The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] What we mentioned yesterday regarding the elevation of the two aspects of initiation to the level of world-historical events in the Christ event also reveals, when fully understood, the very essence of this Christ event.

[ 2 ] An initiation or consecration that consisted of the human being, as it were, undergoing the daily experience of waking up in such a way that, upon descending into the physical body and etheric body, the faculty of perception is not diverted to the external physical environment, but is aroused to the processes of the etheric body and physical body; we had, in fact, provided this kind of initiation particularly in all the mystery schools and initiation sites based on the sacred culture of Egypt. Those who sought such an initiation in the old sense—that is, in the sense that they were guided and led through it so that the dangers arising during such an initiation might be overcome— were thereby placed in a certain relationship to other people—to those who, during the act of initiation, could look into the spiritual world, initially into those spiritual forces and beings that are involved in our physical and etheric bodies.

[ 3 ] If we now wish to characterize the Essene initiation from this perspective, we can say: When an Essene passed through the forty-two stages described and thereby attained a more precise knowledge of his true inner self, his true ego-nature, and all that enables human beings to see through the external organs determined by heredity, such an Essene was led beyond the forty-two stages to that spiritual-divine Being who, as Yahweh or Jehovah, brought about the organ I described to you in connection with Abraham; he then saw this in the spirit as the organ that was essential for that time. The Essene thus looked back upon the inner, essential structure of the human inner being, which was, after all, a result of this divine-spiritual being. The aim of such an initiation was therefore the knowledge of the human inner being.

[ 4 ] I gave you a general description yesterday of what lies ahead for a person who is able to penetrate into their inner self unprepared. I said that, at first, all forms of egoism awaken within the human being—everything that leads a person to say to themselves: All the forces within me, all the passions and emotions connected to my ego that want nothing to do with the spiritual world—I want to have them within me in such a way that I can connect with them and act, perceive, and feel solely from my own egoistic inner self! - So this is the danger: that a person grows to the highest degree of egoism through such a descent into their inner self. This is also what repeatedly comes over those who, even today, seek to make this descent into their own inner self through esoteric development—as a certain kind of illusion. On such occasions, various forms of egoism assert themselves in the human being; and once they are present, the person generally does not believe at all that these are egoisms. In fact, they would believe anything rather than that these are egoisms. The path to the higher worlds is, after all, sufficiently described as one that, even when sought in our time, requires overcoming obstacles. And some of those people who, even in our time, would like to ascend the path to the higher worlds but do not wish to make such efforts—who would indeed like to look into the higher worlds but do not want to experience what actually leads to them—find it repeatedly uncomfortable to see all manner of things arise within themselves that are simply part of human nature. They wish to ascend to the higher worlds without this surfacing of all manner of egoisms and the like. They do not realize that it is often precisely in this that the harshest, the most significant egoism reveals itself—that dissatisfaction asserts itself with what actually occurs as something quite ordinary, and about which they should ask themselves: Must I not, since I am a human being, also summon all manner of such forces? They find it strange that such things exist, even though it has been explained a hundred and a hundred times that such things occur at a certain time. I merely wish to point out the illusions and deceptions to which certain people give themselves over. In our time, it must also be taken into account that humanity has, in a certain sense, become comfortable and would prefer to ascend to the higher worlds with the same comfort that one otherwise cherishes in ordinary life. But such comforts, as one readily creates them in the ordinary spheres of existence, cannot be created on the path that is meant to lead into the spiritual worlds.

