The Rudolf Steiner Archive

During the whole course of our lectures, you have seen what our position is in relation to the document called the Gospel of St. John, standing as we do upon the foundation of Spiritual Science. You have seen that it is not a question of gaining out of this document some particular truths about the spiritual world, but of showing that, independent of all human and other documents, it is possible to penetrate into that world, just as anyone wishing to learn mathematics at present does so independent of every original document by means of which, in the course of human evolution, different branches of mathematics have first been communicated. What, for example, do those students know who begin to study elementary geometry, acquiring it by means of their own faculties from geometry itself, what do they know of the geometry of Euclid, of the original document in which this elementary geometry was presented to the world for the first time? If the student has first learned geometry by means of his own faculties, he can judge and appreciate better the nature and meaning of the original documents. This should show us more and more that those truths which deal with this spiritual life can be gained out of the life of the spirit itself. If a person has found these truths for himself and then is directed to the historical documents, he finds in them again what he already knows. In this way he acquires a right and true human valuation of them. We have seen in the course of these lectures, that the Gospel of St. John really loses nothing in value by this method; we have seen that the respect for and appreciation of documents do not become less for anyone standing upon the foundation of Spiritual Science than for those who have stood entirely upon the foundation of such documents. Indeed, we have seen that we find again in the Gospel of St. John the most profound teaching concerning Christianity, a teaching which we can also call the teaching of Universal Wisdom. We have also seen that only when we have grasped this profound meaning of the Christian teaching, can we understand why the Christ had to enter into human evolution just at a definite time at the beginning of our era.

We have seen how humanity developed in the post-Atlantean age. It has been pointed out that the original Indian civilization was the first great post-Atlantean cultural epoch after the Atlantean Flood; that the characteristic of this original Indian civilization was that the souls of men were filled with longing and memory. We have characterized memory and longing by saying that they consisted in the preservation of living traditions from an epoch of human evolution ante-dating the Atlantean Flood. At that time, quite in conformity with their nature and inner being, men existed in a kind of nebulous, clairvoyant state in which they could gaze into the spiritual world, thus becoming acquainted with it through personal experience and knowledge, just as men of the present time are acquainted with the four kingdoms of nature, the mineral, plant, animal and human kingdoms. We have seen that prior to the Atlantean Flood, there existed as yet no such sharp distinction as we have today between the states of consciousness during the day and the night. At that time, when the human being sank into sleep at night, his inner experiences were not so unconscious and dark as they are now, for when the images of day life submerged, those of the spiritual life emerged, and he was then in the midst of the things of the spirit world. In the morning, when he again dipped down into his physical body, the experiences and realities of the divine-spiritual world sank into darkness, and around him arose the images of present reality, images of the present mineral, plant and animal kingdoms. The sharp distinction between the unconsciousness of the night and day waking-consciousness appeared only after the Atlantean Flood, that is to say, in our post-Atlantean age. Then, in a certain sense, as far as direct perception is concerned, men were cut off from spiritual reality and were more and more placed outside in purely physical reality. All that remained was the memory of the existence of another kingdom, a kingdom of spiritual beings, and united with this memory was the soul's longing to rise again by means of some exceptional condition into the regions out of which it had descended. Those exceptional conditions were only granted to a few chosen people—the initiates—whose inner faculties had been awakened in the Mystery Places enabling them to gaze into the spiritual world; to those others who were not able to do this, these initiates were able to give information about that world and testify to its reality. In the original Indian cultural period, Yoga was the process by which men were able to revert to the ancient nebulous, clairvoyant state of consciousness. When certain exceptional natures were initiated, they became, as a result, the leaders of mankind, witnesses of the spiritual world.

Under the effect of this longing and memory within this original Indian, pre-Vedic civilization, that soul-mood was particularly developed which regarded physical reality as Maya or illusion. These primitive Indian people said that actual reality exists alone in the spiritual world into which we can be reinstated only by means of an exceptional condition, through Yoga. This world of spiritual beings and processes is the true one. What is seen with the eyes, is unreal, is illusion, Maya. That was the first religious fundamental experience of the post-Atlantean age, and Yoga was the first form of initiation of this period. In fact there was yet no comprehension of the true mission of the post-Atlantean age. For it was not the mission of humanity to consider the reality, which we call physical existence, as Maya or illusion and then to flee from it and become foreign to it. Post-Atlantean humanity had another mission, that of conquering more and more the physical reality, of becoming master of the world of physical phenomena. But it is also quite comprehensible that men, now for the first time transferred to this physical plane, should in the beginning consider as Maya or illusion what previously had hardly emerged within the spiritual reality, but what was now all that they were able to perceive. This attitude toward reality could never have continued. This understanding of the physical reality as an illusion could not remain the vital nerve of the post-Atlantean period. And we have seen that postAtlantean humanity, in the different cultural epochs, conquered bit by bit the connection with the physical reality.

In that period of civilization which we designate the ancient Persian—the periods which history knows as the Persian and Zarathustrian periods are the last echoes of what is meant here—in that second period, we saw mankind taking the first step toward growing out of the ancient Indian principle and conquering physical reality. Still nowhere was there a fondness for sinking into the physical reality, also there existed nowhere anything like a study of the physical world. There was, however, more of this in the Persian period than in the ancient Indian period. We get a reverberation of the mood that looks upon physical reality as illusion in what has survived in later epochs of ancient Indian civilization. Yet our present civilization could never have arisen out of that Indian culture. All the wisdom of that period turned its gaze away from the physical world and directed it upward toward spiritual worlds which existed as a memory. The study of physical reality and its elaboration seemed to them futile, therefore the actual Indian principle could never have brought forth a science serviceable to our earthly world; it could never have produced that mastery of the laws of nature which forms the foundation of our present civilization. This could never have sprung from ancient India, for why should one seek to learn to know the forces of a world resting only upon illusion! If this was changed in the Indian cultural period also, it was not because of something flowing out of itself, but was due to subsequent foreign influences.

For the ancient Persian civilization, the external, physical reality exists as a sphere of activity. It was looked upon as the expression of a hostile Deity, but the hope arose that with the aid of the God of Light this substantial field of reality might be penetrated, that it might be changed into something permeated by spiritual powers and good divinities. Thus the adherents of the Persian civilization already sensed somewhat the reality of the physical world. It is true they still considered it the realm of the God of Darkness, but for all that, they always hoped that they might be able to incorporate within it the forces of the good gods.

Humanity then passed over into that period of civilization which found its historical expression in the Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldaic-Egyptian culture and we have seen how it happened that the starry heavens were no longer Maya to these people of the third epoch, but something whose written characters could be read. In all that still seemed a Maya to the Indians in the course and splendour of the stars, the Persian saw an expression of the resolutions and purposes of divine-spiritual beings. They gradually accustomed themselves to the idea that outer reality is not illusion but a revelation, a manifestation of divine-spiritual beings. Then in the Egyptian civilization, men began to apply what they read in the stars to the divisions of the earth. Why was it the Egyptians became the masters of Geometry? It was because they believed that through thought, which subdivides the earth, matter can also be controlled, and that matter, which can be grasped by the human spirit, is easily transformed. Thus gradually a later humanity permeated this material world—looked upon at first as only Maya—with the spirit, and this spirit also gradually emerged within the inner soul life of the human being.

We have seen, in fact, that only in the later Atlantean age, humanity had reached the point where it could experience the ego or the “I AM.” For as long as men beheld spiritual images, they knew that they themselves belonged to the spiritual world, that they were themselves images among other images. Then came a comprehension of the spirit within the depths of the human being. Let us now consider, in connection with what we have partially reviewed today, the evolution of the inner nature of men.

As long as the human being of the Atlantean period looked outward with a kind of dream-like, clairvoyant consciousness he did not really give much attention to his own inner nature. The inner world, which is encompassed by the ego or the “I AM,” was not yet delineated in sharp contours. In proportion as the outer spiritual world disappeared, men became conscious of their own inner world of the spirit. In the ancient Indian civilization there still existed in the individual an extraordinary attitude of soul toward his own spiritual life. People said: If we wish to penetrate into the spiritual world, to raise ourselves above illusion, we must lose ourselves in the spiritual world, we must obliterate as much as possible the “I AM” and become absorbed into the All-Spirit, into Brahman. Thus especially in ancient initiation, it was a matter of a loss of personality. An impersonal absorption into the spiritual world is what distinguished the most ancient form of initiation. This was no longer so, for example, in the third epoch of civilization, for right up to that time the human self-consciousness had by degrees been developing stronger and stronger. The human being became continually more and more conscious within the inner part of his ego being. By developing a fondness for the physical matter about him, by deepening his knowledge of it by means of the laws which the human spirit had thought out, but which had not been acquired in any sort of shadowy dream-state, he became gradually more aware of his ego, until this consciousness of personality reached a certain high point in the ancient Egyptian civilization. In this awareness of the personality, there was present something else that appeared at the same time inferior and as though now bound to the physical world and absorbed into it, something that had no possibility of acquiring a connection with that from which the human being had been born.

If we wish to grasp the whole course of events, we must picture to our souls two fundamental soul-moods in human evolution. We must remember how humanity of the Atlantean and ancient Indian periods longed to strip off personality. The Atlanteans were able to accomplish this, and they took it for granted that they would each night strip off their personality and live in the land of the spirit. The Indians could do this, because their principle of initiation led them, by means of their Yoga, into what was impersonal. To repose in the universal divine substance was their desire. In a later branch of the human family, this reposing within the universal was preserved in the consciousness of being united with preceding generations. It remained in the consciousness of the people that they had been born out of a line of ancestry, and an individual human being felt himself united through the blood with generations as far back as his earliest ancestor. This was the mood which grew out of that ancient soul-mood of feeling oneself spiritually sheltered within the divine-spiritual substance. Thus it happened that those human beings who had passed through a normal evolution began in the third cultural epoch to feel themselves as individuals, yet, at the same time, knowing that they were sheltered within the whole, within the divine-spiritual, that they belonged through the blood relationship to the entire line of forefathers, and that God lived for them in the blood flowing down to them through the generations. We have seen how a certain degree of perfection of this mood had been developed within those people who composed the followers of the Old Testament. “I and Father Abraham are one,” means that the individual felt himself preserved within the whole line of descent back to Abraham. That was, in general, what constituted the fundamental mood of all normally developed races of the third cultural period. However, only to the followers of the Old Testament was it predicted that there existed something spiritually more profound than the Divine Fatherhood that ran through the blood of successive generations. We have already called attention to that great moment in human evolution when this was prophesied. When Moses heard the voice calling unto him saying: “When thou wouldst proclaim My Name, say that ‘I AM’ hath said it unto thee!”, then here for the first time sounds forth the knowledge and manifestation of the Logos, of the Christ. Here for the first time, for those who could comprehend, was prophetically proclaimed that in God there existed something that not only had to do with the blood relationship, but that in Him there existed something purely spiritual. What ran through the Old Testament was like a prophecy. Who was it, in fact, who at that time in a prophecy revealed His name to Moses? We must now dwell a little on this question. Here again we have a passage which the commentators of the Gospel consider very superficially, not recognizing the fact that one must examine these records as thoroughly as possible.

Who was it who announced His name prophetically, to Whom the name “I AM” must be given? Who was it? We find the answer, if with earnestness and dignity we properly grasp a certain passage of the Gospel. It is the passage which we find in the 12th Chapter, beginning with the 37th verse. Here Christ-Jesus points to the fulfilment of the words of the Prophet Isaiah, to the prophecy with its reference to the fact that the Jews would not believe in Christ-Jesus. Jesus Himself refers to Isaiah:

He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts and be converted and I should heal them.

These things said Isaiah when he saw His glory and spake with Him.

Isaiah spake with Him! With Whom did Isaiah speak? Reference is made here to the passage in Isaiah 6: 1 which reads:

In the year that the King of Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and His train filled the Temple.

Whom did Isaiah see? This is clearly told here in the Gospel of St. John. He saw the Christ! He was always to be seen in the spirit and now you will no longer find it incomprehensible when Spiritual Science points out that He whom Moses saw, who proclaimed the words “I AM” as His name, was the same Being who then appeared upon the earth as the Christ. The actual Spirit of God of antiquity is none other than the Christ. We are now at a point in this religious record which is very difficult to understand, especially for those who do not go at it properly. This passage must be clearly understood, particularly because with the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the most extraordinary confusion has arisen. It is a fact that exoterically these words have always been used in the most manifold ways in order that the real esoteric meaning might not be directly evident. When, according to ancient Judaism, the “father” was mentioned, the physical father whose blood flowed down through the generations was meant. When they spoke of Him who revealed Himself spiritually, as Isaiah spoke of the “Lord,” they were referring to the Logos of which the Gospel of St. John speaks. The writer of this Gospel means nothing more nor less than that the One who could always be perceived in the spirit became flesh and dwelt among us!

When it has become clear to us that in a certain sense the Christ was also spoken of in the Old Testament, we shall understand what place the ancient Hebrew peoples have held in our evolution. The ancient Hebrew-principle grew out of the Egyptian civilization. It stands out in bold relief against the background of the Egyptian principle.

Thus we see how the normal course of human evolution progressed as it was described yesterday. The first cultural period of the postAtlantean age is the ancient Indian, the second the ancient Persian, the third the Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldaic-Egyptian civilization; then follows the fourth, the Greco-Latin and the fifth which is our own present cultural epoch. Before the fourth epoch began, that people which with its traditions provided the soil for Christianity emerged out of the third epoch like a mysterious branch. When we summarize all that we have been hearing in these lectures, we shall find it much more comprehensible that the appearance of the Christ had to take place in the fourth era.

We have already emphasized the fact that in the fourth epoch the human being had reached the point where he objectified his own spirituality, his own ego and had placed it out in the world. We perceive how gradually he permeated matter with his own spirit, with his ego-spirit. We behold the works of the Greek sculptors, and dramatists and see how they have presented, embodied before the soul, what they call their own soul qualities. Later, in the Roman period, we see how the human being also becomes conscious of what he is, and we see how he established this in the outer world as “Justice” (Jus), although a distorted Jurisprudence disguised it. For the deeper students of Jurisprudence, it is clear that real justice, which considers the human being its subject, first arose in this fourth cultural epoch. At that time the people had become conscious enough of their own personality to feel themselves for the first time as real citizens of the State. Even in the Greek period, the individual felt himself as a member of the whole municipal State. This was more important to an Athenian than to be an individual man. But to say “I am a Roman” or “I am an Athenian” meant two very different things. For to say, “I am a Roman” meant that, as an individual human being, as a citizen of the State, he had an importance, he had a will. Thus it could also be proven that the origin of the concept of a “testament” first became possible in this epoch, for this is a Roman concept. Only at that time did the human being make his will so personal, so individualized, that he wished to be active in it even beyond death. The things which Spiritual Science has to say harmonize even in the details with the actual facts.

The human being gradually reached the point of permeating matter with his spirit and this increased as time went on. The fourth epoch was that in which he thoroughly incorporated into matter what he comprehended with his spirit. In the Egyptian Pyramids you can see how spirit and matter are still wrestling with one another, how what had been grasped by the spirit had not yet fully expressed itself in matter. In the Greek Temple is expressed the complete turning point of the postAtlantean age. For one who understands a little of this, there is no more significant, no more perfect architecture than the Greek which is the purest expression of the inner characteristic of space. The pillars are considered wholly as supports, and what rests upon them is felt as something that must be supported, something that presses down. The supreme, emancipated concept of space is here in the Greek Temple carried to its ultimate conclusions. Few people have subsequently felt the concept of space in this way, yet there have been those who could have felt it, but they felt it pictorially. Let anyone test the space in the Sistine Chapel. Stand at the rear wall which bears the great picture of the Last Judgment, and look up. You will see that the rear wall rises obliquely upward. It inclines thus because the architect felt the concept of space, but did not think it so abstractly as others. Therefore this wall stands there so marvellously at an angle. This means that he no longer experienced the concept of space as did the Greeks. There is an artistic sense which feels the mysterious measure concealed in space. To sense it architecturally does not mean to sense it by means of the eyes, but by means of something else. People easily believe today that right is the same as left, above the same as below, forward the same as backward. If one would only consider the following: There are pictures in which three, four or five angels can be seen floating about. They can be painted in such a way that one would be right in thinking that they are in danger of falling at any moment. They can likewise be painted by someone who has developed the right sense for space, in such a manner that there is no possibility of such a thought arising; they could not fall because they mutually support each other. We then have the dynamic relationships in space pictorially represented before us. The Greeks had it architecturally before them. They experienced the horizontal not alone as line, but as the force of pressure and they experienced the pillar not only as a block of something, but as supporting power. This feeling-with-the-lines-of-space means, “feeling the living Spirit in the act of geometrizing.” That is what Plato meant when he used the tremendous expression, “God geometrizes continually.”

These lines really exist in space and the Greeks built their Temples in accordance with them. What was in reality a Greek Temple? From necessity it was the dwelling-house of their God. It was something quite different from the Church of the present day. The present Church is a place for preaching. The God Himself dwelt within the Greek Temple. The people were only present incidentally when they wished to be with their God. One who understands the forms of the Greek Temple, experiences a mysterious connection with the God dwelling within it. There, in the columns, and in what rests upon them, is to be seen not only what the human being has fashioned in imagination, but something that his God would have thus made, had He wished to create a dwelling place for Himself. This was the climax of the permeation of Matter with Spirit.

Let us now compare a Greek Temple with a Gothic Church. Nothing derogatory of the Gothic is intended, for from another point of view the Gothic Church stands upon a still higher level than the Greek Temple. In a Gothic Church you can see that what is expressed in its form cannot possibly be thought of or felt without the presence of the devotional congregation. In the arched forms of the Gothic there exists something (for one who can experience it) which can only be expressed in the following words: If the devotional congregation were not within, and the hands were not placed together in the form of an arch, the whole would be incomplete. The Gothic Church is not only the dwelling-house of God, but it is at the same time the meeting place for people who are praying to God. Thus, in a certain sense, mankind again over-stepped the zenith of its own evolution. We see how all that degenerated which the Greeks felt in line, column and beam in such a remarkable manner through their sense of space. A column which does not support, but which is there only as a decorative motif, was for the Greek feeling no column at all. Everything in human evolution is in perfect accord. The Greek cultural period was the most beautiful expression of the interpenetration of humanity's consciousness discovered within itself, and of what was felt as the Divine in outer space. The human being had wholly coalesced with the physical sense-world in this epoch.

It is nonsense when modern scholars wish to obscure what was felt in earlier ages. From the Spiritual-Scientific point of view, we look upon the fourth epoch of the post-Atlantean age as an epoch in which the human being harmonized perfectly with his environment. That age—in which he seemed to coalesce with the outer reality—was alone qualified to understand that the Divine is able to appear in an individual man. All earlier epochs would have understood almost anything more easily than this. They would have felt that the Divine was much too exalted and sublime to appear in a physical human form. It was just this physical form against which they desired to guard the Divine. Therefore, “Thou shalt make no image” had to be announced to just that people whose mission it was to grasp the idea of God in His spiritual form. Out of concepts such as these, this people evolved and out of its womb was begotten the idea of the Christ, the idea that spirit was to appear in the flesh. For this mission was the Jewish people chosen and within it, in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, the Christ Event had to occur.

Thus for the Christian consciousness, the whole of human existence falls into a pre-Christian and a post-Christian period. The God-Man could only be comprehended by the human being at a certain time. Thus we see how the Gospel of St. John connects in full consciousness and in its ideas, with what was—to use a trivial expression—precisely in conformity with the times, with what had its origin directly in the consciousness of the age. Consequently it happened wholly of itself, that the thought imagery, through which the writer of the Gospel tried to grasp the greatest event in cosmic history, seemed to him best expressed in the forms of Greek thought, as it were, like something inwardly related. And gradually the whole Christian feeling grew into these thought forms. We shall see how something like the Gothic had to appear during the progress of evolution, because Christianity was, as it were, called upon to lead evolution again beyond the material. Christianity could arise only at a time when men were not yet so deeply immersed in matter that they were likely to overestimate its worth; when they were not yet plunged so deeply into matter as is the case in our age, but were still able to spiritualize it and to penetrate it.

Thus the birth of Christianity appears as something positively necessary in the whole spiritual course of human events. If we desire to understand what form Christianity should gradually assume, understand what form was prophesied for it by such an individuality as the writer of this Gospel, we must take under consideration, in the next lecture, certain essential and important concepts.

It has been shown that everything must be taken literally, but that first the alphabet must be really understood. It is not without significance that the name of John appears nowhere in the Gospel and that John is always spoken of as the “Disciple whom the Lord loved.” We have seen what mystery lies hidden behind this fact, a mystery of profound significance.

Now we shall consider another expression, one that makes it directly possible for us to make a connection with the subsequent evolutionary periods of Christianity. The manner of speaking of the “Mother of Jesus” in the Gospel, is usually overlooked. If the ordinary, average Christian were asked: who was the Mother of Jesus? he would reply: “The Mother of Jesus was Mary?” And many indeed will believe that there is something in the Gospel of St. John to the effect that the Mother of Jesus was called Mary. But nowhere in this Gospel is there anything to indicate that the Mother of Jesus was called Mary. Wherever reference is made to her, she is quite intentionally called just the Mother of Jesus. The meaning of this we shall learn later. In the chapter on the Marriage in Cana, we read: “and the Mother of Jesus was there;” and further on, it says: “His Mother saith unto the servants.” Nowhere do we find the name “Mary.” And when we meet her again in the Gospel of St. John, when we see the Saviour upon the Cross, we read:

“There stood by the Cross of Jesus, His Mother, and His Mother's sister Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.”

It is clearly and definitely stated who stood by the Cross. The Mother was there, then her sister who was the wife of Cleophas and who was called Mary, and Mary Magdalene. Whoever thinks about it at all, must say to himself: It is extraordinary that the two sisters are both called Mary? That is not customary in our day. It was also not customary at that time. And since the writer of the Gospel calls the sister, Mary, it is clear that the Mother of Jesus was not called Mary. In the Greek text, it says clearly and distinctly: “Below stood the Mother of Jesus, and His Mother's sister Mary who was the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.” For a proper understanding the question arises: “Who was the Mother of Jesus?” Here we touch upon one of the most important questions in the Gospel of St. John: “Who was the real father of Jesus, and who was His mother?”

Who was the father? Can this question be asked at all? Not only can it be asked according to the Gospel of St. John, but also according to St. Luke. For it would show an extraordinary absence of thought not to see that at the Annunciation it was proclaimed:

The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Even in the Gospel of St. Luke it is pointed out that the father of Jesus is the Holy Spirit. This must be taken literally and those theologians who do not recognize it cannot really read the Gospel. Thus we must ask the great question:—How does all this harmonize with what we have heard in the words, “I and the Father are one,” “I and Father Abraham are one,” “Before Abraham was, was the I AM?” How can we bring into harmony with all this, the undeniable fact that the Evangelist sees the Father-Principle in the Holy Spirit? And what must we think about the Mother-Principle, according to the Gospel of St. John?

In order that you may come tomorrow properly prepared in spirit to formulate these questions, your attention should also be called to the fact that a sort of series of generations is presented in the Gospel of St. Luke; that we are told that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist; that He began to teach in His thirtieth year and that He was the son of “Mary and Joseph, who was the son of Eli,” etc., and there follows the whole line of generations. If we trace this succession, we see that it goes back to Adam. Then follows something extraordinary; here we find the words: “who was the son of God.” Just as the generations are traced back from son to father in the Gospel of St. Luke, so is the succession traced back from Adam to God. Such a passage must be taken very seriously! Now we have gathered together the questions which should lead us tomorrow directly into the very center of the Gospel of St. John.

[ 1 ] “When released from the body you ascend to the free aether, you will become an immortal god, escaping death.” In these words Empedocles epitomizes what the ancient Egyptians thought about the eternal in man and its connection with the divine. Evidence of this is provided by the so-called Book of The Dead which has been deciphered by the diligence of nineteenth century research workers. (See Lepsius, Das Totenbuch der alen Ägypter, Berlin, 1842.) It is “the greatest coherent literary work of the Egyptians which has been preserved to us.” It contains all kinds of teachings and prayers, which were put in the grave with each dead person to guide him when he was released from his mortal frame. The Egyptians' most intimate conceptions about the eternal and the genesis of the world are contained in this literary work. These conceptions indeed indicate ideas of the gods similar to those of Greek mysticism. Of the various deities worshiped in different parts of Egypt, Osiris gradually became the favorite and most universally acknowledged. In him the ideas about the other divinities were summarized. Whatever the Egyptian populace may have thought about Osiris, the Book of the Dead indicates that according to the ideas of priestly wisdom he was a being which could be found in the human soul itself. This is expressed clearly in everything they thought about death and the dead. When the body is given up to the earth, preserved within the earthly element, then the eternal part of man sets out upon the path to the primordial eternal. It is called to judgment before Osiris, who is surrounded by forty-two judges of the dead. The fate of the eternal in man depends upon the verdict of these judges. If the soul has confessed its sins and is found to be reconciled with eternal righteousness, invisible powers approach it, saying, “The Osiris N. has been purified in the pool which is south of the field of Hotep and north of the field of Locusts, where the gods of verdure purify themselves at the fourth hour of the night and the eighth hour of the day with the image of the heart of the gods, passing from night to day.” Thus within the eternal cosmic order the eternal part of man is addressed as an Osiris. After the title Osiris, the individual name of the person concerned is mentioned. The person who is uniting himself with the eternal cosmic order also calls himself “Osiris.” “I am Osiris N. Growing under the blossoms of the fig tree is the name of Osiris N.”⁶⁰ Thus man becomes an Osiris. The Osiris-existence is only a perfect stage of development of human existence. It seems obvious that even the Osiris who judges within the eternal cosmic order is none other than a perfect man. Between human existence and divine existence is a difference in degree and number. At the root of this lies the conception of the Mysteries concerning the mystery of “number.” The cosmic being Osiris is One; nevertheless he exists undivided in every human soul. Each man is an Osiris, yet the one Osiris must be represented as a special being. Man is engaged in development; at the end of his evolutionary course lies his existence as a god. Within this conception one must speak of divinity rather than of a perfected, completed divine being.

