but the soul is not deep enough. The soul is just prepared enough to understand that these are entirely plausible truths, but they do not unite with its own substance and essence. It may even be able to repeat the wisdom, but it has not become one with it; it is like the seed that fell on the rock and cannot sprout. — And the third seed fell among the thorns; it germinates, but it cannot sprout. That is to say, Christ Jesus explains that there are people who are so filled in their souls with the cares and interests of ordinary life that, although they are capable of understanding the word of spiritual truth, everything else in their souls acts like a thorn bush that always holds it back. There are also souls today — and they are very numerous — who would gladly assimilate spiritual scientific truths if it were not for the other, the outer life, which approaches them in such a way that it keeps them down again and again. And only a few are able to unfold the spiritual truths as something free, like the fourth seed. These are the ones who begin to feel the anthroposophical element as a living truth, who take it into their souls as a life element and live entirely within it; these are also the ones who are the forerunners of the effectiveness of spiritual truths in the future. But no one who does not have the right confidence, the right conviction of the working of this spiritual wisdom through their own inner soul power, can be convinced of the truth and power of spiritual wisdom by anything external today.

[ 16 ] For is it proof against the effectiveness of spiritual wisdom if it does not already have a physical effect on so many people today? On the contrary, one could say that it is proof of the health of spiritual wisdom that it often affects those powerful physical bodies it encounters in a negative sense, such as a city child with weak physical health who has breathed only city air since early childhood and has in a certain way weakened himself by not becoming healthy, and who therefore does not need to become healthy when he comes out into the sharp, healthy mountain air, but perhaps becomes just as sick. Just as this is no proof against the healthiness of the mountain air, it is no proof against the effectiveness of spiritual truths when, penetrating certain human organizations, they can also cause temporary harm. For they penetrate what has been inherited in human bodies for centuries and millennia; they encounter nothing other than what does not suit them.

[ 17 ] In the outer world, we cannot yet seek proof in this regard; we must penetrate these spiritual laws and acquire a strong conviction in them. No matter how much circumstantial evidence there may be in the outer world, we must have the opportunity to penetrate into the inner world, we must develop conviction within ourselves and say to ourselves: if these anthroposophical teachings are so offensive here and there today, it is because they have come into contact with unhealthy conditions in human beings. That is why spiritual wisdom is healthy, but human beings are not always so. That is why it is understandable that not everything that can come to people in the course of time in terms of spiritual wisdom is revealed today. Care is taken to ensure that the damage is not too great; city children are not sent out into mountain air that is exhausting for them. For this reason, however, only what people can tolerate on average can be communicated from time to time. If, for example, what still exists in deeper mysteries were to be fully revealed, people with certain organizational structures would collapse like physically impaired health in the mountain air. Only gradually can the great mysteries of humanity be revealed, but it will happen, and it will lead to a comprehensive healing of humanity.

[ 18 ] All this lies behind what we summarize in the concept of the spiritual scientific movement. Slowly, people must regain what they had to lose: the dominion of the spiritual-soul over the material. This has been slowly lost since the development of Indian culture and into the Greek-Latin period. In the Greek-Latin period, there were still people who had inherited from ancient times the elevation of the etheric body, which made them accessible to spiritual influences in their entire organization. That is why Christ Jesus had to appear at that time. If he had appeared in our time, he would not have been able to work as he did then, nor would he have been able to set the great example as he did then. In our time, he would encounter human organizations that have delved much deeper into physical matter. He himself would have to enter a physical organization in which the powerful effect of the soul-spiritual on the physical organization would no longer be possible as it was then.

