The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Munich, December 20, 1906.

Dearest Friend!

... I am pleased that the exercises written down in Barr are of some use to you. They are, after all, in line with Rosicrucian wisdom. And if I may ask you for something, it is this: not to lose patience if the time of a perceptible effect takes a little while. The path is a safe one, but it requires a lot of patience. In a short time, when the right moment comes, I will certainly write the continuation of it. Initially, one experiences the effect only through very intimate processes of the soul life. And it actually requires great and at the same time subtle inner attention to sense how the manifestations from another world are adjusting. These can only be noticed, as it were, between the other events of inner life.¹

• 1. The full content of the letter is printed in “Nachrichten der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlaßverwaltung”, No. 6.

It is commonly believed that there are so many diseases, but only one health. This is nonsense, however, because in reality there are as many types of health as there are people. Health is something entirely individual and ultimately different for each person. However, we only have a very general idea of what it is to be healthy, and anything that does not match this image is considered an illness. We should endeavor to enable the patient to lead the best and most comfortable life possible despite the abnormality of the disease, as if he did not have this abnormality at all. But we should not want to reduce him to the general template that we have somehow created and now want to impose on everything.

Of course, some people need a certain abnormality. This does not mean that we should now let the diseases take their course. If we want to take the concept of “health” seriously, we have to consider a different concept of development in all its depth and meaning.

Animals in their natural environment never overeat themselves, but this often happens when they are adopted into civilization. In this care, they contract a variety of diseases. Animals also develop certain diseases as soon as they are captured, while they did not suffer from them in the wild. Certain mental illnesses are virtually a consequence of the culture of a particular stage.

Physically and chemically, the animal body is an impossible mixture. The life body is therefore a necessary link for its sustenance. The astral body contains the causes of what happens in the physical and etheric bodies. The astral body in an animal has no such wide-ranging potential for individual development as it does in a human being. It is a tightly closed circle of animal instincts, desires and passions. The animal fits perfectly into its circumstances, and that with its physical, etheric and astral bodies. The captive animal can only be taught different habits with regard to the physical and etheric bodies, but it is not possible to influence its astral body. This is why the animal cannot integrate itself into new circumstances in a healthy way, because this would have to start from the astral body.

In the case of human beings, too, far-reaching changes have to start with the astral body. If we want to remain healthy when transitioning from simpler to more complicated circumstances, we first have to adapt to those new circumstances from the inside out, from the I and the astral body. This adaptation is a work of the I on the astral body, and only it brings health to the etheric body and the physical body.

Man is absolutely designed for this development right into his physical body. Not every phenomenon means the same in all kingdoms of nature, as the materialistic way of thinking believes. This is the case, for example, with the softening of the bones, rickets. Man is in a state of progressive development with all his parts and members. The body has developed from very different, earlier forms to its present shape. The I and the astral body will continue to transform the human organism. In his bone system, the human being must still have the possibility of softening, so that he can also develop there. In the human being, on the one hand, there are tendencies towards softening and, on the other hand, towards hardening, so that he does not have to remain in a stationary state. The inner human being, his I and the astral body, properly guided by the I, must direct such transformations. Rickets is a premature remodeling of the bones because it is not properly guided by the ego.

Spiritual science must intervene in the area of disease predispositions, correcting medicine here and steering it in the right direction. Each person has their own specific place in existence and must accordingly remodel their organs in their own individual way for their personal health.

Paracelsus taught profound truths in this regard and was far ahead of his time. He believed that health is an entirely individual matter and cannot be considered and corrected in any stereotypical way when a disturbance occurs.

What criteria does the self use to maintain health? This cannot be studied empirically. The important thing is to recognize the right criteria for health in the sense of inner harmony, contentment, the joy of being, and an untroubled and undisturbed zest for life. This feeling of contentment is worth much more than all the external anointing and tanning from the sun. Wherever you find joy in flowers, trees and sunshine, wherever your zest for life is heightened and your love of life is strengthened, you will stay healthy or be able to restore balance to your disturbed health. A healthy soul also creates a healthy body. On the contrary, external concoctions and procedures can rob a person of their health. So, it is primarily a matter of keeping the soul healthy. “Mens sana in corpore sano!"

This saying can only be understood correctly with this in mind. A healthy body also indicates a healthy soul. On the other hand, a healthier soul can never be created by external transformation of the body.

But how does this attitude go together with the teaching of asceticism, as it is, for example, accused of theosophy? Theosophy is misunderstood if it is thought to preach mortification. The theosophist does not mortify himself; on the contrary, he would mortify himself if he had to take part in all the social hustle and bustle, for example, sitting down to dinner or going to a music hall. In the light of correctly understood Theosophy, it is nonsense to say that something or other is prescribed for man, that he must live in such and such a way. Theosophy has no dogmas in this sense, and no agitation for vegetarianism. Meanwhile, individual Theosophers come to refrain from eating meat through their feelings and intuitions.

For others, however, eating meat is still a necessity. It is also possible to develop the view that eating meat is no longer desirable in an even higher sense. A doctor who was not a theosophist answered the question of why he did not eat meat by saying that he was simply disgusted by the idea of eating cat or horse meat, just as most people would be. For those who advance in spiritual development, the desire for certain things no longer arises by itself. Their instinct for certain foods has simply changed. Those who still cling to the Tingeltangel must be left there, and those who have no desire for it should not go there. It is the sublimation of instincts and desires that keeps the physical organs healthy and makes them healthy.

Thus the spiritual-scientific world view wants to give people the ability to direct their astral body in such a way that it comes into harmony with the law of advancing humanity. One does not just occasionally stop in recognition, but also in the experience of one's life.

The ego of many people often follows the will-o'-the-wisps and thus generates selfishness, the spirit of lies and error, thus generating erring temperaments and passions. If the ego is not in harmony with the order of the world, it will stray restlessly and follow all the will-o'-the-wisps that appear. It is important to familiarize oneself with the erring temperaments and character traits. Few people today can be completely honest and truthful. But this shortcoming causes illness and infirmity. Some people can no longer be helped in some respects because they are caught up in overly complicated relationships with communities, so that they are unable to break away from them. Often, in a community where sick people live alongside healthy ones, the actual causes of illness lie with the healthy and not with the sick. And the more receptive natures absorb these illnesses, which are basically the fault of the strong natures. Keeping oneself healthy is therefore a duty towards all fellow human beings. Some people carry an illness from their neighbor without having caused it themselves.

By keeping ourselves healthy, we have the opportunity to align ourselves with the great laws of the world and thus make our own and other people's illnesses disappear. However, this requires people to work together properly. Only in this way is it possible to guarantee general health.

Short-sightedness, for example, is due to the fact that in our current education system, the eye has to remain passive for too long, always receiving impressions only from the outside, but not being prompted by the soul to look and observe in the open air, where there are near and far objects. This adaptation must be brought about by the soul. Where this does not happen, the eye loses its ability to adapt.

A world view that allows everything to be dictated from the outside is extremely unhealthy, whereas one that drives and creates from within is a truly healthy world view. The constant absorption of impressions from the outside has the same effect as what we have described as myopia in the eye.

One must form one's world view in an open-minded love. Today's books are often written in such a way that the truths are smeared into people's mouths, so to speak. However, those books that require long study and reflection to grasp their content are the truly good books in the theosophical sense. They are designed to stimulate inner productivity.

In the classroom, you can dissect plants with children, but when you are out in nature with young people, you should bring them closer to the whole of living nature. In this context, analyzing and destroying would be inappropriate. Love, in whatever form it appears, has a healing effect on people because it produces noble feelings and gives something out of itself. It is also healthy to produce in art and science or in similar behavior. Anything that encourages people to work independently is healthy. Theosophy aims to ennoble and harmonize people's inner emotional life by showing them the developments in the outside world and pointing out the harmony that prevails in it. This makes our mind productive and creates health in soul and body. A worldview such as this makes people capable of creating counterweights within themselves against all external influences, thus arming themselves against hypochondria and hysteria. Where this fixed point is developed within, the person is then stabilized for every external situation. They can then also give themselves over to pleasure without being harmed by it. It becomes an expression of their deep and true health.

When Theosophy is introduced into life in this way, it proves itself in our lives, and thus its validity is also proved, without objections having to be logically refuted.

Regarding the election of Annie Besant, head of the Esoteric School, as president of the Theosophical Society, which led to the separation of the Esoteric School.

Mead sent a letter, dated March 3, 1907, to Rudolf Steiner asking that Mead's March 1, 1907, circular letter to the T.G. branches opposing Annie Besant's candidacy be brought to the attention of the German Section. According to a typewritten template in German and English. (Date after the English text, which has May for March due to an error, also in the first line.)

Munich, May 6 [March] 1907 My dear colleague,

Thank you very much for your letter of March 3rd, including the information about the election of the president.

To be honest, I think the worst thing about the whole matter is that the idea could arise within society to associate such a matter as the election of the president with some manifestation of the transcendental world. The mere fact that something like this could be made public is bad enough. Because whatever may happen now, the confusion it causes will be difficult to repair. I would therefore have preferred to remain silent about the whole Mahatma affair in our section, to ignore the word “appointment” and to announce the nomination of Mrs. Besant as a personal opinion of our dear Olcott. In this way we would have simply gone about our business as usual, ignoring the unfortunate developments in Adyar. This did not seem unjustified to me, because Olcott's statements in this regard can only be attributed to the debilitating effects of his illness.

Of course, I am only talking about the German section. Now, however, the announcement of the matter and the discussion in the other sections is making such a policy more and more of an impossibility. And anyone like me who has to work in a young, up-and-coming section that has recently made good progress is faced with a difficult situation at the moment.

This is due to the following:

1. We cannot put our members in a situation where they can be influenced by some kind of supernatural manifestation in an election that is free according to the statutes.

2. We expose ourselves to ridicule in the non-Theosophical world if these manifestations become known in any way. I would not hesitate for a moment to accept this ridicule and scorn quietly if a pertinent principle were at stake. Here, not only is that not the case, but the situation is rather that one would give up the right to ever refer to the experiences of the higher worlds if one made a point of referring to these Mahatma manifestations. And in view of the way in which I have so far directed the German Theosophical movement, it is almost impossible in the long run to merely shrug my shoulders when a question concerning the content of this matter is raised. After all, the members have a right to hear an opinion on the subject. But the moment I express this opinion of mine, I destroy much of what I have built up here.

For all these reasons, just as I have not published anything about the supernatural in Adyar within the German Section, I must also reserve my decisions regarding the publication of your valuable communications. However, I will never fail to work to ensure that purely administrative matters are not confused by the introduction of supernatural things. I have informed Mr. Sinnett that I will not initiate the election before May 1. Perhaps by then there will still be a possibility to repair the fatal situation created by Adyar.

