The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. The Reappearance of the Christ in the Etheric

[ 1 ] There is a certain connection between the past and the future of human development. When considered, this connection sheds much light on the questions we might ask, such as: What is our responsibility as human beings in any given era?

[ 2 ] When we gathered here some time ago, we spoke at length about the past of human development. Today, let us speak a little about the connection between the past and the near future of human development. We concluded yesterday by pointing to an important indication that tells us, as it were, from on high, that humanity needs a spiritual impetus, something like a new impulse of the times. We can only understand how this new impulse of the times must work if we view the millennia preceding the founding of Christianity in a certain context alongside the millennia following the founding of Christianity—the very millennia in which we ourselves are living.

[ 3 ] There is a certain law according to which certain events in human evolution repeat themselves, and we did, in fact, speak of such repetitions in human evolution during the last Stuttgart lecture series. Today I would like to point out in particular that when spiritual science points to such regular repetitions in human development, one should not believe that one can construct such repetitions purely through intellectual reasoning. For these repetitions must all be examined in detail; they must be identified in detail through spiritual research. Otherwise, one can go very, very wrong if one constructs new ones, as it were, based on the pattern of one repetition or another. Now there is a repetition that does indeed resemble another: this is the repetition that presents itself in such a way that fundamental events, important events that were effective before the founding of Christianity, recur in a certain way after the founding of Christianity. If one considers the last three millennia before the founding of Christianity, these three millennia belong to an epoch in the history of human development that is referred to as the so-called dark age, the lesser dark age: Kali Yuga.

[ 4 ] This Kali Yuga began in the year 3101 B.C.E. Everything we currently regard as humanity’s great achievements, everything we consider the defining characteristic of contemporary human culture, is linked to this dark age. Before this age, before this dark age or Kali Yuga, all human thinking and all the powers of the human soul were, in a certain sense, organized differently. In that age before 3101—this is an average figure; development gradually shifted from one set of characteristics to another—what existed previously was what can be described as the last remnants of the ancient clairvoyance. In the course of human development, the ages follow one another: Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, Kali Yuga. The latter is of particular interest to us today. With the earlier ages, we go back to ancient Atlantis. And remnants of the old clairvoyance were still present in ancient times, so that before the dark age, human beings still had a direct awareness of the existence of a spiritual world, because they could look into the spiritual world. This awareness of the spiritual world, so to speak, receded more and more from human perception, and on average, we can say, the faculties and powers began to develop which, on the one hand, limit human judgment to the sensory world and, on the other hand, develop human self-consciousness. All these powers begin in the Kali Yuga. And while human beings were unable to look into the spiritual worlds during this age, the firm point within their inner being developed all the more within the physical-sensory world; that which we call the knowledge of self-consciousness developed. But do not believe that this knowledge of self-consciousness is already developed to a high degree; it must first develop further and further. But it could never have entered human consciousness if this dark age had not existed. Thus, in the three millennia before the founding of Christianity, humanity lost more and more of its connection with the spiritual world. From his immediate perception, he did not have it.

[ 5 ] During my last visit here, we saw how, at its conclusion, the first millennium brought about a kind of substitute for insight into the spiritual worlds—a substitute given to humanity through the selection of a particular individual, Abraham, who possessed a special configuration in his physical brain, yet without whom the ancient abilities could not have led to an awareness of the spiritual world. That is why, in spiritual science, we prefer to call the first part of the Kali Yuga the Abrahamic Age—that age in which humanity loses the direct view into the higher spiritual worlds, but in which something akin to a consciousness of God begins to grow within them, gradually becoming more and more integrated into their ego, so that he increasingly conceives of God as related to the ego-consciousness, the human ego-consciousness. Just as the World-Ego, so does the Deity appear to that age, the first millennium of the Kali Yuga, which we may call the Abrahamic Age at its conclusion.

[ 6 ] This Abrahamic age was followed by the age of Moses, in which it is no longer the case, so to speak, that the God Yahweh, that the World-I, reveals Himself as a mysterious guide of human destinies, as the God of a single people; rather, as we know, this deity reveals Himself in the age of Moses in the burning bush as the God of the elements. And it was a great step forward when, based on the teachings of Moses, the World-I was perceived as the deity in such a way that people said to themselves: The elements of existence, that which is seen with the physical eyes—lightning and thunder and so on—are outpourings, are acts of the World-I, of the one and only World-I. - We must only make it quite clear to ourselves to what extent this was a step forward.