[ 2 ] There is no doubt that according to such a conception only one who has already reached the gate of the eternal cosmic order as an Osiris can really enter upon Osiris-existence. So the highest life man can lead must consist in changing himself into an Osiris. In the true man an Osiris must already live as perfectly as possible during mortal life. Man becomes perfect when he lives as an Osiris, when he experiences what Osiris has experienced. In this way the Osiris myth receives its deeper significance. It becomes the example of a man who wishes to awaken the eternal within him. Osiris had been torn to pieces, killed by Typhon. The fragments of his body were cherished and cared for by his consort Isis. After his death he let a ray of his light fall upon her, and she bore him Horus. Horus took over the earthly tasks of Osiris. He is the second Osiris, still imperfect but progressing toward the true Osiris.—The true Osiris is in the human soul. The latter is of a transitory nature at first. However, its transitory nature is destined to give birth to the eternal. Therefore man may consider himself to be the tomb of Osiris. The lower nature (Typhon) has killed the higher nature in him. Love in his soul (Isis) must cherish and care for the dead fragments; then will be born the higher nature, the eternal soul (Horus), which can progress to Osiris-existence. Whoever strives toward the highest existence must repeat in himself, as a microcosm, the macrocosmic, universal process of Osiris. This is the meaning of the Egyptian “initiation.” The process Plato describes as cosmic,—i.e., that the Creator has stretched the soul of the world upon the body of the world in the form of a cross, and that the cosmic process is a redemption of this crucified soul—on a small scale this process had to happen to man if he was to be capable of Osiris-existence. The neophyte had to develop himself in such a way that his soul-experience, his development as an Osiris, became identified with the cosmic Osiris process. If we could look into the temples of initiation where people were subjected to the transformation into Osiris, we would see that what happened there represented microcosmically the creation of the world. Man, who is descended from the “Father,” was to give birth in himself to the Son. The spellbound god, whom he actually bore within him, was to be revealed in him. The power of earthly nature suppressed this god within him. First this lower nature had to be buried in order that the higher nature might rise again. From this it becomes possible to interpret what is told of the processes of initiation. The candidate was subjected to secret procedures. By means of the latter his earthly nature was killed and his higher nature awakened. It is not necessary to study these procedures in detail. One must only understand their meaning. And this meaning is contained in the acknowledgment which everyone who has been through initiation could make. He could say: Before me floated the endless perspective, at the end of which lies the perfection of the divine. I felt the power of the divine within me. I buried what holds down this power within me. I died to earthly things. I was dead. As a lower man I had died; I was in the netherworld. I communicated with the dead, that is, with those who already have become part of the circle of the eternal cosmic order. After my sojourn in the nether world I arose from the dead. I overcame death, but now I have become different. I have nothing more to do with transitory nature. My transitory nature has become permeated by the Logos. I now belong to those who live eternally, and who will sit at the right hand of Osiris. I myself shall be a true Osiris, united with the eternal cosmic order, and judgment over death and life shall be placed in my hand. The neophyte had to undergo the experience which could lead him to such an acknowledgment. The experience which thus approached man was of the highest kind.

[ 3 ] Let us now imagine that a non-initiate hears that someone has undergone such experiences. He cannot know what has really taken place in the soul of the initiate. In his eyes, the initiate has died physically, has laid in the grave and has risen. When expressed in terms of material reality an occurrence which has spiritual reality at a higher stage of existence appears to break through the order of nature. It is a “miracle.” Such a “miracle” was initiation. Whoever wished really to understand it must have awakened within himself powers which would enable him to reach a higher stage of existence. He had to prepare the whole course of his life in order to approach these higher experiences. However they might take place in individual lives, these prepared experiences always had a quite definite, typical form. So the life of an initiate is a typical one. It may be described apart from the individual personality. Or rather, an individual personality could be characterized only as being on the way toward the divine if he had gone through these definite, typical experiences. As such a personality the Buddha lived with his followers; as such a personality Jesus at first appeared to his community. Today we know of the parallels which exist between the biographies of Buddha and of Jesus. Rudolf Seydel has pointed out these parallels strikingly in his book, Buddha and Christ. We need only follow up the details to see that all objections to these parallels are futile.

[ 4 ] The birth of Buddha is announced by a white elephant who descends to Maya, the queen. He declares that she will bring forth a divine man who “attunes all people to love and friendship and unites them in an intimate company.” In Luke's Gospel is written: “... to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David: and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, ‘Hail thou that art highly favored ... Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest.’” Maya's dream is interpreted by the Brahmins, the Indian priests, who know that it signifies the birth of a Buddha. They have a definite, typical idea of a Buddha. The life of the individual personality will have to correspond to this idea. Correspondingly we read in Matthew 2:1, et seq., that when Herod “had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.”—The Brahmin Asita says of Buddha, “This is the child which will become Buddha, the redeemer, the leader to immortality, freedom and light.” Compare this with Luke 2:5: “And behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him ... And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” It is related of Buddha that at the age of twelve he was lost, and was found again under a tree, surrounded by minstrels and sages of ancient times, whom he was teaching. This corresponds to Luke 2:41–47: “Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.”—After Buddha had lived in solitude and had returned, he was received by the benediction of a virgin: “Blessed is the mother, blessed is the father, blessed is the wife to whom thou belongest.” But he replied, “Only they are blessed who are in Nirvana,” i.e., those who have entered the eternal cosmic order. In Luke 11:2–28 is written: “And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and said unto him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.’ But he said, ‘Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.’” In the course of Buddha's life the tempter approaches him, promising him all the kingdoms of the earth. Buddha will have nothing to do with this, answering, “I know well that a kingdom is appointed to me, but I do not desire an earthly one; I shall become Buddha and make all the world exult for joy.” The tempter has to admit, “My reign is over.” Jesus answers the same temptation in the words: “Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him.” (Matthew 4:10,11)—This description of parallelism might be extended to many other points: the results would be the same. The life of Buddha ended sublimely. During a journey he felt ill. He came to the river Hiranja, near Kuschinagara. There he lay down on a carpet spread for him by his favorite disciple, Ananda. His body began to shine from within. He died transfigured, a body of light, saying, “Nothing endures.” The death of Buddha corresponds with the transfiguration of Jesus: “And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistening.” At this point Buddha's earthly life ends, but the most important part of the life of Jesus begins here: Passion, Death and Resurrection. The difference between Buddha and Christ lies in what necessitated the continuation of the life of Christ Jesus beyond that of Buddha. Buddha and Christ are not understood by simply throwing them together. (This will become evident in the subsequent chapters of this book.) Other accounts of the death of Buddha need not be considered here, although they also reveal profound aspects of the subject.

[ 5 ] The conformity in the lives of these two redeemers leads to an unequivocal conclusion. What this conclusion must be, the narratives themselves indicate. When the priest sages hear about the manner of the birth they know what is involved. They know that they are dealing with a divine man. They know beforehand what conditions will exist for the personality who is appearing. Therefore his career can only correspond with what they know about the career of a divine man. Such a career appears in their Mystery wisdom, marked out for all eternity. It can be only as it must be. Such a career appears as an eternal law of nature. Just as a chemical substance can behave only in a quite definite way, so a Buddha or a Christ can live only in a quite definite way. His career cannot be described as one would write his incidental biography; rather, it is described by giving the typical features contained for all time in the wisdom of the Mysteries. The legend of Buddha is no more a biography in the ordinary sense, than the Gospels are intended to be an ordinary biography of the Christ Jesus. Neither describes an incidental career; both describe a career marked out for a world-redeemer. The patterns for both must be sought in the traditions of the Mysteries, not in outward physical history. To those who have perceived their divine nature, Buddha and Jesus are initiates in the most eminent sense. (Jesus is an initiate because the Christ Being incarnates in him.) Thus everything transitory is removed from their lives. What is known about initiates can be applied to them. The incidental events of their lives are no longer described. It is said of them, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1,14)

[ 6 ] The life of Jesus, however, contains more than the life of Buddha. Buddha's life ends with the transfiguration. The most significant part of the life of Jesus begins after the transfiguration. In the language of the initiates, Buddha reaches the point where divine light begins to shine in man. He stands before the death of the physical. He becomes the cosmic light. Jesus goes further. He does not die physically at the moment the cosmic light transfigures him. At that moment he is a Buddha. But at the same moment he enters upon a stage which finds expression in a higher degree of initiation. He suffers and dies. The physical part of him disappears. But the spiritual, the cosmic light does not vanish. His resurrection follows. He reveals himself to his community as Christ. At the moment of his transfiguration, Buddha dissolves into the hallowed life of the universal Spirit. Christ Jesus awakens this universal Spirit once more to present existence in a human form. Such an event had formerly taken place in a pictorial sense at the higher stages of initiation. Those initiated according to the Osiris myth attained to such a resurrection in their consciousness as a pictorial experience. In the life of Jesus this “great” initiation was added to the Buddha initiation, not as a pictorial experience, but as reality. Buddha demonstrated by his life that man is the Logos and that he returns to this Logos, to the light, when his physical part dies. In Jesus the Logos itself became a person. In him the Word became flesh.

[ 7 ] What was enacted for the ancient cults of the Mysteries within the Mystery-temples, through Christianity has been grasped as a world-historical fact. His community acknowledged the Christ Jesus, the initiate, initiated in a uniquely great way. He proved to them that the world is divine. For the community of Christ, the wisdom of the Mysteries was indissolubly bound up with the personality of Christ Jesus. The belief that he lived and that those who acknowledge him, belong to him, replaced what would have been attained previously through the Mysteries. Henceforth for those in the community of Christ a part of what previously was only to be attained by the methods of the mystics, could be replaced by the conviction that the divine is given in the Word which had been present. The determining factor was no longer only that for which each individual spirit had to undergo a long preparation, but also the account of what they had heard and seen, handed down by those who were with Jesus. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we ourselves have beheld, which our hands have touched, concerning the Word of life ... that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you, that you may have fellowship with us.” Thus it is written in the first Epistle of John. This immediate reality is to embrace all future generations in a living bond; as a Church it is to extend mystically from generation to generation. In this way we may understand the words of Augustine, “I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Church.”⁶¹ The Gospels, therefore, contain in themselves no evidence of their truth, but they are to be believed because they are founded on the personality of Jesus, and because in a mysterious way the Church draws from this personality the power to make them appear as truth. The Mysteries handed down through tradition the means of coming to the truth; the Christian community propagates this truth itself. Faith in the One, the primordial Initiator was to be added to faith in the mystical forces which light up in man's inner being during initiation. The mystics sought apotheosis; they wished to experience it. Jesus was made divine; we must cling to him; then we are participants in his apotheosis within the community established by him:—This became Christian conviction. What was made divine in Jesus, is made divine for his whole community. “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) The one born in Bethlehem has an eternal character. Thus the Christmas antiphon is able to speak of the birth of Jesus as if it took place every Christmas: “Today Christ is born; today the Saviour has come into the world; today the angels are singing on earth.”⁶²

In the Christ-experience a quite definite stage of initiation is to be seen. When the mystic of pre-Christian times went through this Christ-experience, then, through his initiation, he was in a condition enabling him to perceive something spiritual—in higher worlds—for which the material world had no corresponding fact. He experienced what comprises the Mystery of Golgotha in the higher world. Now when the Christian mystic goes through this experience, through initiation, at the same time he beholds the historical event on Golgotha and knows that in this event, which took place in the world of the senses, is the same content as formerly existed only in the supersensible facts of the Mysteries. What had descended upon the mystics within the Mystery temples in earlier times thus descended upon the community of Christ through the “Mystery of Golgotha.” And initiation gives the Christian mystic the possibility of becoming conscious of this content of the “Mystery of Golgotha,” while faith causes mankind to participate unconsciously in the mystical current which flowed from the events depicted in the New Testament and has been permeating the spiritual life of humanity ever since.

• 60. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Chapter 125, 19–22. Papyrus of NU.
• 61. Augustine, St., one of the four great Fathers of the Latin Church, born 354 in Tagaste, Numidia, and died as Bishop of Hippo during the siege of that city by the Vandals in 430. Steiner's reference is to Augustine's work, Against the Epistle of Manichaeus called Fundamental, par. 6.
• 62. The Christmas Antiphon to which Steiner refers is found in the Breviarium Romanum, and appears just before the end of the Christmas section, In Nativitate Domini, headed Ad Magnificat Antiphona:
  
  Hodie Christus natus est;
  hodie Salvator apparuit:
  hodie in terra canunt Angeli,
  laetantur Archangeli:
  hodie exultant justi,
  dicentes: Gloria in excelsis
  Deo, alleluia.

How a person lives, whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied, depends on the degree of understanding they have of their own nature. When looking up at the starry sky, the medieval person felt comfort and hope, full of admiration for its size and beauty, because the medieval person felt part of the universe, part of the spirit that permeates the world. He recognized his origin and his goal, which would lead him back into the bosom of the Godhead.

Compared to the mighty structure of the world, the infinity of the universe, today's man feels so small, so tiny, that he thinks he must scatter like a speck of dust. Man is certainly tiny compared to the universe, and yet one thing is greater than all creation: the soul, the spiritual part in man. The highest divine reality, to which his journey leads him back, lives within himself. This knowledge, this belief was not taken from people in the Middle Ages.

This has now changed significantly in our time. Popular writings never tire of emphasizing the smallness of man. Just as the earth appears in space only like a grain of sand, so man on earth is only a grain of sand that passes away. Thus, the present time emphasizes man's smallness, the Middle Ages his greatness. It is difficult for today's man to find his way between these considerations of the smallness and the greatness of man. Schiller, who had more of a theosophical way of thinking than most people suspect, says:

You astronomers, do not talk about nebulae and
suns, the Sublime does not dwell in space.

Theosophy brings new light into this confusion; it opens up depths for us that provide new insights into the nature of man. The theosophical world view is not reactionary; it knows and recognizes that the material world view was necessary because it led to the knowledge of the external world. But the consequence of this was that the deeper knowledge about man was neglected. The material view has conquered the globe. Now it is time to gain a deeper understanding of the soul and spirit, and the teachings of Theosophy can provide us with this.

How can the nature of man be fathomed? Today's science seeks to understand man, like everything else, through dissection. It uses the external senses to gain insight into the nature of man. The value of the science thus acquired is by no means to be belittled, but there is another way of research.

In old mystical writings (this word has an unpleasant ring for many, of course), you will find descriptions of the inner being, of the human spirit. They say that man has inner organs with which he can pursue a completely different kind of research than the one carried out with the outer senses. The result of these investigations with the inner, finer senses is now not at all fundamentally different from the materialistic investigation; it only provides further, deeper insights than the external method of investigation.

This spiritual wisdom now has different names. The name “Theosophy” is only one among many. Paul was the first to use it. This wisdom is ancient, it is nothing new; it is only being brought to people today in a way it has never been before. Higher or deeper knowledge used to be the property of secret schools. The word should not be misunderstood. The teachings are secrets only in the sense that mathematics is a secret for a simple farmer, for example. It remains a secret to him until he has learned it. Anyone who is willing to learn it can. Over the millennia, many have learned the wisdom. In the past, greater demands were placed on the student. Today, schools mainly teach intellectually and train the minds of students. In the wisdom schools, the aim is to develop the whole person with all their powers of mind and soul. And before the student was introduced to the deeper teachings of wisdom, he had to pass certain tests.

Some who read about the secret Pythagorean school may find it quite simple. Only those who put themselves in the same state of mind as the people were in at the time will recognize its true meaning. They will recognize its value.

We can understand this by considering a work of art. Two people stand before a painting by Raphael. One sees only the colors on the canvas and passes by the work of art quite untouched. The other, an art connoisseur with understanding, is opened to the wonders of the soul and spiritual worlds, which left the other quite untouched. This different perception of the work of art depends on the different development of the inner powers. In the one, only the intellect had been developed; in the other, soul and spirit had undergone a development that created the right mood to understand and enjoy the work of art.

Anyone who wants to live a life in the spirit must be clearly aware of one thing: that thoughts and feelings are real things. It is not the person who grasps the books who reads them with the intellect alone, but the person who grasps them with the spirit. Just as a brick falling from a roof kills a person just as surely as if it were a fact of nature, so does a feeling of hatred wound the soul of the one at whom it is directed. The soul is wounded by hatred just as surely as the body is wounded by the brick. The teaching of the invisible can only be grasped by the one who always realizes that the invisible is much more real than the visible.

It is also worthless to read only in books; it is life that matters, life in the spirit. The whole person must immerse themselves in the teachings, not just their minds. This must be said in advance to enable the understanding of what is to be said. It is not enough to say yes to the theosophical teachings; the person must transform themselves if they want to come to knowledge.

It is clear that man is part of the external world. Born of women, he appears on earth; the external sciences, chemistry, anatomy and so on show that the same forces, the same substances, make up the human body as they do in the rest of the world. Man is, therefore, first of all, a physical being. That much external science teaches us. Beyond that, it can investigate nothing; only that which dies can be investigated by it; theosophy gives us information about that which is immortal. That is a simple thought. Just as the human being, the external man, is grasped by looking with the external senses, so the spiritual man can be grasped by the inner senses.

What is meant by this is not difficult to understand. Look at my hands. It is conceivable that a skilled artist could create an exact replica of such a hand so that it could not be distinguished from mine; on the outside, let us assume, there would be no difference; and yet there is a word that shows the enormous difference between the artificial and the natural hand. The artificial hand remains as it is, unchanged; it can stand alone. But if you cut off the natural hand, it withers or decays. The one word is life. Science does not teach us this.

My whole body is flooded with life. Man has not only the physical body, but also, secondly, an etheric body – I ask the scholars not to take offense at this expression. Every living being has an etheric body that makes the being live. It is not perceptible to the external senses. But there is a way to see it, just as we see the physical body. There is a method that allows us to see life, not just see colors and hear sounds.

A doctor, with whom I discussed this matter, said: “It is quite natural that the hand withers when it is cut off; the blood no longer flows through it.” Quite right, but what does it need the blood for? What does it need the invisible for? To be what it is!

With death, the physical body decays and the etheric body dissipates; it returns its components to the life-giving ether that permeates the world.

We now come to the third aspect of human nature. Imagine a person standing before you; you can see and touch them. You recognize their weight and observe their life. But only the material can be felt by the hand. But there is still something else living in him: pleasure and pain, passions and desires, instincts and inclinations, which no hand can touch, no sensual eye can see. But all this is a reality for man, even if it cannot be perceived by any physical eye or other sense. The part of man that includes the instincts, desires, passions, and so on, is called the third, the astral body.

Those who have developed spiritual eyes, who have become able to see, can also perceive this body. It is also called an aura. This astral body is something that humans have in common with all animals. But beyond that, something that no animal can achieve, humans possess something that makes them human in the first place. The word “I” expresses this. In this word lies a very powerful difference from all other names. “I”, a powerful, great word. Anyone can say table, chair, dog, lion, but only you can say “I” about yourself. No other person can say “I” to you; only you can say it about yourself. I am me, everyone else is “you.” You have to delve into this thought to understand it.

All religions are based on wisdom; even Judaism; the Jews knew and recognized the God, the ego within man, the hidden God, whose name was unutterable for the people. Only the high priest was allowed to pronounce it once a year before the people: Jeoah — only a breath sounded from his mouth, and then the divine spark flashed through the hearts of the community in undulating motion. And this I is the fourth link in the human being.

Everything a person does and pursues contributes to the development of this I. In primeval times, man could not yet say “I”. He was still half animal. Instincts, desires and drives are the driving forces in the development of the animal, but through the I these instincts are ennobled; the I works into the astral body. In this way, man changes and ennobles his animal instincts. Anger and rage are transformed into calm reflection; hatred and feelings of revenge are transformed into love, as the I works into the soul. The wild is civilized, instincts become ideals, urges become duties, selfishness becomes sacrifice. This transformation of the astral body produces the growth of the “Manas”. What man has thus created for himself is permanent. This is the point where immortality begins. Every cause we build into the Manas remains, and the effects appear in the next re-embodiments.

Small children usually resemble their parents at first, and naturalists ascribe all their characteristics to their parentage. To a certain extent, they may be right. Raphael also appeared as the child of his parents, and many of his characteristics and his appearance can be explained by the nature of his ancestors. But what about when something suddenly comes to life in him, his genius, which he has inherited from neither his father nor his mother? Then one says to oneself: This must either have no cause at all or a cause other than descent. Often one also sees a great diversity among the children of a family. Where does that come from? This diversity has its basis in the fact that the individual has laid the foundation for it in previous lives. I do not owe my nature only to the similarity to my parents. Perhaps thousands of years ago I myself laid the foundation for it. The differences in human nature can thus be explained by reincarnation, by repeated lives on earth, in which each life brings to the fore what the person has laid the foundation for in previous embodiments.

What was it that made the ancient Egyptian slaves do their hard work, their forced labor, with devotion, even with joy in some cases? It was the fact that he knew that in the next incarnation the tables would turn, that the quietly obedient servant would then perhaps rule and the cruel oppressor would be enslaved; for that is how the law of retribution, karma, works. The man of the West has no idea what a feeling of bliss arises from this [law], how it produces cheerful serenity. “God is not mocked; what a man sows, that shall he also reap.” (Gal. vi. 7.) Reincarnation and Karma are the great facts which enable and impel man to work at improving his astral body.

When he has done so to a certain extent, he has undergone a catharsis. In the secret schools he is then taught how to develop not only his astral body but also his etheric body. When he has succeeded in doing this, when the etheric body is completely transformed and better, more fully formed, he no longer dissolves. He becomes immortal. This is the resurrection to life, that is, awakening Christ in us.

When a person returns, he brings with him, in addition to the astral body and the etheric body, the sixth part of the human being, the Budhi.

What lies beyond that or even deeper hidden within him is, seventhly, the Atma. It is difficult to say anything about this in a few words.

Once these higher basic parts have been developed, it is possible to become master of the whole body.

Only now, after we have become acquainted with the basic parts or bodies of the human being, can we become clear about the origin.

Natural science cannot provide any information about the origin of the human being. It is only concerned with the forms of manifestation that can be perceived by the senses. The origin of the human being can only be perceived by occult, supersensible means, through the organs of the finer bodies.

What do these reveal to us? If we look back a million years, what do we see? Something completely different from what we see now. Where Germany is now, there was a tropical climate back then; giant animals, giraffes, elephants roamed the swamps. There are hardly any traces left of this time; but theosophical wisdom can trace them back further and further through the changes brought about by the Ice Age, back to ever simpler and simpler conditions. Man, who lived thousands of centuries ago, looked quite different than he does now. There are hardly any remains from that time. The forehead was receding far, the forebrain was actually missing. He had no intelligence, no mind.

Materialistic science says that man has evolved. In his infancy, in the Stone Age, he was more similar to an animal and only gradually did he develop into today's man. There is only one difference between animals and humans that is immediately apparent. When an animal is born, it is already complete, for example a chicken; when it hatches from the egg, it can eat immediately and so on; it grows, but it does not change any further. A child undergoes major changes before reaching adulthood.

The simile of the childhood of man also applies to the theosophical science, and we are now in our youth. Natural science traces man back to his childhood, when he was similar to an animal; it cannot go beyond that. The theosophical science goes beyond that; it asks about father and mother. Why does one child of the same parents become a good-for-nothing, while the other becomes an intelligent being? Why did the animal-like being give rise, on the one hand, to animals that do not change any further, and, on the other hand, to human beings with unlimited developmental capacity? Natural science has no answer to this. Without the parents, the child would not be there; the natural scientist cannot go further, because he cannot go further than his senses reach, and there is no objection to this.

Usually, one infers from the child to the parents. In the spiritual view, research into the origin of man takes a completely different form. When asking about the parents, we must proceed very carefully. When we look at the anthropoid ape, can we see primitive man in it? Two possibilities present themselves here: Man developed from the anthropoid ape, as was concluded at the time, then science rejected this hypothesis and said to itself that, given the still too great difference between the two, it would be more likely to assume that there must have existed a being from which both the anthropoid ape and the gibbon descended, as well as the evolving man. So there we have the father of the good-for-nothing and the good, noble son. But this being could not be found anywhere, and so the naturalists placed this primeval man in the sea.