Personally, I would just like to add with regard to the one point of your circular that I naturally consider it quite impossible for the president of our Society to be the head of an esoteric school.

Yours very sincerely

Rudolf Steiner

To consider just two ideas that are part of the Christian view—sinning against the holy spirit¹²⁰ and the idea of grace—and let them be illuminated for us from their depths, we have to know a little about the basic issues and movements of Christianity. You know from other lectures that behind the usual teaching about Christianity lies an esoteric Christianity. You also know that the gospels themselves give hints of such a Christianity, simply in the words: ‘When the Lord was speaking to the people he would speak in parables, but when he and the disciples were among themselves he would expound those parables to them.’¹²¹ There simply was the teaching given to people who were not yet able to understand so much, so that one could only hint at things, being unable as yet to go deeper with them, and the teaching that was meant for initiates. Paul, the great disseminator of Christianity, taught like this speaking to the people, as we know from his epistles. Apart from the teaching he gave for the people, in an external way, Paul also taught esoterically. External history does not know that Paul founded the esoteric school in Athens that was under the guidance of Dionysius. In this esoteric school of Christianity, intimate pupils were given the occult knowledge you are now getting to know through the science of the spirit.

Scholars do not know much about the teaching Paul's esoteric companions gave to intimate pupils in Athens at that time. People even speak of a false Dionysius, saying that it cannot be proved that anything he taught was ever written down. The individual who taught these things in the 6th century was therefore called pseudo-Dionysius. Only people who do not know how such intimate teachings were handled in those times can say such things. In our day and age everyone rushes things into print. In the old days, the most sacred truth would be preserved from publication. Teachers would first take a look at the individual to whom they would tell it. It was taught person to person, and to people who were truly able to know its value. The teachings of esoteric Christianity were thus also passed from one individual to another, with some written down later, in the 6th century. It was customary for the leader of such a school to bear the name Dionysius, and so the leader also had that name in the 6th century, which was the name of his great predecessor in Athens, who was Paul's friend.

Let us consider the two concepts—sinning against the holy spirit, or really blaspheming against the holy spirit, and the concept of grace—as they were truly taught in Athens.

To get to the original meaning of Christianity we must go far back in the history of human evolution and understand that the coming of Christ Jesus brought something completely new in the evolution of the human mind and spirit. Paul's own initiation shows this most clearly. The situation where someone like Saul had a sudden enlightenment and became completely convinced of the truth of Christianity would not have been possible before the coming of the Christ. We have spoken of the nature of initiation here on earth before the coming of the Christ on previous occasions. Let us do it again, so that we may know what the spirit of truth truly is in Christian terms. To understand what went on in the ancient initiation centres we must briefly call to mind the nature of the human being.

You know about man having seven aspects. The physical body is made of the same materials as the lifeless matter in the physical world. The ether body calls these powers to life, and at every moment in our lives actively counters the decomposition of the physical body. It is only at death that the ether or life body leaves the physical body. A crystal holds its substance together of its own accord; the living body decomposes as soon as it is left to itself. There truly is a fighter against death in him at all times. Death comes when he ceases to fight. The third member is the astral body, the conscious awareness body. The fourth is the I, and through it man is the crowning glory of creation. In all occult teachings the human being was seen to have these four members. In the Pythagorean school every pupil first had to be taught this, and he could only be introduced to the higher wisdom once it had become inner conviction. He thus had to make this vow: ‘I vow by all that has been deeply imprinted in our hearts—the sacred fourfoldness, the spiritually sublime symbol, the source and origin of all creativeness in nature and in spirit.’

Even the most undeveloped human being has these four members. Human beings evolve through different incarnations, becoming more and more perfect because the I works on these three members of human nature. In the astral body it first of all works on everything that advances civilization, all logical, scientific learning that serves to take us beyond the animal level. That is the work of the I in the astral body. In every human being who has developed, whose I has been working on the astral body, that body divides in two—the part that is given and the part which has only been made by the I. This latter part, which grows larger and larger as the human being advances, is called manas or spirit self. In Christian esotericism this part is called the holy spirit, in contrast to the spirit that is the unpurified and unhallowed part of the astral body. This, then, is the fifth principle.

The I can also work into the denser ether body. This also happens in the ordinary way, but unconsciously. It has been said on a number of occasions that distinction must be made between work on the astral body and the ether body. With regard to their rate of progress, the astral body may be said to be like the movement of the minute hand compared to the ether body's hour hand. When a person opens up to the impression of a sublime work of art, this will transform both the life body and the conscious awareness body. Every great impulse in the arts has this effect. The most powerful effect comes from the religious impulses which the founders of religions have given to the world; they give the I its orientation towards the eternal. The clairvoyant eye can see it when the ether body of a human being becomes increasingly more beautiful and pure.

The part of the human ether body made spiritual by the I is called the buddhi or life spirit; it is transformed life body. In Christian esoteric teaching this part, which has been transformed by the I, is called the Christos. The fifth principle of essential human nature is the holy spirit, the sixth principle the Christ, the inner Christos.

Reference has already been made to the fact that occult training has always been available and that people could become initiates and then gain direct insight into the world of the spirit. This results from a higher transformation of the ether or life body. You therefore also need to understand that higher training is not just a matter of taking in concepts and things that are taught. Occult training means to transform the qualities of the life body. Someone who has transformed his temperament has done a great deal more than he would have done by taking in an infinite amount of knowledge.

An even higher transformation comes only with advanced training. Here the individual purifies and cleanses his physical body. What do we know of the human physical body? Dissection in an anatomical institute does not reveal the laws that govern it, the inner control of it. There is, however, a way to look into oneself and understand the movements of nerve strands, of pulse beat and the flow of respiration, so that one can consciously influence them. When someone is also able to transform his physical body in occult training, as it is called, the transformed dense body is called atman, for one begins by regulating the breathing process.¹²² The seventh principle of essential human nature is atman, called the father in Christian esoteric teaching.

This is how one first comes to the holy spirit, which is the transformed astral body, then through the holy spirit to the Christ, which is conscious awareness of the ether body, and through the Christ to the father, conscious awareness of the physical body.

Once you have understood how these seven aspects of human nature are related, you will also understand the nature of initiation in early times, before the Christ, and how it was after Christ Jesus had come to earth. When a person is asleep, only the physical and the ether body lie in the bed, the astral body is outside. When a person dies, he leaves behind his physical body, and the part of the physical body he has already transformed is lifted out—powers, not matter. It is very little indeed which he takes with him, but it is the element which will serve to shape the new physical body when the individual incarnates again. Materialism calls this the ‘permanent atom’.¹²³ First of all the part of the physical body which the individual has transformed departs, the ether body departs, the conscious awareness body departs and the I. After some time the part of the ether on which the individual has not yet been working separates off. The human being then goes into kamaloka, the place of purification. After some time the part of the astral body on which the I has not yet been working also separates off. A time comes when the human being only retains the parts of the three bodies which the I itself has worked through. This goes through the realm of the spirit. It is the core of man's eternal essence, which will grow all the more the I has been working on the bodies.

The holy spirit is the eternal spirit in man. The Christ is the eternal part of the life body, the father the eternal aspect of the physical body. These three go with the human being through all time, being the part of him that is eternal.

Before Christian times, initiation was such that the pupil would first be prepared for everything occult science was able to offer, up to the point where he was familiar with all the concepts and ideas, all the habits and feelings that are needed for living in the higher worlds and be able to have perceptions in them. Then came the ‘resurrection’, as it was called, taking three and a half days and three nights. For this the temple priest used his arts to put the individual artificially into a death-like sleep for three and a half days. Normally the physical and the ether body remain connected in sleep, but the art of the priest who performed the initiation caused the ether body of the initiand to be lifted out of the physical body for this period, leaving only a loose connection between the physical body and the other bodies. It was a deep trance sleep. The initiand's I lived in the higher worlds during this time. The pupil knew his way about there because he had been given knowledge of the higher world. The priest would guide him. To begin with, the priest had to free the ether body of the lethargic physical body so that he might guide the pupil into the worlds of spirit. Human beings would not have been able to rise into those higher worlds in a fully conscious state. They had to be lifted out of that state.

The initiand would experience magnificent, tremendous things there, but he would be entirely in the hands of the priest. Another person had control over him, and that was the price that had to be paid for entering into the higher worlds. You can imagine what he would be afterwards, if you remember that he was able to know his eternal principle on this occasion. He was rid of the part of his finite nature, of his physical body, which was of no use to him when he wanted to move in higher worlds. Such an individual would be a ‘knower’ after this, able to bear witness from personal vision of life's victory over death. Those were the initiates who could bear witness. The ether body had to be lifted out of the physical body to meet the Christos in the human being. Those initiates were able to say: ‘I know from personal experience that there is a part of the human being that is eternal, continuing through all incarnations. I know this; I have had living experience of this eternal core of my self.’ To gain this prize, they had to enter into three days of total dream sleep.

Something else was connected with this. This form of initiation also involved something else. The further back we go, the more are we able to see it. I characterized it before by saying that in very early times they had close marriage compared to our distant marriage. In all nations there were small communities that were interrelated. People would marry within their community, and it was considered immoral to go outside your small community. Marriages were always between blood relations. Close marriage only changed gradually to become distant marriage. Special measures were actually needed for initiations, with a careful selection made on the basis of previous incarnations to get the best possible blood mixture. Out of such a tribe would be born the one who was able to go through high-level initiations. With blood relations it is particularly easy to lift the ether body out of the physical body. It is not at all easy with distant marriages. Whole generations of priests saw to it that the blood was preserved in a quite specific way.

Human life is complicated and does not always follow a straight path. We need to enter more deeply into the riddles of existence. The principle of close marriage was abandoned more and more, with the tribe gradually expanding to be a nation. With the Israelites we can see how the tribal principle was taken up completely and raised to become the community of a nation. The Christ opened up this prospect further, into a distant future: ‘Anyone who does not leave father and mother, wife, children, brother and sister and also his personal life cannot be my disciple.’

Harsh but true, these words indicate the way Christianity was going. Within a national community one would say: ‘That is my brother, born within this nation.’ In the brotherhood of humanity, which encompasses the whole of humanity, we say: ‘You are a human being, therefore you are my brother.’ That is the most profound principle of Christianity. All the narrow-mindedness of the other kind of relationship must be torn apart, with a common bond bringing together one human being with another. This also tore apart the ancient initiation principle which had been based on blood relationship.

