The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] As you all know from my book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*, if one wishes to understand the Gospels correctly, they must be interpreted in a very specific way. As I now continue my reflections on the Gospels here this winter, I would like to expressly note that it is not possible to, so to speak, start from the beginning again and again for the younger members, and that therefore some aspects of the explanations to follow will certainly be difficult for younger members to understand. It has already been mentioned on the occasion of the General Assembly how necessary it is for the younger members to participate in the courses that have been established so that what was covered earlier can always be made up, for otherwise we could not proceed further. But I would like to note one thing in particular: It simply does not seem feasible for the younger members to really work energetically to catch up on the introductory parts of spiritual scientific life. Therefore, it will happen again and again—I will speak hypothetically here—that the younger members will find this or that, which belongs, so to speak, to the higher realms of spiritual science and requires certain prerequisites, incomprehensible, and will therefore form a very peculiar opinion of spiritual science. This is then due to the members in question, and not to what is intended.

[ 2 ] In my book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*, it has been shown that we must essentially regard the Gospels as books of initiation. This means that these Gospels are, in essence, nothing other than ancient initiation rituals rewritten in a certain way. What would have been contained in such ancient initiation or initiation manuals? They primarily described how the candidate for training in the higher worlds was to be guided step by step on his path upward, how he was to undergo certain inner experiences, certain experiences of his soul, and how he was to awaken the powers slumbering within his soul; how a higher stage was linked to a lower one, all the way up to that stage of initiation where the spiritual world breaks into the soul of the initiate, where the mysteries of the spiritual world come to him. Then he can look into this spiritual world; he can, for example, see the various beings of the individual hierarchies, as we have enumerated them over time and also characterized them in various contexts. What the initiate must do, then, was the content of such initiation books.

[ 3 ] If we now look back at pre-Christian times, we find that numerous people were initiated in the various mystery sites—not always in exactly the same way, but essentially in the same way—and were led up the steps to the point where they could look into the spiritual world, where they could perceive the beings of the individual hierarchies spiritually—as opposed to physically—before them. That was the case in pre-Christian times. What does Christianity mean in relation to these initiates of the ancient mysteries? What does the Christ impulse mean to them? It means that a being who was known externally on the physical plane as Jesus of Nazareth did not reveal the mysteries of the spiritual world through the ordinary path of the ancient mysteries, not as was always customary in pre-Christian times, but in a different way. A personality who had been initiated in the sense of the ancient initiation rituals could, once the great event I have just described had passed through their soul, step out among other people and speak of the mysteries of the spiritual realms. But with the Christ event, something came into being through which the personality of Jesus of Nazareth could speak of the mysteries of the spiritual realms without having been led to it in the manner customary since ancient times. For this personality of Jesus of Nazareth was led to this by the fact that, at the so-called Jordan baptism, he received the Christ Spirit within himself. From the moment this personality was, so to speak, initiated into world history through the baptism in the Jordan—that is, in a historical event—from that moment on, the Christ Spirit spoke—but in a far higher way—of the mysteries of the spiritual realms to the world around him. So with the Christ, there was something on the physical plane, open to the whole world, which previously had been accessible only to a certain degree in the depths of the mysteries to those who were to be initiated, so that they could then go out and speak to their fellow human beings about the mysteries of the spiritual realms. If we were to visualize the matter, we could say: We look into the ancient mystery temples and see how the Hierophant initiated the individuals, so that they could look into the spiritual realms and then go out and teach about the spiritual world. All of this always unfolded in the deepest secrecy of the mystery temples. And in the outer world, outside the mysteries, there had been no such thing as an ascent to the possibility of speaking of the spiritual realms. Now what had happened time and again in the depths of the Mysteries was, as it were, carried out into Palestine, presenting itself as a world-historical event, as the development of Jesus of Nazareth, presenting itself as a world-historical initiation in the Mystery of Golgotha. Thus, the Mystery as it were carried out into world history, presented as a historical fact before the whole world—this is how we must understand the connection between the Mystery of Golgotha and the Mysteries of the ancient sacred temples.