The theosophical research actually points to an area that is now covered by the sea.

How is such research conducted? How can one learn this type of research? Today, young people are taught to look into the external world. A person is considered educated if they have learned a lot and absorbed a lot.

Another teaching method was adopted in the old schools, which had the attainment of knowledge of the hidden forces as their goal. When a pupil came and desired to learn, the teacher gave him a sentence that contained power for the soul, and then he sent him away. The pupil had to repeat this sentence silently within himself for hours every day, letting it live in his soul. We find such sentences, for example, in the little book 'Light on the Path', written by Mabel Collins. The student continued this exercise for months until he had experienced the eternal content of the sentence within himself. In this way, the instruction continued until the inner sun shone in the heart, not only illuminating one's own soul but also sending rays of light to the other souls, illuminating them as well. This light, this sun, now not only illuminates the life and soul of the person living now, but the practiced disciple also learns to throw its rays back to the earliest past, like a spotlight.

You can find more details about this kind of research in my “Lucifer” No. 14-18 in the essay “Akasha Chronicle”. So there are three kinds of chronicles: the Akasha Chronicle, the written book chronicle that we have had for about 6000 years, and the chronicle of nature. Where the Atlantic Ocean now flows, the continent of Atlantis lay a long, long time ago. Our ancestors living there had not yet developed minds. They were able to use other powers that are now dulled in humans. Just as we are now able to develop a driving force from coal, or rather, how coal is converted into a driving force, so the people who lived at that time understood the seed power, that is, the power that lies in the seed, which enables it to sprout through the shell, to use it and to convert it into a forward-driving power. The powers of will were strongly developed. Where did that come from? The I, which has now taken possession of the physical brain, could not work in it at that time, because there was no brain yet. It worked much more in the etheric body, just as powerfully and mightily in the etheric body as it does now in the physical brain. The etheric body was impregnated with the divine I.

So we have the human parental pair. He comes from the spiritual father and the physical mother.

Egyptian wisdom beautifully symbolizes this eternal truth. Osiris, the spirit, the father, Isis, matter, the mother. From these two, Horus, the young human being, was born. The physical body was endowed with the I. The non-fertilized beings developed downward into the animal kingdom, while the I-fertilized primal beings developed into ever more highly educated humans.

Before the Atlantean period, the etheric body was not yet fertilized either. Only the astral body was I-fertilized.

The land inhabited by these people, who were animated only by their instincts and passions, is usually referred to as Lemuria. Science regards the Lemurian as a human being who has degenerated into an animal; the development that the spirit teaches us regards him as a being working his way out of the animal state. There was a time when there were no warm-blooded creatures on earth. Only at the moment when man descended to earth as a spiritual being, at the great moment when the astral body was endowed with the ego, did man become warm-blooded. The divine spark of the spirit, the Father-Spirit, united with Mother-Matter, and man emerged from this. Humanity consists of spirit and matter. The descent of the manas, the Manasputras, is the descent of the human ego.

The origin of man from the Father-Spirit and the Mother-Matter is the starting point for the knowledge of God and the world.

The word “I” in its entire essence of recognition is the recognition of the divine being. Self-knowledge leads to the knowledge of God because the I originates from the divine. The recognition of the divine essence of the human being is the key to the recognition of the whole, including the physical human being. The poet says:

One succeeded,
He lifted the veil from the goddess Bild at Sais.
What did he see? Wonder upon wonder – himself.

When man finds himself, he finds God: through self-knowledge to God-knowledge!

Final remark

Until recently, there were no books about these things; these divine wisdom teachings were only passed down orally from ancient times, from generation to generation. Now the time has come when people in the midst of active life should learn these things, so they are now being published in elementary form.

In occultism we differentiate in man firstly his actions, in so far as by actions we understand everything which proceeds from any kind of activity connected with his hands; secondly speech and thirdly thoughts. Everything which in this sense he accomplishes with his hands brings about its karmic results in his next earthly existence. What we speak concerns not only ourselves alone, but also a group of human beings having the same language, and this affects the karma of the group or race. In words lies a greater responsibility than in deeds alone: for with them we are preparing the configuration of a future race. What we think works on even into a new formation of our earth. We therefore distinguish three stages. Firstly: Human action is individual, with the exception of those actions in man that arise from nothingness. Secondly: Man cannot speak for himself alone; words concern a group of human beings. Thirdly: Thoughts are the concern of the whole of humanity.

With this, something else is connected. When we act we stand quite alone behind our actions. When we speak we are not quite alone in our words. Behind our words a spiritual being is working with us, standing behind us. Just as truly as the words we utter are imprinted quite exactly in the Akasha, so is it true that with every word we utter we impinge upon the body of a spiritual being who is incarnated in this Akashic substance into which our words penetrate. We must take this up into our feeling life; this is why we must pay such heed to our words. When we think, we are seemingly quite alone within ourselves; nevertheless beings of a spiritual nature are active with us in our thoughts, beings still higher and more significant than those active in our speech.

More lies in these things than in a whole world-history. Through them much can be explained. Let us consider a thought within us. Behind this thought a spiritual being is present. If we imagine ourselves enveloped on all sides by the body of a spiritual being, we can realise that a thought is only the expression of the body of the spiritual being working into us. Every time a thought flashes through our soul it is an impression, a kind of foot-print of a higher spiritual being, just as if we were walking over damp ground, leaving footprints, and were to say: ‘Here a person walked’. This spiritual being is formed of the same substance as that of which thought consists. The thought in us can only become the imprint of a higher spiritual being because this higher being has a body formed of the same substance as our thoughts.

When our foot imprints itself in the damp earth, this imprint is a negative, a counter-image of our foot. So is it too with our thoughts. In the higher spiritual world there is a counter-image for every thought. Image and counter-image are as interconnected as seal and sealing wax. The substance is the higher spiritual being which corresponds in our analogy to the sealing wax. Now we call thought, in so far as it corresponds to the sealing wax, intuition, and the impression we call abstract thought. We can say when we think: ‘I feel the traces of what is happening in higher worlds.’ It is with regard to this fact that in religious writings, for instance in the Revelation of St. John, the expression ‘seal’ is used. This corresponds with reality. It is also because a higher being is working with us in our words that every word is the impression of a seal. With the mystics the counter-image is called Imagination. Thus we have three levels of the thought element: the intuitive, the imaginative and the ordinary abstract thinking.

When man develops further, when abstract thought itself develops to the stage on which the beings are incarnated who work with us when we speak, then he is a Chela, an occult pupil. To be a Master means: To work in the substance in which the beings are incarnated who work with us in our thoughts. Imagination gives the picture. This is why the great religious teachers of earlier times spoke pictorially, for imagination gives the picture, not abstract thoughts. In all religions, teachings were expressed in pictures. At first the picture is for man something of lesser importance, but when he understands how to form again for himself a picture out of every thought, then he has reached a higher stage. This is the pre-requisite for a quite new kind of perception. Everything depends on a man developing to the point at which he no longer thinks merely abstractly, but at all times has his thoughts in pictures.

As a rule man forms merely thoughts. The more highly developed man must think in pictures, in images; that means ‘to imagine’. In this expression there already lies what is meant: ‘By means of a certain power to make an imprint in something, (to imagine).’ In creative fantasy, in the case of poet and artist, we find only a weak reflection of imagination. When a man who is seeking higher development speaks, he will try in certain cases, while speaking, to have before him the counter-image, the Imago. This is the source of the mighty pictures in religious writings. Whoever develops himself so far that he can create such pictures has attained the stage of the spiritual beings who are involved in the creation of races. One who develops in himself not only pictures, but intuitions, is not only involved in the creation of races, but in the creation of the next planetary existence. From the pictures there will resound what later will be manifested on the earth, but whoever works out of intuition creates something which is not yet existent, which is nowhere manifested, that is to say he creates out of Nirvana. This concept is inherent in every apocalypse: What will be manifested in the future can only be created out of intuition.

Through abstract thinking one makes a copy of something that exists. Through Imagination a man allows himself to be fructified by the formative spirit within him. Imagination corresponds to hidden realities which have arisen through the fructifying impulse of higher beings; thus one can see these higher spiritual beings on the Astral Plane. The prerequisite for this is to develop a speech that is not the expression of abstract thoughts, but of pictures. This is why mediums also speak in imaginations, in pictures and symbols, but unconsciously. Behind them the spirit is forming the symbols. The occult pupil does this in full consciousness, nevertheless in a way that is not arbitrary. In so doing he allows himself to be fructified by the spirit.

Just as man develops himself to the stage when he can create pictures and receive intuitions, so before he came into existence the external world was active; and indeed in such a way that in everything which is around us as mineral existence, as purely physical nature, Intuitions are working as creative forces. The crystal is external in so far as it reveals itself to the senses; it is however created by means of Intuitions. Behind the entire physical world lies a cosmos of Intuitions and finally a being, the Planetary Spirit, who produces the Intuitions. Behind all language Beings of Imagination are working and with them the Spirit of the Race. In all living things, Beings at the same spiritual level are at work. Behind all plants Imaginations are active. The completed form of the plant comes forth from Imagination and behind it stands a spiritual being: and everything imbued with consciousness and perception has arisen out of Thought itself

Now let us look at the whole universe, to begin with in its physical aspect: Earth, Sun, Moon and stars, the Milky Way and so on. Behind it stands a great intuitive Spirit. It is the same Spirit that manifests in our actions; he also stands behind the whole universe. Christianity calls him the Father. Because he is so little known he is also called the Unknown God, and in theosophical literature the first Logos.⁵²

Behind everything living stands the Spirit of Imagination. It is the same Spirit who is also working in our speech; this is why the Christian religion calls Him the Word. Here something quite exact and actual is meant. This spirit who stands behind everything living is still working today in our speech, in each of our words, and is therefore rightly called ‘the Word’, another designation is: The Son or Christ. He is the Spirit who lives as imagination in everything that has life.

Then we ascend to what is conscious, what has a certain degree of perception, of consciousness, everything of an animal nature and what in man [Gap in text ...] This can already be grasped by thoughts. It is contained in every being. What takes place in the animal occurs in the first place within itself: abstract consciousness. All consciousness existent in the world also lives in man, in abstract thinking. Within himself man calls it ‘Spirit’; in so far as it works outside in the creative forces of Nature he calls it ‘Holy Spirit’. This is what underlies all perception and consciousness. Illness exists only in separateness. Spirit as such cannot be ill, but only when it is incarnated in lower bodies. The word ‘Heilig’ (healthy) means ‘heil sein’, to be well: it expresses the fact that the Spirit which flows through the world outside, is healthy. The Holy Spirit is nothing other than Spirit which is healthy through and through: this is why anyone who truly unites himself with the Holy Spirit (Heiliger Geist) receives the power of healing (heilen). This must be in harmony with the Holy Spirit flowing through the world. This is the Spirit which works from man to man as the true healer.

If we now turn our attention to the physical plane we find in the first place that we perceive through the senses. Behind is the great intuitive Spirit. Everything physically present has been made by this Spirit. Thus behind everything that lives in form as such, that can be perceived by the senses, stands the Father Spirit, the first Logos. Through merely observing we do not alter anything, but an alteration comes about when we act. Then we not only change what exists outside in the world, but also the forces working outside in the world. The moment we act we bring about an alteration on the physical plane. Behind these alterations however there lies also an alteration in the underlying force corresponding to the first Logos. This we influence by our actions; it remains, is there, cannot again be got rid of, unless it be eradicated by the same force which called it forth. And the alteration which is called forth through our deeds is what takes hold of us again as Karma. That which draws man into the physical world once more, if looked at from the point of view of Karma is called: Rupa. This is because it was accomplished in Rupa, through the body, through man's external nature. Thus we create in the body, in Rupa, when we work upon the outer Intuitions.

The second sphere in which today man is not entirely independent, but where another Spirit is working with him, is speech. Here we make impressions in a world behind which lies not only what is physical, but what has life. In the world of life the Imaginations about which we are speaking remain behind, formative forces which create new races. Our present race has been created out of what lay behind the words of earlier races. This is embodied in our race. In addition we have to consider everything which belongs in any way to Imagination. This shows us that with our words we produce impressions in the realm of the Son, in the realm of the second Logos. These return as the collective Karma of the whole race, for the word is not created by us alone; the Spirit of the Race is working with us. What is the foundation for this form of Karma? Where is the Spirit of the Race working? The Spirit of the Race is active in man's feeling, permeates the entire world of feeling. This resounds into what a human being has in common with his group.

What works in a much wider sense on Karma is feeling (Vedana). Thus firstly: Rupa, the corporality; secondly: Vedana, feeling. For those people who have not yet become Chelas, feeling has great importance where the perception of the second Logos and everything living is concerned. The aim of science is to study animals and plants apart from life. Even the greatest men of learning today have not yet advanced beyond the stage of comprehending life with feeling. It is the Imaginative understanding which first enables them to look into life itself.

In the outer world thought is connected with everything having sensation and consciousness. This has one thing in common with us: perception. The fact that we can in any way perceive the outer world in physical space as a world of colour and sound is only possible because we are able to transpose it into thoughts. We receive perceptions; we think about them. If there were no thoughts in the perceptions it would be the greatest folly on man's part to form thoughts about them. Thoughts would then be mere illusions if the perceptions had not arisen through thoughts. From the combination of perceptions it follows that in the first place perceptions are built up by thoughts which we can then extract from them: the laws of nature. These are nothing other than thoughts; it is the creative Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Perception is the boundary between the two, where our thoughts come in contact with the creative thoughts outside. Thus with a thought that we have we cannot work directly on life, but on the consciousness which in the outer world is itself thought.

Through thought we leave behind traces in all the spiritual beings who have brought about consciousness. What man builds up on the basis of perception in the way of thoughts, and what he produces as thoughts, has its repercussions on everything which makes perception necessary. Thirdly therefore we differentiate: Perception or Sanjna, the third element which has an effect on Karma.

Through all actions we call forth counter-actions as Karma, because we make an impact on the Intuitive World: Rupa.

Through all words we make an impact on the World of Creative Feelings around us: Vedana.

With our thoughts about perceptions we make an impact on the whole World of Thoughts outside us: Sanjna.

What we perceive around us will no longer be there when we appear again on Earth. Everything therefore which we think in connection with the world of perception will have no effect whatever on the future incarnation; only in this incarnation will it have a Karma-building force. Thought works upon our present character.

What comes forth from feeling, that is essentially connected with our surroundings; what enters into the world of Imagination, comes back to us in the following incarnation, in such a way that it appears within us as inborn tendencies and outside us as opportunities. Through our inborn tendencies we call towards us opportunities offered by the world, which form our destiny, through tendencies which have their source in Karma. Thoughts form the character: the tendencies or disposition lead karmically to the opportunities. Actions bring about the external destiny, all the bodily circumstances into which man is born. What we carry out through Rupa, our bodily nature, that is our actual destiny, that comes back to us karmically.

One can only create inborn tendencies for further incarnations consciously by reaching the stage of Imagination. Herein we find the secret of how the great founders of religions projected their influence beyond their own time. The pictures which they gave the people released dispositional tendencies for the following incarnations. Every picture that they instilled into the soul reappeared in the entire feeling-world of the human being. Either he wins such Imaginations for himself, or he receives them from his teacher. We win them for ourselves when we have gained control over our entire life of feeling: this is the case with the occult pupil. His feelings are subject to his own control; the rest of humanity is cared for in this respect by the founders of religions. A religion is the feeling-world of future races; outwardly therefore it can be submerged, for it lives on in human tendencies. Today tendencies are coming to the surface which were implanted in mankind in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is important that the materialistic images of the present day do not take root in human hearts, for in future times they would fill human beings with the most brutal instincts which are only directed to the world of the senses, if they were not opposed by spiritual ideas. Those desires and wishes live in man which are produced out of imagination. This is his desire-nature = Sanskara. Everything intuitive in man, the great impulses which he receives from the highest initiates, these actually overcome the Karma of Deeds. He who raises himself to Intuitions as such, penetrates through the physical world up to the Father Spirit. He who possesses intuitive knowledge can affect the Karma arising out of deeds. He begins to limit his Karma consciously.

For the ordinary person only those beings are comprehensible who also have consciousness. When he progresses to Imagination, life also becomes comprehensible; when he progresses to Intuition he can advance as far as the Intuitive forces.

A person can affect his Karma to the degree in which he himself possesses Intuition; or he must receive it from the high initiates in the form of great moral laws. Vijnana is the name used for the consciousness necessary for the overcoming of Karma. And now let us think of a man living in the world, carrying out his actions and dying. After his death something of him nevertheless remains here in this world which he has woven into it: Rupa, Vedana, Sanjna, Sanskara and Vijnana. These five are the balance of his account: his personal destiny as Rupa; the destiny of the nation into which he is born, as Vedana; the actual fact of his birth on this earth as Sanjna. In addition, working with Sanskara, the desire nature, and Vijnana, the consciousness. These are the five Skandhas.

What a man gives out into the world remains as the five Skandhas in the world. These are the foundation of his new existence. They have progressively less effect when he has consciously developed something of the last two. The more he has gained conscious power over Vijnana, the more does he gain the power of consciously incarnating in the physical body. In their essential nature the Skandhas are identical with Karma.

• 52. Compare Rudolf Steiner's notes for Edouard Schuré May 1906. Zeichnen und Entwicklung der drei Logoi in der Menschheit published in No. 14 of Nachrichten der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung Michaelmas 1965.

[ 1 ] My dear friends! Up to now I've been introducing my lectures by indicating what the Anthroposophic path is like, implementing my lectures out of Anthroposophy in order to lead towards the initiation of the renewal of religious life, out of the wishes present in the souls of contemporaries.

[ 2 ] Naturally first of all it is necessary to look more closely at what would be needed for the actual renewal of religious life. I would like to, in order to bring this into a clearer light, still today refer to the relationship, not of religion to Anthroposophy but the reverse, that of Anthroposophy to religion; but I have to say in advance, my dear friends, it is necessary, if we want to understand one another here, for a clear awareness of the seriousness of the relevant question in relation to its meaning in world history. If someone in a small circle sees some or other deficiency, finds this or that imperfection and is not able to perceive its relationship in our world's entire evolution, they will not quite rightly develop in their heart, or have a sense to develop, what is actually needed at present.

[ 3 ] We live in a time where humanity has been deeply shaken and with all the means at its disposal to do something, with all these means humanity has actually failed to move forward. As a result I particularly want to be clear that I believe, even if it perhaps doesn't appear as pertinently—let me quite sincerely and honestly express my opinion on this matter—that I believe the rift between those who have lived for a longer time in pastoral work and those younger ones who stand before this need today, and only enter it today, is far greater. Even though it might not yet be felt so strongly, yet it is still there, and it will appear ever more clearly; I believe that for many the question between older and younger people, if I might express it this way, is to experience its formulation very differently. It seems to me that for the younger ones the formulation as we saw it yesterday, appears no longer to carry the same weight; it has already been dismissed. Let's be quite honest with ourselves, and clear, that there is a difference whether we can, in a sense defend a cause in which we are, or whether it takes strength to get into it. We don't want to have any illusions about that. Of course, when one is older one could say one has the same earnest interest as a youngster.—Yet, we need to take into account all possible subconscious impulses, and for this reason I ask you already, because we are dealing with things of a serious nature, to accept what I want to say today.

[ 4 ] You see, Anthroposophy is quite at the start of its work, and anyone who uses Anthroposophy to develop some or other area, certainly has the experience that all he can still experience for himself in anthroposophical knowledge, the biggest difficulty arrives when he wants to share this with the world. This is just a fact, this is the biggest difficulty. Why? Because today we simply don't have the instrument of speech which is fully suited to concisely express what is seen through Anthroposophy. The Anthroposophist has the expectation that through Anthroposophy not merely such knowledge should come which live within the inner life, which they see as an inner observation, because it is unattainable for the human race in its entirety. For us this must be of foremost importance: What is possible in the human community?—and not: What can the individual demand?—Let us be clear, my dear friends, whoever is an Anthroposophist speaks out of reality, and in me speaking to him I don't feel as if I'm merely speaking in general, but when I speak to such a person it seems that either he is a priest or he should become someone who cares for the soul. Theoretically one can thus in the same manner shape one's endeavours in the most varied human areas. As soon as one enters into such a specialised field, one has to always state the most concrete of opinions which one can only take in. Please observe this. I'm making you aware that Anthroposophy certainly knows it stands at the start of its willing, a will which has to develop quite differently than the way in which it has already stepped in front of the world today. On the other hand, one can see that the world longs very, very strongly for what lies as a seed in Anthroposophy.

[ 5 ] Something exists as a seed in Anthroposophy, which is rarely noticed today. This is the speech formation element itself. If you read Saint Martin's words, who was still a guardian of a religious belief katexochen in the 18th century—Matthias Claudius has translated the work of Saint Martin entitled Errors and Truth which should be republished—if you read Saint Martin, you find him speaking from a certain implicitness that humanity possessed an ancient speech which has been lost, and that one can't actually express in current differentiated languages what could be said about the supersensible worlds, and which should be expressed about the supersensible. So the Anthroposophist often has the feeling he would like to say something or other, but when he tries to formulate it, it leaves him speechless and doesn't come about. Yet Anthroposophy is creative speech. No one is able to meet something in such a way as Anthroposophy—what once was encountered in this way was in olden times and always occurred at the same time as religious formation—no one can encounter anything without a certain theological approach to final things in life like death, immortality, resurrection, judgement, without a certain anticipation of the future, therefore Anthroposophy must in her inward convictions look, at least for a short span of time, into the future and it must to some extent predict what must necessarily happen in the future and for the future of humanity. That is, that mankind is able to strip off all such connections with single individual languages which still exist today, and which more than anything have drawn nations into war and hardship. Ever again one must address the comparison of the Tower of Babylon construction and understand it today when one sees how the world is divided. Anthroposophy already has the power to sense something expressed between the differentiated spoken languages by looking from the original being of the sounds themselves; and Anthroposophy will, and not in the course of many centuries but in a relatively short time—even at is was initially suppressed, it soon rejuvenated—Anthroposophy will, through the most varied languages, not create a type of Yiddish language unit which is an abstraction from another, but it will out of itself creatively enter into the language and become reconciled with what is already in the human language.

[ 6 ] Therefore, I want to tell you that Anthroposophy not only provides formal tasks of knowledge but that Anthroposophy has to face historical creative tasks. You can see what is in the hearts of people today who can create such things. I've been wanting for years to take the most important components in anthroposophical terminology, as paradoxical as this may appear, to try and give words formed out of sound. The time has not been ripe yet to accept this. But it is quite possible.

[ 7 ] For this reason, I must call your attention to the real tasks of Anthroposophy. Why do I feel myself compelled to call your attention to it? Simply from the basis that as soon as mankind is ripe for the perception of the sound, for the word creative power itself, then everything which has up to now been in other spheres, in a more instinctive-animal way taking its course, must in future take place in the spiritual-human sphere. If humanity has come this far then it can sense the truth in a deed, sense what lives in the proclamation, in the message, in the Gospel, because the truth can't be sensed in the Gospel if one doesn't live in the creative power of a language. To really experience the Gospels, my dear friends, means to experience the details of the Gospels in every moment in which one lives, from having really recreated them within oneself.

[ 8 ] Today's tendency is to only basically criticize the Gospels, one can't recreate them; but the possibility for their creation must be reworked. Where are the obstacles? The obstacles lie in already referring to the very first elements which were available for the creation of the Gospels. In fact, Gospel examination is placed on another foundation when the Gospel is thought about this way, than how it needs to happen from the character of the words. You see, under the objections which Dr Rittelmeyer mentioned, not as his but those of others, it is also one which is mentioned besides. It's the objection that it does not interest the religious today whether there are two Jesus children. I can completely understand how, in the religious mood of today, little value is placed in such things. Now there is something else. During the coming days we see, published in the Kommenden Tag-Verlag, how unbelievable the Gospel understanding is regarding the promotion of this "trivial matter"—it is however no small matter—how the power which created the Gospels is promoted by simply referring to a proof of what stands in the Gospels, regarding the two Jesus children. People don't understand the Gospels, they don't know what is written in them. However, the creative power of speech must be drawn out of further sources, and as a result, develop the heart and mind for these sources so that from the heart and mind the first of the four sections which I've given you in the description of the Mass can be given. You see, it doesn't mean the Mass is only being presented symbolically, but that the Mass symbolism becomes an expression for the totality of the pastoral process. If the totality of the pastoral work does not flow together into the Mass as its central focus, then the Mass has no meaning; the coming together of the pastoral ministry in the Mass or the modern symbolism that can be found—we will speak about this more—only then, in the full measure of the four main sections of the Mass, which I have mentioned, can it be fully experienced.