[ 7 ] If we go back beyond the Abrahamic era and beyond the Kali Yuga, we find that people perceive the spiritual realm through their direct insight into the spiritual worlds, which arises from the remnants of ancient clairvoyance. But they perceive this spiritual realm throughout all those ancient times. We would have to go far, far back if we wanted to find something else. People see this spiritual realm during the Dyapara Yuga, Treta Yuga, and Krita Yuga. They see this spiritual realm in such a way that it presents itself as a multitude of beings. You know, of course, that when we ascend into the spiritual worlds, we find the hierarchies of spiritual beings there. These are, of course, under spiritual guidance, under a unified spiritual guidance. But in those ancient times, consciousness did not extend to this unified spiritual guidance. People saw the individual members of the hierarchies; they saw a multitude of divine beings. To synthesize them into a unity—that was possible only for the initiates. Now, however, the World-I—which human beings first perceived through the physical instrument of the brain, a faculty that was particularly pronounced in Abraham—presented itself before them; now human beings perceived this World-I as manifesting itself in the various realms of nature, in the various elements.

[ 8 ] And another step forward was taken, so to speak, during the last millennium before the founding of Christianity, in the Solomonic era. We can thus distinguish the three millennia preceding the founding of Christianity in such a way that we call the first millennium, for example, the Abrahamic Age, based on the individuality that emerges there and influences the second. From the beginning of the Kali Yuga until Abraham, people prepared themselves to recognize the One God behind natural phenomena. With Abraham, this possibility arises. The One God becomes the guide of natural phenomena and is sought behind natural phenomena in the age of Moses.

[ 9 ] The whole then reaches a higher level in the Solomonic age. And through this latter era we are led to that point in development where the very same divine being who beheld the Abrahamic era in Yahweh, who beheld the Mosaic era again in Yahweh, takes on human form. For one must strictly hold fast to this in a spiritual-scientific consideration of the matter: the Gospels are correct in this regard. We must not distinguish the Christ from Yahweh any differently than we distinguish the sunlight reflected back to us by the moon from direct sunlight. What kind of light do we have on a moonlit night? It is genuine sunlight, only reflected back to us by the moon; so that we can have this sunlight directly during the day, or reflected back by the moon on moonlit nights. What appears in space in this way also appears in such a way that what was ultimately to appear as a spiritual sun in Christ previously manifested itself, so to speak, as a reflection. In Yahweh lies the reflection that precedes Christ in time. Just as the moonlight reflects the sunlight, so the Christ-being reflected itself back to Abraham, Moses, and Solomon. It was always the same being. It then appeared itself as the Christ-Sun precisely with the founding of Christianity. Thus we have the preparation for this great event in the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, and the Solomonic ages.

[ 10 ] Now, a repetition of these three ages—as they existed before the founding of Christianity—is taking place in the post-Christian era, but this time in reverse order. This repetition occurs in such a way that the essential character of the Solomonic Age in the first millennium after Christ is repeated, specifically so that the spirit of Solomon lives and works within the most outstanding spirits of the first Christian millennium. And it was, in essence, the wisdom of Solomon; it was that which had spread as the wisdom of Solomon, through which people sought to grasp the nature and essence of the Christ event. What had been learned from Solomonic wisdom was the means by which people sought to understand the significance of the Christ event.

