LECTURE FIVE
Berne,
September 5, 1910
It must be
strictly remembered that there is no connection of
kinship or other such relationship between Jesus, the son
of Pandira, Jeschu ben Pandira, and the central figure in
the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, or any other
Gospel. A hundred years before our era, that is to say a
hundred years before the coming of Christ, Jeschu ben
Pandira was stoned and then hanged on a tree, and he must
not be confused with any figure in the Gospels. I want to
emphasize, however, that to speak about the personality
or existence of Jeschu ben Pandira requires no occult
knowledge or clairvoyant faculty, because information
about him can be obtained, if so desired, from Hebrew and
Talmudist records. Confusion with the real Jesus has
constantly occurred, for the first time actually as early
as the second century A.D. Although Jesus, the son of
Pandira, is not to be identified with Jesus of the
Gospels there is a historical connection between the two
personalities. This connection can be established to-day
only through spiritual-scientific research and to
understand it in all its depth we must again speak
briefly of the evolution of humanity.
Looking up
to those Beings who are the great Leaders of evolution,
we come finally to lofty Individualities generally known
by the name of Bodhisattvas — because it is in the
East that the theory of their existence has been most
firmly established. There are a number of Bodhisattvas.
Their task as the great Teachers of humanity is to allow
wisdom from, the spiritual worlds to flow through the
Mystery Schools according to the maturity attained by men
in a given epoch. The two Bodhisattvas — to whom
reference has often been made when 'we have been speaking
of the evolution of humanity — of primary interest
for our own times arc the son of King Suddhodana who
became Buddha, and he who as Gautama Buddha's successor
in the office of Bodhisattva still holds this office
to-day and — as Oriental wisdom and clairvoyant
investigation agree — will do so for the next 2,500
years. This Bodhisattva will then become Maitreya Buddha,
attaining the saint: rank as did his predecessor, Gautama
Buddha.
The
Bodhisattvas succeed one another in the evolution of
humanity as great Teachers and must not be confused with
the One who is the very source of their teachings, from
whom they receive what it is their mission to impart to
the several epochs. We must picture a 'college' of
Bodhisattvas and at its centre the living source of the
teachings. This living source is none other than He whom
we are accustomed to call ‘Christ’. It is
from Christ that all the Bodhisattvas receive what they
have to impart to men in the course of the ages.
As long as
a Bodhisattva holds this office he devotes himself first
and foremost to the task of teaching; for, as we have
heard, when he attains the rank of Buddhahood he does not
again descend to incarnation in a physical body. Once
more in agreement with all Oriental philosophy it can be
said that Gautama Buddha, who as the son of King
Suddhodana passed through his final incarnation in a
physical body, has since assumed embodiment only as far
as the etheric body. In the lectures on St. Luke's Gospel
we heard of the next task of this Bodhisattva after
becoming Buddha. When the so-called Nathan Jesus of St.
Luke's Gospel was born (he is not the same as the Jesus
of St. Matthew's Gospel), the Buddha who was embodied at
that time as far as the etheric body, penetrated into the
astral body of this child. Hence we can say that since
his incarnation as Gautama Buddha the function of that
Being was no longer to give teaching but to work as a
living power from the spiritual world into the physical
world. To work through teaching and to work as a living,
growth-promoting power arc entirely different matters. A
Bodhisattva is a Teacher until he becomes Buddha; from
then onwards he is a power, an organising,
life-bestowing power. And the Buddha worked as
such in the constitution of the Nathan Jesus.
Since the
sixth century B.C., the successor of the Bodhisattva who
then became Buddha has taken the latter's place in the
series of great Teachers. This is the Bodhisattva who
later on will become the Maitreya Buddha. Hence we have
to look for teachings needed by mankind since the time of
Gautama Buddha wheresoever the Bodhisattva who succeeded
him has poured down his inspiration, inculcating into his
disciples what it is their mission to communicate to the
world. — I said in the lecture yesterday that the
activities centred in the communities of the Therapeutae
and Essenes were chosen to be an instrument for the work
of this Bodhisattva, and that one of the very noblest,
purest personalities in the Essene communities was Jesus,
the son of Pandira. Thus it was through the Essenes that
the teaching of the Bodhisattva sent its radiance into
mankind on the Earth.
