Lecture I
Jesuit and Rosicrucian Training
October 5, 1911
(complete, or nearly so)
The object of these lectures is to place before you
an idea of the Christ Event in so far as it is
connected with the historical appearance of the
Christ in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. So many
questions of the spiritual life are bound up with
this subject that the choice of it will enable us to
make a wide survey of the realm of Spiritual Science
and its mission, and to discuss the significance of
the Anthroposophical Movement for the spiritual life
of the present time. We shall also have the
opportunity of learning what the content of religion
is. And since this content must spring from the
common heritage of mankind, we shall seek to know it
in its relation to the deeper sources of religious
life, and to what the sources of occult science have
to tell us concerning the foundation of all
religious and philosophic endeavors. Much that we
shall have to discuss will seem to lie very far from
the theme itself, but it will all lead us back to
our main purpose.
We shall best come to a more precise understanding
of our subject — modern religious life on the one
hand and the spiritual-scientific deepening of
spiritual life on the other — if we glance at the
origins both of religious life on the one hand and
of occult spiritual life in recent centuries, for as
regards spiritual development in Europe during this
period, we can discern two directions of thought
which have been cultivated with the utmost
intensity: on the one hand an exaggeration of the
Jesus-Principle, and on the other a most careful,
conscientious preservation of the Christ-Principle.
When we place before our minds these two recent
streams, we must see in the exaggeration of the
Jesus-Principle a great and dangerous error in the
spiritual life of those times, and on the other side
a movement of deep significance, a movement which
seeks above all the true paths and is careful to
avoid the paths of error. From the outset,
therefore, in our judgment of two entirely different
spiritual movements, we have to ascribe serious
error to one of them and most earnest efforts after
truth to the other.
The movement which interests us in connection with
out spiritual-scientific point of view, and which we
may call an extraordinarily dangerous error in a
certain sense, is the movement known in the external
world as Jesuitism. In Jesuitism we encounter a
dangerous exaggeration of the Jesus-Principle. In
the other movement, which for centuries has existed
in Europe as Rosicrucianism, we have an inward
Christ-movement which above all seeks carefully for
the ways of truth.
Ever since a Jesuitical current arose in Europe,
much has been said and written in exoteric life
about Jesuitism. Those who wish to study spiritual
life from its deeper sources will thus be concerned
to see how far Jesuitism signifies a dangerous
exaggeration of the Jesus-Principle. If we wish to
arrive at a true characterisation of Jesuitism, we
must get to know how the three chief principles of
world-evolution, which are indicated in the most
varied ways in the different world-outlooks, find
practical statement in human life, including
exoteric life. Today we will first of all turn quite
away from the deeper significance and
characterisation of these 3 fundamental streams,
which run through all life and all evolution, and
will review them from an external point of view.
First of all we have the cognitional element in our
soul-life. Now, whatever may be said against the
abstractions of a one-sided intellectual search for
truth, or against the alienation from life of many
scientific, philosophical and theosophical
endeavors, anyone who is clear in his own mind as to
what he wills and what he can will, knows that
Cognition belongs to the most deeply rooted
activities of the soul. For whether we seek
knowledge chiefly through thinking, or more through
sensation or feeling, Cognition always signifies a
taking account of the world around us, and also of
ourselves. Hence we must say that whether we are
satisfied for the moment with the simplest
experiences of the soul, or whether we wish to
devote ourselves to the most complicated analysis of
the mysteries of existence, Cognition is the primary
and most significant question. For it is basically
through Cognition that we form a picture of the
content of the world — a picture we live by and from
which our entire soul-life is nourished. The very
first sense-impression, in fact all sense-life, must
be included in the realm of Cognition, along with
the highest formulations of the intellect.
Under Cognition we must include also the impulse to
distinguish between the beautiful and the ugly, for
although it is true in a certain sense that there is
no disputing about taste, yet cognition is involved
when someone has adopted a certain judgment in a
question of taste and can distinguish between the
beautiful and the ugly. Again, our moral impulses —
those which prompt us to do good and abstain from
evil — must be seen as moral ideas, as cognition, or
as impulses to do the one and avoid the other. Even
what we call our conscience, however vague the
impulses from it may be, comes under the heading of
Cognition. In short, the world we are consciously
aware of, whether it be reality or maya; the world
we live in consciously, everything we are conscious
of — all this can be embraced under the heading:
cognitive spiritual life.