[ 11 ] Then came the era that might be called the revival of the Age of Moses. The Age of Moses followed the Solomonic era after Christ. And as we enter the second millennium after Christ, it is the spirit of Moses that once again permeates the best of this age. Yes, we can find this spirit of Moses revived in a new form. Whereas in pre-Christian times the spirit of Moses looked out into the world of outer physical nature to find the World-I, the World-God as Yahweh, precisely as the World-I, to find it in lightning and thunder, to find it in that which can flow in from without as the great law of human action—just as the World-I flows in, as it were, from without to Moses, just as the World-I thus reveals itself, as it were, from without—so we find that in the second post-Christian age the same entity announces itself from within, within the soul. The impression that was there for Moses, so to speak, as an external event when he withdrew from his people to receive the Decalogue—this significant event repeats itself. It repeats itself in the second post-Christian millennium through a powerful inner revelation. Things do not repeat themselves in exactly the same way, but rather in such a way that what follows one another appears as a kind of polarity. Just as God had revealed himself to Moses through the elements of nature, so now, in the second post-Christian millennium, he revealed himself from the deepest depths of the human soul. And how could this confront us more magnificently than when we hear a significant and grandly conceived person preaching, preaching in such a way that one hears: He proclaims mighty things from the depths of his soul. One can assume that he is deeply imbued with what one might call Christian mysticism. Then, into the very same place where he preaches, comes a seemingly insignificant layman who at first listens to the sermons, but who then turns out to be someone who need not be a layman, but who can become the teacher of the preacher Tauler, who causes the preacher Tauler despite having reached such a height, to suspend his sermons for a while, because he does not yet feel fully imbued with that which lives in that layman. And when the same preacher, having been inspired, ascends the pulpit once more, the powerful impact of his sermon is symbolically expressed to us by the statement that many of his listeners fell down as if dead. That is to say, what was of the lower nature is put to death within them. It was a revelation of the World-I from within, with just as much power from within as in the second age before Christ with Moses from the elements. Thus we see the age of Moses revived there, and in such a way that the entire spirit of Christian mysticism, from Meister Eckhart up to the later Christian mystics, was permeated and lived through by this spirit of Moses. Oh, the spirit of Moses lived in these Christian mystics! It was present, so to speak, in such a way that it lived itself into their souls. That was the second age of the post-Christian era, in which the entire character of the Moses age, too, was resurrected. Just as in the first millennium of the post-Christian era the Solomonic age brought forth all the elaborations, so to speak, of the Christian view of the mysteries, developed, so to speak, the wisdom concerning the higher worlds in detail—everything we know, for example, in the Christian sense as the hierarchies—so, in particular, the second Moses era shaped what German mysticism was: the deep mystical consciousness of the God of Unity, who can be awakened in the human soul, who can rise again in the human soul.

[ 12 ] And this Age of Moses has remained active in everything that has sought, since that time, to explore ever more precisely the World-I, the God of Unity. But in accordance with the course of human development, from our own times onward—from those times in which we are slowly moving into the third millennium—a renewal of the Abrahamic Age is taking place. Just as the Abrahamic Age, the Mosaic Age, and the Solomonic Age followed one another in pre-Christian times, so do they follow one another in post-Christian times in reverse order: the Solomonic Age, the Mosaic Age, and the Abrahamic Age. We are moving toward this Abrahamic Age, and it must and will bring us something momentous. Let us just recall for a moment what the true significance of the Abrahamic Age actually was.

[ 13 ] The significance of the Abrahamic era was that, so to speak, the ancient clairvoyance had faded away, and that human beings were given a consciousness of God that is closely linked to human faculties. Everything that humanity could gain from this sense of God, which is bound to the human brain, has gradually been exhausted, and there is little left to be gained for humanity’s sense of God through these faculties—very little indeed. In contrast, we are taking the exact opposite path in the new Abrahamic age. We are taking the path that leads humanity once again out of mere physical-sensory perception, out of the combination of physical-sensory characteristics; we are taking the path that leads people back into those realms where they once were before the Abrahamic Age. We are taking the path that will allow people to re-enter states of natural clairvoyance, of natural clairvoyant powers. In the Kali Yuga era, it was, after all, only initiation that could lead one up into the spiritual worlds in a proper sense. Of course, initiation leads up to high levels that people will only be able to ascend to in the very distant future, but the first signs of a renewed clairvoyance—which will emerge as a natural human ability—will become apparent relatively soon, the more we move toward the renewal of the Abrahamic era.

[ 14 ] Once we have attained self-awareness, once people have come to realize that the self is a firm center within, they will be led outward again so that they may gain a deeper insight into the spiritual worlds. This is still connected to the era in which the Kali Yuga came to an end. The Kali Yuga lasts 5,000 years; it lasted until the year 1899. 1899 was indeed an important year for human development. This is, of course, an average year, for things happen gradually. But just as the year 3101 can be cited as the one in which humanity was led down from the old clairvoyance to sensory perception and intellectual judgment, so the year 1899 is the one in which humanity received a fresh impetus to ascend to the very beginnings of a future human clairvoyance. And it is destined for humanity, even in this 20th century standing on the threshold of the next millennium—indeed, for a few people even in the first half of this 20th century—to develop once more the first elements of a new clairvoyance, a clairvoyance that will most certainly arise in humanity if people prove capable of understanding this new clairvoyance. For we must be clear about this: two things could happen. It is already laid down in the depths of the human soul for the future that such clairvoyant abilities will emerge as natural abilities —we must distinguish between artificial clairvoyance and that clairvoyance which will emerge as natural clairvoyance—for a few people as early as the first half of the 20th century and, over the next 2,500 years, for ever more and more people, until finally there will be a sufficiently large number of people who, if they so desire, will attain the new natural clairvoyance.