[ 4 ] Now, although these initiation rites essentially followed the same stages everywhere, they differed in detail among the various peoples in different parts of the world, adapted to human individualities according to time and place. Let us now, with what we have just said, place ourselves in the soul of one of those personalities who, as they are commonly called, participated as evangelists in the writing of our Gospels. Through their own occult training, such personalities were in a certain sense familiar with the initiation rites of this or that people, of this or that mystery. They knew what one had to go through to attain the ability to proclaim the mysteries of the spiritual realms and the spiritual hierarchies. And now, through the events in Palestine and the Mystery of Golgotha, they had perceived that what one could otherwise see only as an initiate of the Mystery temples had unfolded out in the great scheme of world history for all people and was now to become ever more deeply rooted in the hearts and minds of all people.

[ 5 ] The evangelists were not biographers in our sense of the word, where biographies include details that are none of the world’s business and that no one needs to know about any influential figure. They were not biographers who dug up every private matter, but rather they were, in a sense, chroniclers of the life of Christ in that they said: Something happened with Jesus of Nazareth, in whom Christ was present, which we have seen time and again in the Mysteries, though there it was not condensed into individual years as a historical event. Here, on the other hand, it has become a historical event, but it is a repetition of the temple rituals. We could therefore describe the life of Jesus by outlining the stages that were otherwise undergone during the initiations.

[ 6 ] That is why the Gospels appear, so to speak, as initiation rites transposed into world history. We find the initiation rites of the ancient mysteries again in the Gospels, but in such a way that, in a certain sense, the reason is given as to why what formerly took place in the depths of the temples has emerged onto the grand stage of world history. We find this explained in a certain way. And one might say that the evangelist who begins right away with this explanation—who states from the very beginning why he has actually come to write about a world-historical event that fulfills an initiation precept transposed on a grand scale—is the author of the Gospel of Mark. From the very beginning, he describes how humanity has developed so that this great event could take place, so that the initiation could be carried out of the depths of the temple onto the stage of world history. He points out from the outset that it is connected to an event of immense importance in the entire development of humanity, one that the Hebrew prophets in particular foretold to the people. For what took place in Palestine as the Mystery of Golgotha was foreseen and foretold by the true initiates—and to this group the Hebrew prophets belong, in a certain sense.

[ 7 ] If we put ourselves in the mind of a man like the prophet Isaiah, from whom the Gospel of Mark begins, we find the following in his words. He says: A time will come when the state of human souls will be different from what it is now; but that time is already being prepared. — This is what Isaiah meant in his own time. So what did the prophet Isaiah want to say? You know, of course, that the Gospel of Mark begins immediately with the quotation of this prophet’s powerful words. You are familiar with these words as they are commonly used, and as they are quoted in the Gospel of Mark in roughly the following manner. I will use a common translation of these words, as they appear in Carl Weizsäcker’s translation.

[ 8 ] “Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way. Listen! A voice cries out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’”

[ 9 ] This is how they appear in a translation considered to be exceptionally good within the field of German Gospel literature.

[ 10 ] These words of Isaiah are, in fact, those through which the prophet points to the great event in world history that took place in Palestine: the mystery of Golgotha. You know how much effort we had to put into the other Gospels to render the key passages into German in a reasonably intelligible way. After all, the point with these matters is not to provide a lexical translation, but to render the relevant phrases in such a way that the deep, meaningful sense intended can resonate with us just as strongly through the German words, not only for our theoretical understanding, but also for our entire sensibility, just as it resonated with those who knew the full character of the speech of that time. For the speech of that time was entirely different from today’s. Above all, it must be pointed out that that speech was not as abstract, as sober, and as philistine as our current usage; but rather the manner of speech and the entire mode of expression were such that one always discerned a richer sense, a richer meaning, a certain fullness of content alongside the immediate literal meaning, and yet still knew in an unambiguous way what this fullness of content was. It is essential to grasp that one heard a much richer world in the words than people today are accustomed to hearing in what is said. Now, it is precisely a peculiarity of the ancient Hebrew language to be immensely rich in this regard, to conceal entire worlds behind the words, while using an image taken entirely from the sensory world. Expressions such as “prepare the way” or “make the paths straight”—these are images taken from the sensory world—just as one prepares a path with shovels and spades. When one spoke of such things, it was a peculiarity of this language—which was particularly magnificent compared to all others—that behind these expressions, which were outwardly applied to something, lay entire spiritual worlds—but in an unambiguous way, so that one cannot interpret them in any arbitrary manner, as our modern scholars do with the poets, for example, by reading all sorts of things into them. One could not arbitrarily imbue things with all manner of mysteries. This was due in part to the fact that in the ancient Hebrew language, it was possible to convey the secrets of entire worlds through the personal use of vocalization—which, though not expressed in writing, was present in the sound. There was a sense of such cosmic mysteries.