Everyone, however, must acknowledge that under the
surface of this cognitive life something else can be
discerned; that in our everyday existence our soul-life
gives evidence of many things which are not
part of our conscious life. When we wake up in the
morning, our soul-life if always strengthened and
refreshed and newly born from sleep. During the
unconsciousness of sleep we have gained something
which is outside the realm of conscious cognition,
but comes from a region where our soul is active
below the level of consciousness.
In waking life, too, we must admit that we are
impelled by impulses, instincts and forces which
throw up their waves into our conscious life, while
they work and have their being below it. We become
aware that they work below the conscious when they
rise above the surface which separates the conscious
from the subconscious soul-life of this kind, for we
can see how in the moral realm this or that ideal
comes to birth. It takes only a little self-knowledge
to realise that these ideals do rise up
into our soul-life, but that we are far from always
knowing how our great moral ideals are connected
with the deepest questions of existence, or how they
belong to the will of God, in which they must
ultimately be grounded. We might indeed compare our
soul-life in its totality with a deep ocean. The
depths of this oceanic soul-life throw up waves to
the surface, and those that break out into the realm
of air, which we can compare with normal
consciousness, are brought within the range of
conscious cognition. All conscious life is rooted in
a subconscious soul-life.
Fundamentally, the whole evolution of mankind can be
understood only if a subconscious soul-life of this
kind is acknowledged. For what does the progress of
spiritual life signify save that many things which
have long dwelt down below take form for the first
time when they are brought to surface level? So it
is, for example, when an inventive idea arises in
the form of an impulse towards discovery.
Subconscious soul-life, as real as our conscious
life, must therefore be recognized as a second
element in our life of soul.
If we place this subconscious soul-life in a realm
that is at first unknown — but not unknowable — we must
contrast it with a third element. This element is
immediately apparent to external, exoteric
observation, for if we turn our attention to the
outer world through our senses, or approach it
through our intellect or any form of mental
activity, we come to know all sorts of things. But a
more exact consideration of every age of cognition
compels us to realise that behind everything we can
know about the world at large something else lies
hidden: something that is certainly not unknowable
but in every epoch has to be described as not yet
known. And this not-yet-known, which lies below the
surface of the known in the mineral, plant and
animal kingdoms, belongs as much to ourselves as it
does to external nature. It belongs to us in so far
as we absorb and work up in our physical organism
the materials and forces of the outer world; and
inasmuch as we have within us a portion of nature,
we have also within us a portion of the unknown in
nature. So in the world wherein we live we must
distinguish a triad: our conscious spiritual life;
our subconscious soul-life below the threshold of
consciousness; and that which, as the unknown in
nature and at the same time in man, lives in us as
part of the great unknown Nature.
This triad emerges directly from a rational
observation of the world. And if looking away from
all dogmatic statements, from all philosophical or
theosophical traditions, in so far as these are
clothed in conceptual definitions or formulations,
we may ask: How has the human mind always expressed
the fact that this triad is present not only in the
immediate environment, but in the whole world to
which man himself belongs? We must then reply: Man
gives the name of Spirit to all that can be known
within the horizon of the conscious. He designates
as the Son or the Logos that which works in the
subconscious and throws up only its waves from down
below. And to that which belongs equally to the
unknown in Nature, and to the part of our own being
which is of one kind with Nature, the name of the
Father-Principle has always been given, because it
was felt to express the relation of the third
principle to the other two.
Besides what has now been said concerning the
Spirit, the Son and the Father-Principle, it can be
taken for granted that other differentiations we
have formerly made, and also the differentiations
made in this or that philosophy, have their
justifications. But we can say that the most widely
accepted idea of this differentiation corresponds
with the account of it given here.
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Now let us ask: How can we
characterise the transition from that which belongs
to the Spirit, and so plays directly into the
conscious life of the soul, to the subconscious
element which belongs to the Son-Principle? We shall
best grasp this transition if we realise that into
ordinary human consciousness there plays quite
distinctly the element we designate as Will, in
contrast to the elements of ideations and feeling.
If we rightly interpret the Bible saying, ‘The
Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’, it
indicates that everything grasped by consciousness
lies in the realm of the Spirit, whereas by ‘the
flesh’ is meant everything that lies more in the
subconscious. As to the nature of the Will, we need
only think of that which plays up from the
subconscious and enters into our consciousness only
when we form concepts of it. Only when we transform
into concepts and ideas the dark impelling forces
which are rooted in the elemental part of the soul —
only then do they enter the realm of the Spirit;
otherwise they remain in the realm of the Son-Principle.