[ 9 ] The reading of the Gospel to the congregation is only a part; the other part is expressed in the sermon. The sermon today is not what it should be, it can't be as it is intellectual because as a rule the preparation for the sermon is only intellectual and arising out of today's education, out of today's theology, can't be anything else. The sermon is only a real sermon when the power of creative speech ensouls the sermon, in other words when it doesn't only come out of its substance but speaks out of the substance of the genius of the language. This is something which must first be acquired. The genius of language is not needed for religiosity which is in one's heart, but one needs the genius of language for the religious process in the human community. Community building must be obligatory for the priest, as a result, elements must be looked for which are supportive of community building. Community building can never be intellectual, because it is precisely the element which creates the possibility of isolation. Intellectualism is just agreed upon by the individual as an individual human being and to the same degree, as a person falls back on his singularity, to that degree does he become intellectual. He can understandably save his intellectualism through faith because faith is a subjective thing of individuals, in the most imminent sense one calls it a thing of the individual. However, for the community we don't just need the subjective, but for the community we need super-sensory content.

[ 10 ] Now, just think deeply enough about how it would be possible for you to effectively bring the mere power of faith to the community, without words. You wouldn't be able to do this, it is impossible. Likewise, you couldn't sustain the community by addressing it through mere intellectualism. Intellectual sermons will from the outset form the tendency to atomise the faithful community. Through an intellectual sermon the human being is thrown back onto himself; every single listener will be rejected by himself. This shakes up in him those forces which above all do not agree but are contradictory. This is a simple psychological fact. As soon as one looks deeper into the soul, every listener becomes at the same time a critic and an opponent. Indeed, my dear friends, regarding the secrets of the soul so little has been clarified today. All kinds of contradictions arise in objection to what the other person is saying when the only method of expression he uses is intellectual.

[ 11 ] This is precisely the element which split people up today, because they are permeated thoroughly with mere intellectualism. You are therefore unable, through the sermon, to work against atomising, if you remain in intellectualism. Neither in the preparation of the sermon, nor in the delivery of the sermon must you, if you want to build community today, remain in intellectualism. Here is where one can become stuck through our present-day education and above all in the present theological education, because in many ways it has become quite intellectual. In the Catholic Church it has become purely intellectual, and all that which is not intellectual, which should be alive, is not given to individuals but has become the teaching material of the church and must be accepted as the teaching material of the church. A result of this is, because everything which the Catholic Church gives freely as intellectual, the priest is the most free individual one can imagine. The Catholic Church doesn't expect people to somehow submit to their intellect, inasmuch as it releases them from what is not referred to as the supernatural. All they demand is that people submit to the teaching material of the church. Regarding this I can cite an actual example.

I once spoke to a theologian of a university, where at that time it paid general homage to liberal principles, not from the church but from liberal foundations. Of course, the theological faculty was purely for the Catholic priesthood. This person I spoke to had just been given a bad rebuke by Rome. I asked him: How is this actually possible that it is precisely you who received this rebuke, who is relatively pious in comparison to the teacher at the Innsbruck University—who I won't name—who teaches more freely and is watched patiently from Rome?—Well, you see, this man answered, he is actually a Jesuit and I'm a Cistercian. Rome is always sure that a man like him, who studies at the Innsbruck University never drops out, no matter how freely he uses the Word, but that the Word should always be in the service of the church. With us Cistercians Rome believes that we follow our intellect because we can't stand as deeply in our church life as the Jesuit who has had his retreat which has shown him a different way to the one we Cistercians take.—You see how Rome treats intellectualism psychologically. As a rule, Rome knows very clearly what it wants because Rome acts out through human psychology, even though we reject it.

[ 12 ] Now, what is important is that above all, the sermon should not remain in intellectualism. All our languages are intellectual, we don't have the possibility at all, when we use common languages, to come away from the intellect. But we must do it. The next thing you come to, with which you need work as purely formative in the power of creative speech, is symbolism, but now formed in the right way, not by remaining within intellectualism but by really experiencing the symbols. To experience symbols indicates much more than one ordinarily means.

[ 13 ] You see, as soon as the Anthroposophist comes to imaginative observation or penetrates the imaginative observation of someone else, he actually knows: The human being who stands in front of him is not the same person he had been before he had seen the light of Anthroposophy. You see, this person, who stands in front of us, is considered by current science to be a more highly developed animal; generally speaking. Everything which science offers to corroborate these views and generally justifies it is by saying a person has exactly as many bones and muscles as the higher animals, which is all true, but science comes to a dead end when one really presents the difference between people and animals. The differences between people and animals are not at all to be referred to through comparative anatomy, whether the whole human being or a single part of it, and an entire animal or part of an animal is similar, but to grasp what is human is to understand what results when human organs are situated vertically while the animal organs lie parallel with the surface of the earth. That one can also observe this in the animal kingdom as far as it proves the rule, is quite right, but that doesn't belong here, I must point out the limitations.

Because the human being is organised according to the vertical plane with his spine, he relates in quite a different way to the cosmos than does the animal. The animal arranges itself in the currents circulating the earth, the human being arranges itself in currents which stream from the centre point of the earth in the direction of the radius. One needs to study the human being's situation in relation to space in order to understand him. When one has completed one's study of the human being's relationship to space, and make it alive once again, as regards to what it means that the human being is the image of God. The human being is not at all what comparative anatomy sees, he is no such reality as anatomy describes him to be, but he is, in as far as he is formed, a realization of an image (Bildwirklichkeit). He represents. He is sent out of higher worlds into conception and birth so that he represents what he brings from before his birth. Out of the divine substance we have our spiritual life before birth. This spiritual life dissolves through conception and birth and achieves a representation in the physical person on earth, an imagination. Imagination, drawn out of the world all, becomes the form of man, but what is drawn out of the world all needs to be understood according to its position in the world all. Every single human organ takes place in the verticalization. The human being is placed into the world by God.

[ 14 ] This happens directly as an inner experience as the human being is grasped by the imagination. One can no longer intellectually say and believe that when I say the words "Man is the image of God" that we are only talking about a comparison. No, the truth is expressed; super-sensibly derived similarities from the Old and New Testaments can be found not as allegorical similarities, but as truths. We need to reach a stage when our words are again permeated by such experiences, that we learn to speak vividly in this way. In the measure to which we in a lively way enter into vivid characterisation, not through contriving something intellectually, we come to the possibility of the sermon, which should be an instruction.

[ 15 ] I have often pointed out that when a teacher stands in front of a child and wants to teach him in a popular form about the immortality of the soul, he should do so through an image. He will need to refer to the insect pupa, how the butterfly flies out of it, and then from there go over to the human soul leaving the human body like a pupa shell; permeating this image with a super-sensible truth. I have always, when I deal with this alleged parable, said: there is a big difference whether a teacher said to himself: I am clever and the child is stupid, therefore I must create a parable for the child so that he can understand what I can understand with my mind.—Whoever speaks in this way has no experience of life, no experience of the imponderables which work in instructions. Because the convincing power with which the child grasps it, what I want to teach with this pupa parable, means very little if I think: I am clever and the child is stupid, I must create a parable for him which works.—What should be working firstly comes about within me, when I work with all the phases and power of belief in my parable. As an Anthroposophist I can create this parable by observing nature. Through my looking at the butterfly, how it curls out of the pupa, I am convinced through it that this is an image of the immortality of the soul, which only appears as a lower manifestation. I believe in my parable with my entire life.

This facing of others in life is what can become a power of community building. Before intellectualism has not been overcome to allow people to live in images once again, before then it will be impossible that a real community building power can occur.

[ 16 ] I have experienced the power of community building, but in an unjust field. I would like to tell you about that as well. Once I was impelled to study such things as to listen to an Easter sermon given by a famous Jesuit father. It was completely formulated according to Jesuit training. I want to give you a brief outline of this sermon. It dealt with the theme: How does the Christian face up to the assertion that the Pope would set the Easter proclamation according to dogma, it wouldn't be determined as God's creation but through human creation?—The Jesuit father didn't speak particularly deeply, but Jesuit schooled, he said: Yes my dear Christians, imagine a cannon, and on the cannon an operator or gunner, and the officer in command. Now imagine this quite clearly. What happens? The cannon is loaded, the gunner holds the fuse in his hand, the gunner pulls on the fuse when the command is sounded. You see, this is how it is with the Pope in Rome. He stands as the gunner beside the cannon, holds the fuse and from supernatural worlds the command comes. The Pope in Rome pulls on the fuse and thus gives the command of the Easter proclamation. It is a law from heaven, just like the command does not come from the gunner but from the officer. Yet, something deeper lies behind this, my dear Christians—the father says—something far deeper lies beneath it, when one now looks at the whole process of the Easter proclamation. Can one say the gunner who hears the command and pulls on the fuse, is the inventor of the powder? No. Just as little can one say that the Catholic Pope has instituted the Easter proclamation.

The faithful are drawn by a feeling into the congregation through the use of this image, this representation but obviously in an unjust a field as possible.

[ 17 ] The symbol can be a way for the human heart to actually find the supersensible, but we, like I've indicated with the comparison to the insect pupa, need to learn to live within the symbol; to be able to faithfully take the symbol itself from the outside world. I clearly understand when someone wants to appeal to mere faith as opposed to knowledge. I take this so seriously, that this faith must also manifest and be active in the living of oneself in the face of outer nature, so that the entire outer nature becomes a symbolum in the true sense of the word, an experienced symbolum. My dear friends, before the human being again realizes that in the light not mere comparisons of wisdom live and weave, but that in the light wisdom really live and weave ... (gap in notes) ... light penetrates into our eyes, what is light is then no longer light—with "light" one originally referred to everything which lay at the foundation of human beings as their inner wisdom—because by the light's penetration it becomes inwardly changed, transubstantiated, and each thought which rises within, my dear friends, is changed light in reality, not in a parable. [ 18 ] Don't be surprised therefore that the one who has got to know through appropriate exercises that to some extent outer phenomena describe inner human thoughts, by describing them in light imagery. Do not be surprised because that corresponds to reality.

[ 19 ] Things were far more concretely taken in the ancient knowledge of mankind than one usually thinks. You must also become knowledgeable with the fact that the power which then still lived in the Gospels, have in the last centuries also got lost, like the original revelation of man has really been lost as has the original language been lost. Now I want to pose the question: do we grasp the Gospels today? We only grasp them when we can really live within them and presently, out of our intellectualized time epoch, we can't experience them thus. I know very well about the opposition expressed against my interpretations presented in my various Gospel lectures, from some or other side, and I'm quite familiar that these are my initial attempts, that they need to become more complete; but attempts to enliven the Gospels, these they are indeed.

[ 20 ] I would like to refer back to times, my dear friends, when there were individuals who we today, when you imagine the world order at that time there also existed, those we call chemists. Alchemists they were called in the 12th and 13th centuries, and they were active with the material world which we usually can observe in chemists. What do we do today in order to create a real chemist? Today our preparations for the creation of a chemist is his intellectual conceptions of how matter is analysed and synthesized, how he works with a retort, with a heating apparatus, with electricity and so on. This was not enough, if I may express it this way, for a real chemist, up to the 13th and 14th centuries—perhaps not to take it word for word—but then the chemist had opened the Bible in front of him and was permeated in a way by what he did, in what he did, by what flowed out of the Bible in a corresponding force. Current humanity will obviously regard this as a paradox. For humanity, only a few centuries ago, this seemed obvious. The awareness which the chemist had at that time, in other words the alchemist, in the accomplishment of his actions, was only slightly different to standing at the altar and reading the mass. Only slightly different, because the reading of the mass already was the supreme alchemical act. We will speak about this more precisely in future.

Should one not be creating knowledge out of these facts that the Gospels have lost their actual power? What have we done in the 19th century? We have analysed the Gospels of Mark, John, Luke and Matthew, we have treated them philologically, we have concluded that John's Gospel can be nothing, but a hymn and that one can hardly believe it corresponds to reality. We have compared the various synoptists with one another and we have reached the stage which ties to the famous blacksmith where distillation takes place: what is said iniquitously about the Christ is the truth because you won't find that with mere hymns of praise.—This is the last consequence of this path. On this path nothing else can happen than what has already happened: the destruction of the Gospels will inevitably arise in this way. While we are still so much into discussing the division between knowledge and faith, it will not be sustained if science destroys the Gospels. One must certainly stand within reality and need to understand how to live out of reality, and therefore it is important that the pastor must come to a living meaning of the perceptible representations, the perceptible-in-image representations. The living image must enter into the sermon. That it should be an acceptable, a good image, it obviously must have a purity of mood, of which we will speak about. It's all in the image; the image is what we need to find.

[ 21 ] Now my dear friends, for the discovery of the image you will be most successful with the help of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is mocked because of its pictoriality. If you read how the intellectuals—if I may use the word—apply their opposition to my depiction of evolution, you will soon see how easy it is from the intellectual point of view to mock the images which I have to use in my depiction of the Old Saturn-, Sun- and Moon existence. I have to use images otherwise things would fall out of my hands, because only though images I can grasp the reality which has to be searched for. I would like to say, Anthroposophy has in each of its parts definitely a search for images and is for this reason the helper for those who use images. Here lies the real field, where the pastor can firstly benefit much from Anthroposophy. Not as if he has to undertake to believe in Anthroposophy, not as if he has to say: Well now, let's study anthroposophical images and books, then we can use them.—This is no argument. It needs to come, so to speak, to the opposite of what had to develop in philosophy, into an age that lived contrary to Anthroposophy.

[ 22 ] To this I would like to say the following. Philosophers today who are students of a content or a system, or of the belief that a system needs to be established, such philosophers are antiquated; such philosophers have remained behind. Such system-philosophies are no longer possible in the intellectual time epoch. When Hegel presented his purely intellectualism in his last thoughts of the human conception and placed this in his overall system, he had created what I would like to call the corpse of philosophy. Exactly like science studies the human corpse, so can one in Hegel's philosophy in a corpse-like way study what is philosophy—as only that, it is very good. That is why the Hegelian philosophy is so great, because nothing disturbs the flow of intellectualism to really study it. The amazing thing I admire for example, is to develop something pure which is purely intellectualistic. However, after Hegel there can no longer be such endeavours which take thought content to create a philosophic system. That is why people create such awful somersaults. Yes, one can't think of worse somersaults than the philosophy of Hans Vaihinger, called the "As-if" (Als Ob). As if one can have something like a philosophy called: "As if." It is created from experience in the mind, this philosophy of "As if." It is not even a philosophy out of what humanity was, but the last imaginative remnants in humanity, which are translated into thoughts. What philosophers are obliged to study today should be a practice in pure thinking. To study philosophy today is meditative thinking and should not be practiced in any other way. I believe that if one looks at these things in an unprejudiced way, one will soon see that what I have offered in my Riddles of Philosophy as the development of philosophy, that it constantly proposes one can work through the most diverse philosophic systems as an exercise in thinking. One can learn unbelievably much out of the latest systems, in the Hartmann system and the American system linked to the name of James. One can learn unbelievably much in as far as one lets it work on one to such a degree that one asks: How is thinking trained; what does one gain from thought training?—Please forgive the hard words. Nietzsche had already made an effort to introduce such thought training in philosophy.

[ 23 ] This will draw your attention, regarding philosophy, to today's need that man must direct thought content into direct living content, not by positioning oneself as a subject against the truth from outside, but in such a way that truth becomes an experience. Only one who has understood current philosophising in this way will actually be able to understand the contrary; for readers of anthroposophical writing and hearing anthroposophical lectures it does not mean things are to be taken up as dogma. That would be the most incorrect attitude to have. Just think, what is given in Anthroposophy has actually been brought down out of the supersensible, it may have been awkwardly put into words, but when one allows oneself to reach deeper, it will be as if the true philosopher in his thoughts reaches deeper into other philosophies. He would not take anything from other systems, he takes the blame. The image capability for the pictorial, for the sake of clarity, is the first step to educate students in Anthroposophy. When words are encountered which have flowed out of imaginative thinking, when such thoughts are taken up, then it is necessary, in order to really understand them, to raise the pictorial power out of them from soul foundations. Above all, that's what we can do to help Anthroposophy.

[ 24 ] One therefore appeals less by saying: Well, I must first for my own sake become clairvoyant, then I can make some decisions about Anthroposophy.—One appeals in such a way that one firstly, quite indifferently, get to know the content of truth in Anthroposophy; one simply takes the sum of all the images which shows how one or other soul paints it. That is at least a fact which they paint for themselves. One takes this and first allows the inherent truth to remain undecided, but then one tries to find within it, how the person speaks who has such supersensible images, and one will see that this is the best way to enter in to seeing for oneself. With many people who encounter Anthroposophy today it is as if they set the wagon straight but then incorrectly spans the horse to it. (A stenographer's note indicates that a horse was drawn on the blackboard with the wagon positioned in one way, while the horse is drawn with its head towards the wagon and its tail pointing to the road ahead. The original drawing was not preserved.) There is no need for this; that one must first learn to be a seer. It could, in fact happen due to a certain arrogance and then the thing as a whole is passed by. If one has the humility to want to experience the seeing adequately, then one can come to the perception without the fear of receiving a suggestion. The fear of receiving a suggestion can only be had by philosophers alien to reality; which we have for instance with Wund, the latecomer of system philosophers who of course from his point of view, argued: Yes, how would I know if what I've first perceived of the supersensible world and look at it, that it was not suggested to me?—One should reply the Wund: How do you actually know the different between a piece of iron with a temperature of 100 degrees or higher which you can only imagine, or another one which is lying in front of you? You can discuss this for a long time but by looking at it you will never discover whether the iron is really lying in front of you or whether it is suggested; but when you grab hold of it and look at your fingers, then you will find the difference—through life. There is no other criterion.

[ 25 ] It is however an unmistakable criterion, if one places oneself into life in such a way to come into Anthroposophy. One may however not take on the point of view that one knows everything already. In my life I have found that people learn the least when they believe they already know what they should learn.

[ 26 ] It is for instance only possible to be a real teacher when you are a teacher of attitude. How often is it said to teachers in the Waldorf schools—and you have understood, in the course of years it has happened that teaching is characterised by this attitude; it is clearly noticeable—how often is it not said: When one stands in front of a child, then it is best to say to oneself that there is far more wisdom in the child than in oneself, much, much more because it had just arrived from the spiritual world and brings much more wisdom with it. One can learn an unbelievable amount from children. From nothing in the world does one basically learn so much in an outer physical way, as when one wants to learn from a child. The child is the teacher, and the Waldorf teacher knows how little it is true that with teaching, one is the teacher and the child the scholar. One is actually—but this one keeps as an inner mystery for oneself—more of a scholar than a teacher and the child is more teacher than scholar. It seems like a paradox, but it is so.

[ 27 ] You see, Anthroposophy directs us to new knowledge about the world, in many special areas in life, so it is worthy of questions which are thought through ... (Gap in notes). Yes, Anthroposophy appears consistently in this mood, with this attitude. Anthroposophy just can't appear without a religious character as part of it. This must also be stressed about Anthroposophy: Anthroposophy does not strive to appear as creating religious instruction, as building a sect; it strives to give humanity a content to their inner experiences which lets them strive to what comes quite out of themselves, which is expressed with religious characteristics. Anthroposophy is not a religion but what it gives is something which works religiously.

[ 28 ] Very recently I had to speak to a person whose earlier life situation was not quite over confident, but of a joyful nature, and who descended into a deep depression, a depression which had various, even organic, causes. This man is an Anthroposophist, he wanted to speak about his mood to me. I pointed out that a mood comes out of the totality of a person, and one gets a mood out of what one absorbs from the world in that one confronts the world as a human being.

Anthroposophy itself is a person (Mensch). If it wasn't a person, it wouldn't transform us. Out of us it makes us into someone different. It is a person itself, I say it in the greatest earnestness. Anthroposophy is not a teaching, Anthroposophy has an element of being, it is a person. Only when a person is quite permeated by it and Anthroposophy is like a person who thinks, but also feels, senses and has emotions of will, when Anthroposophy thinks, feels and wills in us, when it is really like a complete person, then one can grasp it, then you have it. Anthroposophy acts like a being and it enters present culture and civilization like a kind of being. One experiences this entering as by a kind of being. With this at the same time one can say: Religion—spoken from the anthroposophic stand point—religion is a relationship of human beings to God. However, Anthroposophy is a person, and because it is a person, it has a relationship with God; and like a person has a relationship to God, so it has a relationship to God. Thus, it has the direct characteristic of the religious in itself.

[ 29 ] I will now summarise this finally in some abstract sentences which do however have life in them. What I have said before and what I say now are interrelated and I don't say it without purpose, my dear friends. The first one which is experienced in this way is that one leans to recognise how godly wisdom acts in the child, where it is creative, where it not only comes to revelation in a brain, but where it still shapes the brain. Yes, "if you would not become like little children, you shall never enter into the kingdom of the heavens ..." That is the way to penetrate into what you notice in the deep humility of the child, that which lies before becoming a child, that which even Goethe experienced so lovingly, that he used the word "growing young" (Jungwerden) for entering into the world, like one can say "growing old" (Altwerden). Growing young means stepping out of the spiritual state, into earthly existence. One goes in a certain sense really through childhood and back to such a state where one still had a direct relationship with the divine. The old Biblical questions become quite real: Can one return into the mother's body, to experience a rebirth?—In spirit one can do this. However, in the old way where the Bible lay in front of the alchemists, and the new way which prepares us for handling the world, lies an abyss. The abyss must be bridged over. We will however not find the old ways, because we need to find a new way.

I have often spoken out among Anthroposophists what we might find when we are willing to do some kind of manipulation of nature. The "Encheiresis naturae" (an intervention by the hand of nature—Google) we must accomplish again, but we mustn't say "don't cut your nose to spite your face"; we must be able to take it in the greatest earnest then we will have an ideal , in any case only as an ideal, but an ideal which becomes reality. The laboratory workbench will in a certain sense become an altar, and the outer action in the world will become a service of divine worship and all of life be drenched by the light of acts of worship. [ 30 ] Now for the second thing: Anthroposophy as speech formation. Anthroposophy needs to strive to have such a grasp in the world, that I can apply the reality which I've presented today as an apparent contradictory image: the laboratory bench of the chemist, the physics-chemistry of clinical work must in human experience take on the form of an altar. Work on humanity, also the purely technical work—must be able to become a service of divine worship. That one will only be able to find when one has the good will to cross over the abyss which separates our world from the other side where the Gospels lay before the alchemists.

“The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” If we thoroughly understand this passage we shall also understand that deeply significant event in the history of humanity which took place through the appearance of Christ on the Earth. In the earlier lectures of this course we have traced the evolution of humanity in broad outlines, and we have described the way in which the consciousness of the Ego developed in the distant past whole groups and generations of human beings had one Ego in common. From this we learned to understand the long age of the patriarchs. Gradually this feeling of the Ego became limited more and more to the single personalities. We also showed how two spiritual streams made themselves felt in this evolution: the one was the stream of blood-relationship, which endeavoured to hold men together by natural ties, and the other, the Luciferic, which made men independent and prepared them for the purely spiritual tie which was to come.

During the whole period of the Old Testament one understood by “Law” something which brings order into human society from without. After blood-relationship had lost its binding power, men had to be brought into a certain connection with one another by an outer thought-order. The law was perceived as something coming from outside, and this Law which was given from outside holds good until the “grace and truth,” or devotion and truth, which comes through Jesus Christ, has developed in us from within, the understanding for the true knowledge. Devotion and truth can only develop gradually. Christianity, which is to bring devotion and truth in place of the Law, is only at the beginning of its growth; the further the Earth progresses in its evolution the stronger will be the influence of Christianity on humanity. Humanity is to raise itself to a stage of social life at which each one is drawn, by an impulse arising within himself, to act towards his neighbor as one brother to another. Men could not however, raise themselves of their own power to this high stage of development, and it is the task of Christianity to help them to do this. Men will no longer need any outer law to force upon them this attitude when they have the inner impulse so to act that devotion and truth are the motives for their actions.

We do not mean to say by the above, that humanity no longer needs the Law, but that which we have described is an ideal, which should be striven for. Gradually men will come to where the harmony of the world will be brought about through their voluntary action, but for this goal to be reached the Power which in the Gospel is called Christ had to step in. In the occult schools it is said of one who, of his own inner power, is able to raise himself into this relationship to all his fellow-men, that “he bears Christ within him.” In order to understand what we are about to say, it will first of all be necessary to recapitulate once more the real constitution of man. Recall to mind the contents of the third lecture with the aid of the following sketch:

Through the work of the Ego upon the astral body the latter is transformed into Spirit Self. But this takes place step by step, through the sentient soul being developed first, then the intellectual soul, and finally the spiritual soul; then the Spirit Self pours into the purified and mature spiritual soul. In the same way the Ego works upon the etheric body, and the impulses which are most effective in this case are the influences of art, religion and occult training.

There were also occult schools in pre-Christian times, where pupils were trained, so that they were able to look into higher worlds; but this vision only existed among the true pupils in the most hidden occult schools, and even they only at the actual moment of initiation, when the etheric body was separated from the physical body . The raising of a human being, so that he might be able to see in the spiritual world, was called Initiation. In all initiations of pre-Christian times the one who was to be initiated had to be brought into a kind of sleeping state. This sleep of initiation was distinguished from ordinary sleep by the fact that in the latter the etheric body remains united with the physical body, whereas in the former the etheric body was for a short time separated from the physical body. During this time the Hierophant had to keep the body alive. Through the etheric body being separated, it was possible to lead it, together with the other parts, into the higher worlds, in order there to undergo experiences which could afterwards be imparted to the physical brain. That was the method of initiation in pre-Christian times.