[ 11 ] In Greek—the language in which the Gospels were originally written—this is no longer the case to such a great extent. Nevertheless, even without resorting to occultism, it would still be possible to produce much better translations of the relevant passages from the Greek than those produced by the translators of the Gospels. For, essentially, one translator simply copied from another, without anyone even attempting a philological examination of the matter when the Greek text was at hand. For the sake of completeness, I will show you later, using specific examples, how mistakes were made and so on. But today I do not wish to delay our reflections with that; rather, I will attempt—not philologically, but with the aid of what can be known from spiritual research—to present to you some essential points from the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. So I would like to begin by citing the key passage from Isaiah’s prophecy that is intended to reveal what is to come with the events in Palestine, so that you may sense what is meant by it.

[ 12 ] The Greek text reads:

Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.
A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’

(Idou egō apostellō ton angelon mou pro prosōpou sou, hos kataskeuasei tēn hodon sou emprosthen sou,
Phōnē boōntos en tē erēmō: Hetoimasate tēn hodon Kyriou, eutheiās poieite tās tribous autou.)

[ 13 ] It is now of the utmost importance that we understand clearly that the word Angelos, messenger or angel, was used in those ancient times only in the sense in which we use it in our description of the hierarchies—that is, as a designation for those beings who, in the hierarchy, when proceeding from top to bottom, immediately precede human beings. One must sense, when it says here τὸν ἄγγελόν, that a being from precisely this level of the hierarchies is meant. If one does not sense this, one cannot understand the entire passage at all. That is why only spiritual science can form the basis for understanding such a matter. But if we understand it correctly, we can thereby create a foundation for what occultism has to say about the Christ event. For what is the essence of the Christ impulse? We have put it this way: It is through the Christ impulse that full consciousness first entered the human soul regarding the fact that an “I” is to take hold in the human soul—a self-conscious “I”—and that from this self-conscious “I,” in the course of subsequent earthly development, all the mysteries must gradually emerge that previously came forth from the astral body through a kind of natural clairvoyance.

[ 14 ] The time in which we live was preceded by another era, when people still possessed, to a certain degree, a natural clairvoyance within post-Atlantean culture that allowed them to look into the spiritual world. In certain abnormal states of the soul, the mysteries of the spiritual world would pour down; people would look up into the hierarchies. Naturally, they looked most often and for the longest time at the hierarchy closest to humanity, the hierarchy of the angels. They saw the angels as beings standing immediately above humanity. In those times of ancient clairvoyance, human beings did not yet perceive within themselves that they possessed something that was to lead them up into the spiritual world. They had to regard it as a grace bestowed upon them by external powers, as a sending in of the spiritual powers into the soul. Therefore, the prophets were able to point to the future in the following manner: The time will come when human beings will feel their I; then they will know that it is the self-conscious I from which the mysteries of the spiritual worlds are to spring forth. Everything must come in its own time. But the time will come when human beings can say: When I have my I within me, I shall ascend from the power of the I into the mysteries of the spiritual world.

[ 15 ] But this had to be prepared. Thus, the lowest level of the hierarchies—humanity—had to be prepared, so to speak, by sending humanity that which it is not yet, so that it might prepare itself for what it is to become. The messenger, the angel, had to proclaim to humankind that they were to become an “I” in the full sense of the word. And while the earlier angels had the task of revealing the spiritual world, a special angel now had to be given the specific task of going a step further with the revelations to human beings; he had to tell them that they should penetrate into their own I, whereas the earlier angels had revealed things in a way that was not intended for an I.