And since the Will plays through our
feelings into the life of ideas, we see quite
clearly the breaking out into the conscious of the
waves from the subconscious ocean. In our threefold
soul-life we have two elements, ideation and
feeling, which belong to conscious life, but feeling
descends directly into the realm of the Will, and
the nearer we come to the impulses of Will, the
further we descend into the subconscious, the dark
realms into which we sink completely when
consciousness is engulfed in deep, dreamless sleep.
Thus we see that the Will-element, because it
descends into the realm of the subconscious, stands
towards the individual being of man in a
relationship quite different from that of cognition,
the realm of the Spirit. And so, when we
differentiate between Spirit and Son, we may be
impelled to surmise that man's relationship to the
Spirit is different from his relationship to the
Son. How is this to be understood?
Even in exoteric life it is quite easy to
understand. Certainly the realm of cognition has
given rise to all kinds of debate, but if people
would only come to understand one another concerning
the concepts and ideas they formulate for
themselves, controversy over questions of cognition
would gradually cease. I have often emphasised that
we no longer dispute over mathematics, because we
have raised mathematics entirely into consciousness.
The things we dispute about are those not yet raised
into consciousness: we still allow our subconscious
impulses, instincts and passions to play into them.
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So we see that in the realm of cognition
we have to do with something more universally human
than anything to be found in the subconscious realm.
When we meet another human being and enter into the
most varied relationships with him, it is in the
realm of conscious spiritual life that understanding
should be possible. And a mark of a healthy soul-life
is that it will always wish and hope to reach an
understanding with the other person concerning
things that belong to conscious spiritual life. It
will be unhealthy for the soul if that hope is lost.
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On the other hand, we must recognise
the Will-element, and everything in another person's
subconscious, as something which should on no
account be intruded upon; it must be regarded as his
innermost sanctuary. We need consider only how
unpleasant to a healthy soul-life is the feeling
that the Will of another man is being put under
compulsion. It is not only aesthetically but morally
unpleasant to see the conscious soul-life of anyone
eliminated by hypnotism or any other powerful means;
or to see the Will-power of one person working
directly on the Will of another. The only healthy
way to gain influence over another person's Will is
through Cognition. Cognition should be the means
whereby one soul comes to an understanding with
another. A person must first translate his wishes
into a conceptual form: then they may influence
another person's cognition, and they should touch
his Will only by this indirect route. Nothing else
can be satisfactory in the highest, most ideal sense
to a healthy life of soul. Every kind of forcible
working of Will upon Will must evoke an unpleasant
impression.
In other words, human nature strives, in so far as
it is healthy, to develop in the realm of the Spirit
the life it has in common with others, and to
cherish and respect the realm of the subconscious,
in so far as it comes to statement in the human
organism, as an inviolable sanctuary that should
rest in the personality, the individuality, of each
man and should not be approached save through the
door of conscious cognition. So at least a modern
consciousness, attuned to our epoch, must feel if it
is to know itself to be healthy.
In later lectures we shall see whether this was so
in all periods of human evolution. What has been
said today will help us to think clearly about what
is outside us and what is within us, at least for
our own period. This leads to the conclusion that
fundamentally the realm of the Son — embracing
everything that we designate as the Son or Logos —
must be awakened in each individual as a quite
personal concern; and that the realm of common life,
where men may be influenced by one another, is the
realm of the Spirit.
We see this expressed in the grandest, most
significant way in the New Testament accounts of the
attitude of Christ Jesus towards His first disciples
and followers. ====================== From all that
is told concerning the Christ-Event we can gather
that the followers who had hastened to Jesus during
his life-time were bewildered when His life ended
with the crucifixion; with that form of death which,
in the land where the Christ Event took its course,
was regarded as the only possible expiration for the
greatest crimes. And although this death on the
cross did not affect everyone as it did Saul, who
later became Paul, and as Saul had concluded that
someone who suffered such a death could not be the
Messiah, or the Christ — for the crucifixion had
made a milder impression on the disciples, one might
say — yet it is obvious that the writers of the
Gospels wished to give the impression that Christ
Jesus, through his subjection to the shameful death
on the cross, had forfeited some of the effect He
had had on the hearts of those around Him.
But with this account something else is connected.