[ 5 ] Now, anyone who in ancient times had found this path into the spiritual world by undergoing the initiation that leads into the inner being of the human being was, because the inner being of the human being is created by divine-spiritual powers, thereby led into those divine-spiritual powers. One then sees the divine-spiritual forces at work in the physical body and the etheric body. Such a person became qualified to be a witness, a herald of the mysteries of the spiritual world. He could tell his fellow human beings what he had gone through while being led into his own inner being through the mysteries and thereby into the spiritual world. But what was involved in this? When such an initiate emerged from the spiritual worlds, he could say: There I have looked into spiritual existence; but I was helped! The initiator’s assistants made it possible for me to endure the time during which the demons of my own nature would otherwise have oppressed me. - But because he owed his insight into the spiritual world to such external assistance, he remained dependent throughout his life on this initiatory college, on those who had helped him. The forces that had helped him went out into the world with him.

[ 6 ] That was to change. That was to be overcome. Those who were to be initiated were to become less and less dependent on those who were their teachers and initiators. For this assistance was linked to something else, something essential. In our everyday consciousness, we have a very distinct sense of self that awakens at a certain point in our existence. This has been discussed many times before, and you will also find in my *Theosophy* a description of the moment when a human being comes to address themselves as a self. This is something an animal cannot do. If the animal were to look into its inner self as the human does, it would not find an individual “I,” but a species “I,” a group “I”: it would feel itself to belong to an entire group. This sense of “I” was, in a certain sense, extinguished in the ancient initiations. So as the human being entered the spiritual worlds, their sense of self became clouded, and if you take everything I have said into account, you will find it understandable that this was a good thing. For it is the sense of self, after all, to which all the egoisms, passions, and so on are linked, which seek to separate the human being from the outer world. If one did not wish to drive the passions and emotions to a certain intensity, the sense of self had to be suppressed. It was therefore not a dream-consciousness, but rather a state of suppressed sense of self that was present during the initiations in the ancient mysteries. However, the aim was increasingly to enable the human being to undergo initiation while fully maintaining their ego—that very ego which the human being carries with them in waking consciousness from the moment of waking until falling asleep. That clouding of the ego, as it was always associated with initiation in the ancient mysteries, was to cease. This is something that, of course, can only be achieved slowly and gradually over time, but which is already being achieved to a much greater degree in all legitimate initiations today: that the sense of the ego does not fade to a significant extent when the human being ascends into the higher worlds.

[ 7 ] Let us now take a closer look at such an ancient initiation, for example, an Essene initiation from pre-Christian times. This Essene initiation, too, was connected in a certain way to the fact that the sense of self was subdued. That which gives human beings their sense of self in our earthly existence—that which looks out toward external perceptions—had to be suppressed back then as well. You need only look at the most trivial aspects of everyday life to realize: In that different state, where the human being is in the spiritual world during sleep consciousness, they do not have a sense of self; they have it only in waking consciousness, when they are distracted from the spiritual world and their gaze turns out into the physical-sensory world. This is the case with the present-day human being on Earth, and also with the human being for whom Christ worked on Earth. For the other world, the ego of the human being of the present Earth age is not awakened at all under normal conditions. Now, a Christ initiation is to consist precisely in the ego remaining awakened in the higher worlds just as it is awakened in the outer world.

[ 8 ] Now, just so we can describe it, let’s take a very close look at the moment of waking up. This moment appears to us as the human being emerging from a higher world and sinking into their physical and etheric bodies. At this moment of immersion, however, they do not see the inner processes of the physical body and etheric body; rather, their powers of perception are, as it were, diverted toward their surroundings. Now everything upon which the human being’s gaze falls at the moment of waking, everything the human being surveys—whether through the physical perception of the eyes or the physical perception of the ears, or whether they reflect upon it with the intellect bound to the physical organ of the brain— everything that he perceives in the physical environment—this was referred to in the terminology of ancient Hebrew esotericism as “the Kingdom,” Malchuth. So we might ask: What, then, was associated with the term “the Kingdom” in ancient Hebrew usage? Everything with which the human ego could consciously dwell was associated with it. This is also the most precise definition of what was associated with the term “the Kingdom” in ancient Hebrew: that in which the human ego can be present. If we take this expression as our starting point, we must say: In ancient Hebrew usage, “the Kingdom” primarily refers to the sensory world, the world in which a human being exists in the waking state while fully maintaining their ego.