[ 16 ] Thus Isaiah points out: The time of the Mystery of the I will come, and from the general host of angels one will be sent forth who will then show you that this Mystery of the I is to come. — Only in this way can we understand what it means that the angel, the messenger, is to be sent ahead. Before whom, then, is this messenger to be sent ahead? He is sent ahead of the human being who is to come to his self-conscious “I,” and he is to come as a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi who, in general, had not yet spoken to humanity in such a way as to presuppose that the human being is a self-conscious “I.” This messenger, then, of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks, is to come and alert humanity that it must prepare itself to make room within, in its soul, for the I, for the full assertion of the I. This passage thus essentially points to the great turning point in the development of the human soul: that whereas people previously had to, so to speak, always draw from within themselves to enter the spiritual world, from now on they can remain within their I and draw the mysteries of the spiritual world from the I itself.

[ 17 ] Let us compare an old soul with a soul from the time of the approaching Christ impulse. Let us picture a person from pre-Christian times, particularly from earlier centuries. If he wanted to ascend to the higher worlds, he could not do so while maintaining his self-consciousness, insofar as it had already developed. He had to virtually renounce it, had to enter a state of self-renunciation, had to merge into the world of the hierarchies, into the world of spirituality itself. His consciousness was attuned downward. That was an ancient feeling from earlier, pre-Christian times.

[ 18 ] What, then, was the situation of a person who no longer really lived in an age when it was appropriate to find one’s way into the spiritual world through self-denial, but who lived in an age when one could find oneself at the stage of developing the ego? The ‘I’ was, of course, already present in the Atlantean era; but the fact that it could become a source of complete certainty regarding the greatest mysteries was only brought about by the Christ impulse. Precisely for this reason, a person of the old initiation felt something like this: “If I want to enter the spiritual world, if I am to acquire the revelations from the spiritual world, then I must suppress a certain part of myself, and I must make other parts of my soul particularly alive.”

[ 19 ] What did he have to suppress? And what did he have to bring to life in a special way? Whatever was to gradually grow into the “I,” he had to suppress; it had to become, so to speak, darker and duller in his soul. He was not to give this any consideration at all; it had to become something barren, something empty within him. In contrast, the astral body—that is, the body capable of providing a certain degree of clairvoyance—had to be particularly inflamed. Then the old clairvoyant observations moved into the astral body.

[ 20 ] I said that the ego was already present to a certain degree. But it was of no use if one wished to explore the mysteries of the spiritual world. The ego had to be suppressed and the astral body aroused. But arousing the impulses in the astral body has become increasingly impossible. In ancient times, one of the most fundamental characteristics of human beings was that they could suppress their ego and set the astral body in motion, so that the mysteries of the spiritual world could flow into them. But the very nature of further development lay in the fact that the astral body became increasingly incapable of receiving the mysteries of the spiritual world. Human beings had to say to themselves, so to speak: My astral body is becoming increasingly incapable of achieving what people in the old days of clairvoyance were able to achieve; but what is within me, my ego, does not yet want to come out properly either; it cannot yet bring itself to achieve anything on its own.

[ 21 ] And even the very best clairvoyants felt, above all else, something barren, something desolate in their souls. That was the “I,” to which no impulse had yet been given. And alongside this, they felt the impossibility of ascending into the spiritual world through the “I.” From this you can sense the state of mind in which someone found themselves at the time of the approaching Christ impulse, someone who wished to gain insight into the spiritual world. Such a person had to say to themselves: In my astral body, I can no longer develop what was once possible; yet my ego cannot yet receive an impulse; there is still something barren in my soul that cannot ascend into the spiritual world.

[ 22 ] At that time, as the Christ impulse drew near, certain methods and exercises were employed that consisted of learning to become acquainted with that which could not yet be filled with the Spirit. Anyone who wished to ascend to the higher worlds was told: Realize this: you cannot ascend with your astral body; above all, you must enter that place within yourself where, as a human being, you feel as though you have no connection whatsoever with the outside world.

[ 23 ] Such was the atmosphere during the time of the approaching Christ impulse for those who sought initiation. And everyone seeking initiation had to realize: With regard to my astral body, I must refrain from ascending into the spiritual world, for the time has passed when one could enter the spiritual world through the astral body. The ego is not yet prepared for this. But in what is striving to emerge and penetrate the spiritual world, where it seeks to receive the impulse—in this I can recognize—more than I can recognize—that there is something striving with all its strength and power toward the spiritual impulse!