Through the advent of Christ Jesus an entirely new kind of initiation came in. Imagine that a man has transformed the whole of his astral body into Spirit Self. This Spirit Self then impresses itself into the etheric body, as a seal impresses itself into sealing-wax, and gives it its imprint. The etheric body is thereby changed into Life Spirit. When this has come about completely, the Life Spirit then imprints itself in the physical body and makes it into Spirit Man. Now it was only through the appearance of Christ Jesus that it became possible to imprint the Life Spirit directly into the life body; and the experiences undergone in the higher worlds could henceforth be embodied in the physical brain without the necessity of a previous separation of the etheric body. Thus all the pre-Christian initiates had undergone the experiences of initiation outside the physical body; they had then descended again into the physical body and could from that time forward, out of their own experience, announce what had taken place in the spiritual world.

Buddha, Moses and others were initiates of this kind. In Jesus there had come to the Earth for the first time a Being who, while still remaining in the physical body, could see the life of the higher worlds. The teachings of Buddha, Moses, etc., were quite independent of the personality of their agent. Those who accept the teachings of Buddha or Moses are Buddhists or followers of Moses, for these founders of religion only passed on what they had experienced in the higher worlds. With Christ it is different. It is only through His personality that His teachings become Christianity, and in order to be a Christian it is not enough merely to follow the teachings of Christianity. Those alone are true Christians, who feel themselves united with the historical Christ. Certain sentences contained in Christian teaching, or something very similar to them, could also be found in that world before Christ appeared; but that is not the point. The essential thing is, that the Christian believes in Christ Jesus, that he considers Him to be the One Who, while walking in the flesh, represents the perfect man.

In ancient times the statement was often made; ‘The initiate is a divine man.’ The reason for this lay in the fact that during the ceremony of initiation the initiate was above in the spiritual world with the spiritual or divine Beings; He was then the divine man. But one could “see” in the physical body for the first time through Christ Jesus, the Deity,—but never before. Thus we have to take the words of John 1:18. quite literally: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” Formerly the Deity could only be perceived by one who had himself made the ascent. In Christ the Deity had for the first time come down visibly to the Earth. This is told us in St. John's Gospel, (Chapter 1:14): “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” It was also taught in the Dionysian School. Christ came to show men the way; they are to become His followers; they are to prepare to imprint what is in the etheric body into the physical body; that is to say, to develop within themselves the Christ principle.

The Gospel of St. John is a book of life. No one who has merely enquired into it with his intellect has understood this book; he alone who has experienced it really knows it. If a man meditates upon the first fourteen verses day after day for some time, he will discover the purpose of these words. They are really words which, when one meditates upon them, awaken in the human soul the capacity to see the various parts of the Gospel, such as the marriage at Cana in chapter two, the conversation with Nicodemus in chapter three, as one's own experiences in the great astral tableau. Through these exercises clairvoyance develops in the human being and he can then experience for himself the truth of what is written in St. John's Gospel. Hundreds have experienced this. The writer of St.John's Gospel was a great Seer who was initiated by Christ Himself.

The disciple “John” is never mentioned by name in this Gospel. We read of him as “the disciple whom the Lord loved,” for example in Chapter 19:26. This is a technical expression and signifies the one who was initiated by the Master Himself. “John” describes his own initiation in the story of the “raising of Lazarus.” (Chapter 11). It was only through the writer of St. John's Gospel being initiated by the Lord Himself that the most secret connections between Christ and the evolution of the world could be revealed. As we have already said, the old initiations lasted for three and a half days; hence the raising of Lazarus on the fourth day. It is also said of Lazarus that the Lord loved him (John 3:35-36.)

While the body of Lazarus lay as if dead in the grave, his etheric body was lifted out in order to undergo the initiation, and to receive the same force that is in Christ. Thus the one whom the Lord loved, the one to whom we owe St. John's Gospel, was raised, he was awakened. Not a line in St. John's Gospel, contradicts this fact; the process of initiation is represented in a veiled way.

Let us now consider another scene in this Gospel. In (John 19:25), we read: “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, His mother, and His mothers sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.” If we wish to understand this Gospel it is necessary to know who these three women are. We do not usually give two sisters the same name; neither was it the custom in former times. The passage we have quoted proves that, according to St. John's Gospel, the mother of Jesus was not called Mary. If we search through the whole of this Gospel we nowhere find it said that the mother of Jesus was called Mary. In the scene of the Marriage of Cana, for example, Chapter 2, we only read, “the mother of Jesus was there.” In these words something important is indicated, something we only understand when we know how the writer of this Gospel uses his words. What does the expression “the mother of Jesus” mean? We have seen that man consists of physical, etheric and astral bodies. We must not consider the transition of the astral body to the Spirit Self so simply. The Ego transforms the astral body very slowly and gradually into sentient soul, intellectual soul and spiritual soul. The Ego goes on working and only when it has developed the spiritual soul is it able so to purify it that Spirit Self can arise in it.

The following diagram represents the constitution of man.

The Spirit Man will only be developed in the distant future, and Life Spirit is also only germinal in most people of the present day. The development of the Spirit Self has only just begun; it is closely united with the spiritual soul (somewhat like a sword in its sheath). The sentient soul is similarly united with the astral body. The human being thus consists of nine parts or principles; but as the Spirit Self and the spiritual soul, and the sentient soul and the astral body are so closely united, we often speak of seven parts. Spirit-Self is the same as the “Holy Spirit,” who according to esoteric Christianity, is the guiding Being in the astral world. According to the same teaching, Life Spirit is called the Word or the Son; and Spirit Man is the “Father Spirit” or the “Father.”

Those human beings who had brought the Spirit Self to birth within them, were called Children of God; in such men “the light shone into the Darkness and they received the light.” Outwardly they were, men of flesh and blood, but they bore a higher man within them; the Spirit Self had been born within them out of the spiritual soul. The “mother” of such a spiritualised man is not a bodily mother, she lies within him; she is the purified and spiritualised spiritual soul; she is the principle who gives birth to the higher man. This spiritual birth, a birth in the highest sense, is described in St. John's Gospel. The Spirit Self or the Holy Spirit pours into the most highly purified Spiritual Soul. This is referred to in the words, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.” (John 1:32).

As the Spiritual Soul is the principle in which the Spirit Self develops, this principle is called the “mother of Christ,” or, in the occult schools, the “Virgin Sophia.” Through the fertilisation of the Virgin Sophia the Christ could be born in Jesus of Nazareth. In the occult school of Dionysius, the Intellectual Soul was called “Mary,” and the Sentient Soul “Mary Magdalene.”

The Physical man is born of the union of two human beings; but the higher man can only be born of a Spiritual Soul which embraces a whole people. Among all the peoples of olden times the method of initiation was essentially the same. Each initiation had seven stages or degrees. Among the Persians, for example, they were called as follows:—I. The Raven. One at this stage had to bring information from the outer world into the temple. The Raven has always been called the spiritual messenger, for instance in the legend of the Ravens of Barbarossa, and also in the German legends of Odin and his two ravens. 2. The Occult. 3. The Warrior. In the occult school the warrior was allowed to go forth and announce the teachings. 4. The Lion. The Lion was one who was firmly grounded in himself; he not only had the word, but he possessed also the magical forces; he had stood the test which guaranteed that he would not misuse the powers entrusted to him. 5. The Persian; 6. The Sun Hero. 7. The Father.

Let us consider the title of the fifth degree,the “Persian”, a little more closely. In all the occult schools an initiate of the fifth degree was called by the name of the people to whom he belonged; for his consciousness had widened where it included the whole people. He felt all the sorrow of the people as his own; his consciousness had been purified and expanded to the consciousness of the whole people. Among the Jews the initiate at this stage was called an “Israelite.” Only when we grasp this fact do we understand the conversation between Christ and Nathanael (John 1:46-49). Nathanael was an initiate of the fifth degree. The words of Christ Jesus to Nathanael, that he had seen him under the fig tree, refer to a special process in initiation, namely, the reception of the Spiritual Soul.

The following considerations will help towards the understanding of the inner process of initiation. The individual “I”-consciousness of man is in the physical world; men walk the Earth with their Ego. But the egos of the animals are on the astral plane; each group of animals there possesses an ego-consciousness in common. There is, however, in the astral world, not only the ego of the animal, but also the ego of the body which man has in common with the animals, the ego of the human astral body. In the Lower Spirit World we find the ego of the plants and also the ego of the body man possesses in common with the plants, the ego of the etheric body. If we rise still higher, into the Higher Spirit World, we there find the ego of the minerals and the ego of that part which man has in common with the minerals—the ego of the physical body. Thus through our physical body we are connected with the Higher Spiritual World. We are here in the physical world with our individual Ego only. When, in the case of an initiate, the ego of the astral body is permeated by his Individual ego, the consequence is that he becomes conscious in the astral world; he can then perceive the beings around him there and become active in that-world. He then meets Beings who are incarnated in astral bodies; he also meets the group-souls of the animals, and the higher Beings who in Christianity are called angels. On being initiated still more deeply, the ego of the etheric body is also permeated by the individual ego. The consciousness of the human being then extends into the Lower Spiritual World. There he encounters the egos of the plants and the Spirit of the Planet. A still deeper initiation takes place when the individual ego permeates the ego of the physical body,—man then rises to personal consciousness in the higher Spiritual world. There he meets the egos of the minerals and still higher Spirits. Thus continued initiation raises a man to higher and higher worlds, in which he meets with higher and higher Beings.

When the individual Ego has gained full control over the three bodies, it has brought about inner harmony. Christ possessed this harmony to the fullest extent,—he appeared on the Earth in order that men might develop this power of inner harmony. In this Son of Man we see represented the full development of humanity, up to the highest spiritual stage. Formerly this inner harmony did not exist, outer laws worked in its place,—this inner harmony is the new impulse which humanity received through Christ. Man is to acquire the “Christ capacity,” that is to say, he is to develop the inner Christ. Goethe said: “The eye is built by light for light;” in the same way this inner harmony, this inner Christ is only kindled through the presence of the outer, historical Christ; before His appearance it was not possible for man to reach this stage of spiritual development.

Those human beings who lived before the appearance of Christ on Earth are not excluded from the blessings He brought to humanity; for it should not be forgotten that, according to the law of reincarnation, they will come again to the earth and will therefore have the opportunity to develop the inner Christ. It is only when people forget the law of reincarnation that they can speak of injustice. St. John's Gospel shows the way to the historical Christ, to that Sun which enkindles the inner light in man, just as the physical Sun has enkindled the light of the eyes.

The ego of the etheric body may be compared to the engineer who builds a motor-car; the ego of the astral body may be compared to the one who drives it; and the ego of the individual to the one who owns it.

The Mystery of Golgotha is one of the profoundest secrets of the evolution of the world. In order to understand it, we must shed light upon the occult wisdom of thousands of years ago, on the remote past of the world's development. It is not a plausible argument against a more penetrating knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha to say that the life and work of Christ Jesus should be accessible to the simplest mind. This is indeed the case. But a full, encompassing comprehension of this greatest event on earth must be drawn out of the depths of Mystery-wisdom.

In this lecture we shall penetrate into the depths of Mystery-wisdom in order to understand how an event such as the Mystery of Golgotha could take place. In this connection we should bear in mind that with the appearance of Christ Jesus upon the earth something occurred which divided mankind into two parts. We can grasp this best of all by seeking an answer to the question: Who was Christ Jesus?

For the occultist this question is a double one: For we must distinguish between the personality who lived at that time in Palestine and reached the age of thirty, and what became of him afterwards. In the 30th year of his life Jesus became Christ.

In the case of ordinary people, only insignificant portions of the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body are transformed into Manas, Buddhi and Atma, or into Spirit Self, Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man. Jesus of Nazareth was a Chela of the third degree, and his bodies were therefore in a state of high purification.

When a Chela has absolved the purification of his three bodies, then he acquires at a certain moment of his life the capacity to sacrifice himself. In his 30th year, the Ego of Jesus left his three bodies and passed over into the astral world, so that the three sanctified bodies remained behind on earth, emptied as it were of their Ego, so that room was made for a higher individuality. In the 30th year of his life, the Ego of Jesus of Nazareth made the great sacrifice of placing his purified bodies at the disposal of the individuality of Christ. Christ filled out these bodies. And from that time onwards we speak of Christ-Jesus who lived upon the earth for three years and fulfilled all his great deeds within the body of Jesus.

In order to understand the true being of Christ, we must go far back into the history of the development of the earth and of mankind. Before the earth became Earth, it was the old Moon, and the present moon is only a fragment of the old Moon. Before the Earth was Moon, it was Sun, and at a still earlier stage it was Saturn. We should bear in mind that milliards of years ago there existed in the cosmic spaces a heavenly body, Saturn. Also planets develop through different incarnations: Before the Earth was EARTH, it existed as Saturn, Sun and Moon.

Let us now transfer ourselves upon the Sun. There, the so-called Fire-Spirits had the same rank which human beings now have upon the earth. Of course, they did not have the same appearance, they did not look like men of to-day; these high individualities passed through the human stage upon the Sun under conditions which were quite different from the present human conditions. Also upon the Moon a host of Beings passed through the stage of humanity, and they came down to the Earth as higher Beings, as Lunar Pitris or Moon-Spirits, that had reached a higher stage than that of man upon the Earth. In Christian esotericism they are called Angeloi = Angels. Only upon the Earth the human being became MAN. The Lunar Pitris are Beings one degree higher than man, and above them stand the Fire-Spirits, who are one degree higher than the Lunar Pitris. The Fire-Spirits have reached a very high stage of development.

Now we come to the Earth, to the Lemurian race which lived upon a continent situated between present-day Asia, Africa and Australia. There, man took on his present form through the fact that below, upon the physical earth, there lived highly developed beings, but physical beings, higher than the present animals and less developed than present-day man. These physical beings formed a kind of shell, a dwelling-place and they would have been condemned to decadence had they not been fructified by higher Beings. Only at that time the human souls entered the physical human bodies, and then began to shape the Subsequent form of the human body. In the past, the human soul was an integral part of higher Spiritual Beings. The physical shells of human bodies were upon the earth, and into these streamed the souls of higher Beings coming from above, from the spiritual worlds. In the spiritual worlds the souls were connected like drops of water in a sea, which were then poured into a number of vessels.

The beings who poured out the souls from above were those who had passed through their human stage upon the Moon, the Moon-Spirits, whose stage of development was one degree higher than that of Man so that they could pour one part of their being into mankind, thus enabling it to develop further, Man could then transform his organism more and more. He could lift himself up from the earth and stand upright, he learned to walk, to speak and to become independent.

There was a certain relationship between all these souls, for they came from a common spiritual chorus. All those who had received a drop from the same being, greatly resembled each other. Members, of the same tribe first had such related souls, then the members of a race or nation, for example, the whole Egyptian or the whole Jewish nation. They had souls that had come from a common source. From the Moon-Spirits man had received the Spirit-Self and this enabled him to become an independent being, an Ego.

But something which man could not obtain from the Moon Spirits, could only be given to him by a still higher Being, common to all men, who had already completed its humanity upon the Sun: a Fire-Spirit. Many Fire-spirits had developed upon the Sun and exercised their influence upon the Earth, for they were high spirits. One of these Fire-Spirits was called upon to pour out his being upon the whole of mankind. A Spirit who belonged to the whole Earth was able to pour out over the whole of mankind, into each one of its parts, the element of the Sun or Fire-Spirits, the Buddhi, or the Spirit of Life. But in the Lemurian and in the Atlantean age the human beings were not ripe enough to receive this from the Sun-Spirit.

When we read the Akasha Chronicle (See Rudolf Steiner's bookThe Akasha Chronicle) we find that something very strange took place at that time: The human beings consisted of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Spirit Self, but this only lived in them in a very weak form. The Buddhi or Life-Spirit soared above every human being—it could be perceived in the Akasha spaces. In the astral space every human being was surrounded by Buddhi, but it remained outside and was not strong enough to enter man. This Buddhi was a part of the great Fire Spirit who had poured out his drops on the human beings, but these drops could not enter the human beings.

Christ's deeds on earth gave man the capacity to absorb into his Manas what we designate as Buddhi.

What Christ fulfilled upon the earth, was prepared by other great teachers who had preceded him, by Buddha, by the last Zarathustra, by Pythagoras, who all lived about 600 years before Christ, and who were men who had already absorbed a great deal of what lived in the surroundings of man. They had absorbed the spark of Christ. Also Moses belongs to them. But the Ego of the other people had not yet absorbed this spark.

Into the physical, etheric and astral body of Jesus of Nazareth had entered the whole Fire-Spirit, the one source of all the different sparks that lived in the human beings. This Fire-Spirit is the Christ, the only divine Being who lived on earth in this form. He entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth and as a result, all those who feel united with Christ Jesus are able to absorb Buddhi. The possibility to absorb and take in the Buddhi begins with the appearance of Christ Jesus. St. John the Evangelist designates it as the Divine Creative Word. The Fire-Spirit that poured his sparks into men is this Divine Creative Word.

As a result, the following took place: Whereas the Moon-Spirits could create differentiated tribes among men by sending down their drops, Christ was a uniting Spirit for the whole earth, and the human beings were thus united into a family all over the world. Whereas the differentiations among men were brought about by the drops poured out by the different Moon-Spirits, the unity among men was brought about by the Spirit poured out by Christ Jesus. What unites men came down to the earth through Christ Jesus.

When speaking of the last Judgement, Christ says in his prophecy: “When the Son of Man shall Come in his glory” (he means by this: when the drops of Christ shall all have entered into the human beings, when all shall have become brothers) “he shall say unto them on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was hungred and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me drink.” (St. Matthew 25, 35) Then the only difference among men will be that between good and evil.

Christ says to His disciples: “What ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done unto me.” This signifies: Christ Jesus indicates the time when the drops poured out by Him will all be absorbed, so that when one man faces another, this drop of Christ within him will face the drop of Christ in the other. The power whereby the Buddhi could be called into life in man, this power went out from the life of Christ upon the earth. We should therefore look upon Christ as the uniting Spirit of the Earth.

If we could look down upon the earth from a distant star, through an epoch of many thousands of years, we would find a moment when Christ was active on the earth, so that the whole astral substance of the earth was permeated by Christ. Christ is the Spirit of the Earth, and the Earth is His Body. Everything that grows upon the earth is Christ. He lives in every seed, in every tree, all that grows upon the earth. That is why Christ indicated the bread and said: “This is my Body.” And of the juice of the grapes (at the LAST SUPPER the juice of grapes was passed round, not fermented wine) he had to say: “This is my Blood,” for the juice of the fruits of the earth is his blood. Consequently mankind must appear to him like beings who walk about upon his body. That is why he told his disciples after having washed their feet: “He that eateth bread with me, lifts up his heel against me.” (Treads on me). This must be taken literally, in the meaning that the earth is the body of Christ Jesus. Because he took upon himself the evolution of the earth, a distant spiritual being might see that more and more of Christ's spirit flows into the human beings; the single drops of Christ Jesus penetrate into the individual human beings. Finally the whole earth will be peopled by transformed, Christianised men, by men who have become divine through Christ. Only those who do not participate in this, will be put aside as evil; they must wait for a later time in order to follow a course of development leading to goodness.

All the different nations had Mysteries, before Christ appeared on earth. The Mysteries revealed what was to take place in the future. After a long training, the pupils had to undergo a preparation which consisted in a sepulchre. The hierophant was thus able to transfer the pupil into a higher state of consciousness which made his body lie inert in a kind of deep slumber. In ancient times, the consciousness always had to be abated in order that the divine essence might enter man. In this lowered state of consciousness, the soul was led through the spheres of the spiritual world and after three days the hierophant called the pupil back into life. Through this experience he felt that he had become a new man and he obtained a new name. He was called Son of God. The whole process took place upon the physical plane, when Christ appeared and passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. In the ancient initiations the life-drops of Christ's spirit first called the pupils back into life and they were told: “He who will Christianize all men, will appear one day. And He will truly be the Incarnated Word. You can only experience this for three days, when you travel through the kingdoms of heaven; but One will come, Who will bring the Kingdoms of Heaven down to the physical world.”

The Initiate experienced upon the astral plane what Christ lived through upon the physical plane, namely that from the very beginning there existed a Divine Word that poured out its drops over the human beings; but the Ego-men could not absorb these drops. St. John, the herald of the Christianized Ego-man who has taken in the Christ, or the Word, reveals this. St. John speaks of the Word that existed upon the earth from the very beginning:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life and the life was the light of men.

And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe.

He was not the light-, but a witness of the Light.

For the true Light that lighteth every man was to come into the world.

He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not.

He came to each man (to the individual Ego-man) but the individual men (the Ego-men) received him not.

But as many as received him, to them he gave power to manifest themselves as children of God.

Those who believe in his name, are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we have heard his teaching, the teaching of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.

The word “grace” in verse 14 has for St. John the same meaning as Buddhi; “truth” is Manas, the Spirit-Self.

John bare witness of him and cried saying: This was he of whom I spoke. After me cometh one who existed before me. For he is my predecessor.

And of his fullness have we all received grace upon grace.

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

No man hath at any time seen God with eyes. The only begotten Son who lived in the bosom of the Cosmic Father hath become our guide in this vision.

[Dr.Rudolf Steiner's rendering of the text.]

All initiations into the Mystery of the Spirit pointed to the coming of Christ Jesus. This initiation was attained in the Yoga sleep, in the Orphic sleep, in the Hermes sleep. When the initiate woke up again and returned into his body, so that he could again hear and speak with his physical senses, he uttered the words which are rendered as follows in the Hebrew language: “Eli, Eli, lama sabathani.” The pupil of the Mysteries woke up with the words: “My God, My God, how thou hast raised me!”

This was the initiation during the ancient Jewish epoch. During his three days' sojourn in the higher worlds, the initiate experienced the whole course of mankind's future development, all that awaited him in the future development of humanity. As a rule, these future stages of human development were not perceived abstractly in his vision.. Each stage was represented by a personality. The seer saw twelve individualities. They represented twelve stages of soul-development. The soul-forces thus appeared in the external form of twelve persons. At a certain moment, the initiate saw a certain scene: His own individuality became transfigured—the stage which the whole of humanity will reach when it shall be filled by Buddhi, when it shall be Christianized. He identified himself with God and behind him he saw the twelve soul-forces. John was immediately behind, he was the last of the twelve who announced his fulfilment. And he saw himself transfigured, he saw the stage which he would reach when perfection will be attained; he saw his soul-forces in the external form of persons, and perceived St. John, the herald of the Christ-stage of development. During the Yoga-sleep, these twelve figures grouped themselves around him, and the scene arose which was designated as the Mystical Supper. This image had the following meaning: When the initiate sits there surrounded by his soul-forces, he says to himself: These are one with me; they have led me through the development of the earth; the feet of this apostle enabled me to walk on along my path, the hands of that apostle gave me the power to work. ... The Holy Supper is the expression of man's fellowship with the twelve soul-forces.

Human perfection consists in the falling away of the lower soul-forces, so that only the higher forces remain behind; in future, man will no longer have the lower forces; he will, for example, no longer have the forces of procreation. John's soul-power above all will raise those lower forces to the loving heart. It will send out streams of spiritual love. The heart is the most powerful organ, when Christ lives in man. The lower soul-forces are then raised from the abdominal regions to the heart.

Every initiate experienced this in the Mysteries of the heart. It re-echoed in the words: “My God, my God, how thou hast raised me!” With the appearance of Christ Jesus, the whole Mystery, the whole experience, became reality upon the physical plane. At that time there were brotherhoods in Palestine which had developed out of the old order of the Essenes. Among their institutions, they also had a meal symbolizing the mystical Holy Supper. “To eat the Easter Lamb” is a general expression for something which took place at Easter. Jesus sat down with the Twelve and inaugurated the Holy Supper with the words: “At the end of the evolution of the earth, all men will have absorbed what I brought down to the earth, and the words, ‘This is my Body, This is my Blood,’ will then be true.” Afterwards he said: “There is one among you who will betray me.” This is brought about by the power of egoism. But as surely as this power of egoism is the source of treason, so surely will this lower soul-force be raised to a higher stage. One of the disciples rested upon Jesus' bosom, he rested upon Jesus' heart. This means that all the lower forces, every form of egoism, will be raised to the heart. At this point Jesus repeated to his Disciples the words: “Eli, Eli, lama sabathani”—“Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him!”

The same event which took place upon Golgotha took place in the ancient Mysteries. Under the Cross stood the Disciple “whom the Lord loved,” the Disciple who had rested upon his bosom and had been raised to his heart. Also the women are there under the Cross: the mother of Jesus, his mother's sister Mary, and Mary Magdalene. John does not say that the mother of Jesus was called “Mary,” but that this was the name of his mother's sister. His mother's name was “Sophia.”

John baptises Jesus in the river Jordan. A dove descends from heaven. At this moment a spiritual act of conception takes place. But who is the mother of Jesus who conceives at this moment.