[ 9 ] Let us now consider the stages of initiation as we descend into our own inner being. The first stage, before a person can penetrate their etheric body and perceive its mysteries, is something that is easy to guess. As we know, the outer shell of the human being consists of the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. This is yet another thing the human being must pass through: he must, so to speak, consciously look through his astral body from within if he wishes to experience this kind of initiation. First, they must experience the interior of their astral body if they wish to descend into the interior of their physical body and etheric body. This is the gateway through which they must pass. Yet these are always new experiences through which they must pass. There, the human being also experiences something that is objective, just as the objects of the external world are objective.

[ 10 ] If we refer to the objects of the sensory world around us—which we experience through our present human constitution—as “the realm,” then, according to our usage of language—ancient Hebrew usage did not yet distinguish this so precisely—we could further distinguish three realms: the mineral realm, the plant realm, and the animal realm. In ancient Hebrew usage, all of this is “a kingdom” and is summarized under the single concept of “the kingdom” as the totality of the three kingdoms.

[ 11 ] Just as we take in the animals, plants, and minerals when we turn our gaze outward toward the sensory world, where our ego can be present, so too does the gaze of one who dives down into their own inner being fall upon everything they can perceive in the astral body. The human being does not see this through his ego, but rather the ego makes use of the tools of the astral body. And what the human being sees when he possesses this different faculty of perception—where he is present with his ego in that world with which he is connected through the astral organs—is already described by ancient Hebrew usage with three terms. Just as we have an animal, a plant, and a mineral kingdom, so ancient Hebrew terminology designates the triad that one surveys through one’s presence in the astral body as Nezach, Yesod, and Hod.

[ 12 ] If one were to translate these three expressions into our language in a reasonably accurate manner, one would have to delve deeply into the linguistic sensibility of ancient Hebrew; for the usual lexical translations found in dictionaries are of no help here. If one were to understand what is at stake here, one would have to rely heavily on the linguistic sensibility of the pre-Christian era. For example, one would have to consider above all that what we can designate by the sound structure “Hod” would express “the spiritual manifesting itself outwardly.” So please note: this word would mean a spiritual quality that manifests itself outwardly, a spiritual quality striving outward, but one that must be understood as astral. In contrast, the word Nezach would express this desire to reveal itself outwardly with a significantly coarser nuance. What manifests itself there is something to which we might apply the word “impenetrable.”

[ 13 ] If you pick up a physics textbook today, you will find what is presented as a statement but should actually be a definition—though logic is not really the point here—namely, the definition that physical bodies are described as impenetrable. It should actually be stated as a definition: A physical body is one such that, at the point where it is, no other body can be present at the same time. So it should be given as a definition. Instead, a dogma is established and it is said: The bodies of the physical world have the property of being impenetrable. — whereas it should be stated that two bodies cannot be in one place at the same time. But this is something that actually belongs to philosophy. Manifesting oneself in space in such a way that the exclusion of another takes place—which would be the highly simplified nuance of Hod—is expressed by the word Nezach. And what lies in between is expressed by Yesod.

[ 14 ] Thus you have three distinct nuances. First, the manifestation of any astral reality that reveals itself outwardly, in Hod. Where the matter has already become so coarse that things approach us with physical impenetrability, there would be Nezach according to ancient Hebrew usage. And for the intermediate nuance, Yesod would have to be used. Thus we can say that the three distinct characteristics with which the beings of the astral world are indeed endowed are designated by these three words.

[ 15 ] Now we can, so to speak, delve a little deeper into the human inner being together with the initiate. Once he has crossed the threshold that must first be crossed in his astral body, he enters his etheric body. There, the human being already perceives something higher than what can be described by these three words. You may ask, why something higher? This is connected to something special, and you must pay attention to this if you wish to understand the actual inner structure of the world. You must realize that, just as the outer world appears to us, the highest spiritual forces have been at work in what appears to us as the lowest manifestations of the external world. I have already drawn your attention to what is at stake here on several occasions, namely in our discussion of human nature itself.