The new initiation principle, which was no longer tied up with any physical property, can be seen in the case of Paul himself. He was initiated in the light, not in temple darkness. This could not have happened at an earlier time. If we consider this we can see the tremendous change that came with Christ Jesus. It had been prepared for by Moses, Zarathustra, Buddha and Pythagoras and was brought by Christ Jesus.

We thus see the principle applied for the first time also in Christian initiation schools that the human being was taken into higher worlds not by withdrawing him from the physical body but in full conscious awareness and in his physical body. This was the case in the Christian esoteric schools. Among the ancients, on the other hand, the strict authority of the initiating temple priest had to be accepted by the initiand. It was only possible to rise to those worlds by submitting wholly to the power of such an initiator.

The principle of compulsive authority also came to expression in the general social life. The priests were the rulers. All rules of government, all authority structures came from those who had the power to initiate. This was possible when community was blood-based in both tribe and nation. The ending of the old initiation principle meant the beginning of a completely different authority—independent authority based only on trust. ‘You must believe the one whom you trust’ is the highest Christian idea to which one rises, with each being a brother to the other, and someone in a higher position given recognition as someone one trusts.

‘Watch and pray’ is the Christian principle. The new initiation takes place in the waking state. ‘You will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free’¹²⁴ are profound Christian words. They signify a prospect opening out into the future of Christianity. Christianity is only at the beginning of its evolution.

Consider the intense relationship between the teacher who was the initiator in the old temple sleep and his pupil receiving his final initiation in three and a half days. The relationship was one we cannot even imagine today. The relationship between a hypnotist and his subject gives us a faint idea of the way in which the initiating temple priest would awaken first the holy spirit and then the Christos. The pupil would mirror the holy spirit and the Christos of the teacher; they had merged, a clairvoyant could observe the process. For those three days, teacher and pupil were identified with one another. The teacher's I lived on in all his pupils, deeply fused during those three days. Consider the social pyramid, with the people below, above them the initiates, above them the teachers of the initiates. One spirit flowed down through all levels. Much lives on in people who were initiated in this way, also alien things.

With the principle of Christianity, individual nature gained validity. Hence the principle of Christian initiation that pupils must never fuse with the teacher in this way. They must not become one person in the initiation process. The holy spirit must arise, be awakened, in the I of each individual. This has become the principle of Christian initiation. It is also shown in symbolic form in the miracle of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles.¹²⁵ The possibility for initiation was given in that they all began to speak in different tongues. The teacher respects the individual nature of the other; he enters into the pupi's heart but does not take it out of his physical body.

Remember how it is above all important for present-day humanity that the holy spirit and the Christos are developed independently. There you can see that this human individual nature only came to be considered to be independent with this principle of Christianity. It was Christianity which finally and truly freed the human individual, and because of this, Christianity means that our relationship to truth and wisdom must be entirely different now.

In earlier times, the spirit of wisdom ruled because it was centralized. With humanity shattering it became decentralized, but egotism also arose. The more the principle of distant marriage came to apply, the greater had to be the power of the element that would bring human beings, who were now independent, together again. What is this element? Consider the things we learn today in the elementary parts of our science of the spirit and then go back in history, and you will find that this knowledge was possessed only by small groups, finally only the very summit, which then ruled on the principle of compulsive authority. We are approaching a time when wisdom will be more and more among the people. It will be a means of creating the great brotherhood of humanity.

Two individuals investigating the realm of the spirit will never have different opinions about one and the same thing. If they do, one opinion will be wrong. Wisdom is a single whole, and there can be no difference. The more individual people grow, the more must they be given wisdom; this will bring them together. Today we are in a state of transition. The principle of the point of view comes to an end as wisdom progressively develops. The more individual humanity becomes, the wiser must it grow. That is the spirit of wisdom which Christ Jesus promised to his people. The sun of wisdom draws all individual points of view to itself, as the sun does all plants.

The spirit that will make human beings free is the holy spirit. A Christian must never sin against it. Those who do, sin against Christianity itself, against the promised spirit who alone can bring individual human beings together.

In the gospels we read of Christ Jesus driving out demons.¹²⁶ Demons will only exist for as long as man is unfree, so long as he has not taken up this spirit of wisdom. Man is literally loaded with all kinds of spirits that flow in and out of his lower members. We call them apparitions, spectres, ghosts, demons.¹²⁷ To make a rather commonplace comparison—it is like maggots moving in and out of a cheese. When he stood there as the spirit who drives out demons, Christ Jesus showed himself to be the spirit of freedom. You can only drive out demons by pitting one spirit against another, the spirit of freedom against all other spirits.

Now let us briefly think of those earlier communities of tribe and nation. How could those people be brought together, not having become free individuals? Imagine everyone sitting in this room has become free, with the spirit of truth living in all of them. Will we ever be in dispute, ever be in discord? No, for when only the spirit unites us there are no points of view. In earlier times external laws had to prevail to keep people together. Two people who know the spirit of truth will feel drawn to one another of their own accord. And so we have the law at the beginning of human evolution, and in the end, peaceful, harmonious collaboration that comes from inside. In Christian esoteric teaching this is called ‘grace’, the opposite of ‘law’. Nothing but the ability to feel with another individual, being completely at peace in doing so—that is the most profound concept of Christianity.

The astral body filled with the holy spirit is the same for all. The spirit of truth is the same in all. Think of this spirit in an individual in whom the Christos has also been awakened, the principle active in the life body as life spirit. When every human being lets his ether body be filled with this feeling, every heart will have a feeling for the unified spirit, for individuals brought together in common wisdom. And what you then feel inside you is caritas, grace.

It was brought by the one who at the beginning of our era had the whole Christos in himself in the individual, the Christos who was the first to fulfil the whole principle of humanity. Christ Jesus made himself the principle that is to live in every single human being. Through him the spirit has come into the world that is freedom, independence, and peaceful cooperation. ‘Come to life again in Christ; let the spirit of discord die!’ Paul said.¹²⁸ Man may sin against everything that is not in this very spirit. If he were to sin against this spirit of common humanity, if he were to deny it, he would no longer be a Christian.

Man must progress to the point where he has conscious knowledge of the spirit. As he develops more and more, his conscious awareness body is transformed into the holy spirit. Because of this, sinning against the holy spirit is unforgivable.

The transformation of the ether body occurs unconsciously in the uninitiated. For as long as a human being is not initiated, he can only commit the sin that cannot be forgiven in his astral body. The initiate also must not sin against the physical and the ether body. These sins may be forgiven those who are not initiated. This is done with the help of those who guide the human race.

• 120. Matthew 13: 13 & 32; Mark 3: 28 & 29; Luke 12: 10.
• 121. Matthew 13: 10-13, 34-36; Mark 4: 33 & 34.
• 122. The German for breathing is Atmen. Translator
• 123. A theory established by the theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater. See Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater's Occult Chemistry.
• 124. John 8: 32
• 125. Acts 2: 4.
• 126. E.g. Luke 4: 33 & 34.
• 127. See Steiner R. Theosophy of the Rosicrucian (GA 99). 22 May–6 June 1907. Tr. M. Cotterell, D. Osmond. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1981.
• 128. Paraphrase. See Ephesians 2:4-6; 4:3.

We really ought to acquaint ourselves, somewhat, with the fundamental problem and fundamental currents of Christianity, if we wish to throw light upon the two ideals of the Christian world-conception in all their profundity. You already know, through previous lectures, that the teachings of Christianity, as generally proclaimed, are based upon a so-called esoteric Christianity. You know, moreover, that even in the Gospels we find intimations concerning this esoteric Christianity, clearly expressed in the words: When the Lord stood before the people He spoke in parables, but when he was alone with His disciples He explained these parables unto them. Thus, it is clear that He gave one form of his Teaching to those who had less understanding—to whom it was necessary to speak in parables, for it was not yet possible to go into things any deeper with them; and He proclaimed another Teaching which was destined for the initiated.

In the same way, also, Paul—the great expander of Christianity—taught, before the people, an external form of that Teaching, which we know through his Epistles. On the other hand, in addition to this Teaching of Paul—which was an external Teaching, meant for the people—he expounded an esoteric Teaching, as well. External history knows nothing about the fact that Paul founded the esoteric School at Athens, which was under the leadership of Dionysius. In this School of esoteric Christianity, the same Mystery-Teaching, or Occultism, was taught, which you also—at the present time—are learning to know anew, through Spiritual Science. Scientific learning does not know very much concerning those Teachings which were proclaimed at that time, at Athens, by the esoteric companions of St. Paul, to their more intimate disciples. One even speaks about a false Dionysius, because—it is said—it is not possible to prove that any of these Teachings were ever recorded in writing.

Pseudo-Dionysius is the name given to the man who taught this form of esotericism during the 6th century. Yet only those persons can call him by that name who do not know what was customary, in earlier times, in connection with Initiate-teachings of this sort. Only in our days has it become customary for people to record everything, as quickly as possible, in writing. Whatever was contained in the holiest Truth was preserved from publicity, in those days. One to whom such a Truth was to be entrusted was first scrutinised carefully. Only within the esoteric Schools was this Truth passed on from mouth to mouth—and only to such persons as could really value it aright. Thus it was that these particular teachings of esoteric Christianity were likewise handed down from man to man—till, finally, some of them were written down during the sixth century. Since it was customary for the leaders of such a School to always bear the name of Dionysius, the leader of this School at Athens, during the sixth century, therefore also bore this name—the same name which had been borne by his great predecessor at Athens, the friend of Paul.

Let us now consider in the spirit of this esoteric School, and actually in the way in which it was taught there, the concept of Sin, or, we might say, of slander against the Holy Ghost—and the Christian concept of Grace.

If we wish to grasp the fundamental meaning of Christianity, we must return, in thought, to a very remote past in the history of human evolution; and we must realise that, through the appearance of Christ-Jesus, something entirely new has actually been impressed upon the history of the spiritual evolution of humanity. What it is that has thus been impressed finds its fervent expression in the initiation of Paul himself.

The fact that a man like Saul, through so sudden an illumination, could attain to complete conviction of the Truth of Christianity, would not have been possible before the appearance of Christ-Jesus. We have already often spoken about the form of initiation which preceded the appearance of Christ-Jesus upon earth. Let us now do this, once again, in order to understand what the Spirit of Truth really signifies, in the Christian sense. If we wish to grasp what is was that took place, in the ancient sites of initiation, we must briefly recall to our minds the nature and being of man.