[ 24 ] This spiritual experience of everyone who sought the path to spiritual light during that time was called the path into the solitude of the soul, or simply the path into solitude. What, then, was the messenger—who was to prepare for the Christ event—to do? He had to tell the people who wanted to know something about the approaching impulse what the path into solitude was like. He had to know solitude thoroughly. He had to be a preacher of the solitude of the soul.

[ 25 ] More and more, you will come to understand, particularly through the Gospel of Mark, that in certain cases the great spiritual beings through whom the important events of human development are to take place choose their instruments from among physical beings, if these are suitable, and take on an incarnation in order to dwell in the soul embodied in the flesh. That messenger of whom Isaiah spoke—who must not be understood as a human being in the ordinary sense—took possession of the soul of the reincarnated Elijah, lived within it, and was the messenger who was to alert people to the approaching Christ impulse. And it was from the soul of John the Baptist that the messenger spoke, the one to whom Isaiah had referred.

[ 26 ] So where does the voice of the messenger resound? In what I have just described to you as the solitude of the soul. There we can then read what is written in the Gospel of Mark: Hear the call in the solitude of the soul. ὲν τῇ ὲpήμω (tē erēmō) we must not simply translate as if it were meant merely in an external sense, with the image of the desert; rather, an image is presented through which we are to perceive the entire spiritual world. ὲν τῇ ὲpήμω actually means: in solitude.

[ 27 ] Now, in order to understand this saying further, we must consider its actual meaning—as it still exists in traces within the Greek language, but as it can be determined by comparing the Greek with the original tradition—and the meaning of what was felt by the word Kyrios or Lord; which is usually translated here as: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Such a word did not have that abstract, philistine meaning in the ancient vocabulary, in the ancient mode of expression, as it does today. In this age of materialism, people have become philistines, especially with regard to language, and no longer possess in language what one might call the body of spiritual beings—that is, the ability to sense a whole world in words, as in ancient times. Today, one can at most try to revive such a sense anew. Thus, in *The Gate of Initiation*, I have attempted to depict how it will be possible to perceive worlds.

[ 28 ] What did one feel when uttering the word Kyrios in a context such as the one described? One sensed that it was meant merely as a metaphor for what takes place within the human being, for what arises in the inner life of the soul. One sensed the emergence of the “I,” rising from the depths of the soul and pushing ever more strongly to the surface, as the appearance of a Lord and Ruler, as the guiding force among the soul’s powers—just as we say today: Human beings have thinking, feeling, and willing; these various soul powers are, so to speak, the servants of the soul. But there is a Lord in the soul, a Kyrios: the ego. This is expressed by the fact that we do not merely say: It thinks within us. — In ancient times, one could not say: I think — but rather one said: It thinks. — And with regard to feeling and willing, one likewise said: It feels, and it wills within.

[ 29 ] At the time when the Lord of the soul forces, the “I,” asserted itself, this great turning point in human development was felt so strongly that people began to say: “I think, I feel, I will.” — In earlier times, the souls were, as it were, in a certain sense in a subconscious state, trapped, submerged in the serving forces. Now the Lord of the soul forces, the I, was approaching. This passage does not initially refer to any particular personality or being, but only to the emergence of the I as the Lord within the entire structure of the soul: The Lord within the soul is coming!

[ 30 ] This was also proclaimed in those temples that were meant to prepare people for what was to come to humanity. It was proclaimed with holy awe and reverence: Until now, souls had only serving powers within them: thinking, feeling, and willing. But now the Lord, the Kyrios, is approaching within the human soul. This great event is taking place, though it will develop gradually—until the end of the Earth’s time, when it will become ever more powerful. But it is coming. And Christ brings the impulse first. It is the great hour in the course of the world clock where Christ lives. There the world clock stands in the sign where the I will rise ever more powerfully as the Lord of the soul forces. And the goal will be reached when the Earth falls down into the cosmos and humanity ascends to higher levels.