The Chela, Jesus of Nazareth, at this moment divests himself of his Ego, his highly developed Manas is fructified and the Buddhi enters into it. The highly developed Manas that received the Buddhi is Wisdom—Sophia, the Mother who is fructified by the Father of Jesus. Maria, which is the same as Maya, has the general meaning of “Mother name.” The Gospel records: “The Angel came in unto her and said: Hail thou that art highly favoured,—behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son—the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.” The Holy Ghost is Jesus' father: the descending dove fructifies the Sophia that lives in Jesus.

The Gospel should therefore be read as follows: “Under the Cross stood the mother of Jesus, Sophia.” To this mother Jesus says: “Woman, behold thy son.” He himself had transferred the Sophia that lived within him to the Disciple John; he transformed him into a son of Sophia and said: “Behold, thy mother.” “Henceforth you should recognise the divine wisdom as your mother and dedicate yourself to her alone.” John had recorded this divine wisdom; Sophia is embodied in the Gospel of St. John. Jesus had given him this wisdom, and he was authorized by Christ to transmit it to the world.

The highest Spirit of the Earth had to incarnate in a physical body; this body had to die, it had to be killed and its blood had to flow. A special meaning is attached to this. Wherever there is blood, there is Self. The Self rooted in the blood had to be sacrificed in order that the old communities based on Self might come to an end. All individual forms of egoism flow away with the blued of the Crucified Christ. The blood of racial communities changes into a blood which is common to the whole of mankind, because the blood of Christ was sacrificed at the moment when he hung upon the Cross.

Here too something took place which might have been observed by an astral observer in the astral atmosphere. When Christ died upon the Cross, the whole astral atmosphere changed, so that events could take place which could never have taken place before. This has become possible because by shedding His blood, Christ gave the whole of mankind a Self that is common to all. The blood that streamed out of the wounds of Christ Jesus gave to the whole of humanity a Self which is shared by all. His three bodies remained hanging upon the Cross and were then revived by the Risen Christ. When Christ abandoned his physical frame, the three bodies were so strong that they could utter the words of initiation which follow the transfiguration: “Eli, Eli, lama sabathani!”

To all who know something of the Mystery-truths, these words must have revealed that a Mystery had been enacted. A small correction in the Hebrew text therefore gave rise to the words contained in the Gospel: “Eli, Eli, lama sabathani!” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!”

My dear mourners!

First of all, I would like to address my dear sister and dear brother of the dearly departed and then all of you, my dear mourners, who were united in loyal love with the one who has left us in the physical world.

At the mortal remains of our friend Georga Wiese, we stand in the soul's eye, the eternal spirit going to light heights from us. Dear Georga Wiese!

We know what moved you in spirit,
We feel what warmed you in the heart,
We strive for what your will urged.

Your mental agitation, your warmth of heart,
your will urge,
They stand before our soul.

And memory presents you to us:

How you thought with us,
What we consider the most worthy content of thought,
How you felt with us,

What we consider the most beautiful love of the soul,
And how you strove with us,
What we consider the truest goal of humanity.

And as a reminder, the spiritual vision stands before us:

How you are received by the spirits of the light-filled heights,
to work in the spirit,
to see the result of your deeds,
to speak the language of eternal being.

Weave, oh Georga Wiese, in your work in the spirit,
Behold in the result of your deeds,
Let penetrate into the language of eternal being
The ray that can penetrate into our hearts
And that returns to you again,
So that in the times to come
can live the spiritual existence together with you.

My dear mourners! When I put myself in Georga Wiese's dear soul, then these words resound in this dear soul:

Whoever was looking
for a loving heart,
Dear friend, he will surely find it beating in your chest.

Those who seek
an understanding soul, Dear friend, he will surely find it gazing from your eyes.

Those who seek
active help, Dearest friend,
He will surely find it coming
Through your will.

So may hearts beat for your soul,
so may eyes look into your eyes,
so may wills come to your spirit,
when, like the sun, your example
in the eyes of our souls
From spiritual heights.

We,
Your heart's companions,
Your soul's partakers,
Your will's admirers,
Gaze
Upon Your soul, released from time. Remain
Our eternal companion.

Let,
Ye spirits in bright heights,
Us keep
In the endless spiritual lake,
What unites us
To Thee in the earthly realm.

Thou gavest us
Most faithful spiritual friendship.
Ye spirits in bright heights,
make our hearts strong,
so that we may prove worthy
of the gift
that the gods have given us.

My dear mourners!

Deeply moved and filled with sorrow, we stand at the mortal remains of our dear friend Georga Wiese, looking up to her soul as it rushes off to the spiritual realms that she sought with such earnest striving during her earthly existence. And we know that she will be united in the future with those spiritual forces with which she united during her earthly existence out of such warm and active striving. We see what her spiritual existence will be like: a continuation of what has already been spiritually alive in her heart, in her soul, in her spirit here on earth. And we remember, my dear mourning assembly, every dear hour that united us with Georga Wiese, because these dear hours were always filled with active participation and with earnestly placing ourselves in the spiritual world. It was always filled, so it may well be said, by each individual who stood opposite Georga Wiese; it was always filled, this hour of being together with Georga Wiese, by the heartfelt conviction: You are standing opposite a dear, a loyal, a heart-warming person.

And this love, this loyalty, this wonderful warmth of heart, it radiated from Georga Wiese to such an infinitely beautiful extent that everyone who met her felt how beneficial and at the same time how deeply understanding this togetherness could be. We were privileged to get to know Georga Wiese in her native environment, to which she wanted to convey the spiritual life with such zeal and such an understanding gaze from her beautiful soul. We got to know her in her loyal attachment and love for the country, for which all of us who were privileged to be up north felt the most heartfelt love, and we saw it, and we were allowed – at least a large part of us – to work in this Nordic, rocky, sea-washed, divinely interwoven land, which presents itself so beautifully and majestically to one, and upon entering which one can believe that the hard rocks speak a hard but inwardly spiritualized language. And one comes to love this country. And one comes to love it especially when one is favored by fate to find such dear people in it, like Georga Wiese and those around her.

We took the most heartfelt interest in how the dear mother had preceded us into spiritual lands, and we wanted to witness how expectantly and understandingly this dear mother would now receive her precious daughter.

We saw Georga Wiese lovingly in the midst of the Nordic circle that had become dear to us. We saw her surrounded by a number of like-minded people. And my eye could not detect anyone who was not devoted with sincere love to the devoted soul of Georga Wiese. And much, much of what we were able to achieve in that country, where we are so happy to work, has been made possible by the sacrifice of Georga Wiese.

Do we still need much to recall in our hearts today, in these days of mourning, all the love that we had to feel for the dear departed over a long period of time, because earthly love could only be a reflection of the intimate, active, sacrificial love that came from her. The union with Georga Wiese was beautiful, and the beauty of this earthly union will be the seed for the spiritual union, which we must enter because Georga Wiese entered the spiritual realm before us. For it is a beautiful image that arises in the soul when we imagine ourselves in the Nordic country. We found warmth, the warming rays of sunshine in our hearts through Georga Wiese.

And it was always a beautiful thought, it was always a warm feeling to be able to say to ourselves, within the work in the Nordic country, Georga Wiese will stand by our side with all that she can be. That, my dear mourners, will no longer be here on earth; but we know, we hope, we long for it in our hearts, that we will remain united all the more deeply and intimately for all time with the soul of the one who united with us in a friendship of the spirit out of such a free and devoted will.

And today we remember with sorrow, with deep sorrow, with deep pain, that we will never again be able to look into those loving eyes, that we will never again be able to feel the blissful closeness. But we look up to the light of the heights, to the worlds of spiritual life, with which Georga Wiese has united, and to which we want to send our warm thoughts again and again and again, so that she may find the thoughts that are sent down to us from these bright spiritual heights, thoughts that protect, warm and help us.

And we digress from the image that has led us up to the Nordic homeland, and we look to the building that we tried to build the spiritual life here in the vicinity, which a bad, sad fate has snatched from us; we know how much has been snatched from it as well as from our dear friend. But we saw her over the years, when she repeatedly came to the Goetheanum in Dornach, as if seeking a home, and we see her in everything that had to be done, working faithfully and in close understanding. We see the hundreds of hands and the hundreds of hearts that worked and beat for what was happening at the Goetheanum, and we saw, among them, the beautiful enthusiasm that Georga Wiese brought back from the Goetheanum in Dornach, working there with a mild soul, a whole, mild personality in the light of love. It was beautiful, glorious, and almost beyond words to describe. And wherever something was missing, wherever help was needed, on a large or small scale, Georga Wiese was there. And she was there because she believed that she should do, out of her loving heart, whatever needed to be done, in complete freedom.

And we, we can only stand there today with heavy, grieving, sorrowful hearts and send heartfelt thanks to the soul that is fleeing, seeking the spiritual realm. Thanks that remain warm in our souls, as everything 'that was soul-warming, what Georga Wiese brought into our ranks, into our work. And she knew how to do it so unpretentiously, so intimately modestly. You could tell that she only gave when she had detached it from the personality. Georga Wiese's personality always took a back seat to what she meant to so many. And when, my dear mourners, the word has been used for centuries to describe souls that were of this nature, then today we no longer use the once much-used expression that encompasses so much: a beautiful soul. Goethe called the dearest person in the spiritual realm that he had come to know a beautiful soul, and today, in all the sense that ancient times once associated with these words, we look up to the beautiful soul of Georga Wiese.

And our soul's eye comes to the third image. We called the friends who wanted to join us in shaping the Anthroposophical Society in a new way at this Christmas season, to the Goetheanum in Dornach. And among those who came with an enthusiastic heart was Georga Wiese. And as soon as she arrived, anticipating the festive event she wanted to take part in, she had an accident in which she broke her arm at an unfavorable point on the upper arm. And she had to spend the days we had gathered to establish the new form of the Anthroposophical Society, to lay the foundation stone for it, in hospital. She had to spend the days she wanted to spend in festive company with those she loved in hospital. She had arrived at the place where she had often wanted to come, and she had come gladly again, and fate had kept her away from what she wanted to take part in.

Once again, the beautiful soul of Georga Wiese was at work. Outwardly, she had the most faithful care in the hospital and from the understanding doctor, and in this respect I was deeply satisfied when I was able to speak to her doctor myself during a visit shortly before her death. But it was still very moving to see Georga Wiese lying in serious illness and to have to bear in mind how much she would have liked to have been in a different place during these days. But once again, the radiance of what I have just mentioned outshone my dear mourners, the beautiful soul. She carried everything she hoped to find within our festive Christmas community in her soul, in her heart. And from her bed, in an almost heavenly transfiguration, she radiated to me from her faithful, loving heart all that she had experienced at the end of the days before Georga Wiese's death, when we celebrated the festival that she had also come to. She truly carried this celebration in her heart, she truly carried this celebration in her soul. For within her, everything in her soul was filled with powers that spoke to her from spiritual heights: “Ex deo nascimur, from the divine all human beings are born.” These words came to her without end, deeply affirming her own being.

And Georga Wiese knew that she was called by the divine. She knew that she was carried into earthly existence by the wide powers of divine existence. She knew this divine power at work in her own soul. She felt these divine powers in her own heart. She wanted to let this divine warmth, which flowed through her, stream into her own will without end. Her soul itself lived in the light of the words: Ex deo nascimur. — And she knew how that which reached divine heights disappears into earthly existence, and how the human being, whose outer physical body, is accepted by earthly existence. But she also knew that even if man dies into matter at every moment, the great power imparted by grace, which is in the living Christ, is at work in the earth. She felt it, it lived in her heart, it lived in her soul, it lived in her mind: In Christ morimur.

Dear mourners! If I could have read in the heart that I saw just a few hours before the difficult day that preceded her death, if I could have seen the light that radiated from this “In Christo morimur”, it was so sincere, so deeply spiritual and honest in the soul of this faithful soul, so genuinely devoted to everything beautiful, great and loving in the world. Oh, there was a great contrast in these last hours between this soul, which looked out of tired eyes, but with infinite luminosity, into the indefinite, which complained how little her body could still tolerate of earthly substances, and which was so visibly filled by what the spirit communicated to the soul.

I had to leave Georga Wiese in a state of deep concern. My dear mourners, if one understands the spiritual underpinnings of the human being while he is still on earth, one may only strive with strong, powerful thoughts to say that he will, he will be healthy. For it is often such thoughts that, with the mysterious forces that exist between human soul and human soul and between world spirit and human spirit, still carry many a soul beyond the act of death. But the patient was still alive because of the serious damage that had been done, which only allowed for ominous forebodings. It originated from the damaged area and spread like dark rays over the entire body. But hope lived on. The next day, hope was no longer allowed to live. We received the news that our dear friend had been taken from us in the morning for earthly life.

Dear mourners, this soul is now deeply connected to that which we have all striven for here, to that which moved us so deeply during the Christmas days, as we are all deeply connected to it, since she left us, to die in our midst during these our festive days, still sharing in spirit here on earth what we went through, then seeking the way up to spiritual heights.

Dear mourners, I can assure you that I speak for everyone here when I call this soul, so deeply devoted to the power of Christ, the one who, through this tragedy of death, has joined us in the very depths of all eternity, in such a solemn time for us. Always remember this soul devoted to Christ with all the strength that will ultimately transform the pain in your own souls when you allow the deep tragedy associated with this death, which fills us with such sorrow, to take effect.

Oh, from this death a spiritual life shall spring that unites us intimately with Georga Wiese for all eternity. And this spiritual life, she always lived it. From the “Ex deo nascimur - In Christo morimur” arose for her the self-evident conviction that the human soul, if it harbors the power of the Father's Word, if it cherishes the will of the Son of God and His love within itself, will resurrect in the Spirit, in order to grasp in the Spirit the life that belongs to the endless Spirit of the Kingdom of Light: “Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus”. This is surely the magic breath that has been wrested as the living breath when the earthly breath ceased with Georga Wiese.

And with this spirit, which constantly awakens all that is dead, we want to unite to gain the strength to remain united in the eternal spiritual existence of the future with Georga Wiese.

The three pictures may remain unforgettable to those who have come to know her: the lover in the midst of her beloved homeland, which we ourselves have grown so fond of; the loyal, active woman who inspires enthusiasm with her heart, herself loyal, active, enthusiastically sharing, working, creating, living in the construction of the Goetheanum in Dornach; the dying woman, uniting with us in death to eternal life at our very meaningful Christmas gathering in the transition from 1923 to 1924. The power of these three images must live in your hearts! And they will live in your hearts if you allow the power of these images, together with everything that this beautiful soul had in common with you, to take effect on you, will be united in the beautiful, light-filled life of the one who has now left us in death.

We know what moved you in spirit
We feel what warmed your heart,
We strive for what your will urged.

Your mental excitement, your warmth of heart,
your urge to will,
they stand before our soul.

And the memory of earthly things presents itself before us:

How you thought with us,
what we consider the most worthy content of thought,
how you felt with us,
what we consider the most beautiful love of the soul,
how you strove with us,
what we consider the truest goals of humanity.

Alongside the memory of earthly things stands the vision of the spirit – up to the light-filled heights:

How you will be received by the spirits of the light-filled heights,
To work in the spirit,
To see the result of your deeds,
To speak the language of eternal being.

Weave in your work in the spirit,
Look into the result of your actions,
Let penetrate the language of eternal being
The ray that can penetrate into our hearts
And that returns to you,
So that in the future we
we may live the spiritual life united with You.

Oh, it seems to me as if Georga Wiese is speaking from bright heights:

I was united with you.
Remain united in me.
We will speak together
in the language of eternal being.
We will be active
where the result of action is effective,
We will weave in the spirit
where human thoughts are woven
in the word of eternal thoughts.

Those who were looking
for a loving heart,
Dear friend,
were sure to find it beating
in your breast.

Whoever sought
an understanding soul,
dear friend,
surely found it gazing
out of your eyes.

Whoever sought
active help,
dear friend,
surely found it coming
through thy will.

So may hearts beat for thy soul,
so may eyes gaze into thy eyes,
so may wills come to thy spirit,
when thy sun-like example
in the eyes of our souls
shines from spiritual heights.

We,
Your heart's companions,
Your soul's partakers,
Your will's admirers,
Gaze
Upon Your soul, released from time.
Remain
Our eternal companion.

Let,
you spirits in the bright heights,
keep us
in the endless spiritual realm,
what unites
you in the earthly realm.

And when we see you, received by the spirits of the bright heights, by the souls of our dear relatives who have preceded you in death, to whom we lovingly think, because they were yours, then, then the words shine into our warm hearts:

You gave us

most faithful friendship of minds.

You spirits in bright heights,

you united with Georga Wiese in spirit,

you preceding, you belonging human souls,

make our hearts strong,

so that we become worthy

of the gift,

that the gods have given us with Georga Wiese,

we will do so.

With this attitude and the promise to unite our thoughts unceasingly again and again with your spiritual being, dear, dear friend, that you are with us even when we can no longer look into your faithful eyes, that is what we want to promise you, knowing that when we now, in this moment of suffering, commit your mortal remains to the fire, in the heavenly spiritual fire, which does not consume, but works charitably warming through souls and spirits, we will be united with you, united in the light, in love, in loyalty to humanity, in the will of the spirit. Thus we part. Thus we do not part. Thus we feel united, united, united for eternal times of existence with the soul that lovingly departs from us.

Ex deo nascimur

In Christo morimur

Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus.

The Initiation of the Ego. The Gospels are the books of the Mysteries. The Life of Christ, a repetition of Initiation on the great plane of world history

From what has already been given out in these Lectures we are led to the conviction that the following are the essential facts of the Christ Event. The stage of human development described as raising the soul to spiritual realms was only attainable in pre-Christian days within the Mysteries, and then only through a certain dimming of the ego. Human development, however, was destined to receive so powerful an impulse that those who could rise to it would be able to retain full ego-consciousness on entering the world of spirit. This condition belongs for the most part to the future, for ego-consciousness at the present day is normal only on the physical planes.

The advance in human evolution imparted by the Christ Event is the greatest that has yet been made, or ever will be made, in human or earthly evolution. Whatever may arise in the future in consequence of this event will be but a further development of this mighty impulse. Therefore we ask ourselves: What then actually had to come to pass through the Event of Christ?

In a certain way there must be a repetition; a repetition in detail, of what belonged to the secrets of the ancient Mysteries. It was characteristic of those Mysteries, as it is to some extent of those of to-day that he who penetrated within his own physical and etheric bodies experienced the temptations of the astral body as described in the last Lecture. In the Greek Mysteries, on the other hand, man had to confront the difficulties and dangers that always approach those who try to pour themselves forth into the macrocosm. This also has been described. Both these types of initiation were experienced as a single impulse of a great outstanding individuality by the Christ as a pattern for mankind. Through this an impetus was given by which men would gradually in future be able to pass through such a development as came to them in initiation.

Let us therefore consider first what was accomplished in the Mysteries. All that the human soul then passed through was experienced with the ego-consciousness reduced to something half dream-like, and in this condition the inner soul nature gained certain experiences. Such a man experienced the awakening of egoism, the desire to be independent of the external world; but, as explained in the last lecture, so long as man is unable to create food magically, unable to dispense with what is acquired through his physical organism, he is dependent on the outer world. Therefore he is exposed to the illusion that all he perceives by means of his physical nature applies only to the world and to the splendour thereof. Every pupil, every would-be initiate went through this experience, though not in the same way as the Christ, Who experienced it on the highest level. Therefore a description of these facts, which are only experienced by a pupil of the Mysteries, would be in a certain way similar to a description of the life of Christ Jesus. What then took place outwardly, once and for all time, on the plane of the world's history, had been confined hitherto to the darkness of the Mysteries.

Let us consider the following case, one that was frequent in the centuries immediately preceding Christ. Let us suppose that an artist or a writer had learnt that this or that procedure was followed during initiation, and, that he had painted or written of it. Such a picture, or writing might well resemble what is related by the Evangelists of the Christ Event; and one can understand how in many ancient Mysteries after due preparation the candidate's physical form was bound with outstretched hands in the form of a cross, so that his soul nature might be liberated. He remained thus for a certain time, so as to draw forth his soul nature, and that he might undergo the experiences already related. These things might have been represented in paintings or described in writing. They might then be discovered by someone to-day, who might deduce from them that the painter had painted a scene of the Mysteries, or the writer had recorded an old tradition. He might then go on to say that the facts of the Gospels are merely records of the rites of an initiation of former days.

This is frequently stated—and to how great an extent is shown in my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact, in which I explain how all the secrets of the ancient Mysteries appear again in the Gospels, how in fact the Gospels are but repetitions of ancient accounts of initiation as carried out in the Mysteries. Why in telling of the life of Christ does the Evangelist simply describe facts of the ancient Mysteries? The Evangelist describes the scenes of the ancient Mysteries because he saw these inner processes of the soul carried out as historic facts; because all the events of the life of Christ Jesus were a repetition, exalted to the level of an Ego-Being, of the symbolic or even actual-symbolic acts of ancient initiation.

This fact needs emphasis: Those who take their stand on the ground of the historical truth of the Christ Event may rightly point out the resemblance between the Gospel biographies of Christ Jesus and the occurrences of the Mysteries. To express it more exactly, those who were destined to behold the Christ Event in Palestine beheld the fulfilment of the Essene prophecy; the Baptism in Jordan, the Temptation, the Crucifixion, and all that followed. They could say therefore: We have represented to us here the life of a Being in a human body. What are the essential points in the life of this Being? Strange to relate, we find, enacted here in external historic life, certain events that are the very same as those which occurred to the initiate in the ancient Mysteries. We need only refer to the canon of a Mystery to discover a model for those events which are here described as historical facts.

That in fact is the great secret, that what was formerly hidden within the obscurity of the temple, and only reached the world in its results, was now enacted on the great stage of universal history as the Christ Event, and could be seen by those who had attained spiritual vision. It should be realized that in the days when the Evangelists wrote, biographies such as we have to-day were unknown; biographies for instance of Goethe, Schiller, or Lessing giving in detail every minute scrap of information, in which the most unimportant details are amassed and presented as of the greatest moment. With the attention fixed on this mass of detail, concentration on facts of essential importance is impossible. The Evangelists were content to relate the essential facts of the life of Christ Jesus, and the fact of supremest importance is, that in the great plan of world history, the life of Christ is a repetition of initiation. Can we wonder that this truth which has come to light in our time should be so disconcerting to many people—so really overwhelming. These things which are so disconcerting will strike you even more vividly when you consider what follows.

Myths and sagas come to us from the past. What are they? Anyone who understands them, and knows what they are, will find in them descriptions of what ancient clairvoyance had seen in the spiritual world clothed in happenings of the world of the senses, or he will find other myths that are in essence nothing but descriptions of the Mysteries. The myth of Prometheus, for instance, like many another, is partly a reproduction of deeds enacted in the Mysteries. We often find the scene described when Zeus appears and near him some lower god who—according to the Greek account—tempts him. Zeus, standing on an eminence, is ‘tempted by Pan.’ This is one form; there are many others. Why does this image occur so frequently? Because it expresses the descent of man into his inner being, the descent into the physical and etheric body bringing with it the encounter with his lower nature, his egotistical Pan-nature.

The ancient world is full of such accounts of experiences during initiation, which are in this way given artistic form in myths and symbols. Many people who take a superficial view, make the grand discovery that certain knowledge is here presented in the form of symbols. And this upsets people who do not know, or wish to know the facts. They read of Pan tempting Zeus, and say: ‘It is easy to see from this that the scene of the temptation of Christ had taken place before. The Evangelists have only repeated some ancient allegorical tale, and the Gospels are compiled out of such ancient tales.’ It is but a step from this to the conclusion that the Gospels contain nothing of special import, that they are only pieced together from myths and that Christ Jesus is fictitious. A great movement arose in Germany which took the form of frivolous discussions as to whether Christ Jesus had ever really lived. With a grotesque lack of knowledge, bft with profound learning, the various myths and legends which bore some resemblance to scenes in the Gospel were discussed again and again. It is of little avail to-day to impart anything concerning the true facts, although they are well known to those who have knowledge. This is how spiritual movements develop in our time; truly the way in which they develop is very grotesque

There would be no need to interpolate these remarks were it not that one is constantly obliged to make a stand against misrepresentations that are made from one side or another, with apparently great learnedness, against the statements of Spiritual Science.

The true facts are given in these Lectures. We have to see in the Gospels a recapitulation of events that took place in the Mysteries, though in them the secrets of initiation refer to a very different Individuality, and they really wish to say to us: ‘Behold, what formerly was accomplished in the Mysteries through suppression of the consciousness has now been accomplished in a marvellous and outstanding manner by an Ego-Being in full ego-consciousness!’ We need not therefore wonder at the statement that the Gospels hardly contain anything that did not exist before. What we have to realize is, that what was told formerly, related to the ascent of man to the Kingdom of Heaven; never before had what men call the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ come down into the ego. What was essentially new was this: What formerly had taken place in a state of suppressed consciousness and in super-sensible realms could now take place in full consciousness in Malchut, ‘The Kingdom.’ This is why, after Christ Jesus had experienced what is described in the Gospel of Matthew as the Temptation, He became the preacher of ‘The Kingdom.’ What was the essence of his preaching? He said: What formerly was attained through the darkening of the human ego, and through man receiving other beings into himself; can now be achieved with complete retention of the ego-consciousness! This fact is stressed again and again. Hence the necessity for a repetition of scenes from the Mysteries in the life of Christ Jesus. Hence also the necessity of the ‘Sermon concerning the Kingdom,’ in which Christ declared: Everything promised to those who passed through the Mysteries or accepted their teaching can now come to those who experience in themselves the ego-being and follow the path first traversed for humanity by Christ.