We know that man consists of a seven-fold being. His physical body is built up out of the same substances as those contained in the lifeless materials of the physical world. His etheric body calls these forces into life, and works—at every moment of life—against the decay of the physical body; only at death does the etheric or life-body go out of the physical body. The crystal is able to hold its substances together, through its own forces; the living body, on the other hand, decays as soon as it is abandoned and left to itself. It is indeed a fact that, at every moment, there is a fighter battling within this body against death; if this fighter ceases to battle, death ensues.

Man's third member is the astral body, or the consciousness-body. His fourth member is the Ego; by means of this member he is the crown of creation.

All Mystery-Teachings have thought of man as being built up of these four members. In the Pythagorean School, each disciple had to be introduced, first of all, to this Teaching of the fourfold man. Only when this Teaching had become his innermost conviction, could he be advanced to higher knowledge. Hence he had to take this vow: "I vow allegiance, by virtue of what is deeply engraved in our hearts: to the holy fourfold Being, to the sublime spiritual symbol—the primal fount of all natural and spiritual Creation."

Even the most undeveloped human being has these four members. Man evolves, throughout the course of his various incarnations, to an ever greater degree o perfection, through the fact that the Ego works upon these three members of his being.

It begins, first of all, within the astral body, to work upon everything that constitutes the progress of civilisation and logical scientific learning—upon everything, that is to say, which serves to bring about a freedom from the animal stage. This is the work of the Ego upon the astral body. In the case of every moderately-developed human being, whose Ego has already worked upon the astral body, we find that the astral body divides into two parts: into the originally existing part, and that part produced by the Ego. This latter part which expands more and more—the more the human being progresses—is designated by the name of Manas or Spirit-Self.

Christian esotericism designates this part as the Holy Ghost—the Holy Spirit, in contrast to the unpurified, unholy part of the astral body.

Thus, we have learned to know the fifth member. But the Ego can also work upon the more dense, etheric body. In a certain sense, this already takes place in the ordinary human being—that is to say, unconsciously. It has often been stated that we should learn to distinguish between the work upon the astral and the etheric bodies. The ratio of speed, in the progress of the first of these, in relation to the latter, may be compared with the movement of the minute-hand of the clock, in relation to the hour-hand. If a human being surrenders himself to the impression made upon him by some lofty work of art, this has a transforming effect upon his life-body and his consciousness-body. Every great artistic impulse has this effect. Strongest of all is the effect of those religious impulses which were brought into the world by the founders of religions, and which direct the Ego toward the Eternal. The clairvoyant eye can see how the etheric body becomes more and more beautiful and pure.

That part of the human etheric body which is spiritualised by the Ego, is called Budhi or Life-Spirit; it is the transformed life-body. Christian esotericism designates this part, which is transformed by the Ego, the Christos. The fifth member of the human being is the Holy Ghost—the sixth member is the Christ, the inner Christos.

Our attention has already been called to the fact that so-called Mystery-schoolings, or preparations, have always existed for man—enabling him to become an Initiate, and to look into the spiritual world. Such a training is based upon the transformation, on a higher plane, of the etheric or life-body. For this reason, we must be quite clear in our realisation that every higher form of schooling is more than a mere acquisition of concepts and material for study. The occult training consists, rather, in the transformation of the qualities of our etheric body. Anyone who has transformed a temperament has thereby achieved far more than if he had acquired an infinite amount of scientific learning.

Now, there is a still higher form of metamorphosis, which takes place only through secret or occult schooling. Through this, the human being purifies his physical body. How much, indeed, does man know concerning his physical body! Through the fact that he examines it by dissection in an "anatomical museum" he does not by any means acquire any real knowledge concerning the laws which rule it, nor any inner control of these laws. Yet there is a possibility for him to look into himself, so that the movements of the nerve-currents, of the pulse-beat, and of the breath-streams, will become clear to him, and he can then be consciously active within these. When the human being, accordingly—through so-called occult training—is able to transform his physical body also, this now transformed body is designated as Atman, because the work upon it begins with the regulation of the breathing processes. (In German "Atmen" means: to breathe.) The seventh member of the human being is Atman—in Christian esotericism: the Father.

Thus we first attain to the Holy Ghost, to the transformed astral body; through the Holy Ghost we come to the Christ—to the consciousness of the etheric body; and through the Christ, to the Father, or the consciousness of the physical body.

If you have understood how these seven members of human nature are inter-related, you will also understand how Initiation took place in ancient times, before Christ, and how this Initia-tion took place, after Christ-Jesus had appeared on the earth.

When the human being is asleep, only his physical and etheric bodies lie in bed—his astral body is outside. When he dies, he leaves his physical body behind: only that part of the physical body which he has already transformed goes with him: forces, that is to say, not substances. What the human being thus takes with him, is very little indeed. Nevertheless, it is just this part which, in a new incarnation, serves to build up a new physical body. Materialism designates this part as the "permanent atom". And this part of the physical body, which the human being himself has transformed, is the first to leave the physical body; then the etheric body leaves it; then the consciousness-body, and then the Ego. After a short time, that part of the etheric body which the human being has not yet worked upon separates itself.

Thus it is that the human being enters Kamaloca, the Place of Purification. After another period of time, that part of the astral body which the Ego has not yet worked upon, severs itself likewise… And then there comes the time when the human being has left to him, from his three bodies, only those parts which the Ego has worked upon and transformed, through its own forces; and this is what passes through Devachan—this is the eternal kernel of man's being. It increases more and more, the more the Ego has worked upon it.

The Holy Ghost is the eternal Spirit in man. The Christ is the eternal part of the life-body; the Father, the eternal part of the physical body. These Three accompany the human being throughout all time, as that part of him which is eternal.

Before the Christian era, Initiation took place in such a way that the disciple was first prepared for everything which Mystery Teaching was able to give, until he reached the point where he was familiar with all the concepts and ideas, all the habits and feelings which are needed for living and perceiving in the higher worlds. This was followed by what was designated as the Awakening, which lasted for three and a half days and three nights. This consisted of a process whereby, through the skill of the Temple-Priest, the human being was artificially placed in a condition resembling death, for three and a half days. Whereas, normally the physical and etheric bodies remain connected during sleep, the initiating priest now drew out, during this space of time, the etheric body of the disciple about to be initiated, so that only a very loose connection existed between the etheric and physical body, on the one hand, and the remaining two bodies, on the other hand. It was a deep, trance-like sleep. The Ego of the man lived in the higher worlds, during this period of time. As the disciple had been given a knowledge of the higher worlds, he now felt at home there. The Priest was his guide. First of all, the Priest had to free the etheric body from the lethargic physical body, in order to lead it out of the physical body; in a fully-conscious state, the human being would never have been able to rise to these higher worlds ; it was necessary for him to be lifted out of such a state. Although the experiences which a human being passed through in such a process, were sublime and overpowering, he was nevertheless entirely in the hands of the Priest; he was under the power of another, and only under these conditions was he able to enter the higher worlds.

What the human being was like, after having passed through this experience, may be imagined if we bear in mind that it gave him the opportunity of experiencing his own eternal being: he was then emancipated from the part which was not eternal—his physical body—which he could not use, if he wished to move about in the higher worlds. Such a human being returned as one endowed with knowledge—as one who could bear witness, through his own vision, to the victory of life over death. Those who could bear witness, in this way, were Initiates. Their etheric body had to be lifted out of the physical body, in order that they might experience the Christos in man. These Initiates were able to say to themselves: "I have learned through my own experience that there is a part in man, which is eternal, which outlasts all incarnations. I know it, for I myself have experienced this eternal kernel of man's being". In order to attain to this, they were obliged to dwell for three days in a state of profound, dream-like sleep.

But there was something else that was connected with this—this kind of Initiation was dependent upon still another factor. And, the further we go back in time, the more we realise the truth of this. I have already characterised this to you, when I once explained that, in ancient times, there existed what we might call "close marriage", in contrast to distant marriage. In all nations, we find small communities which were inter-related; people married within these communities, and it was considered immoral to abandon them by marrying outside. The same blood always streamed through these marriages. Only very gradually was this close marriage substituted by the principle of distant marriage. Indeed, in the case of initiation, very special measures had to be observed, it was necessary to choose most carefully, from preceding incarnations, in order to produce the best possible mixture o blood. Such a genealogy then produced the one who was capable of passing through the higher grades of Initiation. In the case of persons related by blood, it is especially easy to draw the etheric body out of the physical body. In the case of distant marriages, this is by no means so easy. Throughout long generations of priests, it was their duty to see that the blood was maintained in a specially determined way. Human life is complicated; it does not always follow a straight road; and it is necessary to penetrate more and more deeply into the riddles of existence.

In ever increasing measure, this principle of close marriage was broken; the tribe extended more and more to the folk or nation. In the case of the Israelites, we see how the tribal principle rose completely to the idea of the national community. Christ extends this perspective into the far distant future: "He that forsaketh not his father, mother, brother or sister for my sake, cannot be my disciple."—In a stern, yet in a most deeply true way, do these words indicate the direction followed by Christianity. Within the national community, one would say: This is my brother, for he was born in the same nation. in the human brotherhood, which must encompass the whole human race, one should say: Because you are a human being, you are my brother. This is the most profound of all Christian principles. All narrow-mindedness contained in the other form of relationship must be torn asunder, and a common tie must unite human beings. At the same time, this implies also that the old principle of Initiation has been torn asunder; for it was based upon relationship of the blood.

The new principle of Initiation—which is not connected, since the coming of Christ, with any physical quality—is clearly indicated to us, in the case of Paul: He is initiated in the Light, not in the darkness of the Temple. This could not have taken place, earlier. When we bear this in mind, we shall be able to realise the tremendous turning-point brought about by Christ Jesus. The way to this was prepared by Moses, Zarathustra Buddha, Pythagoras;—but it was brought to fulfilment by Christ-Jesus.

Thus we see also that in the Christian Schools of Initiation this new principle is carried through, for the first time—the principle of not drawing the human being out of the physical body, in order to lead him into the higher worlds, but of leading him into the higher worlds while completely conscious in his physical body. This is what took place, accordingly, in the Christian esoteric Schools. In contrast to this, there is the old way—and this still includes a great part of humanity, even at the present time—in which there is the initiating Temple-priest, to whose stern authority the neophyte surrenders himself. Only by subjecting oneself entirely to the power of such an Initiating priest, was it possible to ascend to higher worlds.

The principle of enforced authority came to expression also in social life. The Priests were rulers. Every law of government, the whole structure of the state, was in the power of the Initiates. From the blood-community of the tribe, up to the community of the nation, this was possible. But, through the fact that the old principle of initiation was eliminated, the way was opened for an entirely new form of authority: a free authority, based solely upon trust and confidence. "Believe only in the one whom you trust"—this is the most sublime Christian idea to which we can rise, by virtue of which we all face one another as brothers, and the one who, stands higher will be recognised as the one who deserves our trust.