[ 19 ] But this does not apply only to Christ Jesus; it applies to all similar phenomena, and we can only understand human evolution if we examine it from this point of view. This also applies, for example, to the Buddha and his appearance on earth. We have seen what mission the Buddha had. He first established what can be called the great teaching of love and compassion and everything connected with it, which is described in the eightfold path. Do you think that if the Buddha were to appear today, he would be able to establish this in the same way? No. For today, a physical organization is not possible that would allow the Buddha to undergo the development that he underwent in his time. Physical organizations are constantly changing. It was necessary to adhere precisely to that point in time so that such a model organization could be established, so that the Buddha could descend and use that human organization to establish the mighty deed of the eightfold path, which is to continue to have an effect so that people can penetrate it spiritually. Today, humanity is dependent on gradually acquiring this eightfold path spiritually and soulfully. It seems strange, but it is true: everything that humanity has achieved afterwards in all philosophical and moral teachings is only a very weak beginning to achieve what the Buddha once established. No matter how much people admire all kinds of philosophies, no matter how enthusiastic they are about Kantianism and other things, all of that is only a trifle, only the most elementary thing compared to the comprehensive principles of the eightfold path. And only slowly can humanity rise again to understand what lies behind the words of the eightfold path. First, something like this is presented as a comprehensive fact at the right time; then, from there, development continues. Humanity takes this as its starting point and only after a long time attains what was first presented as a tremendous deed. Thus, the Buddha stood there in his time and brought the teaching of love and compassion to the world as a sign for future generations, who will gradually gain the ability to recognize for themselves what lies in the eightfold path. And in the sixth cultural epoch there will already be a good number of people who will be capable of this. Oh, we still have a long way to go before people will say to themselves: What the Buddha exemplified in the fifth and sixth centuries before our era, we can now gain from our own souls; we have now become similar to the Buddha in our own souls.

[ 20 ] This is how humanity must gradually ascend to the summit. The first believers are those who, with the relevant individuality, reach into a great time and then bring with them the heirlooms to understand something like this. The rest of humanity slowly ascends and only much later attains what is indicated to them as something to be achieved. But then, when a larger number of people have reached the point where they have the eightfold path as their own, out of their own soul's knowledge—not as something they have from Buddhism, something that has been told to them—then these same people will already have come very far in relation to something else. Read in the magazine “Lucifer-Gnosis” “How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds?” to learn how the development of the sixteen-petaled lotus flower is connected with the eightfold path. People will then have reached the point where they can develop the sixteen-petaled lotus flower through the eightfold path. The two are closely connected. And for those who can look into human evolution, there is a sign of how far humanity has progressed in its development. It has progressed as far as it has in the development of the sixteen-petaled lotus flower, which is one of the first organs that humans will use in the future. But when this organ is developed, a certain dominion of the soul-spiritual over the physical will have come about. Only those who are willing today to undergo spiritual development in the esoteric sense can say that they are on the path to truly incorporating the eightfold path into their lives. The others merely “study” it. This is, of course, also very useful; it will be a stimulus.

[ 21 ] But we also see that, basically, the spiritual-soul can only work in those people who have already begun to connect what is given to them as spiritual wisdom with their own soul in a completely organic way. To the same extent that the eightfold path becomes the soul's own experience, it also has an effect back on the physical. Now, of course, the very clever people of today, who are attached to materialism, can come and say: We have had very special experiences; we had this or that person who began to cultivate spiritual development, that is, to bring spiritual wisdom to life within themselves in your sense, but he died at the age of fifty; so they contributed little to prolonging his life. That is a very clever truth, and it can be experienced again and again. It is just a pity that the opposite instances are not brought up, namely how long the person in question would have lived if he had not undergone spiritual development — whether he might then perhaps have lived only to the age of forty! This question would first have to be decided. We always only state what is there and pay no attention to what is not there. It is essential to look at things in this way.

[ 22 ] Gradually, therefore, the dominion of the spiritual-soul over the physical disappeared from humanity until the fourth cultural epoch, in which Christ appeared and in which there were still enough people to whom one could see how the spiritual acts upon the physical. Christ had to appear then. If he had appeared later, it would not have been possible to show all the things that were shown at that time. Such a great apparition had to enter the world, but at exactly the right time.