Thus everything had to be a repetition; even as regards the teaching. It need not surprise us that special emphasis is laid on the difference between the old teaching and the new; that stress was laid on the fact that the ego could now achieve in itself what had hitherto been quite impossible for it.

Suppose that Christ had wished to refer specially to this great truth. He would have shown how formerly, in accordance with the teaching of the Mysteries, human beings had ever looked up to the Kingdom of Heaven, and had felt that from heavenly realms something came down to them which blessed them, but did not enter their ego. The Father-Source of Existence had only been attainable with a suppressed Ego. Had it been necessary for Christ to retain this former teaching concerning the Divine Paternal Source of existence, and only change the nuance upon which the teaching depended, He must have expressed it thus: ‘If formerly men said, you must raise your eyes to the realms where the Father dwelleth, the divine Source of all existence, and wait until His Light streams down upon you, now it is possible to say: The Father not only sends down His Light to you, but that which is willed on high must enter the very depths of man's ego-nature, and be willed there also.’

Let us suppose that each separate phrase of the Lord's Prayer had existed previously, only that something in them had to be changed. Christ would have said: ‘In former times man looked up to the ancient divine Father Spirit, feeling that everything there endures, and looks down on your earthly kingdom.’

But now this Heavenly Kingdom was to come down to earth where the ego dwells, and the Will that is done in Heaven was also to be done on Earth. What would be the result of this? The result would be, that those who had a deeper vision and could perceive the finer degrees of difference would not be surprised at the fact that the Lord's Prayer had existed earlier. The superficial observer does not notice these finer shades of difference, nor can he understand the true meaning of Christianity. If he came upon these phrases in ancient times he would have said: ‘There it is, the Evangelists write about the Lord's Prayer, but it existed already before their time!’

You can now realize the difference between a true and a superficial understanding of what is written. It is important that those who note the new shades of meaning should apply them to the old. The others, not seeing the difference, merely assert that the Lord's Prayer existed before.

Such facts require attention and have to be spoken of here, because Anthroposophists should be enabled to meet to some extent the dilettante learning of to-day: a learning which passes through countless hundreds of periodicals, until finally it is accepted as ‘Science.’ One individual has actually compared every possible ancient record, searching each source in the Talmud literature, in an endeavour to find some resemblance to the words of the Lord's Prayer. But what these learned people have accumulated is nowhere found in its entirety outside the Gospels. Scattered phrases resembling those of the Lord's Prayer they have discovered here and there. To reduce this method to absurdity it might as well be said that the first sentence of Goethe's ‘Faust’ was constructed in the following way: In the seventeenth century there was a student who failed in his examination, and who afterwards remarked to his father, With what an infinity of trouble I have studied law! And another failing in medicine might have said, ‘With what infinity of trouble have I studied medicine!’ And that from these two remarks Goethe had composed the opening sentences of Faust! This is paradoxical! But in principle and methods it is exactly what we meet in critics of the Gospels.

You will find this in the following patched-up sentences. I take them from Die-Evangelien-Mythen, John M. Robertson, Jena, Diedrichs, 1910. It is supposed to represent the Lord's Prayer:

‘Our Father Who art in Heaven; O Lord our God, blessed be Thy Name, and may the memory of Thee be glorified in Heaven above as on Earth below. Let Thy Kingdom rule over us now and ever more. Holy men of old have said: Let all men be forgiven whatever they may have done to me. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from the wicked. For Thine is the Heavenly Kingdom; and Thou shalt reign in splendour for ever and ever.’

These sentences were collected and put together in the manner I have just described, and are called the ‘Lord's Prayer.’ But the subtle shades of meaning necessary to give the unique significance of the Christ Event are lacking. In none of these phrases do we find it stated that the Kingdom of Heaven is to come down. The sentence runs: ‘Let Thy Kingdom rule over us now and ever more,’ not ‘Let Thy Kingdom come to us.’ This is the essential point, which entirely escapes superficial observers and although these sentences are gathered, not from one, but from many libraries, nowhere do we find the words ‘Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven’ for these imply its taking hold of the ego.

Even regarded from the external scientific point of view, we have here clearly demonstrated the difference between an apparent investigation and one that is truly conscientious, and takes every fact into consideration. And this true investigation exists if people will only take the trouble to pursue it.

These sentences from J. M. Robertson's book have been deliberately selected, for it is a kind of modern gospel recently translated from English into German to make it available to wider circles. For until now a certain person¹ who has given numerous lectures on the subject of whether Jesus really lived, would have had to read it in English. This book gained popularity, and hence the translation.

It has accordingly been possible for a professor of a German Academy to travel widely giving lectures on the question, ‘Did Jesus live?’ Basing his teaching on the facts just given, he answered the question thus: ‘There is no documentary evidence forcing us to accept the fact that such a person as Jesus has ever lived;’ and among many very excellent works, he referred his hearers to J. M. Robertson's book. But for the protection of Anthroposophists I can say: Even from this book, from these historical investigations of the New Testament records, you can learn many things, and there is something further, something very characteristic that I should like to tell you.

This book informs us that not only in phrases drawn from the Talmud is there a model of the Lord's Prayer, but that traces of it may be discovered in chronicles reaching back for thousands of years. To substantiate the fact of the Lord's Prayer being a collection of phrases already existing, and that no Christ was needed to give it out first to the people, an allusion is made to the discovery of a prayer written on little tablets in the Chaldean tongue, a prayer addressed to the old Babylonian god Merodach. Some of the sentences quoted there are as follows, and should be carefully noted: ‘May the fulness of the world come down into thy midst (or city); may thy precepts be fulfilled in all the ages to come. ... May the evil Spirit dwell far from thee.’²

And the savant upon whom these sentences made such an impression added: ‘Here we have prayer-norms which are in line with the Lord's Prayer and perhaps go back 4000 years before Christ.’

Look carefully, and see if you can find anywhere any resemblance between the sentences of the Lord's Prayer and these phrases! Yet these are regarded by this man as prayer-norms, of which the Lord's Prayer is merely a copy! Such things are accepted nowadays as true investigations in this domain of knowledge.

A further reason for presenting these facts to Anthroposophists is that they may be able to calm and strengthen their consciences when troubled by the constant assertion that this or that fact has been established by external investigation. They may well be troubled upon reading in papers or magazines that a tablet has been discovered in Asia proving the existence of the Lord's Prayer, 4000 years before Christ. In such a case it is necessary to ask how such a fact can be proved. The above example reveals the slender foundations on which scientifically based facts are frequently supposed to have been proved. It is unnecessary for students of Anthroposophy to trouble about the worthless facts so often brought forward against it.

But to return to our main theme; Christ Jesus inaugurated an evolution in human nature, based on the retention of the full consciousness of the ego. He inaugurated the initiation of the ego. We can therefore say that the most essential part of the human being to-day is the ego; in it all human nature is centred; everything brought into the world through the Christ Event for this ego, can enter also into all the other members of man's being. This will naturally come to pass in a quite special way, and in accordance with human evolution.

The possibilities of human development are to be clearly seen from these Lectures. Recognition of the physical world, not only through the senses but also through the understanding, and through the intellect connected with the physical brain, first began to function generally just a short time before the Christ Event. It superseded a certain kind of clairvoyance. This clairvoyance which was mentioned in my Lectures on the early Atlantean evolution was universal at that time, though later it came slowly and gradually to an end. Down to the Christian era there were still many who in the intermediate condition between sleeping and waking were able to gaze into, and participate in, the spiritual world. Such a ‘partaking’ in the spiritual world was not only linked with the fact that the average man who had a certain degree of clairvoyance could state: ‘Behind the tapestry of the world of the senses there is a spiritual world. I know this, for I can perceive it.’ This was not all; something else was connected with it. In long past ages it was comparatively easy for human nature to be aware of the spiritual world. The nature of man to-day is different, and it is exceedingly difficult to pass in the right way through the esoteric training that leads to clairvoyance. In somnambulism and similar things we see a relic, a last remnant of the old-time clairvoyance. These conditions which are irregular to-day were normal in ancient times, and could be enhanced by undergoing certain processes. When human nature was exalted to participation in the life of the spiritual world something else was associated with it. To-day there is so little regard for that in which true history consists that people pick and choose what they will, or will not, believe. But, in face of modern scepticism, it is nevertheless true that in the time of Christ certain acts of healing were performed by rendering people clairvoyant. In our time human beings are so deeply sunk within the physical plane that this is no longer possible; but in that earlier period the soul was still very impressionable, and certain processes were all that were necessary to bring about clairvoyance and an entrance into the spiritual world. The spiritual world, being a health-giving element, sends down health-giving forces into the physical world, so that it was possible to effect cures through it. The person who was ill was put through certain processes which led him to perceive the spiritual world. Then the spiritual stream, flowing down into his whole being brought health. This was the usual method of healing. What is described to-day as ‘Temple healing’ is dilettante in comparison.

Everything is in a state of evolution, and, since the time of which we have been speaking, souls have progressed from clairvoyance to non-clairvoyance. Formerly through enhancement of the clairvoyant condition men could be cured of certain illnesses by the spirit streaming from the spiritual into the physical world. We need not, therefore, be surprised at the statements of the Evangelists, that the Christ Event meant that the spiritual world could now be attained not only by those who possessed the old clairvoyance but also by those who had lost it.

Men could say: ‘Looking back into olden times we see men endowed with vision of the spiritual world; but now, through the advance of evolution, they have become poor in the spirit, beggars for the spirit. But Christ has brought this great Mystery into the world, that into the ego—even into the ego of the physical plane—the forces of the Heavenly Kingdoms can enter; thus those who have lost the old clairvoyance and with it the riches of the spiritual realms can yet receive the spirit within themselves and be blessed!’ Hence the wonderful declaration Henceforth not only those are blessed who are rich in the spirit through the old clairvoyance, but those also who are poor or beggars for the spirit; for when Christ has opened the way, into their ego will flow what may be described as the Kingdoms of the Heavens!

In ancient times the physical organism was of such a nature that a partial withdrawal of the soul could be brought about even in normal conditions, and through this withdrawal men became clairvoyant, that is, rich in spirit. With the gradual densification of the human body, which however is quite imperceptible anatomically; is associated poverty as regards the Kingdoms of the Heavens. Man had become a ‘beggar for spirit;’ but through the Event of Christ it is now possible for him to experience the Kingdoms of the Heavens within himself. This is a possibility that can be rightly associated with the physical body.

If we were now to describe what takes place through the ego-man, we should have to show how each principle of human nature can be blessed in itself in a new way. The sentence: ‘Blessed are the beggars for the spirit, for within themselves they will find the Kingdoms of the Heavens!’ is the new truth as regards the physical body.

The blessedness of the etheric body is expressed differently. The etheric body contains the principle of suffering as you can find in many of the lectures. A living being, although it has an astral body, can only suffer through injury to the etheric body. If the healing which formerly poured into the etheric body from the spiritual world were to be described according to the new teaching it would be said: Sufferers can now find comfort not only by passing out of themselves and being united with the spiritual world as in earlier days, but they can find comfort within themselves by entering into a new relationship with the spiritual world, for Christ has brought a new power to the etheric body. Hence the new truth concerning the etheric body declares: ‘Sufferers can now be blessed, not only through entering the spiritual world clairvoyantly and allowing the outpourings of the spirit to come to them in this state, but they can be blessed when lifting themselves up to Christ they fill themselves with the new truth, and find in themselves the solace for every sorrow.’

And what of the astral body? When men of an earlier day endeavoured to suppress their emotions and passions and the egoism of their astral nature, they sought power from the Kingdom of Heaven; they submitted themselves to processes by which the harmful instincts of the astral body were destroyed. But the time had now come when through the act of Christ man had received power into the ego itself by which he could bridle and tame the passions and emotions of his astral body. So the new truth concerning the astral body must read as follows: ‘Blessed are those who have become meek through the power of their own ego, for they will inherit the kingdom of earth!’ Profound indeed is the thought contained in this third Beatitude. Let us examine it in the light of Occult Science.

The astral body was incorporated into man's being during the Moon evolution, and the Luciferic beings who had gained influence over him had established themselves especially in this body. Therefore man from the beginning was unable to reach his highest earthly goal. These Luciferic beings, as we know, remained behind at the Moon stage of evolution, and hindered man from progressing in the right way; but since the descent of Christ to earth, when it has been possible for the ego to be impregnated with His power, man has been enabled to fulfil the mission of the earth by finding in himself the power to bridle his astral body and drive out the Luciferic influences. Therefore, it can be said: ‘He who can curb his astral body, who is so strong that he cannot be moved to anger without the consent of his ego, he who is even-tempered and inwardly strong enough to overcome the astral body, will fulfil the purpose of earthly evolution.’ So in the third Beatitude we have a formula which Spiritual Science has made comprehensible to us.

How can man succeed in controlling the remaining members of his being and bless them through the indwelling Spirit of Christ? He can do this when his soul-nature is controlled by the ego as truly and worthily as is his physical body. Passing on to the sentient soul, we can say: As man gradually evolves to a consciousness of the Christ, he must arrive at experiencing a feeling of longing in his sentient soul similar to what he previously experienced unwittingly as the physical longing we call hunger and thirst. He must thirst for the things of the soul, as the body hungers and thirsts for food and drink. What can be attained through the indwelling Christ-force is that which is described comprehensively in the old-fashioned phrase as thirsting after righteousness; and when a man has filled his sentient soul with the Christ-force he can reach a point where it is possible for him to satisfy this thirst through the power that is in him.

The fifth Beatitude is especially noteworthy, as might be expected, for it refers to the rational, or intellectual soul. Those who have studied my books, Occult Science or Theosophy, or have listened to the lectures on Spiritual Science given during many years, are familiar with the idea of the ego holding together the three principles of the human soul—the sentient soul, the rational, intellectual or mind-soul, and the consciousness-soul or spiritual soul. The ego, though present in the sentient-soul, is as yet in a dulled condition; it comes to life in the intellectual-soul, and through this, man first becomes a complete human being. While man's lower principles and even the sentient-soul are dominated by divine spiritual beings, he becomes an individual in the rational-soul, in it the ego dawns. Therefore we must speak of the reception of the Christ-force into the intellectual or rational-soul in a different way from that used when treating of the lower principles. In the lower principles—the physical, etheric, and astral sheaths, and also in the sentient-soul, divine beings are at work, and to them anything in the way of virtues man has acquired are again taken up. But the qualities evolved in the rational-soul, when this has developed what it receives from the Christ, must above all be human attributes. When a man begins to discover this soul within himself he grows less and less dependent on the divine forces around him. We have here something that belongs to man himself. When he absorbs the power of Christ into this soul he can develop virtues which go from like to like, which are not besought from Heaven as a loan, but go forth from man and return to a being similar to himself. We must try to feel that something streams forth from the virtues of the rational soul in such a way that something similar streams to us again. Wonderful to relate, the fifth Beatitude actually shows us this distinctive quality.

Even a faulty translation cannot conceal the fact; it is different from all the others in that it says: ‘Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy.’ What goes forth returns again—as it must if we accept it in the sense of Occult Science.

In the sixth Beatitude, which refers to the spiritual-soul, we arrive at that principle in man which enables the ego to attain full expression, after which he can make further ascent, in a new way. You know that at the time of the coming of Christ the rational soul first came to expression; in our time it is the spiritual-soul that is destined to find expression—the soul by means of which man will ascend again to the spiritual world. While human self-consciousness first dawned within the rational soul, it is in the spiritual-soul that the ego attains full development and rises once more to the spiritual world. The man who becomes a receptacle for the Christ-force, because he experiences the Christ in himself, will, by pouring his ego into the consciousness-soul or spiritual-soul, and experiencing it in its purity for the first time, be able in this way to find his God. Now it has been said that the blood is the expression of the ego in the physical body, and that its centre is in the heart. Therefore this sixth Beatitude has to express in a practical way how the ego, through the qualities with which it endows heart and blood, can partake of divinity. How does this verse run? ‘Blessed are those who are pure in heart for they shall see God.’ Though not a specially good translation it serves our purpose.

This is how Spiritual Science pours light on the whole structure of these wonderful sentences in which Christ gives instruction to His most intimate pupils, after He had withstood the Temptation in the wilderness.

The remaining Beatitudes refer to a man's raising of himself to the higher principles of his being; to the spirit-self, life-spirit, and spirit-man. They give but an indication of what it will be possible to experience in the future, of what is only possible in our day to a few exceptional individuals. Thus the seventh Beatitude, referring to the spirit-self, says: ‘Blessed are those who draw down into themselves the spirit-self, the first of the spiritual principles, for they will be called the children of God.’ The first of the higher triad has, in this case, entered into these men. They have received God into themselves; they have become an outer expression of the Godhead.

In what follows it is clearly shown that only exceptional beings can attain to what is spoken of in the eighth Beatitude, those who fully understand what the future is to bring to the whole of humanity. This, the ‘complete reception of Christ into a man's inner being,’ is only for a few chosen ones. Because these are exceptional individuals, they are persecuted, for others are unable to understand them. Hence, referring to the persecution of these representatives of the future race, this Beatitude declares: ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake; for in themselves they will find the Kingdom of Heaven.’

The ninth and last Beatitude has especial reference to the most intimate disciples only. It is associated with the ninth member of man's being—the spirit-man: ‘Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you for my sake.’

Thus in these wonderful lines reference is made to the nine principles of human nature, and we are shown how the ego is constituted when it becomes ‘Christ-filled’ as regards the different principles of man's being, and blesses them. In the portions following on the Temptation, the Gospel of Matthew shows in grand and majestic way how the influence of Christ works in the nine-fold human nature in the present, and then how it will work in the near future, when those in whom the spirit-self has dawned are already called ‘Children of God,’ even if these children of God are only to be found in a few blessed examples. Especially remarkable is the distinct language used concerning the first principles which are already in being, and the lapse into indeterminate language in the last sentences where the far future is referred to.

Once more let me touch on the superficial method of research. Suppose someone were investigating if sentences could anywhere be found similar to those of the Sermon on the Mount, or if the Evangelists had perhaps compiled these from something else. Suppose also that this person had no idea of what was referred to in the Beatitudes: that the important matter there dealt with was the filling of man's ego-nature with the Christ. If reference to this marvellous enhancement of the ego-nature had not been noticed, he could indicate the following. One has only to read a little further in the book already mentioned to find in it a chapter headed ‘The Beatitudes,’ in which reference is made to ‘Enoch’ (this is not the usual Enoch), and herein nine ‘Beatitudes’ are cited. The author has this much in his favour, that he acknowledges that this document belongs to the very beginning of the Christian era, and he believes that what we have described as being a document of the very profoundest importance and depth could have been copied from the following nine Beatitudes of this Slavonic Enoch.

1. Blessed is he who fears the name of the Lord, and incessantly serves before his face, etc.
2. Blessed is he who does not give a false judgment on account of payment, but in the cause of fairness, not expecting anything in exchange; he will receive a just judgment later.
3. Blessed is he who clothes the naked with his raiment, and feeds the hungry with his bread.
4. Blessed is he who judges rightly the fatherless and widows and supports all those who are oppressed.
5. Blessed is he who turns from the restless path of this vain world, travelling the true way which leads to eternal life.
6. Blessed is he who sows good seed, he will reap sevenfold.
7. Blessed is he in whom is truth, and speaks truth to his neighbours.
8. Blessed is he who has love on his lips, and kindness in his heart.
9. Blessed is he who understands each word of the Lord, and extols His name, etc., etc.

These phrases are certainly beautiful; but consider their whole construction, and the matter with which they are concerned, namely, the recounting of a few worthy platitudes suitable to any period other than one of such tremendous upheaval—the age in which the power of the ego was first being made known. If these lines are likened by anyone to the Beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew, he stands at the external point of those who compare the religions of mankind in an external way, who, whenever they discover something in any way similar, instantly state an identity, paying no heed to the essential point.

Only when the essential point is recognized does one realize that there is progress in human evolution, and that man advances from stage to stage; that he is not born anew in a physical body in a later millennium to experience over again what he has experienced already, but so that he may experience that in which humanity has progressed meanwhile. That is the meaning of history and of human evolution. Of history, and of human evolution in this sense the Gospel of Matthew speaks on every page.

• 1. Dr. Arthur Drews.
• 2. In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Oct., 1891, Mr. T. G. Pinches publishes for the first time the translation of a tablet found at Sippara in the year 1882, in which the sentences quoted above appear as an incantation to Merodach.

From everything we have heard in the foregoing lectures it is clear that the essence of the Christ Event may be indicated in the following way.—The stage of evolution denoted by an ascent of the human soul to the realms of the Spirit was attainable in pre-Christian times only within the Mysteries, and through the dimming of the degree of Ego-consciousness then present in man. This stage of evolution was to receive an impulse—the fruits of which still lie, for the most part, in the future—whereby on rising into the spiritual world a man can retain the full Ego-consciousness that is normally his on the physical plane alone. This advance in evolution, made possible by the Christ Event, is truly the greatest advance that has ever taken place or ever will take place in the history of the Earth and of humanity. Whatever else may develop in Earth-evolution in this connection will simply be an elaboration of the mighty impulse given by the Christ Event.

Let us now ask: What was it that was to be brought about by that Event? There was to be a repetition, in a particular case, of certain happenings connected with the secrets of the ancient Mysteries. It was, for example, part of those secrets—and to some extent it is still the same to-day—that on penetrating into his own physical body and etheric body a man experienced in his astral body the temptations of which we spoke yesterday. And in the Greek Mysteries a candidate for Initiation had perforce to encounter all the difficulties and dangers approaching those who pour themselves out into the Macrocosm.

These experiences encountered in one or another mode of Initiation, were undergone by a great and sublime Individuality, by Christ Jesus, as a pattern for mankind. The impulse thus given made it possible for men in the course of their future evolution gradually to achieve the development resulting from Initiation.

What happened formerly in the Mysteries may be described in the following way.—Although Ego-consciousness was dreamlike and dim, certain experiences were nevertheless undergone by the candidate in his inner life of soul. Egoism was aroused in him, making him wish to be independent of the external world. But as was said yesterday, every human being is and must always be dependent on the external world, for the simple reason that he cannot create his means of nourishment by magic or dispense with what he acquires through his physical body. Because this is so he is exposed to the illusion of believing that what is acquired merely through the physical body constitutes the world and its glory. This experience was undergone by every pupil, every candidate for Initiation, but in a condition different from that in which it was undergone at the very highest level by Christ Jesus. Therefore if someone were to describe what happened to a candidate in the ancient Mysteries and then write of the same experiences in the life of Christ Jesus, there would in certain respects necessarily be similarity in the descriptions. For what had come to pass was that happenings formerly shrouded in the secrecy of the Mysteries had now moved to the arena of world-history.

Occurrences such as the following were very frequent in antiquity, especially in the last centuries before the appearance of Christ.—Suppose some painter or scribe, having been told about a certain rite enacted during an Initiation, set to work to portray or describe it. Such a painting or description might well bear a resemblance to the account of the Christ Event given in the Gospels. We can therefore imagine how in many centres of the ancient Mysteries the candidate for Initiation, having completed certain preparations, was bound with outspread arms and hands to a kind of cross in order that his soul might be released from his body. He remained in this condition for a time, undergoing the experiences already described. All this might have been painted or related in writing, and then some scholar, finding it to-day, might assert that what was undergone in the Mysteries had been founded on some older tradition; he might then add that the Gospels themselves are simply repetitions.

Statements to this effect are very widespread. In the book Christianity as Mystical Fact I have explained the sense in which secrets of the ancient Mysteries come to light in the Gospels, and that the Gospels, fundamentally, are repetitions of the descriptions of Initiation in the Mysteries. Why, in relating events in the life of Christ, was it possible to describe the processes enacted in the Mysteries? It was possible because everything that took place in the Mysteries in the inner life of the soul, had become historic fact; because the Christ-Jesus-Event was a re-portrayal of symbolic rites enacted during the process of the old Initiation, but fulfilled now at the higher level of full Ego-consciousness. This fact must always be kept in mind. The similarity of episodes in Christ's life—as narrated in the Gospels—with procedures in the Mysteries will certainly be realised by those who are convinced that such procedures became historic reality through His coming, although they were enacted on an entirely different level of consciousness.

The following could also be said.—Those destined to witness the Christ Event in Palestine observed the fulfillment of the Essene prophecy and were aware of the Baptism by John, the Temptation and what followed it, the Crucifixion, and the ensuing happenings. They could say to themselves: Here is a life lived through by a sublime Being in the body of a man. What are the all-important points in this life? Certain things take place as external events and they are identical with experiences undergone in the Mysteries by candidates for Initiation. We need therefore simply turn to the canon of a Mystery-rite and there we should find the prototype of a process that may now be described as an historical fact!