"Watch and pray": this is a fundamental Christian principle. The new Initiation takes place in a state of full consciousness. "You will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free”: these are profoundly Christian words, for they signify a perspective into the farthest future of Christianity. Christianity is at the beginning of its evolution.

Let us consider the intensely close tie that existed between the initiating Teacher and the disciple, during the ancient Temple-Sleep, which lasted three and a half days—when the neophyte was being initiated into the highest Mysteries. This relation was of a kind which we cannot even imagine, to-day. The relation between the hypnotiser and the one who is hypnotised may give a faint idea of the way in which the initiating Temple-priest first called to life the Holy Ghost, and then the Christos. The disciple reflected the Holy Ghost and the Christos of the Teacher: the personalities of the Teacher and the disciple streamed into each other, and the clairvoyant could observe the process. During the three days, the Teacher and disciple were one. The Ego of the Guru thus lived on, in all of his disciples, and was deeply merged with them, during the three and a half days.

Let us observe the pyramidal structure of social life: the folk below; above the folk, the Initiates; and, above these, the Teachers of the Initiates. One and the same Spirit streamed down through all these stages. Many things, consequently, passed over into, and lived on, in those who were initiated in this way—even things that were alien to them.

As a result of the Christian principle, the individuality appeared in its full value. This explains the fundamental principle of Christian initiation. Never should the disciple become merged with the Teacher in the old way. They must not become one person, during Initiation. The Holy Ghost must arise, and awaken within the Ego of each single human being: this has become the principle of Christian Initiation. And this is also expressed symbolically, in the miracle of Pentecost. The possibility of Initiation, in that case, was given through the fact that all who were present began to speak in different tongues.

The Teacher respects the individuality of the other person; he enters into the heart of his disciple—he does not draw this out of the physical body.

We should bear in mind that, for the modern human being, everything depends upon the free and independent development, within each one, of the Holy Ghost and the Christos. We shall then realise that it is through this principle of Christianity that—for the first time, indeed—this human personality can be looked upon as free and independent. Only through Christianity has the human individuality become really free; and, for this reason, through Christianity, an entirely new relation to Truth and Wisdom has become necessary.

In olden times, the spirit of Wisdom ruled over all things, because it was centralised. Through the cleavage that followed, it became de-centralised; but Egoism arose. The more the principle of distant marriage begins to hold sway, the greater must become the power of that element which brings together human beings, now become free. And what is this element? If we consider what we may learn to-day, in the elementary parts of spiritual science, and then go back to ancient times, we shall find that this knowledge was in the possession of small communities only—and, indeed, even then, only in the possession of the highest authority. For this reason, the ruling principle was based upon compulsion. We are now approaching the time when Wisdom will become m.re and more popular. This will be the means whereby the great Brotherhood of humanity will be established.

Two occultists will never be of a different opinion. Where-ever this is the case, one of the two opinions is wrong. Wisdom is something unified—a oneness—which cannot contain differences. The more individualised human beings become, the more they will need this wisdom; for, through it, they will be drawn together. To-day, we are living in an age of transition. The principle of different viewpoints ceases entirely, through the progressive development of Wisdom. The more individualised men become, the wiser they must grow; for knowledge will lead them together. This is the Spirit of Wisdom which Christ-Jesus his promised to His followers. The Sun of Wisdom draws into itself all differing standpoints—just as the sun attracts the plants. The Spirit which will make men free, is the Holy Ghost. Against this Spirit, no Christian may ever sin. For he who sins against it, sins against Christianity itself—against that promised Spirit which is able to draw together all separate human individualities.

There is a passage which tells us that Christ-Jesus cast out demons. Demons exist only as long as the human being is not free—as long as he has not yet received into himself the Spirit of Wisdom. The human being is absolutely filled with all kinds of beings, which stream in and out of his lower members. (Perhaps we may use the trivial comparison of a piece of cheese, with maggots creeping in and out of it). We call these beings shadows, spectres, ghosts, or demons. In making Himself known as the Spirit who casts out demons, Christ-Jesus has shown that He is the Spirit of Freedom. For demons can be cast out only by calling forth the one Spirit against the others—the Spirit of Freedom against all the other spirits.

Let us now consider once more the ancient communities—extending from the tribal community to the nation. How may these human beings, who are not yet individually free, be drawn together? Imagine to yourselves that everyone who is sitting here has become truly free—that the Spirit of Truth lives in each one! Would we, in that case, ever quarrel, ever fall into dissension? No—for where the Spirit unites us, there can be no divergence of opinions. In ancient times, external law had to hold sway, in order to hold human beings together. Where two human beings know the Spirit of Truth, they will, because of this, feel themselves drawn to each other.

At the beginning of human evolution was the Law: at the end of evolution, there will be peaceful, harmonious cooperation from within. Esoteric Christianity calls this, in contrast to the Law—Grace. To be able to share, in complete harmony, the feelings of one's fellow-man: this is the profoundest concept of Christianity.

The astral body that has been filled with the Holy Ghost, is the same in all men—the Spirit of Truth, in each one, is the same. Imagine to yourselves this Spirit within a human individuality in which also the Christos has been awakened—that is to say, that principle which is active as Life-Spirit within the Life-Body. If each one of us were to permeate his etheric body with this feeling, we should then have, in every heart, the feeling for the One, unified Spirit. Human individualities are brought together by the Wisdom which is common to all; and what each one feels within himself, is Caritas—Grace.

The One who brought Grace to earth was He Who, at the beginning of our Era, contained within His own individuality the whole Christos—the One Who fulfilled, for the first time, the principle of humanity, as a whole. Christ-Jesus developed in Himself what should live in every single human being. Whatever exists through freedom and peaceful cooperation, has come into the world through Him.

"Become alive again in Christ and kill the Spirit of discord", says Paul.

A human being may sin against everything which is not contained in this Spirit. But, if he were to sin against this Spirit of a common humanity, if he were to deny this Spirit—he would no longer be a Christian.

The human being must reach the stage of being conscious of the Spirit. If he develops himself, ever more and more, his consciousness-body becomes transformed into the Holy Ghost. It is for this reason that the Sin against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven. In the case of an uninitiated person, the transformation of the etheric body takes place unconsciously. As long as the human being is not initiated, the unforgivable sin can be committed only within his astral body. The Initiate may not sin, even against the physical or etheric body: to the one who is not initiated, these sins may be forgiven. All of this takes place with the help of those who are the Leaders of humanity.

The study of parables and their interpretation is all too easily drawn into the current materialistic worldview, for materialism, even if it is not so strongly felt and admitted by individuals, has taken hold of our entire age, of the whole way of thinking. Not only natural science, but philosophy and even theology have been affected to some extent. One kind of materialism can be easily cured, so to speak, because it is only theoretical and can easily be shown to be absurd. It is much more difficult with the materialistic way of thinking, which, for example, sees in Jesus nothing more than a selfless, pure human being and then has drawn this figure so completely down into the materialistic.

There were times when the parables could not be interpreted highly enough; in the first centuries, the interpreters of the Gospels did everything they could to identify the Christ in Jesus; today, on the other hand, we see that newer theologians have no inclination to see in Jesus anything other than an idealized person who, while being somewhat higher than Goethe or Schiller, may in no case, in their judgment, rise so significantly above humanity. For these modern theologians, Jesus is simply the simple man from Nazareth, and such a belittling of Jesus' personality is much worse materialism than the theoretical kind.

Things like the parables must not be reduced to the generally human, otherwise only pure materialism will be spread in the field of religious thinking. Salvation can only come from the fact that these documents do not contain mere facts, but universal truths. One must delve deeply into these truths in order to recognize the right intentions from them, and not speculate about them.

How, for example, has the Lord's Prayer been viewed in the esoteric, which I have already been able to talk to you about! Only those who go back to the occult schools can find the right thing.

So let us also draw from these right sources with regard to today's parable: It reads:

He spoke But he spoke also to his disciples, saying, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do, for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I will know what I may do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thine own bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to the other, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thine own bill, and write forty. And the lord commended the unrighteous steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unrighteous in the least is unrighteous also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you are not faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. When the Pharisees heard all this they were mocking him. And he said unto them, “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” The law and the prophets were preached until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the law. Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and he who marries a widow commits adultery. (Luke 16:1-18)

To understand this parable, it is first necessary to see where it is found; it is found in the Gospel of Luke. The apparent diversity of the four Gospels is due to the fact that their authors had not gone through the same mystery school. For example, the Gospel of John is based on the Greek mystery schools. Luke, on the other hand, drew from the deep mysteries of the therapists and Essenes, and that is why the Gospel of Luke has a completely different tone of explanation than that of John, for example. In this sense, everything cannot be lumped together.

The Gospel of Luke, as I said, was born out of the attitude of the therapists and Essenes, which consisted in pointing out to people in all their striving to the powers of their own soul. The keynote of this Gospel will only be grasped in the right way if one takes into account the saying of these Essenes: You shall bring to maturity the thoughts within you that take care of the poor, the afflicted, the laden. Luke's gospel is a gospel of poverty and is thus most intimately connected with the attitudes of the therapists and Essenes.

This noble brotherhood was the first to emphasize the equality of all people before God. They allowed their bodies only the most necessary nourishment, and of the greatest purity of morals. They were doctors of body and soul to their fellow human beings; no one was allowed to heal for the sake of reward. Their beneficial work extended to the huts of the poor as well as to the palaces of the rich. Those who are not familiar with the circumstances of this time do not realize what an eminent progress was associated with the appearance of this order, and only then do we understand why Luke's gospel has this particular tone. The confrontation between the rich and those who owe him money comes to the fore at first; it is not at all a matter of accusing the rich man in some way, but of putting the debtors, the poor, in the right light. Thus, it is not a good idea to want to recognize God, the infinitely rich, in the rich man; for it is simply said of the man that he is a rich man. But is his way of thinking also such that he wants to exploit people, or is it different, and would it not be possible that the steward's actions were based solely on the good intention of reducing the debts of the poor?

The steward had brought the economy into disarray; now he has to give account and fears that he will be dismissed and therefore he is trying to provide for himself. He cannot work, does not want to beg, but he wants to have a place to stay and he is now trying to find one with those whom he had wronged. It is his own fault that they were charged too much, so he says to the first one: You no longer owe me 100 tons of oil, but 50, and to the other: You no longer owe me 100 bushels of wheat, but 80, and with that the debtors are satisfied, he has eased the heavy burden on them as much as possible. So what did he do? He used his master's wealth to do justice to the poor, thereby doing them a favor.