[ 16 ] When we describe human beings, they consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an ego. Certainly, the human ego is, in a certain sense, the highest of these components; but as it is today, it is the infant among the four components of human nature. It is what contains within the human being the potential for the highest state he can attain, yet it is currently at the lowest stage of its kind. In contrast, the physical body is, in its own way, the most perfect component—though not through the human being’s own merit, but because divine-spiritual beings have worked upon humanity throughout the Saturn, Sun, and Moon eras. And the astral body, too, has already become more perfect than the human ego. So when we first look at the human ego, it is that which is closest to us, with which we identify. And one may say: Anyone who is not too trivial and does not wish to close their eyes need only look within, and there they will find their ego. In contrast, consider this: How far removed is the human being from the mysteries of the human physical body! The physical body is something on which divine-spiritual beings have worked—not merely for millions of years, but for millions of millions of years—to bring it to its present structure. Between these lie the astral body and the etheric body. The astral body is also, in relation to the physical body, an imperfect aspect of human nature; within it lie emotions, passions, desires, and so on. And through the emotions of the astral body, even though the etheric body stands as a barrier in between, human beings indulge in many things that directly work against the marvelous organization of the human physical body. I have pointed out how many poisons for the heart, for example, a person consumes; how, if it were up to their astral body, they would very soon undermine their health; and how they owe their health solely to the fact that the human heart is so wonderfully and perfectly organized that it withstands the attacks of the astral body for many decades. That is how it is. The deeper we descend, the higher spiritual forces we find that have worked upon the individual members. One might say: It is the youngest gods, the youngest divine-spiritual forces, who have given us our ego; and it is much older gods who have brought about in our lower members that perfection which human beings today are barely beginning to comprehend, let alone being capable of reproducing with their tools what the divine-spiritual forces and beings have accomplished for humanity in this marvelous structure.

[ 17 ] This perfection, however, was seen especially by those who, for example, had entered the inner human being through an Essene initiation. Such an Essene would say to himself: When I pass through the first fourteen stages, I first enter my astral body. There I am confronted by all the passions and emotions connected with my astral body, everything I myself have done wrong to my astral body during my incarnation. But I have not yet been able to corrupt my etheric body as much as I have the astral body. My etheric body is, in essence, still much more divine, much purer; it reveals itself to me as I pass through the second fourteen steps. — And he had the feeling: if he has withstood the temptations of the astral body, he has overcome the hardest part after the first fourteen steps and now enters the luminous spheres of his etheric body, whose powers he has not yet been able to corrupt so much.

[ 18 ] What the human being saw there was described in the ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings using three terms that are, once again, extremely difficult to render in our modern languages; they were called Gedulah, Tiphereth, and Geburah. Let us try to form a conception of the three realms designated by these three terms.

[ 19 ] If a person were to perceive that with which they connect in their etheric body, we could say, for example, that the first word, Gedulah, had the effect of giving one a sense of all that appears majestic and grand in the spiritual realm, in the spiritual world—that which makes an overwhelming impression. In contrast, what is designated by Geburah, although related to the first word, had a quite different nuance of greatness; it had the nuance of greatness diminished by its effect. Geburah is the nuance of greatness, of power, that already manifests itself outwardly in order to defend itself, to assert itself as an independent entity. While the term Gedulah is associated with action arising from inner solidity, from inner being, the term Geburah is associated with a kind of action that can be described as aggressive, manifesting itself outwardly through aggressive conduct. That inner repose of greatness, of inner life, which does manifest itself outwardly, but not through an aggressive nature, rather by expressing within itself spiritual greatness—this was designated by Tiphereth, which we could only convey if we combined our two concepts of goodness and beauty. A being that expresses its inner nature in such a way that its inner nature is manifested in the outer form appears beautiful to us. And a being that expresses its own inner solidity outwardly appears good to us. But in the ancient Hebrew esoteric teaching, these two concepts belong together in Tiphereth. Thus, it was the beings who reveal themselves through these three qualities with whom one established a relationship upon descending into the etheric body.