[ 23 ] What does the coming of Christ into the world mean? It means that by understanding Christ correctly, human beings learn to make full use of their self-awareness, that they learn to permeate their entire ego-consciousness with it, that their ego gains complete control over everything within them. That is what the coming of Christ into the world means. This I, this self-conscious I, will be what recaptures everything that humanity has lost throughout the ages. But just as the eightfold path had to be laid down by the Buddha first, so too, before the end of the old times, the dominion of this I-principle over everything that can exist in the world in terms of external physical processes had to be made visible. In our time, it would no longer be possible for the Christ principle to enter the world and exert the powerful healing effects on the environment that it did in those days. This required a time when there were still people whose etheric bodies protruded so far that they could receive, through the mere word, through mere touch, such powerful effects that today only faint echoes of them can be found. And humanity began to develop the I so that it could first understand Christ and, starting from there, regain what it had once lost. It had to be shown in the last examples of humanity from ancient times how the I, which was now fully present in a human being, in Christ Jesus, will be in all other human beings at the end of the Earth's time, powerfully influencing the people of that time in all areas of life. This is what the writer of the Gospel of Luke presents to show us: Now Christ carries into the world an I that permeates the human physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body in such a way that it can exert influences that affect the entire organization of the physical body and can also influence it in a healing way. This fact had to be stated in order to show that when human beings have appropriated everything that can emanate as power from the Christ I in the future, in thousands of centuries, then effects will be able to emanate from the human I, just as they were radiated into humanity by Christ at that time. This had to be shown in all areas, but it could only be shown for the humanity of that time.

[ 24 ] It was shown that there are illnesses that originate in the astral body of the human being. How they manifest themselves depends on the nature of the whole human being. If a person today has bad moral qualities, these may be limited to being bad qualities of their soul. Because the soul today does not have the same dominion over the body that it had at the time of Christ Jesus, not every sin easily becomes an external illness. Little by little, we are already approaching that state again where the etheric body is coming to the fore. Therefore, an epoch is beginning for humanity in which great care must be taken to ensure that spiritual vices in the moral and intellectual realm do not manifest themselves physically as illnesses. This time is already beginning. And many of those illnesses that are regarded as half spiritual, half physical—the nervous disorders of our time—mark the beginning of this epoch. Because people today have absorbed the disharmony of the outer world into their perceptions and thinking, such things can naturally only manifest themselves in phenomena such as hysteria and the like. But this is connected with the peculiarity of the spiritual development we are approaching: the separation of the etheric body.

[ 25 ] At the time when Christ appeared on earth, there were numerous people in his surroundings in whom sin, and especially character sinning arising from bad qualities from earlier times, manifested itself in illness. What basically lies in the astral body as sin and appears as illness is called possession in the Gospel of Luke, where the human being draws foreign spirits into his astral body, where he is not master of his whole humanity through his better qualities. In those people who still had the old separation of the etheric body from the physical body, this manifested itself to a remarkable degree in those times in that bad characteristics, bad qualities, worked in the way described by the writer of the Gospel of Luke as forms of illness that present themselves as possession. Now the Gospel of Luke shows us how such people were healed through the closeness and encouragement of that individuality which was in Christ Jesus, how that which worked as evil was driven out of such individualities. This is presented as an example of how, at the end of the earth's time, the good qualities will have a healing effect on all qualities.

[ 26 ] One does not usually notice the finer details that lie behind many things, so that even here there is still talk of completely different illnesses, as described in the chapter commonly referred to as the “healing of the paralytic” (Luke 5:17-26). Actually, it should be called the “healing of a paralyzed man,” because in the Greek text the word “paralelym&nos” is used here, which means someone who is paralyzed in his limbs. In those days, it was still known that these forms of illness originated from the qualities of the etheric body. And by describing to us that Christ Jesus also heals those who are paralyzed, we are told that through the powers of his individuality, effects are achieved not only in the astral bodies, but also in the etheric bodies, so that even people who are damaged in their etheric bodies can experience healing effects. Precisely when Christ speaks of what has its seat as “deeper sin” in the etheric body, he uses a special expression. This clearly indicates that the spiritual element that causes illness must first be removed; for he does not immediately say to the paralyzed man, “Get up and walk,” but goes to the cause that is working as illness into the etheric body and says, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ that is, what has eaten into the etheric body as sin must first be removed. However, ordinary Bible research does not go into these finer distinctions; it does not see that what is shown here is how this individuality had an influence on the mysteries of the astral body and also on those of the etheric body. Indeed, it even had an influence on the mysteries of the physical body.