That's what matters. Now let us remember that the rich man says to his steward, “You have acted wisely”; he does not want to be an exploiter, but thinks to himself, Now I like you.

Such an attitude was new to the scribes of the time; never before had anyone been induced to do good in this way. It achieved something that had previously been considered inadmissible, even impossible. The debtors, the poor, would have found no way out of their dire situation; here they are referred to as the children of light, that is, as those who accept the teaching of wisdom, in contrast to the children of the world. These, the Pharisees, are stingy and only act according to the rigid letter of the law; they do not want to help the poor, but the steward was always the one who did something for the poor.

And now we can also apply the parable to a higher truth and do not hesitate to describe God himself as the rich man who, although no one compares him to an exploiter, is always happy to give of his inexhaustible riches and praises the steward for using the divine riches to do good to the poor.

But the parable also becomes a universal truth through Jesus' subsequent words. Jesus says that the law and the prophets prophesied until John. (Luke 16:16) This is a reference to the higher spiritual truth; it refers to the great change that occurred through Christ Jesus. Before that, there was the rigid law, the wording of which people scrupulously adhered to, but which could not prevent the gap between the wealthy and the poor from growing ever wider, and the contradictions from developing into a harshness and acrimony that we can hardly imagine today. This state of affairs, carried to its extreme point, was finally resolved by the fact that Christ Jesus, although He rightly left the Law in full force, transferred its seat and its work into the souls of individual human beings.

As can be seen later, the Law not only does not lose any of its importance as a result, but it is intensified and refined in a way that was previously unimagined and unknown. In the serious and urgent admonishment that Jesus addresses to the Pharisees, who justify themselves before men, the parable of the prodigal son also passes before our soul. The son who always stayed at home is less favored by the father than the “prodigal” son who has undergone the test, who has returned to the fatherland, who has been resurrected. This is a perfect expression of what grace means, which paves the way from a loving heart to another loving heart. The law is the network that bound people together; grace flows into the inner being and becomes the living law in the soul. It is not for nothing that Jesus says, “I am the fulfillment of the law.” (Matthew 5:17-18) The Kingdom of Heaven cannot be forced; it does not come with external gestures; only those who try to reach it with the power of their soul will find it, and that is by Christ becoming alive in them.

In the successive periods, the most diverse impulses prevail in the soul. So what is the law in relation to grace? It is the one that did not come in through Christianity, but what was there through the steward. Before his appearance, Christianity was not yet the appropriate religion for people; they still needed the law, they still needed stewards.

This steward is replaced by the work of Christ on humanity and must give account. The law has become an unjust one over time, like all systems that are temporarily suitable for people. The oppression of the poor is mentioned again and again in the Gospel of Luke. Christ teaches a new way of thinking and acting in place of this way of thinking and acting. Now we understand when it says in this Gospel: “The law and the prophets were preached until John; and since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and people are forcing their way into it.” (Lk 16:16)

When interpreting the parables, nothing should be left out; only in this way will we gain the context. Now let us go one step further:

The law had led to the oppression of the poor; these, the children of light, heard that something new was to come, that they were to give account. They can now cite nothing but the innermost feelings of their hearts if they want to make some excuse. The oppressors have not heard the voice of charity so far, but now they are trying to give back the unjust mammon, the vague call for a new era has also reached them, in which injustice should not continue, the children of the world cannot indulge in hypocrisy, the new external and internal conditions of the world force them to behave differently than before. All this justifies that Christ Jesus can claim this change in the spirit of the time for himself. And I also say to you: “Make friends with the unrighteous mammon, so that when you now suffer hunger, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” (Luke 16:9) He can say: “You see from this steward how one should behave in the face of poverty, and you can truly take an example from it, but you must be urged to do so by the innermost impulses of your soul; then you will find enough for your needs when you are in need yourselves.”

In the old dispensation, the children of the world were wiser than the children of light, but that will be reversed later. You must not believe that it can only be beneficial to adhere strictly to the rigid letter of the law; the children of the world have generally always spoken of righteousness, but have not in reality kept to it in the slightest. From the steward's actions, we can see how the law should have been applied in its deepest inner sense.

"If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is yours?” (Luke 16:11-12) These words point to the replacement of the old era by a new one, a new social order is being introduced in which each shall receive what is his. And now, once again, the point is summarized: ”Be serious.” There the old attitude with its harshness according to the letter of the law, here the new attitude, which knows nothing but responding to the needs of the other, recognizing in this an equal entity, while at the same time being carried by the consciousness of serving God.

“You cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13); mammon is the name given to the gods of obstacles, while Christ and wisdom bring forward. Mammon is the term used for everything that man wants to grab for the narrow circle of his “ego”; but this is only of secondary importance. This embodied selfishness is shown to us in the Gospel by Judas Iscariot, who contributes to Christ being led to his death.

“Old times - new times.” It is now understandable that the Pharisees mocked, of whom it says, “They were greedy.” (Luke 16:14) The translation is not quite correct; it would be better to say, “They had a mammonistic attitude.” Therefore, Christ Jesus says, “But God knows the hearts,” and that is what will matter, because what is high among men is an abomination before God; only true spiritual power determines the real order of rank. Charity is not against the law, but as an impulse for the fullest fulfillment of the law, of one's own free will. At the time of Christ, the moment had come when charity had to appear before the hearts of men hardened completely. But Christ Jesus continues: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail” (Luke 16:17); “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and he who marries her when she is divorced from her husband commits adultery.” (Luke 16:18) – If we now turn to Matthew, chapter 5, we find that Jesus says that true marriage must neither be broken nor divorced (Matthew 5:30-31). We who are present know the concept of marriage only according to the law, and of course the completely new concept of Jesus, which places the focus of married life so completely within the soul, is the greatest possible contrast. Such words must have seemed incomprehensible to most people because their hearts were hardened, as Jesus often emphasized in his speeches. Instead of being bound by the form of the law, here the circumstances are based on the power of the innermost impulses. Therefore, through the realization of Jesus' teachings, the most glorious conditions must arise from the heart. In the analogous passage in Mark (Mk 10:2-10), there is also talk of marriage and the possibility of divorce and the consequences, but the whole marital relationship is so delicate in reality that it cannot be transferred to another. The teachings expressed in the parable point to the change brought about by Christ Jesus. — Having considered the gospel in this way, we may also compare the rich man with the world ruler, who is always happy to give from his inexhaustible abundance and praises those who make use of this wealth to do good to others. You see, the parable is written entirely in the spirit of the Gospel of Luke, and so it should be observed, otherwise it would not be understood. As already mentioned at the beginning, when studying individual parts of the Gospel, it is always necessary to consider which evangelist wrote them, each of whom came from a different school.

There is not much left to explain about this parable. Theosophy is always a clear guide for such considerations. We should not brood and fantasize, but draw wisdom from these words ourselves, then we will find what remains hidden from the keen minds of liberal theologians and at the same time we will not run the risk of being drawn into the teachings of material fantasists who, despite their new teachings about the vortices of atoms, they cannot in their own way get any closer to the essence of phenomena.

At present, however, it seems as if humanity is guided by purely material profanes who accept nothing other than what can be perceived with the bodily senses. Holding on to phrases about harmony and universal brotherhood does not benefit the progress of humanity either. If I say to the stove, “Be warm,” it does not spread warmth because of that; you have to heat it, and only then will it become warm and warm others. So admonitions of brotherhood are of no use either; you have to give people wisdom, then brotherhood develops by itself.

The Revelations of John seek to tell us what will happen in the course of time. The Apocalypse is written in pictures that express the appearance of the eternal spirit of the world. John, who beholds them, is to record these highest mysteries.

We are, to begin with, concerned with seven communities, represented symbolically by seven lamp stands and seven stars. The stars are the communities' geniuses watching over them.

In the second vision John sees the four apocalyptic living beings, the lion, the bull, the eagle, and Man, surrounding a throne where sits the spirit of God. Twenty-four elders are sitting around the throne of the spirit of God. “And I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals.” (Rev. 5:1) A lamb opens the book. The book contains, with the opening of the first four seals, what is expressed symbolically in the four apocalyptic riders; with the opening of the fifth seal the martyrs appear. These are those who have lifted themselves up to knowledge and life in the spirit. The opening of the sixth seal is followed by a horrible earthquake. With the seventh the revelation becomes audible: the seven trumpets sound forth. Mysterious pictures are then revealed; for example, a being whose legs are like two pillars, one foot stands in the sea, the other on the earth. “Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He had a little scroll open in his hand.” (Rev. 10:1,2) John must eat the secret of this book. Then a woman appears dressed with the sun, and the moon at her feet.

We read further: “And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns and a blasphemous name upon its heads.” (Rev. 13:1) The sound of trumpets accompanies this vision. The victory of good over evil is shown us in a picture. A beast is shown which, in a certain sense, is supposed to represent to us the principle of evil. It is the beast with seven heads and ten horns.

Then a beast appeared with two horns like a lamb, a beast that will appear in the future. “Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast ... And it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave to be marked on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast, or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom; let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.” (Rev. 13: 11, 16–18)

It is further related how all enemies are eliminated: Michael conquers the dragon, the evil elements; then a new world arises. In the first Christian centuries this was prophesied and always understood as a reference to the future. Admittedly, the exegetes soon knew little more than that; but again and again, also in the Middle Ages, there were those who came forward to explain it. The year 1000 A.D. was often thought to be the time for the beast's appearance. The later the era the more senseless the explanations became, especially in the nineteenth century—when the ancient commentators were seen as children still able to believe in prophecy. The Apocalypse was seen as a historical document, as if everything described therein had already taken place when John wrote it. There were wars after the appearance of Christianity. John could have meant to express them with the red horse. The white horse would then symbolize the martyrs. Earthquakes such as John described with the opening of the sixth seal were also to be found at that time in Asia Minor. And neither was it difficult to prove the existence of locust plagues. But the passage concerning the two-horned beast was a real cross for the commentators. They had heard a rumor concerning the way numbers are to be read but it was dripping with occultism. How does one read in numbers? Every letter also signifies a number; the esotericists wrote in numbers when they wanted to hide something. One had to replace each number with the correct letter; one had to be able to read the letters and then also know what the resulting word meant. Who then, is the beast whose number is 666? The commentators thought it must be something in the past. One wrote the letters in Hebrew—wrongly—in the place of the numbers. That resulted in “Nero.” The horns were then related to the generals or the enemies of the Romans, for example, the Parthians. If one had written correctly with Hebrew letters (right to left) and then read correctly (also from right to left), the following would have resulted: 60, Samech, 6 Waw; 600 was written by esotericists as 200 + 400: 200 Resch + 400 Taw. Hence, we get 666, which in Hebrew letters spells “Sorat.” Sorat is also the corresponding word in Greek. Sorat has meant “Demon of the Sun” since ancient times. Every star has its good spirit—its intelligence—and its evil spirit—its demon. The adversary of the good powers of the sun is called Sorat. Christ was always the representative of the sun, namely, the intelligence of the Sun. Sorat is, then, the adversary of Christ Jesus. The sign for Sorat looks like this:

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The sign of the intelligence of the Sun is the following:

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This is, at the same time, the occult sign of the lamb. The lamb receives the book with the seven seals. “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” (Rev. 5:6) The seven corners of the sign are called “horns.” But what do the “eyes” mean?