[ 31 ] Only by feeling as one must have felt back then can one begin to grasp what Isaiah meant to say and what John the Baptist took up again. Attention should be drawn to the great event in the human soul, to the further development of the human soul. Then, however, we must not translate the word eddeiag (eutheias) as “straight,” as it is usually translated in an abstract sense, but rather as “open”—not merely straight, but open—so that the paths become passable. Thus, the Kyrios comes, setting his course toward the human soul. But the human being must do something to enable the Lord to truly take hold of the human soul. The path must be cleared, must be opened up. In short, if we want to translate the passage in question in a way that makes sense, it should actually be translated, if we stick a little to the traditional approach:

[ 32 ] “Note”—“See” is no longer the right word—“I am sending my angel before the ‘I’ within you; he is to prepare the way.

[ 33 ] “Hear the call” — ‘Soul’ isn't written there, but everyone knew it — “in the solitude of the soul” — that call which yearns for the Lord of the soul —: “Prepare the way for the Ruler of the soul; work so that the path may be open to him”—or the way.

[ 34 ] In this context, you have a rough idea of what one might feel in the words of Isaiah. These words and what lies within this context were taken up again by the angel, the Angelos, in the soul of John the Baptist. Why was he able to do that? — To answer this, we must delve a little into the manner in which John the Baptist himself was initiated, and how that initiation worked within the soul of John the Baptist.

[ 35 ] From earlier descriptions, you know that a person can either be initiated by descending into the depths of their own soul, or that they can be awakened to the soul’s emergence, to liberation from the body, and to the outpouring of the soul’s powers into the macrocosm. These two paths have been followed in a wide variety of ways by different peoples. When a person wished to pour out their soul into the macrocosm, the twelve stages to be traversed in the process were, so to speak, marked by the twelve signs of the zodiac, as their soul power flowed out to specific points, to specific directions within the macrocosm. Now, in general, an extraordinary amount had already been achieved; specifically, something significant had been accomplished for a particular purpose in the development of world history when any soul was so far developed that it could receive within itself all the forces of the macrocosm that originated from such world mysteries as were embodied in a single constellation. For in the ancient initiation rites, it was generally the case that one person, for example, was initiated into the mysteries of the macrocosm in such a way that the outflow of his soul into the macrocosmic moved in the direction of Capricorn, while for others it moved in the direction of Cancer, Libra, Virgo, and so on. I have repeatedly emphasized that there are twelve different ways to flow out into the macrocosm, symbolically indicated by the twelve signs of the zodiac. Now, should someone attain initiation through the outflow of the soul into the macrocosm, and should they not immediately attain the highest, the solar initiation, but rather, so to speak, a partial initiation, then their soul’s gaze, their soul’s light, was directed toward the mysteries to be found in connection with a certain constellation. For this, however, his gaze had to become independent of the material world; that is, it was ensured—either through the mystery rites or, as in the case of John the Baptist, through a grace from above—that the person’s gaze was directed toward a constellation—but in such a way that the Earth lay between him and the constellation in question. That is to say, at night his gaze had to be directed through the Earth toward the constellation. When one sees a constellation with the physical eyes, one sees the physical constellation. But when one can see through the materiality of the Earth—so that the physical constellation is covered by the materiality of the Earth—one sees not the physical, but the spiritual, that is, the mysteries expressed by the constellation.

[ 36 ] John the Baptist’s vision had been trained to the point where he could see through the material earth at night and perceive the constellation of Aquarius. He had thus undergone that initiation—known as the Aquarius Initiation—during which the Angelos took possession of his soul. Thus John the Baptist—with all that he himself knew, all that he himself felt—was able to place all his abilities at the disposal of the Angelos, so that through the Angelos could be expressed everything that constituted the Aquarius Initiation, and everything that served as an indication that the reign of the I, the xVoiog, the Lord, would come into the soul. That was what the Aquarius Initiation provided.

[ 37 ] At the same time, however, John the Baptist pointed out that the time had also come when this Aquarian Initiation was, so to speak, at a crossroads, where it must be replaced by another so that the approaching reign of the I might be fully understood. That is why he said to his inner circle of disciples: I am the one who is able to make available to his angel all the powers that come from the Aquarian initiation. But after me, one must come who can make the subsequent powers available to his angel.