[ 27 ] Why are the mysteries of the physical body referred to in this context as the highest mysteries, so to speak? Even for outer life, the influence of astral body on astral body is initially the most obvious. You can hurt a person, for example, by saying a hateful word. This is a process in their astral body. They hear the hurtful word and feel it as pain in their astral body. Here you have the exchange between astral body and astral body. Much more hidden is the exchange between etheric body and etheric body; this includes finer influences from person to person, which are no longer noticed today. But the most hidden are the effects that act upon the physical body, because the physical body veils the effects of the spiritual most of all through its dense materiality. Now, however, we shall also be shown that Christ Jesus has dominion over the physical body. How is this shown? Here we touch upon a subject that would be completely incomprehensible to today's materialistic-minded people. — It is good that only prepared experts in spiritual science are present for this cycle; for anyone who just walked in off the street would consider what is being said today to be complete madness, even if they considered the rest to be only half or a quarter madness.

[ 28 ] Christ Jesus shows that he can see through physical corporeality and work into it. This is shown by the fact that he can also heal diseases that have their roots in the physical body through his power. But in order to do this, one must know the mysterious effects that the physical body of one human being has on the physical body of another human being if one wants to cure diseases in the physical body. If one wants to work spiritually, one cannot regard human beings as beings enclosed in their skin. It has often been said here that our finger is more intelligent than we are. Our finger knows that the blood can only flow in it because it flows properly throughout the whole body, and it knows that it must wither if it is separated from the rest of the organism. So, if humans understood the conditions of their bodies, they would also know that, according to their physical organization, they belong to the whole of humanity, that effects are constantly passing from one to the other, and that one cannot separate one's physical health as an individual from the health of the whole of humanity. People today will admit this in relation to the coarser effects, but not in relation to the finer effects, because they cannot know the facts. Here in the Gospel of Luke, however, reference is made to the finer effects. Read in chapter 8, where it says:

“But when Jesus returned, the crowd received him, for they were all waiting for him.

And behold, there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue, and he fell at Jesus' feet and begged him to come to his house;

for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, who was dying. But as he went, the crowd pressed him.

And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years and had spent all her money on doctors, and no one could heal her,

came up behind him and touched the tassel of his garment,

and immediately her hemorrhage stopped” (Luke 8:40-44).

[ 29 ] So Christ Jesus is to heal the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus. How can she be healed, for she is close to death? This can only be understood if one knows how her physical illness is connected with another phenomenon in another human being, and that it cannot be healed without taking this other phenomenon into account. For when this twelve-year-old girl was born, there was a certain relationship to another personality that was deeply rooted in karma. That is why we are now told that a woman who had been suffering from a certain illness for twelve years pressed herself from behind to Christ Jesus and touched the hem of his garment. Why is this woman mentioned here? Because she was linked in her karma to this child of Jairus. This twelve-year-old girl and the woman who had been ill for twelve years are connected, and it is not for nothing that this is presented to us as a numerical mystery. This woman, who had been ill for twelve years, approached Jesus and was healed — and only then was he able to enter Jairus' house, and only then could the twelve-year-old girl, who had been considered dead, be healed.

[ 30 ] One must delve deeply into these matters in order to understand the karma that passes from person to person. Then we can see how the third of the modes of action of Christ Jesus — that which acts upon the entire human organism — is revealed. It is particularly important to consider the higher effectiveness of Christ as shown to us in the Gospel of Luke.

[ 31 ] In this way, we are clearly shown how the I-being of Christ acted upon all the other members of the human being. That is what matters. And the writer of the Gospel of Luke, who focuses particularly on the presentation of healing effects in these passages, wanted to show how the healing effects of the I represent the unfolding of the I on a high peak of human development, and he shows how Christ had to work on the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body of human beings. Luke has, as it were, set forth the great ideal of human development: Look to your future; today your ego, as it has developed, is still weak, it has little control. But little by little it will gain control over the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body, and will transform them. Before you stands the great ideal of Christ, who shows humanity how the ego can gain dominion over the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body.

[ 32 ] These are the truths that lie at the foundation of the Gospels, and they could only have been written by those who did not rely on external documents, but on the testimony of those who were “seers” and “servants of the Word.” Little by little, humanity will first acquire a conviction of what lies behind the Gospels. But then it will gradually make its own what lies at the basis of the religious documents with such intensity and strength that it can truly affect all the other members of the human organization.