In occult schools the signs of the seven planets are written next to the seven eyes. The seven eyes signify nothing other than the seven planets, while the names of the planets designate the spirits incarnated in them as their intelligence. “Saturn” is the name of the soul of Saturn. The names of the planets come from the spirits of the seven planets found around the earth. These have an influence on human life. The lamb, Christ, contains all seven. Christ is the alpha and the omega; the seven planets are related to him like members to an entire body. The entwining of the lines of the sign portray in a wonderful way the interaction between the seven planets. From Saturn one rises to the Sun, from there down to the Moon, then on to Mars, Mercury, and so forth. The same thing is expressed in the names of the seven days of the week: Saturday, Saturn; Sunday, the Sun; Monday, the Moon; Tuesday, Mardi, Mars; Wednesday, Mercredi, Mercury; Thursday, Jeudi, Jupiter; Friday, Vendredi, Venus. Christ is the regent of all these world spheres; their actions constitute only part of his being; he unites them all. In Rosicrucian schools a lamb is often drawn as a sign for the intelligence of the Sun.

We determine time according to the movement of the heavenly bodies. Was the method for calculating time always the same as today's? Important things have changed. If we look into the past a little we see the Atlantean culture before the great flood on earth. The Lemurian age preceded it. If we go even further back into the past the earth, sun, and moon are still united in a single body. Back then time had to he determined differently than today. Day and night were entirely different. In Lemuria, conditions for the whole earth were the same as it is today at the north pole, half a year day and half a year night. When sun, moon, and earth were still one this unified mass moved through space. Already back then this movement was calculated by occult wisdom, just as today one calculates time according to the sun which moves across the sky through the signs of the zodiac. Eight hundred years before Christ the sun stood in the sign of Aries. Christ was originally worshiped under the sign of the cross, with a lamb lying at the foot of the cross. The cross with Christ upon it appeared only in the sixth century. Before that the Bull, Taurus, was worshiped when the sun stood in its sign. Earlier, it was the Twin, Gemini, that was worshiped in Persia. The team of goats that pulled Thor's chariot had the same significance. Before that the Crab, Cancer, was worshiped, and so forth.

Before the Lemurian age the sun, moon, and earth, united in one body, moved forward in terms of the zodiac. Time was measured following this movement. For this reason, the twelve signs of the zodiac are characterized as the heavenly clock and drawn as such.

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A planet alternates between pralaya, a cosmic night, and manvantara, a cosmic day, just as we alternately pass through day and night. The planet passes through the signs of the zodiac during both pralaya and manvantara; for that reason the twelve signs of the zodiac are counted twice, just as we also count two times twelve to equal twenty-four hours. The hours symbolize the signs of the zodiac. The united sun, moon, and earth also moved through the cosmic days and nights according to the heavenly clock. Then their separation occurred. But at that time human beings were not the same as we are now. The soul only gradually descended, and only gradually did the human being develop from the generic into a specific individual being. If one had taken together the generic souls of human beings during the Lemurian and Atlantean times, then one would have perceived something very strange. The aura of the human being is constantly changing; like all astral beings it is in constant motion. The generic souls were reflected in the forms of animals, for example, in sphinxes and so forth. The ancient Atlantean and Lemurian generic souls were constantly changing but they expressed themselves again and again in a fourfold way. The fourfold nature of human generic souls is characterized by the four living creatures of the Apocalypse: lion, bull, eagle, and Man. The lower human being is portrayed through these four living creatures, and the lamb symbolized the perfected human being—that is, the fifth living creature.

Twice twelve heavenly constellations and four living creatures were once the regents of the world. Mighty cosmic powers ensouled the signs of the zodiac and the four living creatures. The twenty-four elders in the Apocalypse are the two times twelve stars on the world clock who were once rulers. The evolution of the human being can be portrayed in this drawing:

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The lowest point designates clear day-consciousness. In pre-Lemurian times the human being had a dull clairvoyance. At that time human beings were closer to God than today. Then they acquired day consciousness. Human beings will take that consciousness with them in the course of their further evolution when they again approach God and become clairvoyant. Every point on the descending line corresponds to a point on the ascending line. If we could live backward we would see all the things that we will see in the future in a different, clairvoyant way. In the future we will again see the twelve spirits of the planets, and the sun, moon, and earth will once again be united, “... and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood ...” and so forth. (Rev. 6:12)

When the soul first descended from the womb of God it found a human animal on earth. These human animals looked grotesque; they needed to be transformed, overcome. In the future, there will also be such an animal to overcome. That is what the beast with the two horns would say to us.

Only someone who explains the Apocalypse within its entire context can understand it properly. The Apocalypse is a cosmic explanation of the world. The author was an initiate. He spoke of universal laws that apply to the world from the beginning to the decline, from the alpha to the omega.

We should allow the holy symbols given in the Apocalypse to work upon us. The sign of the Sun intelligence, for example, should not remain a mere sign for us; we should immerse ourselves in this sign until we feel it is no longer dead but flowing with life. The signs should be for us doors connecting the physical to the spiritual world. Then we have fulfilled our duty: to connect the physical and the spiritual worlds.

Eight days ago began with a presentation to help us understand the language of John. We considered how the Apocalypse is to be read and what is hidden behind some of the mysterious expressions, for example, behind the lamb as the beast with seven eyes and seven horns. We also sought to explain the beast with two horns and considered the number 666 as an example of how we must live into this mysterious book. Today, we again seek to find the meaning of this book.

The record of the New Testament is a record of initiation. Using individual images as examples we have seen how deep their meaning really is. All the images have shown us that the Gospels express, in pictorial form, the deepest imaginable meaning of the evolution of the world. It could occur to someone to ask why there are contradictions in the individual Gospels, why they do not correspond to each other. What needs to be said concerning this is already laid out in my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact.¹ The Gospels are not records of the biography of Christ Jesus, but rather records concerning initiation. And the Apocalypse is the profoundest record. Augustine said: What is now called the “Christian religion” is the ancient true religion. What was the true religion, now is called the Christian religion.²

We understand what is meant by this statement when we consider the fundamental assertion of Christianity: “Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe.” John 20:29) In this way something entirely new has come into the world. The teachings are already contained in other religious systems. Among those who understood who “Christ” is the main emphasis was never placed on the content of this teaching. One can also find this content in records from earlier times. What is important with Christ is what this individual means for humankind. We can acquire an understanding for this most readily if we take a look at the ancient mystery centers.

Until the time of Christ only a few specially chosen people were initiated. After severe testing they were permitted to learn the teachings that can now be found in my book Theosophy.³ One had to wait a long time until the higher degrees of vision were permitted. Only the most initiated knew the tradition of how to carry out an initiation. If someone wanted to become a pupil, as a first step they had to do this, as a second step, that, and so forth. The initiation concluded when the pupil had gone through the preparatory stages and was led by the wise ones into the mysteries themselves. That took place in a state of consciousness called “ecstasy,” a state of existence outside the physical body. It was connected with a diminution of consciousness, but at the same time with a vision of the spiritual world. An inner schooling consisting of certain will impulses, meditations, and a purification of the desires brought the pupil to a point where the last step was possible. Then the pupil was put by the initiator into a state that lasted three and a half days, a state like the one we enter when we fall asleep at night. External sense impressions disappeared. When we are asleep, nothing enters into the place where the sense impressions of sight and sound have disappeared, but with those being initiated a new world appeared. They were surrounded by a new world, a world of astral light, not the darkness, nothing of what today's human being experiences in the night appeared to them. The darkness was permeated by spiritual light and beings that are incarnated within the spiritual light. These beings became visible in the astral light. Then, after awhile, the astral world full of flowing light began to resound with the music of the spheres. What had merely been seen earlier began to be heard; it was a pure, spiritual music. External music is only a shadow-like reflection of the sounds of the spheres the seer hears, the seer who also perceives the inside of spiritual beings. Suppose we enter a large room filled with people; only when they begin to speak do they reveal their inner life to us. That is how it is in the spiritual world. First the beings become visible, then the inner life of the beings speaks to us. That is the harmony of the spheres.

Then, when the initiates were led back to vision of the physical world, they experienced themselves fully transformed into new human beings. Everyone who returned in this way then typically expressed: “My God, my God, how you have glorified me!” (Compare Matt. 27:46 and Mark 15:34)⁴

And so they returned, knowledgeable concerning the spiritual world out of their own experience. They were then seen as messengers from the spiritual world. What they had experienced up to the point of entering the spiritual world was prescribed precisely, stage by stage.

Although the rites of initiation were not recorded exactly, still there were canons of initiation containing prescriptions for all the steps. Everywhere, whether in the Egyptian schooling of Hermes, or in the Persian school, or in the Greek mysteries, or with the Druidic or Drotten mysteries, there were typical, traditional rules concerning what was to be experienced by anyone wanting to become an initiate.

Typical, similar characteristics appear wherever the lives of the great apostles of religions or world-views are described. The lives of Orpheus, Pythagoras, Hermes, and Buddha have many features in common, features that are important for all religious heroes. Why is this? Superficial researchers have believed that one borrowed from the other. But that is not true. Nevertheless, all of these typical religious heroes passed through these steps up to the highest stage of initiation. There were no biographies in ancient times that took into consideration the external conditions of a person's life. The further back we go before the turning point of time, the less value we find ascribed to the externals of life. Absolutely nothing was said concerning what the very greatest heroes of humankind experienced externally on the physical plane. Their lives were entirely dedicated to initiation. Telling the story of their initiation meant telling the story of their life. The main thing about a Hermes or a Buddha was what he had experienced until the initiation. Since the stages of initiation were similar everywhere, one heard a spiritual description of the life of the great initiates.

What in the past had been experienced only in secret became historical fact in Christianity. What could be described of Herme' experience took place in inner mysteries, at locations far removed from profane eyes.