The influence that Christ Jesus had acquired — an
influence we must characterise more exactly during
these lectures — was restored to Him after the
Resurrection. Whatever may be our present thoughts
about the Resurrection, we shall have to discuss it
here in the light of occult science; and then, if we
simply go by the Gospel narratives, one thing will
be clear: for those to whom Christ appeared after
the Resurrection He had become someone who was
present in a quite special way, different entirely
from His previous presence.
In speaking on the Gospel of St. John I have already
pointed out how impossible it would have been for
anyone who knew Jesus not to regognise Him after 3
days, or to confuse Him with someone else, if He had
not appeared in an altered form. The Evangelists
wish particularly to evoke the impression that the
Christ appeared in this altered form. But they also
wish to indicate something else. For the Christ to
exert influence on human souls, a certain
receptivity in those souls was necessary. And this
receptivity had to be acted on not merely by an
influence from the realm of the Spirit but by the
actual sight of the Christ-Being.
If we ask what this signifies, we must realise that
when a person stands before us, his effect upon us
goes beyond anything we are conscious of. Whenever a
human being or other being works upon us,
unconscious elements affect our soul-life; they are
produced by the other being indirectly through
consciousness, but he can produce them only if he
stands before us in actuality. What the Christ
brought about from person to person after the so-called
Resurrection was something that worked up
from the unconscious soul-powers of the disciples
into their soul-life: an acquaintance with the Son.
Hence the differences in the portrayal of the risen
Christ; hence, too, the variations in the accounts,
showing how the Christ appeared to one or other
person, according to the disposition of the person
concerned. Here we see the Christ-Being acting on
the subconscious part of the souls of the disciples;
hence the appearances are quite individual, and we
should not complain because they are not uniform.
If, however, the significance of the Christ for the
world was to be His bringing to all men something
common to all of them, then not only this individual
working of the Son had to proceed from the Christ,
but the element of Spirit, which can encompass
something that belongs to all men, had to be renewed
by Him. This is indicated by the statement, that
after the Christ had worked upon the Logos-nature of
man, He sent forth the Spirit in the form of the
renewed or ‘holy, Spirit’. Thus was created that
element common to all men which is characterised
when we are told that the disciples, after they had
received the Spirit, began to speak in the most
diverse tongues. Here we are shown how the common
element resides in the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit. And something else is indicated; how
different is this out-pouring of the Spirit from the
simple imparting of the power of the Son, for in the
Acts of the Apostles we are told that certain
persons to whom the apostles came had already
received the Jesus-baptism, and yet they had now to
receive for the first time the Spirit, symbolically
indicated by the laying on of hands. In the
characterisation of the Christ-working, which acts
upon the subconscious impulses of the soul and so
must have a personal, inward character, and the
Spirit-element, which represents something common to
all mankind.
It is this Spirit-element that those who have named
themselves ‘Rosicrucians’ have sought to preserve
most carefully, as far as human weakness permits.
The Rosicrucians have always wished to adhere
strictly to the rule that even in the highest
regions of Initiation nothing must be worked upon
except the Spirit-element which, as common between
man and man, is available in the evolution of
humanity. It was never an Initiation of the Will,
for the Will of man was to be respected as a
sanctuary in the innermost part of the soul. Hence
the individual was led to those Initiations which
were to take him beyond the stage of Imagination,
Inspiration, and Intuition, but always so that he
could recognise within himself the response which
the development of the Spirit-element was to call
forth. No influence was to be exerted on the Will.
We must not mistake this attitude for one of
indifference towards the Will. The point is that by
excluding all direct working upon the Will, the
purest spiritual influence was imparted indirectly
through the Spirit. When we come to an understanding
with another man with regard to entering on the path
of knowledge of the Spirit, light and warmth are
radiated from the spiritual path, and they then
enkindle the Will, but always by the indirect path
through the Spirit — never otherwise.
In Rosicrucianism, therefore, we can observe in the
highest sense that impulse of Christianity which
finds twofold statement: on the one hand in the Son-element,
in the Christ-working which goes down
deeply into the subconscious; on the other, in the
Spirit-working which embraces all that falls within
the horizon of our consciousness. We must indeed
bear the Christ in our Will; but the way in which
man should come to an understanding with each other
in life concerning the Christ can be found only — in
the Rosicrucian sense — through a conscious soul-life
which penetrates ever more deeply into the
occult.