[ 15 ] But two things could happen. One is that, although people possess the potential for this clairvoyance, materialism will prevail in the coming decades, and humanity will sink into a materialistic quagmire. Then, although individual people will emerge and say that it is as if they could see something within the physical human being—something like a second human being; but if materialistic consciousness leads to spiritual science being declared a folly and all awareness of the spiritual world being stamped out, then these very first predispositions will not be understood. It will depend on humanity itself whether what is about to unfold will turn out for good or for ill, for what is actually meant to come might pass unnoticed. Or the opposite might occur: that spiritual science is not suppressed. Then people will understand not only to cultivate such qualities in the secret schools of initiation, but also to nurture them when, like delicate sprouts of the human soul life, they appear around the middle of our century in this or that individual, who will then say, as if from an awakened soul power: I see something like a reality, as described in “Theosophy” as the second human being within the physical human being. But other soul capacities will also emerge, for example, a capacity that people will notice in themselves. They will, so to speak, perform some action. As they look up from it, something like a dream image will appear before their soul, of which they will know: This is connected in some way to my action. — And people will know from spiritual science: When such an afterimage of my action appears to me—which, however, differs quite significantly from this action—it is nothing other than a manifestation of the karmic effect of my action, which is to occur in the future.

[ 16 ] Such an understanding of karma will emerge for the individual by the middle of this century, because the Kali Yuga has come to an end and because new abilities continually arise in people from one epoch to the next. But if no understanding is fostered, if this ability is, so to speak, trampled underfoot, if those who speak of these abilities are locked up as fools, then this will turn to the detriment of humanity. People will degenerate in the materialistic swamp. It will depend entirely on whether an understanding of spiritual science is awakened, or whether the materialistic countercurrent—whether Ahriman—will succeed in striking back at what spiritual science does with good intentions. Then, of course, those who are suffocating in this materialistic swamp may come and say: Well, those were fine prophets who said that people would see a second human being alongside the physical one! Certainly, nothing will manifest if the capacities for it have been trampled to death. But if they do not manifest in the middle of the 20th century, that will not be proof that human beings are not predisposed to it, but only that people have trampled the young sprouts in the bud. What is said today is there and can develop, if only humanity wills it.

[ 17 ] We are thus on the very threshold of such a development. We are, so to speak, retracing the path of evolution. With Abraham, the consciousness of God was introduced into the brain; as we enter a new Abrahamic age, the consciousness of God is once again led out of the brain, and over the next 2,500 years we will increasingly encounter people who will possess what the sublime mysteries of initiation reveal as the great spiritual teachings of the mysteries of the worlds. Just as the spirit of Moses reigned in the past age up to our time, so now the spirit of Abraham begins to reign, in order, as it were, after having once led humanity into a consciousness of God within the sensory world, to lead humanity out of it again. For it is an eternal law of the world that, so to speak, every individuality must perform a certain deed periodically several times, above all twice—once as the opposite of the other. What Abraham, so to speak, brought down into physical consciousness for humanity, he will in turn carry up for them into the spiritual world.

[ 18 ] Thus we see that we are living in significant, crucial times, and we come to realize that spreading spiritual science today is not merely something one does out of personal preference, but something that our times demand. Preparing humanity for major moments of development is one of the tasks of spiritual research. Spiritual science exists so that people may know what they are seeing. Anyone who is sincere about their era cannot help but realize that spiritual knowledge must come into the world so that what is to come does not pass humanity by unnoticed.