[ 38 ] If you follow the sun’s path during the day from the constellation of Aries through Taurus, Gemini, and so on to Virgo, you must follow its path at night from the direction of Libra and Aquarius toward the constellation of Pisces; that is the direction toward the spiritual sun. John had received the Aquarius initiation, and he pointed out that the one who is to come will have the Pisces initiation—that is, the initiation that must follow the John initiation and was regarded as a higher one. That is why John the Baptist said to his inner circle of disciples: Through the Aquarius Initiation, I can only provide my angel with the powers to proclaim that the Lord, the xVo10g, is coming; but one will come who possesses the powers symbolized by the Initiation of the constellation of Pisces. And he will receive the Christ!

[ 39 ] In this way, John the Baptist pointed to Jesus of Nazareth. And that is why ancient traditions have given the symbol of the fish to Christ Jesus. And because everything that happens externally is a symbol of inner processes, even though it also occurs externally, fishermen are assigned as assistants to the fish-initiated. All of these are at once external, historical events and, at the same time, deeply symbolic acts for the spiritual mysteries.

[ 40 ] “And a higher consecration will come upon humanity!” said John. He could only bestow the consecration that comes from Aquarius, the Water Man. And John described himself as a Water Man. That is quite clear. But we will have to see more and more how the images used for human mysteries are also connected to astronomical and cosmic mysteries. “I have baptized you with water,” said John. Water baptism, however, was that which was within the power of those who had received the initiation of Aquarius from heaven. But as the spiritual sun moves in the opposite direction to the physical sun—for while the physical sun moves from the constellation of Virgo to the constellation of Libra, the spiritual Sun advances in the sense of the progression from John the Baptist to Jesus of Nazareth, from Aquarius to Pisces—when someone appears in the world with the initiation of Pisces and is capable of receiving those spiritual powers, that spiritual impulse for which this initiation of Pisces must serve as an instrument; then it is possible not only to baptize as John baptized, but to baptize in a higher sense, as John describes it as the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

[ 41 ] In today’s lecture, I have, in a certain sense, presented two things to you. First, that the words considered here in the Gospel of Mark refer to processes of human development, including historical processes, in that they speak of a higher power that is not even human, but an angel, yet speaks through the body of John the Baptist. On the other hand, I have shown that the descriptions given refer to events in the heavens, namely the advance of the spiritual sun from the constellation of Aquarius to the constellation of Pisces. The Gospel of Mark indeed contains in every line something that can only be read if, while following the words, one always keeps in mind both a human meaning and a cosmic, astronomical meaning, and if we are clear that something lives within the human being that, in its true meaning, can only be found in the heavens.

[ 42 ] However, one must understand the connection between the macrocosmic mysteries and the mysteries of human nature a little more precisely. Today, at the end, I can only hint at what lies behind this. Today I have wanted to offer only a few intuitions in this direction. For we will have to delve into the depths of the Gospel of Mark, which you will have to think about for a very long time if you wish to elevate them to more than mere intuitions. But I would like to clarify how the Gospel of Mark is to be read through the following.

[ 43 ] You are all familiar with the rainbow. To a child, for example, the rainbow appears as a tangible reality in the sky. Unless someone has explained it to the child, the child will initially believe that it can grasp the rainbow with its hands, that it can touch it. Later, people learn that, fundamentally, this rainbow does not depend on itself at all, but only comes into being when a certain combination of rain and sunshine is present; and when the rain and sunshine change their relationship to one another, it disappears again. It is therefore not a reality; it is only an illusion; the reality is the rain and sunshine in relation to the rainbow.

[ 44 ] When a person makes a little progress on the path of occult development, there is something they instinctively compare to a rainbow, saying: “It is actually, when you get right down to it, nothing real at all, but merely an illusion held together by external factors.” - Do you know what this illusion is? Humanity itself! Human beings are merely an illusion. And if one accepts them as reality through the physical senses, one succumbs to an illusion; one then surrenders to Maya, the great non-being. For Maya, composed of mahat aya—mahat = great, ya = being, a = not, negation—thus aya = non-being; mahat aya means “the great non-being.”