[ 20 ] Then came the descent into the physical body. In the physical body, human beings became acquainted, so to speak, with the most ancient divine-spiritual beings who had worked upon them. Recall how, as described in the reports “From the Akashic Records” and in “Outlines of Esoteric Science,” the first rudiments of the physical body came into being on ancient Saturn. It is high, exalted spiritual beings—the Thrones—who sacrificed their own substance of will so that the first rudiment of the human physical body could come into being. It is high spiritual beings who, in the further development through Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon, cooperate in this first rudiment. And in the lectures in Munich on the “Six Days of Creation,” I mentioned how these sublime spiritual beings remained connected to humanity throughout the Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods, organizing this first rudiment of the human physical body ever further and higher, so that the present-day marvel of the physical body came into being, which humanity can now inhabit together with the other three members of the being: the etheric body, astral body, and ego.

[ 21 ] If a person could truly look deep within themselves, they would perceive what the ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings described as possessing qualities that can only be imagined in a human being when they think, for example, of the highest level of wisdom they can attain in their soul. Human beings look up to wisdom, so to speak, as to an ideal. They feel their being uplifted when they can partially fulfill it with wisdom. Those who plunged into the physical body knew that they were approaching beings who, in their entire substantiality, were that of which a human being can acquire only a small, a meager portion when striving for wisdom—the wisdom that is not attained through ordinary external knowledge, but through that knowledge that is attained through the soul’s profound experiences, and which one does not acquire during a single incarnation, but through many incarnations, and even then only in part. For only a complete immersion in all possibilities of wisdom could grant full possession of wisdom. Human beings perceived those beings who manifested themselves as beings of wisdom, whose particularly prominent characteristic was a profoundly pure wisdom. And the quality of such beings of wisdom was designated in the ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings as Chochmah, which today is not entirely inaccurately referred to as wisdom.

[ 22 ] A particular nuance of this quality of wisdom is, once again, a certain coarsening. This is what constitutes a coarsening of wisdom in human beings as well. However, human beings attain it only to a very limited degree within their individuality. Here, however, upon descending into the physical body, human beings encounter beings who possess this quality—which is a coarser counterpart to wisdom and was designated as Binah in the ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings—to such a prominent degree that they appear as beings who shine entirely through this quality. This is what can be brought forth in a human being when one reminds them of their intellect. For a human being truly attains intellect only to a certain limited degree. But we must think of beings who are entirely permeated by what the intellect attains when considering what is meant by Binah. This, however, is a coarser nuance of Chochmah. Therefore, the ancient Hebrew esoteric teaching, when speaking of the true, creatively productive wisdom that brings forth the mysteries of the world within itself—when referring to Chochmah—says that it is comparable to a stream of water, while Binah is comparable to an ocean. This was intended to express the coarsening.

[ 23 ] And the highest state one could attain upon descending into the physical body was called Kether. It is difficult to find a term that adequately conveys the meaning of this word. One can only symbolically point to that quality which reveals itself, like a premonition, of the qualities of high, sublime, spiritual-divine beings. This quality is therefore also designated by a symbol through which the human being is elevated above himself and signifies more than he can actually signify, in order to express the loftiness of this quality: with a crown. Let us therefore translate it in this way.

Binah	Hokhmah	Keter
Geburah	Tipheret	Gedulah
Netzah	Yesod	Hod
	Malkhut, the Kingdom, I

[ 24 ] We have thus outlined a series of characteristics of those entities into whose realm a person ascends when they descend into their own inner self. It is a process of ascending. And you can imagine an Essene initiation as a process in which a person gains entirely new experiences, has entirely new encounters, and becomes acquainted with what is truly designated as such qualities.