[ 19 ] But these things are also linked to others. In certain other contexts, everything is renewed in such a similar repetition. We are moving toward a time in which more and more of what existed in the pre-Christian centuries is to be renewed for humanity, but everything will be steeped in what humanity has been able to gain through the great Christ event. We have seen that humanity has now relived that great moment which Moses experienced through his impressions of the burning bush and the lightning on Mount Sinai, this time in Christian innerization. For now it is clear to the Tauler and Eckhart: when what Moses called Yahweh dawns upon them from within, it is the Christ; it is no longer the reflected Christ-essence, but directly the Christ who rises from the depths of the heart. It is, so to speak, directly relived in a Christianized form, in a form transformed by the Christ impulse, by the Christian mystics, that which was experienced by Moses. And in a transformed, new form, that which was, so to speak, experienced in the pre-Christian, Abrahamic era will be experienced. And what will that be? All the things and events that, so to speak, normally occur in human development—all of these cast their light ahead, as it were. I do not wish to repeat the triviality that is often spoken of; I do not wish to say “cast their shadows,” but rather “cast their light.” Thus, in a certain sense, something of future events is cast ahead in the light in what we call the conversion of Saul to Paul: in the event at Damascus.

[ 20 ] Let us consider what this event meant for Paul. Up until this event, Paul was, so to speak, familiar with everything that was characteristic of the ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings. What did Paul know? From his knowledge of the ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings, Paul knew that one day an individual would descend who would represent to humanity the one who would overcome death. He knew: An individuality would one day appear in the flesh; through its life, this individuality would demonstrate that the spirit lives beyond death in such a way that death, for this very individuality within its earthly incarnation, means nothing more than another physical event. He knew this. And he knew something else from his ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings. He knew that when the Christ who was to come, the Messiah, had been present in the flesh, when he would have risen, having, so to speak, triumphed over death, then the spiritual sphere of the Earth would have changed, and clairvoyance would have undergone a transformation. Whereas previously a clairvoyant had not seen the Christ-being in the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth—he could only see it by gazing upon the Sun-spirit—Paul knew that through the Christ-impulse, a change would have to occur in earthly existence such that, after the victory over death, the Christ would be found in the Earth-sphere by the clairvoyant consciousness. Thus, when a person becomes clairvoyant, they must see Christ in the earthly sphere as the active Earth Spirit. But what Paul could not convince himself of, when he was still Saul, was that the one who had lived in Palestine and died on the cross—of whom his disciples said he had risen—was truly the one of whom the ancient Hebrew mystery teachings had spoken. The significant point is that Paul was not convinced by what he physically saw of what is recounted in the Gospels. He only began to be convinced that Christ was also the foretold Messiah when that light, which had been foreshadowed, appeared to him, when, as if by a grace from above, he became clairvoyant and discovered Christ in the earthly sphere. So he must have been there already; he must have risen already, he had to tell himself. Because Paul himself had seen Christ clairvoyantly in the spiritual sphere of the earth, he knew: Now he is here. - From that moment on, the conviction regarding Christ Jesus was present within him. Thus, the fundamental event was that he clairvoyantly discovered Christ Jesus in the earthly sphere during the event at Damascus. So if, for example, Paul had not been able to hear the deeds of Christ Jesus recounted in Palestine, if he had not been able to hear the Gospels from personal experience, but had lived a little later, it might have been that he would have experienced this Christ event of Damascus only later. But then he would have come to the same conviction. For this event revealed to him the fact: Christ was there! And the one who reveals himself in the earthly sphere—that is the one of whom the ancient Hebrew esoteric teaching speaks! —This Christ event is not bound to a specific point in time. It occurred very quickly for Paul [after the Mystery of Golgotha], so that Christianity could take its course through Paul.

[ 21 ] However, during the Kali Yuga, which lasted until 1899, human development had not yet reached a stage where a person could simply experience a Paul-like conversion out of the blue. Human capacities had not yet matured to that point. That is why some experienced it as a grace. And others experienced similar events through grace as well. But now we are in that age when that powerful transformation is to take place, when the first seeds of natural clairvoyance are developing. We are entering the Abrahamic age; we are being led out into the spiritual world. This makes it possible for a certain number of people—and for more and more people over the next 2,500 years—to relive the Damascus experience. And this will be the great, the mighty aspect of the coming age: that for many people the Damascus experience will be revived, that for those with the abilities just mentioned—which are said to be emerging—Christ, who once dwelt in the spiritual sphere of the Earth, will become perceptible, will shine forth. As people become capable of seeing the etheric body, they will learn to see the etheric body of Christ Jesus, just as Paul saw it. This is what begins as the defining characteristic of a new age, and what will already manifest among the first forerunners of humanity with these abilities between 1930 and 1940–45. If people are attentive, they will experience this Damascus event and, through it, clarity and truth about the Christ event through direct spiritual vision.