[ 45 ] On the path of occult development, a person comes to see themselves as something akin to a rainbow. Human beings are merely illusory constructs. And everything that presents itself to the physical senses is an illusory construct. Even the sun, as a physical celestial body, is an illusion. What physical science describes as a ball of gas in outer space is quite sufficient for practical purposes. But whoever takes it as reality surrenders to Maya, to illusion, to the great nothingness. What is true is that there is a gathering place for spiritual hierarchies whose actions are expressed in warmth and light, and which flow to us in warmth and light from the sun. What we perceive as warmth and light is an illusion. But everything is an illusion. People believe they have a heart in their chest. But the heart is an illusion, nothing more. It is similar to when we walk out onto the streets in the evening fog of autumn and see certain rings around the streetlights; but these rings are not real either, but are caused by very specific forces. So too is the human heart brought about by very specific forces. You can imagine this in the following way. Suppose the circle represents the vault of heaven; then a certain kind of forces stream into us from one side, and other forces come in from the other side: these forces intersect. In truth, there is nothing present within a person where they believe their heart to be, other than forces that stream in from the heavens and intersect. Imagine everything else away, and only forces that come together as they do in a rainbow: and the result is the human heart. So it is with the other organs as well: they are intersecting forces that arise from the intersection of the relevant world forces.

[ 46 ] When you walk from one place to another and say, “I have the impulse to walk from here to there,” you are expressing something that, in this sense, belongs to Maya. Why? Because forces come from the macrocosm that intersect down here and, through this intersection, give rise to an illusion regarding the direction and the forces of walking. What follows one another down here is merely an intersection of cosmic forces. And if we want to know the truth, we must ask: What is happening in the macrocosm? What do the cosmic forces—the upper and the lower—bring about?—They bring about in us what looks as though we have a heart, a liver, and so on, or what looks as though we say: I am walking from there to there. If we want to describe it in truth, we must describe the cosmic forces.

[ 47 ] If we are to describe what John the Baptist did when he baptized people, we must describe what the macrocosm commanded him to do—that is, the forces symbolized by the forces of Aquarius. These were once decreed in the Great World Lodge and sent into the forces of John. Thus, we must read in the language of the worlds what happened at a specific place. Thus, the writer of the Gospel of Mark read the relevant celestial events to understand what happened in Palestine. He describes astronomical events and says: Understand things this way: if there is a wall here on which a play of shadows is visible, then if you wish to know the true reason for it, you must look at what is actually reflected in the shadows. I am describing what happened at the Jordan, which was, however, merely the instrument for something else; for in truth I am describing what is working its way down to Earth from the macrocosm through the astronomical forces!

[ 48 ] The author of the Gospel of Mark describes cosmic forces. Everywhere there are celestial phenomena. And what he describes is the expression, the projection, the shadow image that the entire processes in the macrocosm cast down upon the small earthly region of Palestine. We must realize this if we wish to penetrate even a little into the full magnitude and significance of this document, the Gospel of Mark. But first we had to gain some sense of what is actually before us. We had to understand that at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark it is said: The prophet Isaiah foretold that the Lord of the soul forces would come for humanity, and that the messenger would live in John the Baptist, who would prepare people for the coming of this Ruler of the soul forces. - This messenger had to take his place in a body belonging to a human soul that had been initiated with the forces of Aquarius. In this way, he could set in motion what was to be done on Earth through a personality like Jesus of Nazareth, who had prepared himself to receive the Pisces initiation and thereby be able to receive the Christ.

[ 49 ] What happens on Earth are reflections of cosmic processes that relate to cosmic conditions in the same way that a rainbow relates to rain and sunshine; thus, we must study rain and sunshine if we wish to describe the rainbow. And if we wish to know what was in the heart of John the Baptist, or of Jesus of Nazareth, who became the dwelling place of Christ, then we must study cosmic processes. For the whole world spoke on behalf of humanity in the events that took place in Palestine and on Golgotha. And whoever reads the Gospel of Mark in any way other than as merely the letters representing great world events stands on no other standpoint than that of one who says: here is a group of such strokes, there is a group of other strokes—but who does not point to what the word “Lord” points to, who points only to the black strokes. This is, however, simply how the Gospel of Mark is described in our time. For what is recounted in the Gospel of Mark is only the very outermost layer of the letters. One must step back to understand what the events in Palestine were meant to point to, as in a shadow play.

[ 50 ] Try to grasp what it means that earthly events are a shadow of macrocosmic events—and you will have taken the first step toward gradually understanding one of the world’s greatest texts, the Gospel of Mark.