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In reaction against many other
spiritual streams in Europe, the opposite way was
taken by those who are usually called Jesuits. The
radical, fundamental difference between what we
justifiably call the Christian way of the Spirit and
the Jesuit way of the Spirit, which gives a one-sided
exaggeration to the Jesus-Principle, is that
the intention of the Jesuit way is to work directly,
at all times upon the Will. The difference is
clearly shown in the method by which the pupil of
Jesuitism is educated. Jesuitism is not to be taken
lightly, or merely exoterically, but also
esoterically, for it is rooted in esotericism. It is
not, however, rooted in the spiritual life that is
poured out through the symbol of Pentacost, but it
seeks to root itself directly in the Jesus-element
of the Son, which means in the Will; and thereby it
exaggerates the Jesus-element of the Will.
This will be seen when we now enquire into the
esoteric part of Jesuitism, its various spiritual
exercises. How were these exercises arranged? The
essential point is that every single pupil of
Jesuitism goes through exercises which lead into the
occult life, but into the Will, and within the field
of occultism they hold the Will in severe
discipline; they ‘break it in’, one might say. And
the significant fact is that this discipline of the
Will does not arise merely from the surface of life,
but from something deeper, because the pupil has
been led into the occult, in the way just indicated.
If now, leaving aside the exercises of prayer
preparatory to all Jesuit exercises, we consider
these occult exercises, at least in their chief
points, we find that the pupil has first to call up
a vivid Imagination of Christ Jesus as the King of
the Worlds — mark this carefully: an Imagination.
And no one would be received into the degrees of
Jesuitism who had not gone through such exercises,
and had not experienced in his soul the
transformation which such psychic exercises mean for
the whole man. But this Imaginative presentation of
Christ Jesus as King of the Worlds has to be
preceded by something else. The pupil has to call up
for himself, in absolute solitude and seclusion, a
picture of man as he was created in the world, and
how by falling into sin he incurred the possibility
of most terrible punishments. And it is strictly
prescribed how one must picture such a man; how if
he were left to himself he would incur the utmost of
torturing penalties. The rules are extraordinarily
severe. With all other concepts or ideas excluded,
this picture must live uninterruptedly within the
soul of the future Jesuit, the picture of the God-forsaken man,
the man exposed to the most fearful
punishments, together with the feeling: ‘That am I,
since I have come into the world and have forsaken
God, and have exposed myself to the possibility of
the most fearful punishments.’ This must call forth
the fear of being forsaken by God, and detestation
of man as he is according to his own nature.
Then, in a further Imagination, over against the
picture of the outcast, God-forsaken man, must be
set the picture of the God full of pity who then
became Christ, and through His acts on earth atones
for what man has brought about by forsaking the
divine path. In contrast to the Imagination of the
God-forsaken man, there must arise that of the all-merciful,
loving Being, Christ Jesus, to whom alone
it is due that man is not exposed to all possible
punishments working upon his soul. And, just as
vividly as a feeling of contempt for the forsaking
of the divine path had first to become fixed in the
soul of the Jesuit pupil, so must a feeling of
humility and contrition now take hold of him in the
presence of Christ.
When these 2 feelings have been called forth in the
pupil, then for several weeks he has to practise
severe exercises, picturing to himself in
Imagination all details of the life of Jesus from
his birth to the Crucifixion and Resurrection. And
all that can arise in the soul emerges when the
pupil lives in rigorous seclusion and, except for
necessary meals, lets nothing else work upon his
soul than the pictures which the Gospels give of the
compassionate life of Jesus. But these pictures do
not merely appear before him in thoughts and ideas;
they must work upon his soul in vivid, living
Imaginations.
Only someone who really knows how the human soul is
transformed through Imaginations which work with
full living power — only he knows that under such
conditions the soul is in fact completely changed.
Such Imaginations, because they are concentrated in
the most intense, one-sided way, first on sinful
man, secondly on the compassionate God, and then
only on the pictures from the New Testament, evoke
precisely, through the law of polarity, a
strengthened Will. These pictures produce their
effect directly, at first hand, for any reflection
upon them must be dutifully excluded. It is solely a
matter of holding before one's mind these
Imaginations, as they have been described.