[ 22 ] And a strange parallelism of events will unfold. For in the next two decades, people will increasingly stray from the letter of the Gospels; they will no longer understand them. We can already see today how trivialists everywhere “prove” to people, using the Gospels, that these are not historical documents, that one cannot invoke a historical Christ at all. Historical documents will lose their value for humanity; the number of those who deny Christ Jesus will grow ever larger. And only short-sighted are those people who will be able to believe that the matter can still be upheld by mere history. It is not those who are sincere about Christianity who reject an understanding of the spiritual proof of Christ Jesus. The spiritual proof of Christ Jesus will be provided by nurturing people’s abilities so that they may behold the truly existing Christ in His etheric body. For, in essence, no matter how good Christians those who rely solely on documents may call themselves, they are destroying Christianity; no matter how much they may rant and no matter how loudly they may proclaim what they know about Christianity from the documents, they are destroying Christianity because they reject a spiritual teaching through which, in our century, Christ will become the truth for humanity through vision.

[ 23 ] By the time our calendar began, humanity had already been descending into the dark age for more than three millennia, relying solely on its external abilities. At that time, the Christ could not have revealed the abilities necessary for human development in any other way than through physical incarnation. At that time, physical abilities were at their peak, so the Christ had to appear in a physical body. But humanity would not have advanced a single step if it had not become capable of finding the reality of the Christ in higher worlds through higher abilities. Just as the Christ had to be found with mere physical abilities back then, so will people find the Christ with their newly developed abilities in that world where only etheric bodies are seen. For there is no second physical incarnation of the Christ. He was in a physical body only once, because human faculties were required to have Christ in a physical body only once. Now, however, with their higher faculties, they will be able to perceive the all the more real etheric body of Christ.

[ 24 ] This is what one might call the momentous event that lies ahead of us: the reappearance of Christ Jesus—gradually, first to a few, then to more and more people. It is an event that is not only significant for those people who will still be incarnated in the flesh at that time. A number of people who are incarnated today will still be incarnated at the time when this Christ event occurs. They will experience it just as it has been described. Others will have passed through the gate of death. But, as we once saw in a lecture here, that the event of Golgotha was not merely an event for the physical world, but had an effect extending into all spiritual worlds—just as the descent of Christ into the underworld was a real fact—so the Christ event that will take place in our century will have an effect into the world between death and a new birth as well, albeit in a different form than what human beings will find here on earth. But one thing will be necessary: those abilities through which one will be able to perceive the Christ event between death and a new birth—these cannot be acquired between death and a new birth; they must be acquired here on the physical plane; they must be brought along into the life between death and a new birth. There are indeed abilities that must be acquired on Earth. For we have not been placed on the physical Earth in vain. Anyone who believes that we have been placed on Earth in vain is mistaken. We must acquire abilities there that we cannot acquire in any other world. And the abilities to understand the Christ event, of which we have spoken, and the events that follow—these must be acquired here on this Earth. And those people who are now acquiring these abilities here on Earth through the proclamation of spiritual science will carry these abilities through the gate of death. It is not merely through initiation, but through the understanding acceptance of the proclamation of spiritual science that one acquires the abilities, the possibility, to perceive the Christ event even in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. But those who turn a deaf ear must wait until their next incarnation to acquire here the abilities that must be acquired here, so that they may experience the Christ event there. Thus, no one should in any way believe that the proclamation of the Christ event—which can only be understood within the context of the entire spiritual scientific teaching—will bear no fruit for them, since by the time it occurs, they will have already passed through the gate of death. It will bear fruit for them.

[ 25 ] Thus we see that spiritual research is the precursor to a new Christ event. But those who take the essence of the spiritual teaching into themselves as the substance of their entire soul life, as living reality, will then truly grow toward a spiritual understanding of the matter; they will then realize that through spiritual science they must learn to thoroughly understand our newly awakening age. We must learn to understand that in the future we are not to seek the most important events on the physical plane, but outside the physical plane, such as the Christ, whom we will have to seek as an etheric form in the spiritual world upon his return.