In Christianity, for the first time, something was experienced as an external physical event that otherwise only took place in the mystery centers. The course Christ's life followed is the same as that experienced by all initiates when, to begin with, they had their etheric bodies lifted out of their physical. Everything that Christ Jesus experienced physically, on the physical plane, they had experienced in the etheric realm. Their last words were also, “My God, my God, how you have glorified me!” They had experienced earlier in the etheric body what Christ experienced in a physical body. In this way the prophecies of the prophets were fulfilled. This one time only experience of Christ represents the greatest decisive turning point in our world history and separates it into two parts.

The evangelists did not write ordinary biographies, but took rather the existing canonical initiation books. All four Gospels are to be seen as initiation writings, each presented from a different perspective. Since, however, initiation is described everywhere in the same way, the Gospels are in agreement on the most important things. We can describe the life of an initiate if we consider it as a life dedicated wholly to initiation. It would have seemed unholy to the evangelists to give an ordinary, external, historical biography of Christ Jesus. They had to take the building blocks for their writings from books derived from the mysteries. Hence, to a certain extent, what the prophets had said was fulfilled.

In a certain sense the Apocalypse represents a new kind of initiation; it shows how the old mysteries were transformed into Christian mysteries. When we look back at the old mysteries we find in them a more or less unified feature. It consisted of the following: Whether we go to Egypt, or to Persia, or to India, whether we are deepened in the Orphic or the Eleusinian mysteries, we find there complete agreement in one feature: a prophecy concerning the One who is to come.⁵ This trait is also found in the Northern European mysteries. There was an initiate in the most ancient times who was signified by the name “Sig.” The Drotten mysteries, which were in Russia and Scandinavia, the Druidic mysteries in Germany all derived from an initiate with the name Sig, who was the founder of the northern mysteries. What happened in the mysteries has been preserved in the various myths and legends of the German nation and other Germanic peoples. The myths and legends are pictorial representations of what was experienced. In the Siegfried legend⁶ we see most clearly that feature that seeks for an end. This feature is expressed in mythological terms in the “Gotterdammerung,” the twilight of the gods.⁷ This is characteristic of all the northern mysteries.

In all mysticism the image of the feminine is used for the soul; this image is also used by Goethe in his “chorus mysticus,” in the concluding scene of the second part of Faust. It is the eternal in the human being, the divine soul that draws the human being forward. Just as initiation was described in ancient Egypt and Persia as the union of the soul with the spiritual, so was it also described here in the north. Here in the north it was understood best that a man proved his worth on the field of battle. Those who counted for something in the north were honored as fighters who fell in the field of battle; those were the ones who entered into eternal life; the others died in their sleep. The fallen fighters were received by the Valkyries,⁸ their own soul; union with the Valkyries was union with the eternal. It was said of Siegfried that he had already united with the Valkyries here on earth; that shows he was an initiate. The meaning of the story, that Siegfried had already experienced union with the Valkyries here on earth, is that he was an initiate. This legend tells us something with the death of Siegfried. When experiencing initiation in the ancient mysteries the initiate is told: We can only bring you to a certain point ... further than this only another can bring you—this other one is Christ Jesus—all that we can give you will be darkened when he comes, the One who will bring the new initiation. Siegfried is vulnerable to Hagen⁹ on his back because the cross has not yet been placed on the back of the one who will take over from the ancient initiation. This part of the body will one day be made invulnerable when the cross has been laid across it. In this way the northern mysteries alluded to Christ Jesus.

All the ancient mysteries looked toward him who was to come, who will live on the physical plane so as to found a new world order. The new initiation is what will occur through the impulses he gave. We find a portrayal of this in the Apocalypse. It tells us how initiation will proceed until Christ Jesus comes again in a new form. The Apocalypse refers to the time when an organ for receiving Christ will be developed. The time until Christ Jesus again will approach is described in the Apocalypse. We will understand the individual words if we adopt the way of thinking of one who has experienced such an initiation. We remember here the words of Christ—if we understand them we will also understand the Apocalypse—“Before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58) Christ directs his view from the past over to the present because for him there is an eternal present.

If we wish to understand what is meant by this we need only remember the fourfold human being who consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and I. When the I lights up in the course of evolution then the astral and etheric bodies are changed; and then finally the physical body too. The I is here for eternity; it is born out of the womb of a higher spirituality. Whether we look into the past or into the future, this I is what is eternal. If we observe an individual we can ask the question: What transformation has this person's I gone through? If we look back to the great Atlantean flood and then further back we do not find the I in a body such as exists today. At that time we were in a state wherein we could not think as well as we can now. When we look into the future we find the I in bodies ever more perfect, bodies having a perfection that we today with our thinking cannot even imagine. We cannot now imagine the perfection of thinking, the purity of feeling, and so forth in the future bodies of humankind. Initiates must make use of the form the human body has at any given time. Christ, too, had to use the ordinary form of the human body in his time. Still, when we look deeper we see in him a stage of evolution that humankind will only achieve in the distant future. Christ Jesus was the first born among those who could overcome death.

Let us compare the two ways of developing. The human being is born, goes through a life on earth, dies, goes through an astral condition, through devachan, and is then born again. When we go back to the beings who were present before the Lemurian age we have beings who do not die and are not reborn. They are constantly exchanging sheaths, as we do between physical birth and death. Then a certain revolution enters in. Today, human beings alternate between spiritual and physical life. With the group souls of animals it happens this way: Individual animals discard their bodies but the group souls themselves never die.

If we try to imagine the very highest being, the one who was as highly developed at the beginning as others will be at the end of evolution, then we have the image of Christ. He was the I that was as highly developed at the beginning as the human being will be at the end. “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come ...” (Rev. 1:4) He is the first and the last.

The one who gives the Revelation to John is thus described. It is a Christian book; that is proven by the passage that reads: “... and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first born of the dead and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (Rev. 1:5,6)

Christianity represents the greatest possible individualization of the human being, the freedom of the human being as an individual. At the beginning of the human race we see small communities held together by blood ties. Love was limited to those of the same blood. Now Christ Jesus comes and expands all ethnic groups and communities to include all of humanity. All ethnic religions are overcome through him. Christianity is the religion of the world. Within it there are only human beings; Christianity knows only human beings. Christianity would never be able to speak of the community of religions, but only of community of human beings. An age began when the secret mysteries became accessible to everyone through the mystery of Golgotha, which was placed in the center of the world. The chosen priests and kings gradually cease to exist. A final state is pointed to wherein everyone is a priest and a king, a state wherein all distinctions are swept away and all human beings are made equal. Therefore, the Apocalypse speaks of: “... a Kingdom, priests to his God and Father.” (Rev. 1:6)

The book portrays a real initiation, an ascent, to begin with, through learning on the physical plane. This step is portrayed in the words concerning the seven letters to the seven communities. The seven letters present what must first be learned. Then a number of pictures lead us to the astral plane. We see groups of beings undergoing transformation in the astral light: “... and he who sat there appeared like jasper and carnelian, and, round the throne was a rainbow that looked like an emerald.” (Rev. 4:3) “And before the throne there is as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.” (Rev. 4:6) The quality and being of the astral light is indicated by the transparency. In the astral light we can see through objects; they appear like glass. The entire astral world is like a glass sea.

The four living creatures then follow; they are to represent the human group souls. They were full of eyes within and without and had no peace day or night. There is constant movement in the astral world—astral eyes are everywhere and everything is transparent to them, both within and all around.

We see how, at first, the mysteries of the physical plane are described and then, out of the sealed book, the astral imaginations. They approach us in pictures.

After the seer has perceived the spiritual beings in the astral light for awhile, they begin to sound forth. This is described in the resounding of the trumpets when the sixth seal is opened. That is the condition of devachan. The seer becomes “clairaudient,” able to hear spiritual sounds—the spiritual ear is opened.

The stage then follows when the seer expands his consciousness over the entire earth. This is indicated in the swallowing of the book. It expresses the ascent into the higher regions of the spiritual worlds.

• 1. Rudolf Steiner, Christianity as Mystical Fact (Hudson, N.Y.:Anthroposophic Press, 1993).
• 2. Actual words: “For what is now called the Christian religion existed even among the ancients and was not lacking from the beginning of the human race until ‘Christ came in the flesh.’ From that time, true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian.” Augustine, The Retractions Book I, chapter 12, section 3, trans. Mary Inez Bogan in The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968).
• 3. Steiner, Theosophy (GA 9) (Hudson, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press, 1993).
• 4. ompare lecture of September 12, 1910 in The Gospel of St. Matthew (GA 123) (Hudson, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press. 1965).
• 5. Compare the lecture cycle Wonders of the World, Ordeals of the Soul, and Revelations of the Spirit (GA 129) (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1963); Mystery Centers (GA 232) (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1973); and World History in the Light of Anthroposophy (GA 233) (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1977).
• 6. Compare the lecture of October 21, 1904: “Die Siegfriedsage” in Esoterik und Weltgeschichte in der grieschischen und germanischen Mythologie [“The Legend of Siegfried” in Esoteric and World History in Greek and German Mythology] (Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1955).
• 7. Compare the lecture of August 14. 1908 in the lecture cycle Universe, Earth and Man (GA 105) (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1987).
• 8. he virgin heroines of Germanic mythology.
• 9. One of the main heroes of the Nibelungen saga: he treacherously suffocates Siegfried after a hunt while Siegfried is drinking at a fountain.

Regarding the election of Annie Besant, head of the Esoteric School, as president of the Theosophical Society, which led to the separation of the Esoteric School.

Munich, May 4, 1907 ¹

Dear Mr. Selling,

Please find attached the material needed for the election, which I ask you to duplicate.

1. A confidential letter to all my esoteric students. I ask you to make 250 copies of this. It is especially for you – so not with anything else – to be sent in a sealed envelope to those addresses that I will send to you by express letter no later than tomorrow morning (Sunday). So you can duplicate this letter tomorrow, Sunday, and Ms. Boesé can then write the addresses on the envelopes and take care of the mailing on Monday. You can calculate the postage with me.

2. Ballot papers and information. These are to be put in a sealed envelope and sent to each member of the German section. We cannot do it any differently for the sake of order. So ballot papers and information are to be sent by letter to each member of the German section.

The circular to the esotericists must be sent at least 24 hours before the ballot papers are sent. So if you are able to send the letter to the esotericists on Monday, the ballot papers can be sent on Tuesday, or, if a delay is necessary, otherwise accordingly.

Miss Boesé will help you with everything, and I ask you to be very precise. Of course, no [non-]esoteric can get their hands on the confidential letter.

With warmest regards, Dr. Rudolf Steiner

• 1. Rudolf Steiner was then in Munich preparing for the Theosophical Congress.