Here, then, is the great secret. What had formerly been shrouded in the darkness of temple-sanctuaries, perceptible—but only in its effects—to those in the outer world possessed of spiritual vision, was now enacted as the Christ Event on the stage of world-history itself. It must of course be realised that in the days of the Evangelists, no biographies were produced of the kind familiar to us to-day. In a biography, let us say, of Goethe, of Schiller, or of Lessing, every detail of their lives is probed into and every scrap of information collected, usually resulting in a mass of unimportant data purporting to convey the essentials of a life-history. Whereas all these details hinder one from discerning the points that really matter, the Evangelists were content to describe what was of central and fundamental importance in the life of Christ Jesus, namely that in this life there was a repetition of the process of Initiation—but enacted here in the great setting of world-history. Is it any wonder that in our time numbers of people have been taken aback by a certain disconcerting development which comes home to us even more forcibly in the light of the following facts.—

Myths and sagas have come down to us from the past. Anyone who understands their origin and character will realise that many of them are narratives of happenings in the spiritual worlds, seen by ancient clairvoyance and clothed in imagery of the sense-world; other myths again are portrayals of happenings in the Mysteries. For example, the myth of Prometheus, among many others, is partly a presentation of acts performed in the Mysteries. We often find the scene described of Zeus with a god of lower rank who is destined, according to the Greek account, to be his tempter. Zeus standing on a mountain being tempted by Pan—this theme is portrayed in many and various ways. What was the purpose of such imagery? It was meant to give expression to the process of man's descent into his inner being, where he encounters his own lower nature, his egoistic Pan-nature, when he penetrates into his physical and etheric bodies.

The ancient world is full of accounts of experiences undergone by a candidate for Initiation along the path leading into the spiritual world, and in the myths and sagas these accounts are given artistic form.

Scholarship of to-day which fails to penetrate below the surface—and this is what bewilders many people who either cannot or will not recognize the facts—declares when it finds the story of Pan tempting Zeus on a mountain that this shows clearly that the story of the Temptation told by the Evangelists is merely the repetition of an allegory already familiar to them. Scholars then draw the conclusion that there is nothing of unique importance in the Gospels, which appear to them to be compilations pieced together from ancient mythology in order to present a fictitious figure called Jesus Christ. In a certain widespread movement in Germany there were many vapid discussions as to whether Christ Jesus ever lived at all. And with a really grotesque lack of understanding—although with ostentatious erudition—all the sagas and myths alleged to contain earlier parallels of the Gospel scenes were enumerated. It is useless to-day to attempt to give an idea of the actual state of affairs, although it is well known to those who are conversant with these matters. But spiritual movements in our time develop along very strange lines!

I should not have spoken of these things if it were not constantly necessary to take a stand against arguments levelled by ostensibly profound scholarship against the facts and expositions of Spiritual Science.

The real truth of these matters is what I have presented in these lectures. Accounts originating in the Mysteries are necessarily recapitulated in the Gospels, but the secret of Initiation is now connected with an Individuality altogether different. The intention is to show that the experiences formerly undergone in a condition of dimmed consciousness were passed through by this Individuality, this Being, without any loss of Ego-consciousness. Therefore when it is said that the Gospels contain hardly anything for which there is no earlier parallel, we need not be surprised but we must realise that in former times it was a matter of the human being having to rise into the Kingdoms of Heaven, because the Kingdoms of Heaven had not then already ascended to Ego. The really new thing was that what could formerly only be experienced in other realms, and through a kind of attenuation of the Ego, could now be experienced in Malkhut in the ‘Kingdom’, with the Ego erect and self-supporting.

Hence after Christ Jesus had undergone the experience described in St. Matthew's Gospel as the Temptation, He began to preach of the ‘Kingdom.’ What was the gist of His teaching? It was this: What a man formerly attained through suppressing his Ego and receiving other beings into himself, is now and henceforward to be attained in full Ego-consciousness.—That is the essential point. Hence it is not repetition of events connected with Initiations only that are repeated in the life of Christ, but the vital point in the ‘preaching of the Kingdom’ is this: Everything promised to those who were formerly admitted into the Mysteries or who accepted their teachings, is now offered to those who learn to experience in themselves the reality of the ‘I’, the Ego, in the way prefigured for mankind by Christ.

Everything, therefore, even features of the doctrine, must necessarily appear again in some form. But it must not surprise us that emphasis was laid upon the difference between the old teachings and the new, that it was stressed: What could not, in former times, be attained through the Ego, can now be attained by the Ego itself—in full, consciousness! Let us suppose Christ had wanted to draw attention to the great truth that in former times, according to teachings that had reached them from the Mysteries, men had always looked up to the Kingdoms of Heaven, saying: Blessedness can stream down to us from there—but it does not penetrate into our Ego.—In those circumstances it would have been necessary for Christ still to uphold what was formerly said about the Divine Father-Source of existence, for contact with it was indeed attainable when Ego-consciousness was dimmed, and it was the nuances only that needed to be changed. He would have had to speak to the following effect: If you were formerly bidden to look up to the realms of the Divine Father-Source of existence and wait until His radiance streamed upon you, it may henceforward be said that not only does His radiance stream down to you, but whatsoever is willed on high must penetrate into the deepest core of the human Ego and , be willed there also.

Again, let us suppose that each single phrase in the Lord's Prayer had existed previously, and that the only one needing to be altered was to the effect that when in former times men looked up to the Divine Father-Spirit in the Heights everything there remained unchanged, shining down into the earthly realm.—Christ would now have had to say that the heavenly realm must come down to the Earth where the Ego has its dwelling-place; and the will that is fulfilled above in the Heavens must also be fulfilled upon the Earth.—It follows that those who are possessed of deeper insight and perceive the finer shades of difference, will not be in the least surprised that the phrases used in the Lord's Prayer may also have existed in ancient times. A superficial thinker, however, will not notice these fine shades of difference, for in so far as he does not understand the purpose of Christianity he fails to perceive their importance! And when he finds that these phrases were current in earlier times, he will say: ‘There you have it; the Gospels record the Lord's Prayer—but it was already in existence before they were written!’ The essential shades of difference, however, have escaped him.

You can now realise what a vast difference there is between genuine understanding of the scriptures and extern al study. The important factor is for those who discern the new shades of meaning to compare them with the old. The scholar who lacks the deeper understanding and fails to perceive these shades of difference will continue to insist that the Lord's Prayer had already been in existence before the time of Christ.

Attention must be paid to these things and mention made of them here because anthroposophists ought to be able to some extent to make a stand against the dilettante learning that makes its superficial interpretations and its voice heard to-day and by way of innumerable channels in newspapers and periodicals comes to be accepted as ‘science’.

Let me say something further in connection with the Lord's Prayer. There was once a certain individual who set out to collect from every available ancient tradition, from every relevant passage in Talmudic literature, sentences bearing some sort of resemblance to those of the Lord's Prayer. Mark well: the compilation produced by this learned scholar is nowhere to be found originally in this form; the single sentences have been taken piecemeal from one document or another. Carrying this method to the point of absurdity, we might also say: The first sentences of Faust were put together by Goethe in the same way! It might be possible to produce evidence that in the 17th century there was a student who had failed in his examination and afterwards said to his father: Have I not studied jurisprudence with toil and sweat! And another who had failed in his medical examination said: Have I not studied medicine with toil and sweat! And from this the first sentences in Faust are supposed to have been composed. It is an absurdity, but the principle and method are exactly the same as those of the trend in Gospel criticism to which I allude.

The following sentences, pieced together as stated, are sup-posed to have produced the Lord's Prayer:

‘Our Father which art in Heaven; O Lord Our God, hallowed be thy name, and let the remembrance of thee be glorified in heaven above, and upon earth here below. Let thy kingdom reign over us now and for ever. The holy men of old said: remit and forgive unto all men whatsoever they have done against me. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil thing. For thine is the kingdom, and thou shalt reign in glory for ever and for evermore.’¹

The Lord's Prayer is alleged to have been compiled from these sayings which, as I said, were collected from many sources. But the nuance that would indicate the unique significance of the Christ Event is entirely lacking. Nowhere is it said that the Kingdom of Heaven is to come down. The words are ‘Let thy kingdom rule over us now and for ever’—not: Thy Kingdom shall come to us! That is the essential point, but superficial scholarship entirely fails to perceive it. And although these sayings came not from one source but from records in many archives, the words of salient importance in the Lord's Prayer are nowhere to be found: ‘Thy will be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven.’ That is to say, the Ego itself is to participate actively. There you have an example of the difference between superficial research and really thorough and conscientious research which pays attention to every detail. The findings of conscientious research are available, if only people will take account of them.

I have purposely read you these sentences which are quoted in Robertson's book. It has now been translated into German as a kind of modern gospel, in order that it may become widely known; for until now, a certain Professor² who has given a number of lectures on the subject of whether Jesus actually lived, was obliged to read it in English. The book has quickly become famous and the translation of it has meant that people need no longer make the effort to read it in a language not their own. It has been possible for a Professor at a German Academy to travel about lecturing on the question: ‘Did Jesus live?’—and then, on the basis of the facts I have mentioned, to give the answer that there is no documentary evidence whatever to prove that a personality such as Jesus ever lived. Robertson's book is also recommended as an excellent work of reference. Anthroposophists should, however, be warned that they will hear many other things from these investigations into New Testament texts, and I want still to speak of something particularly characteristic.

The book attempts to show that versions of the Lord's Prayer existed not only in the Talmud but also in chronicles of great antiquity. To strengthen the contention that the Lord's Prayer was a compilation of phrases previously in existence and needed no Christ to utter it for the first time, the book quotes certain lines from a prayer in the Chaldaic language, inscribed on tablets, invoking Merodach, the ancient Babylonian god. Listen to this passage which occurs in a footnote:³

‘In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for October, 189x, Mr. T. G. Pinches published for the first time a translation of a tablet found at Sippara in 1882, in which there occur, in an invocation of Merodach, the lines: “May the abundance of the world descend into thy (the city's) midst; may thy command be accomplished in time to come... may the evil spirit dwell outside of thee.” ’

And the learned scholar who was so deeply impressed by this passage, adds: ‘Here we have prayer norms, on the lines of the Lord's Prayer, dating perhaps from 4000 B.C.’

Can you detect any similarity between the Lord's Prayer and these sentences? Nevertheless the author of the book regards them as prayer-norms of which the Lord's Prayer is simply a copy! Such things are accepted to-day as the findings of genuine research.

There is another reason for bringing this to the notice of anthroposophists, for they must be able to reassure their consciences which might well be troubled by hearing that something or other has been established by external research, or by reading in newspapers or journals of the discovery of a tablet in Asia proving that the Lord's Prayer was already in existence 4,000 years before Christ. A very necessary question would be: Upon what basis has this been proved?—I am trying to show you the kind of foundations underlying many things that are said to-day to be ‘scientifically established’. Such examples are everywhere to be found and it is well for anthroposophists to realise the worthlessness of much that is so often held against Spiritual Science.—But we will proceed.

The all-essential point is that Christ Jesus inaugurated an evolutionary process based upon the human Ego, upon the retention of fill Ego-consciousness. The Initiation of the Ego—that was what He inaugurated. We can say that the Ego, the is the kernel of man's whole being, that all human nature to-day centres in the Ego, and that what was brought through the Christ Event to the Ego, and hence into the world, can also lay hold of, all the other members of man's being. But this, naturally, will have to take place in a very particular way and in keeping with the evolution of humanity.

These lectures show clearly what it is that can be developed. Properly speaking, knowledge of the surrounding physical-material world acquired by man not through the senses alone but also through the intellect using the brain as its instrument, has been possible only since times shortly preceding the Christ Event. Before then, men were endowed with a kind of clairvoyance. As you know from my lectures, this was the case from the early epochs of Atlantis onwards. But the faculty that was still universal and functioning in full strength during the first epochs of post-Atlantean evolution, gradually declined. Until the time of the Christ Event, however, there were still many human beings who in intermediate states of consciousness between waking life and sleep, were able to gaze into and participate in happenings of the spiritual world. Such participation did not merely mean that a man endowed with clairvoyance to a slight extent was able to assert: ‘I know that behind everything physical and material there is the spiritual, for I actually see it.’—This was not all. Human nature in ancient times was such that it was possible, without difficulty, to enable a man to partake in the happenings of the spiritual world, To-day it is very arduous, relatively speaking, to undergo the true esoteric training leading to the attainment of clairvoyance. Natural clairvoyance manifests to-day as a last remnant, a heritage from olden times, in somnambulistic and kindred conditions. These conditions cannot be regarded as regular in our age; but in the distant past they were normal and could be sublimated and enhanced by certain measures.—Something else, too, was connected with this.

To-day, people are not guided by true history and what they happen to believe decides what is or is not historical fact. But however strongly it may be doubted, the truth is that up to the time of Christ, processes of healing, for instance, could be made effective by inducing clairvoyance. In the present age, when humanity has descended more deeply into the the physical world, this is no longer possible. But in those earlier times it was still easy, by applying certain specific measures, to enable the soul to become clairvoyant and to penetrate into the spiritual world. And because the spiritual world is health-giving, in itself and sends its forces into thc physical world, it was possible to bring about healings in this way. In a case of illness certain processes were put in motion, enabling the person concerned to see into the spiritual world. And the streams of the spiritual world flowing down into his whole being had a curative effect. This indeed was the usual method of healing. (The ‘temple healing’ spoken of nowadays is sheer dilettantism.) The fact that souls have lost the clairvoyance that was universal in former times, signifies an advance in evolution. But the earlier clairvoyant condition could be so sublimated that healing forces streamed from the spiritual into the physical world and in the case of certain illnesses cures could be effected, We need not therefore be surprised when it is said by the Evangelists that as a result of the Christ Event not only those possessed of the old clairvoyance would be able to reach the spiritual world, but also those who, owing to the evolution of humanity, had lost contact with it.

In ancient times the riches of the spiritual world were revealed to men's clairvoyant vision. Now, however, it could be said: Evolution has progressed and those who can no longer gaze into the spiritual world have become poor in spirit, beggars for the spirit. But because, through Christ, the forces of the Kingdoms of Heaven can now flow into the Ego, even when the Ego is functioning on the physical plane, those who have lost the old clairvoyance and the riches of the spiritual world, they too can experience the spirit in themselves and be blessed. Hence the momentous words: From now onwards, not only those who through the old clairvoyance are rich in the things of the spirit are blessed; but those too who are beggars for the spirit, are blessed; for when the path has been opened for them by Christ the Kingdoms, of Heaven flow into their Ego.

In earlier times the nature of the human physical organism was such that even in the normal state the soul was able to some extent to emerge from the body; this meant that a man became clairvoyant, rich in the treasures of the spirit. The densification of the physical body—for which, admittedly there can be no anatomical proof—meant that man could no longer be rich in the things of the spiritual world, of the Kingdoms of Heaven. In describing existing conditions, one would have to say: Man has become a beggar for the spirit; but the powers brought down by Christ enable him to experience within him-self the Kingdoms of Heaven.—That, then, is what might be said in reference to the processes of the physical body.

If it were a matter of describing what actually took place in man as an Ego-being, one would have to show how each of his members could be blessed inwardly, in a new way. The new truth relating to the physical body is expressed in the words: Blessed are they who are beggars for the spirit; for within themselves they will find the Kingdoms of Heaven.

In regard to the etheric body, this could be said: In the etheric body lies the principle of suffering. Only a living being can suffer as the result of injury to the etheric body—an astral body must, of course, be there as well—but the seat of the suffering must nevertheless be looked for in the etheric body. To express the new truth applying to healings brought about in earlier times through forces streaming from the spiritual world, one would have to say: Those who suffer can henceforth find consolation not only by passing out of their bodies and thus being linked with the spiritual world as was formerly the case; if they now establish a different relationship with the world they can find consolation within themselves, because through Christ a new force has been imparted to the etheric body. Hence concerning the etheric body it could be said: Those who suffer can now be blessed not only through reaching a spiritual world and in a clairvoyant condition allowing the forces of that world to stream upon them; now, if they can find the path to Christ, to the new truth, they can find within themselves consolation for all suffering.

And what would have to be said about the astral body? In former times, when a man was striving to subdue the emotions, passions and egoistic impulses of his astral body, he turned his gaze to higher spheres, pleading that strength might be vouchsafed to him from the Kingdoms of Heaven; through certain measures to which he was then subjected, the harmful instincts of his astral body were quelled. But now the time had come when through Christ's Deed he was able to receive into his Ego the power to curb and tame the passions and emotions of his astral body. The new truth relating to the astral body would therefore be expressed as follows: Blessed are those who have become meek through the power of their own Ego; for it is they who will inherit the Earth! This third Beatitude is indeed profound. Let us study it in the light of what we have learnt from Spiritual Science.—The astral body was incorporated into human nature during the Old Moon period of evolution. The Luciferic beings who had gained influence over man, established themselves in his astral body, and in consequence of this he could not, at the beginning, hope to reach his highest earthly goal. As we know, the Luciferic beings had remained at the Old Moon stage and prevented man from progressing in the right way along his path of development. But now that Christ had come down to the Earth and the Ego gould be filled with His power, it was possible for man to fulfil the essential principle of Earth-existence, inasmuch as he could now find within himself the power to curb the astral body and expel the Luciferic influences. Hence it could be said: He who curbs his astral body, he whose own inner strength keeps him from being moved to anger without the consent of his Ego, he who is inwardly serene and at the same time strong enough to keep his astral body in check—such a man will fulfil the purpose of Earth-evolution. Infinite light is thus shed by Spiritual Science on the third Beatitude.

How will man succeed in bringing about the sublimation and beatification of the other members of his nature through the Christ-power within him? He will succeed if his soul and body alike are laid hold of worthily by the power of the Ego. Concerning the Sentient Soul we can say : If a man desires to experience the Christ within himself, he must develop in his Sentient Soul a longing as strong as the instinctive longing he otherwise feels in his body and calls hunger and thirst. He must be capable of thirsting after the things of the soul with the same intensity as the body hungers and thirsts for food and drink. What man can develop through the Christ-power within him has always been referred to as ‘thirst after righteousness’. And when he fills his Sentient Soul with the Christ-power, he can find within himself the possibility of satisfying his thirst after righteousness.

The fifth Beatitude, as might be expected, is especially note-worthy, for it concerns the Intellectual or Mind-Soul. Anyone who has studied the book Occult Science, or Theosophy, and has also followed what has been said for years in lectures, knows that the three members of the human soul—Sentient Soul, Intellectual or Mind-Soul and Spiritual Soul (Consciousness-Soul) are held together by the Ego is present in the Sentient Soul in a dull condition; in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul it lights up and only then does man become wholly and completely man. Whereas in the lower members of his being, in the Sentient Soul too, he is ruled by divine-spiritual Powers, he becomes a self-dependent being in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul. Here the Ego flashes up and is active. Therefore when the Intellectual or Mind-Soul has received into itself the CHrist-power, this cannot be expressed in the same way as in the case of the lower members of human nature. In the lower members—physical body, etheric body, astral body and Sentient Soul too—man is connected with certain divine Beings who penetrate into these members, and whatever qualities he develops there are carried up again to these divine Beings. But whatever evolves in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul will be an essentially human attribute when it develops the Christ-quality. When a man begins to be conscious of the working of the Intellectual Soul, this makes him less and less dependent upon the divine-spiritual Powers around him. When he takes the Christ-power into himself he can unfold in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul those qualities which pass like to like, which are not besought from Heaven but which go forth from and return again to the same being. We must therefore feel that something streams from the qualities of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul and that something of a like character a truly wonderful way the fifth Beatitude points to this very quality. The wording here differs from that of all the other Beatitudes, and although the various translations are not particularly good, they have not been able entirely to conceal the essential point.—Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.'‘What streams forth streams back again—these words convey the true meaning when understood in the light of Spiritual Science.

With the sixth Beatitude, relating to the Spiritual Soul, we come to that principle in man in which the real nature of the the Ego, comes fully into expression; ascent to the spiritual world can now take a new form. As we know, the Intellectual or Mind-Soul came to active expression in the epoch when Christ appeared. We are living now in the epoch when the Spiritual Soul must come to expression and when man is to rise again to the spiritual world. Whereas consciousness of self first lights up in man in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul, in the Spiritual or Consciousness-Soul his ‘I’ unfolds to the -full extent and now ascends again into the spiritual world. A man who takes the Christ-power into himself will find the way to his God when he pours his ‘I’ into the Spiritual Soul. In experiencing Christ in his Ego at the level of the Spiritual Soul, he will find his God.—Now it has been said that the expression of the Ego in the physical body is the blood; the blood has its centre in the heart. Therefore the sixth Beatitude will have to indicate that through the quality imparted to the blood and to the heart, the Ego can experience God. What are the words? ‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.’ Again this is not an entirely adequate translation but it suffices.

Spiritual Science sheds light upon the whole structure of these wonderful words spoken by Christ Jesus to his intimate disciples after the Temptation. The further Beatitudes relate to the development of the higher members of man's being: Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Man. Therefore the words do no more than indicate what man will experience in the future and what only a few chosen ones are able to experience at the present time.

The seventh Beatitude relates to the Spirit-Self : Blessed are they who draw to themselves the Spirit-Self as the first purely spiritual member of their being; for they will be called the children of God.—The first member of the higher triad has entered into them. They have received the Divine into themselves and have become an outward expression of the God-head.

But it is now clearly shown that only chosen ones, only those who fully understand what the future is to humanity as a whole can succeed in unfolding the Life-Spirit. What men of the future, having received Christ into themselves in the fullest sense, will call the ‘Life-Spirit’ is now within the reach of a few individuals only. But because they are chosen individuals, the others are unable to understand them and they are persecuted. With reference, therefore, to those who are persecuted because as individuals they represent a stage that belongs only to the future, the words are uttered: Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for in themselves they find the Kingdoms of Heaven.

And the last Beatitude concerns the closest, most intimate disciples only; it refers to the ninth member of Man's being: Spirit-Man.—‘Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you... for my sake.’

And so these wonderful utterances relating to the nine members of man's being show how the ‘I’, when filled with Christ, works in the different members and brings them blessedness. In the verses following the account of the Temptation, the Gospel of St. Matthew expresses with majestic grandeur the effect of the Christ-power in the ninefold nature of man, first in the present and then in the immediate future, when those into whom the Spirit-Self already shines are called ‘children of God’—although of these there are only a few specially blessed ones. What is so wonderful is that the indications are quite definite when concerned with members of man's being that have already developed, but become indefinite in the later utterances which relate to the distant future.

But once again we have an example of superficial scholar-ship. Suppose someone were investigating the question of whether similar utterances are also to be found elsewhere and whether the Evangelists might have strung them together from other sources. And suppose this investigator had no notion of the all-important point—that the Beatitudes apply to the Christ-filled Ego! Failing to notice the wonderful enhancement indicated in the utterances, he might well quote the following—and indeed two or three pages later in the book already mentioned,⁴ in a chapter entitled ‘The Beatitudes’, reference is made to an ‘Enoch’—who is not the usual (Ethiopic) Enoch—and nine so-called ‘Beatitudes’ are cited. The author admits that the original record can be assigned to the first period of the Christian era but he considers that the utterances we have characterized as being so profound could have been copied from the following nine 'Beatitudes’ of the 'Slavonic' Enoch:⁵

1. Blessed is he who fears the name of the Lord, and serves continually before his face.

2. Blessed is he who executes a just judgment, not for the sake of recompense, but for the sake of righteousness, expecting nothing in return: a sincere judgment shall afterwards come to him.

3. Blessed is he who clothes the naked with a garment, and gives his bread to the hungry.

4. Blessed is he who gives a. just judgment for the orphan and the widow, and assists every one who is wronged.

5. Blessed is he who turns from the unstable path of this vain world, and walks by the righteous path which leads to eternal life,

6. Blessed is he who sows just seed; he shall reap sevenfold.

7. Blessed is he in whom is the truth, that he may speak the truth to his neighbour.

8. Blessed is he who has love upon his lips, and tenderness in his heart.

9. Blessed is he who understands every word of the Lord, and glorifies the Lord God.

Certainly there is beauty in these sayings. But when you study their whole construction and realise that they simply set forth a few principles suitable for any epoch but not specifically for the one of drastic transformation due to the inauguration of the power of the ‘I’—then, if you still think it possible to place these Slavonic sayings on a par with the Beatitudes of St. Matthew, you will not be far removed from those who make superficial comparisons between the various religions of mankind and whenever they come across similarities at once insist that there is uniformity, ignoring what is of essential importance.

To understand these things is to realise that human evolution progresses, that humanity advances from stage to stage, and that a man is not born in a new physical body in a later millennium in order to repeat experiences already undergone, but to experience in what respects humanity has advanced in the intervening time. That is the purpose alike of history and of human evolution. And of this the Gospel of St. Matthew speaks on every page!

• 1. See p. 417, in Christianity and Mythology, by John M. Robertson. Second edition. First published in 1900 by Watts & Co. London. It is stated that this compilation was made more than two centuries ago by the Rev. John Gregorie, from the Jewish Euchologues.
• 2. Dr. Arthur Drews.
• 3. Op. cit. pp. 418-
• 4. Christianity and Mythology, p. 422.
• 5. From the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, trans. from the Slavonic by W. R. Morfill, and edited, with introd. notes, by R. H. Charles. (Clarendon Press, 1896).