[ 26 ] What has just been said will be repeated over and over again in the coming decades. But there will be people who misunderstand this, who will say: So the Christ is to return! — Because they will bring into this view the belief that this is a physical return, they will provide fuel for all those who will appear as false messiahs. And there will be plenty of such people in the middle of the 20th century who will exploit people’s materialistic beliefs, who will exploit people’s materialistic thinking and feeling, in order to pass themselves off as the Christ. There have always been false messiahs. Take, for example, the era before the Crusades, when a false messiah appeared in southern France, in whom his followers saw something like Christ embodied in a physical body. Before that, a false messiah had appeared in Spain and found many followers. In North Africa, one who claimed to be the Christ caused a great stir. In the 17th century, a man appeared in Smyrna as the Christ and drew immense crowds. His name was Sabbatai Zevi. People made pilgrimages to him from Poland, Hungary, Austria, Spain, Germany, France, from all over Europe, and from large parts of Africa and Asia. In past centuries, this was not so serious, for humanity had not yet, so to speak, been required to distinguish the true from the false. Only now are we in an age where it could prove disastrous if people were to fail the spiritual test. Those who know that human capacities continue to evolve will pass this test—those who realize that the individuals who had to see the Christ in the physical realm were, in fact, only required to see him in that way during the founding of Christianity, but that humanity would not progress unless it were to rediscover the Christ in a higher form in our own century. And those striving for spiritual science will have to prove themselves to be those who can distinguish the false Messiahs from the one and only Messiah, who does not appear in the flesh but as a spiritual being to the newly awakened faculties. And the time will come when people will once again look into the spiritual world and see the land from which flow the streams that provide true spiritual nourishment for all that happens in the physical world.

[ 27 ] We have always seen that, through the clairvoyance of old, it was possible for people to glimpse into this spiritual world. The Eastern scriptures also contain, within their tradition, something akin to a legacy of an ancient spiritual realm into which people were once able to look, from which they could draw everything that could flow into the physical world from the supersensible. Many descriptions of that realm—which people were once able to reach and which seems to have withdrawn—are filled with melancholy. This realm was indeed once accessible to people, and it will be accessible to them again now that Kali Yuga, the dark age, has come to an end. Initiation, however, has always led into it, and for those who have received initiation, there has always been the possibility of directing their steps into that mysterious land that withdrew during the Kali Yuga—a land spoken of as having vanished from the realm of human experience. Moving are those writings that speak of this ancient land. It is the same land where the initiates repeatedly make their retreat in order to draw from there the new currents and inspirations for all that is to be given to humanity from century to century. Time and again, those who are connected to the spiritual world in this way make their retreat into this mysterious land, which is called “Shamballa.” It is the primordial source into which the clairvoyant gaze has reached—a gaze that has withdrawn during the Kali Yuga—of which one speaks as of an ancient fairy-tale land, but which will return to the realm of humanity. Shamballa will exist again once the Kali Yuga has come to an end. Humanity will once again grow into the land of Shambhala through normal human abilities, from which the initiates must draw strength and wisdom for their mission. Shambhala exists, Shambhala existed, Shambhala will be there again for humanity. And among the first things people will behold when Shambhala reveals itself again will be the Christ in his etheric form. There is no other guide for humanity into the land declared lost by the Oriental scriptures than the Christ. The Christ will lead people to Shamballa.

[ 28 ] This is what we should take to heart: what humanity can become if it understands the symbol mentioned yesterday in the right sense. If humanity understands that it must not sink any deeper into the material world, that it must turn back, that a spiritual life must begin, then—first for a few, then —in 2,500 years—for more and more people, the land of Shamballa, interwoven with light and radiant with it, brimming with infinite abundance of life, filling our hearts with wisdom. This is what must be described as an event—for those who wish to understand, for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see—that marks the greatest turning point in the evolution of humanity at the dawn of the Abrahamic Age following the founding of Christianity. It will be the event through which people will come to understand the Christ impulse to a greater degree. For the peculiar thing will be that wisdom will lose nothing through this. The more visions people attain, the greater Christ will appear to them, the more majestic he will appear to them! Only when people are able to cast their gaze into Shamballa will they be able to regain insight into much of what is indeed contained in the Gospels, though for this people will need a kind of Damascus experience to be able to recognize what is given in the Gospels. Thus, in that time when people will be most skeptical of the records, the new confession of faith in Christ Jesus will arise through our growing into the realm where we will first encounter him: through our growing into the mysterious land of Shamballa.