[ 25 ] But what, in particular, needed to be said about an Essene initiate and the nature of Essene initiation, as contrasted with the initiation practices of neighboring peoples? What aspects were of particular significance?

[ 26 ] All ancient initiations were designed to suppress precisely that sense of self which a person experiences when surveying Malchuth, the Kingdom. That had to be eradicated. Therefore, one can say: It was not possible to be human in initiation in the same way that one is human in the physical world. Although one was led up into the spiritual world, one could not be human in the same way as one is in the physical world. A clear distinction must therefore be drawn, particularly in the case of the ancient initiations, between what the initiate experiences and the way he felt in his sense of self.

[ 27 ] And if one were to summarize in a single sentence what the ancient initiation represented in the ancient mystery schools, as it was understood by the public, one would have to say: No one should believe that he can retain the same sense of self that he has in the realm of Malchuth if he wishes to become an initiate. He experiences, in a truly magnificent way as he ascends, the three times three qualities in their truth; but he must renounce what constitutes his sense of self, what is experienced in the outer world. What is experienced as Nezach, Yesod, Hod, and so on, cannot be carried down into the realm; it cannot remain connected to the ordinary human sense of self. - That was the general sentiment. And anyone who had contradicted this assertion in ancient times would have had to be regarded as a fool, a madman, and a liar.

[ 28 ] But it was the Essenes who first taught: The time will come when everything that is above can be brought down, so that human beings may experience it while still maintaining their sense of self. This is what the Greeks later called Βασιλεια τωυ ομραυωυ. It was first taught by the Essenes that one would come who would bring down that which is above, that which is in the “realms of heaven,” for the ego living in Malchuth, in the kingdom. And this was also what that Jeshu ben Pandira first taught his Essenes and some of those around him with powerful words. If we were to summarize his teaching in a few striking words, as it was passed on by his disciple Mathai for the time to come, it might go something like this:

[ 29 ] Jeshu ben Pandira first spoke from his inspiration, which came to him from the successor of Gautama Buddha, from the Bodhisattva who will one day become the Maitreya Buddha: Until now, it has been the case that the realms of the heavens could not be brought down into the realm of Malchuth, to which the Self belongs. But when the time is fulfilled, when the three times fourteen generations have passed, then one will be born from the tribe of Abraham, from the tribe of David—which we shall come to know as the tribe of Jesse—a one who will bring down the nine qualities of the realms of heaven into the realm where the I is present. - And what has been taught in this way led to the stoning of Yeshu ben Pandira as a blasphemer, because such a teaching was regarded as the worst blasphemy against the initiation by those who did not want to accept and did not want to realize that something which is once true for one period need not be true for another, because humanity is moving forward.

[ 30 ] Then came the time when what had been foretold was fulfilled, when the three times fourteen generations were truly complete, when that physical form could truly emerge from the blood of the people into which Zarathustra could incarnate, so that, after he had further developed it with the tools that were in the body of the Nathanite Jesus-child, he could sacrifice it to the Christ. The time had come of which the Forerunner of Christ could say: now comes the time when the “Kingdoms of Heaven” will approach the I that lives in the outer kingdom, in Malchuth.

[ 31 ] And now we will understand what the Christ, after having undergone the temptation, first had to set as his task. He had overcome the temptation through the power of his own inner being, through what we today call the “I” in human beings. He had succeeded in overcoming all the trials and temptations that confront a human being when he descends into the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. This is also clearly depicted. All forms of egoism are depicted, and in such a way that our attention is drawn to them to the highest degree throughout.