What then follows is this. In the further exercises
Christ Jesus — and now we may no longer say Christ,
but exclusively Jesus — is represented as the
universal King of the Worlds, and thereby the Jesus
element is exaggerated. Because Christ had to be
incarnated in a human body, the purely spiritual
took part in the physical world; but over against
this participation stand the monumental and most
significant words: “My kingdom is not of this
world.” We can exaggerate the Jesus element by
making Jesus into a king of this world, by making
Him that which He would have become if He had not
resisted the tempter who wished to give Him ‘all the
kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof’. Then
Jesus of Nazareth would have been a king who, unlike
other kinds who possess only a portion of the earth,
would have had the whole earth under his sway. If we
think of this kind portrayed in this guise, his
kingly power so increased that the whole earth is
his domain, then we should have the very picture
that followed the other exercises through which the
personal will of each Jesuit pupil had been
sufficiently strengthened.
To prepare for this picture of “King Jesus”, this
Ruler over all the kingdoms of the earth, the pupil
had to form an Imagination of Babylon and the plain
around Babylon as a living picture, and, enthroned
over Babylon, Lucifer with his banner. This picture
had to be visualized with great exactitude, for it
is a powerful imagination: King Lucifer, with his
banner and his hosts of Luciferic angels, seated
amidst fire and dense smoke, as he sends out his
angels to conquer the kingdoms of the earth. And the
whole danger that issues from the ‘banner of
Lucifer’ must first of all be imagined by itself,
without casting a glance upon Christ Jesus. The soul
must be entirely engrossed in the Imagination of the
danger which issues from the banner of Lucifer. The
soul must learn to feel that the greatest danger to
the world's existence that could be conjured forth
would be a victory for the banner of Lucifer. And
when this picture has had its effect, the other
Imagination, ‘The banner of Jesus’, must take its
place. The pupil must now visualise Jerusalem and
the plain around Jerusalem; King Jesus with His
hosts, how he conquers and drives off the hosts of
Lucifer and makes Himself King of the whole earth —
the victory of the banner of Jesus over the banner
of Lucifer.
These are the strength-giving Imaginations for the
Will which are brought before the soul of the Jesuit
pupil. This is what completely changes his Will;
makes him such that in his Will, because it is
trained occultly, he turns away from everything else
and surrenders absolutely to the idea: ‘King Jesus
must become the Ruler upon earth, and we who belong
to His army have to employ every means to make Him
Ruler of the earth. To this we pledge ourselves, we
who belong to His host assembled on the plain of
Jerusalem, against the host of Lucifer assembled on
the plain of Babylon. And the greatest disgrace for
a soldier of King Jesus is to forsake His banner.’
These ideas, gathered up into a single resolution of
the Will, can certainly give the Will immense
strength. But we must ask: what is it in the soul-life
that has been directly attacked? The element
that ought not to be touched — the Will-element. In
so far as this Jesuit training lays hold of the
Will-element, while the Jesus-idea seizes the Will-element
completely, in so far is the concept of the
dominion of Jesus exaggerated in the most dangerous
way — dangerous because through it the Will becomes
so strong that it can work directly upon the Will of
another. For where the Will becomes so strong
through Imaginations, which means by occult means,
it acquires the capacity for working directly upon
the Will of another, and hence also along all the
other occult paths to which such a Will can have
recourse.
Thus we see how in recent centuries we encounter
these two movements, among many others: one has
exaggerated the Jesus-element and sees in ‘King
Jesus’ the sole ideal of Christianity, which the
other looks solely at the Christ-element and
carefully sets aside anything that could go beyond
it. This second outlook has been much calumniated
because it maintains that Christ has sent the
Spirit, so that, indirectly through the Spirit,
Christ can enter into the hearts and minds of men.
In the development of civilisation during the last
few centuries there is hardly a greater contrast
than that between Jesuitism and Rosicrucianism, for
Jesuitism contains nothing of what Rosicrucianism
regards as the highest ideal concerning human worth
and human dignity, while Rosicrucianism has always
sought to guard itself from any influence which
could in the remotest sense be called Jesuitical.
In this lecture I wished to show how even so lofty
an element as the Jesus-Principle can be exaggerated
and then becomes dangerous, and how necessary it is
to sink oneself into the depths of the Christ-Being
if we wish to understand how the strength of
Christianity must reside in esteeming, to the very
highest degree, human dignity and human worth, and
in strictly refraining from groping our clumsy way
into man's inmost sanctuary. Rosicrucianism, even
more than Christian mysticism, is attacked by the
Jesuit element, because the Jesuits feel that true
Christianity is being sought elsewhere than in the
setting which offers merely ‘King Jesus’ in the
leading role. But the Imaginations here indicated,
together with the prescribed exercises, have made
the Will so strong that even protests brought
against it in the name of the Spirit can be
defeated.
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