[ 32 ] What stands as a major obstacle for a person striving for esoteric development is that—as is quite natural when delving into one’s own inner self—a tendency emerges within their nature to focus almost exclusively on their own dear personality. In fact, nowhere is this more common than among those who wish to enter the spiritual world: they love nothing more than to talk about their own dear personality, which is the dearest thing to them, to which they pay constant attention, every hour and every minute, observing everything in minute detail. Whereas people otherwise live resolutely in the moment, when they begin not only to strive for spiritual development but even simply to become anthroposophists, they start to concern themselves intensely with their own ego; then illusions arise everywhere, which the resoluteness of life had previously allowed them to easily overlook.

[ 33 ] Why does this happen? Because people don’t quite know what to make of themselves when everything that rises up from within them connects with their very being. They don’t know how to handle it and become quite unfamiliar with themselves. In the past, they were attentive and easily drawn in by the external world. Now they are more distracted, more drawn inward, and all sorts of feelings that lay within them begin to surface. Why does this emerge? What they want now is to truly be “themselves,” to be truly independent of the outside world. However, he then often falls into the mistake of wanting, at first, to be treated like a child to whom everything is clearly explained. He wants to be everything—just not a person who sets his own direction and goals based on what he gains from the esoteric life. He is not yet accustomed to considering this. But he has the feeling that dependence on the outside world bothers him. And these disturbances are most acute precisely when one wants to be truly independent, when one must pay close attention to one’s ego. But if one truly wants to pursue the ego, then it is highly trivial that one cannot physically escape the environment through one thing: namely, the fact that people must eat! This is indeed highly trivial, but for many it is a fatal circumstance. One can learn from this how little we are without our environment. And it is a perfectly valid example of how we are dependent on our environment, without which we cannot live, and are just like a finger on the hand: if we cut it off, it withers away. Thus, a very trivial observation can show us how dependent we are on the environment.

[ 34 ] When this sense of self is stretched to its limit, it can transform into the desire: If only I could become independent of my surroundings and be able to conjure up for myself the very things that make me feel so dependent on my surroundings—the things I, as an ordinary person, need in physical life! This is indeed a desire that can arise in those who seek initiation. One can even develop a veritable hatred of being dependent on one’s surroundings and of not being able to conjure up food, of not simply being able to make it appear. It sounds so strange when one says it, because it is paradoxical that precisely those desires appear in a person which, on a small scale, do indeed arise quite quickly when he seeks development, but which are so absurd when presented in the extreme. People are not even aware that they have these desires on a small scale. Of course, no one has them to such an extent—because they are too attached to external habits—that they would succumb to the illusion of saying they could conjure up food through magic, or that they could live on something not taken from the external realm, from Malchuth. But taken to the extreme, it would be such that a person might believe: If only I had managed to live so fully in my astral body and I that I stood on my own desires, then I would no longer need the entire external world!

[ 35 ] This temptation occurs. And in the case of the one who had to endure it most intensely, it is characterized by the tempter who confronts Christ Jesus and tells him to turn the stones into bread. There you have the highest degree of temptation. Indeed, the descent into one’s own inner self in the story of the temptation is wonderfully described in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 4:1–11).

[ 36 ] Now, the second stage occurs after one has already entered one’s astral body and finds oneself truly confronted with all these emotions and passions that could very well turn one into a paradoxical egoist. When one feels confronted by this, one wants—without overcoming it, without resisting it—to plunge down into the etheric body and physical body. This is indeed a situation that can be described as a plunge into the abyss. This is also how it is described in the Gospel of Matthew: as a plunging into that which has not yet been able to corrupt one much—into the etheric body and physical body. But one should not fear it before overcoming the passions and emotions. The Christ-being knows this, and responds to the tempter by overcoming the opposition through its own power: “You shall not put to the test the being to whom you are to surrender yourself!” (Matt. 4:7).

[ 37 ] And the third stage in the descent into the physical body is as follows. When this descent takes the form of a temptation, it is characterized in a particular way. It is an experience that a person can indeed have during initiation, an experience that everyone must have when they reach the stage of descending into the physical body and etheric body, in which they see themselves, so to speak, from within. There they see everything that exists within the three highest qualities. To them, it is like a world. But at first it is a world that exists only in his own illusion, a world that he cannot see as inner truth unless he penetrates the shell of the physical body and ascends to the spiritual beings themselves, who are no longer in the physical body but work only within it. If we cannot free ourselves from egoism, then it is still the tempter of the physical world, Lucifer or Diabolus, who seeks to deceive us about ourselves. Then he promises us everything that stands in our way, which is nothing other than the creation of our own Maya, our own illusion. If this spirit of egotism does not release us, then we see an entire world, but a world of deception and lies; and it promises us this world. But we must not believe that it is a world of truth. We first enter this world; but we remain in Maya if we do not break free from this world again.

[ 38 ] These three stages of temptation serve as a model, as a pattern, for the Christ-consciousness of humanity. And once this is experienced outside the ancient mystery sites—experienced through the power of a being who lives within the three human bodies themselves—the impulse is given so that humanity may itself achieve something similar in the future course of evolution: that the human being, with the “I” through which they can exist in Malchuth, in the physical realm, may also ascend into the spiritual world. It was to be achieved that what separates the two worlds no longer exists, and that the human being can ascend into the spiritual worlds with the I that lives in Malchuth. This was achieved for humanity through the overcoming of temptation, as described in the Gospel of Matthew. It was achieved that now, in a being who lived on Earth, the archetype was present of the carrying of the “I” for the Kingdom into the higher realms and higher worlds.

[ 39 ] What, then, must have been the achievement of what the Christ-being, so to speak, exemplified in an external historical form—something that otherwise took place only behind the veil of the mysteries? It must have been the preaching of the Kingdom. And if the Gospel of Matthew appropriately begins by describing the temptation, it will go on to describe the phase of the ascent of the I, which can experience the spiritual world within itself and does not first need to step out of itself to do so. The mystery of this “I,” which ascends into the spiritual world according to the pattern of how one lives in the outer realm—this mystery was now to be revealed in the outer world through the Christ-being in those times that are described to us after the story of the temptation in the Gospel of Matthew has been shown to us. This is where the chapters begin that start with the Sermon on the Mount and thus present what Christ gave as the vision of the Kingdom, of Malchuth (Matt. 5–7).

[ 40 ] That is how deep you must look in the Gospel of Matthew. You must indeed seek the sources and elements of the Gospel of Matthew not only in the esoteric teachings of the Essenes, but in the entire ancient Hebrew and Greek world. Then we also come to feel that sacred awe, that sacred respect for such a document—the kind already spoken of in Munich—which one feels when, equipped with the findings of spiritual science, one approaches these documents that the seers have given us. When we hear such things spoken by the ancient seers, we feel how they speak to us from times long past. And it is as if a spiritual language is breaking through, a language through which the great individualities have guided one another through the centuries, so that those who wish to listen may do so. Admittedly, only those who understand the—including the Gospel—word: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matt. 11:15). But just as much was involved in the development of our physical ears, so much is involved in the development of our spiritual ears, through which we understand what is said in those great, mighty spiritual documents.

[ 41 ] This is precisely the purpose of our modern spiritual science: to help us learn once again to read the spiritual records. And only when we are thus equipped with an understanding of the I, of the essence of the I within the kingdom, will we be able to understand that chapter in the Gospel of Matthew which begins with the words: “Blessed are those who are beggars for the Spirit; for they will find the kingdoms of heaven through themselves, through their own I!” (Matt. 5:3). An ancient initiate would have said: In vain would you have sought the kingdoms of heaven within your own I! — But Christ Jesus said: The time has come when people will find the Spirit within their own I if they seek the kingdoms of heaven!

[ 42 ] The revelation of profound mysteries to the outer world—that is the historical Christ event. And in this sense, we will need to examine the historical Christ event even more closely. You will then see how to interpret the words in the Sermon on the Mount that begin with “Blessed are ...”