As hearers
of the deeper teachings, the Essene communities
disappeared comparatively soon after the Christ
Event—this is evident from external history. It
will therefore certainly not seem incredible when I say
that fundamentally and essentially the communities of the
Therapeutae and Essenes were instituted in order that
they might be instrumental in bringing down from the
spiritual realms, from the spheres of the Bodhisattvas,
what was needed to enable men to comprehend the momentous
event of the appearance of Christ. The most important
teachings given to mankind with the object of promoting
understanding of the Christ Event stemmed from the
communities of the Therapeutae and the Essenes. Thus
Jesus, the son of Pandira, inspired as it were by the
Bodhisattva who will become the Maitreya Buddha and whose
influence was at work in these communities, was chosen to
give teachings whereby the Mystery of Palestine, the
Mystery of Christ, could be brought within reach of man's
understanding. More detailed information about the
Therapeutae and Essenes can be discovered only by means
of spiritual-scientific investigation. Very little is
known about them in external history. And as we are among
anthroposophists, we shall not hesitate to draw from the
secrets possessed by the Therapeutae and Essenes what is
necessary for a deeper understanding of St. Matthew's
Gospel, as well as of the other Gospels. We shall speak
of the secrets in a way that tallies with the picture a
spiritual scientist must have of these communities which
flourished a century before the Christ Event in order to
prepare for it through special teachings.
The
essential feature in these communities was the Initiation
undergone by members of the sects. This Initiation was
specially adapted to promote understanding, through
clairvoyant vision, of the significance of the part
played by the Hebrews and by Abraham in preparation for
the coming of Christ. That was the mystery with which the
communities of the Therapeutae and Essenes were specially
concerned. The very purpose of the Initiation undergone
by their disciples was to promote deeper and more exact
clairvoyant insight into the connection just mentioned.
In the first place, therefore, it was necessary that an
Essene should learn to assess the full significance of
what had come about for the Hebrew people through
Abraham, and so be able to see in him the progenitor of
that people. Through his own vision an Essene was to
realise that there had been implanted into Abraham the
faculty of which I have spoken in the preceding lectures,
which had then to be filtered through many generations,
flowing down through the blood.
To
understand how something of importance for the whole
evolution of humanity can be brought about through a
personality such as Abraham, you must keep this very
significant truth clearly in mind: that always, whenever
a personality is chosen to be a special instrument in the
great process of evolution, a divine-spiritual Being must
have a direct hold in that personality.
(Those of
you who were present at the performance in Munich of the
Rosicrucian Mystery Play, The Portal of
Initiation, or have read it, will know that one of
the most important dramatic moments [ Note 01 ] is when the Hierophant indicates
to Maria that she can fulfil her mission only when the
influence of higher Beings has actually taken effect in
her, when, in her case, this has caused what may be
called a separation of the higher members of her nature
from the lower, making it possible for the latter to be
'possessed' by an inferior spirit. — Everything in
the Mystery Play, if you let it work upon your souls and
do not take it superficially, can make you alive to great
secrets of the evolution of humanity.)
As such a
momentous role in evolution had been assigned to Abraham,
it was necessary that the Spirit once perceptible to men
in Atlantean times weaving through the external world
should penetrate into his inner, organic constitution.
Abraham was the first in whom this came to pass and
therewith a fundamental change in man's faculty of
spiritual perception was made possible. This could be
brought about only through the influence of a
divine-spiritual Being and such a Being did, in fact, lay
into the organic constitution of Abraham the seed for the
bodies that were to descend from him in the line of
generations.
Thus an
Essene would have said: The power that could actually
bring the Hebrew people into existence, the power that
enabled this people to become the bearers of the mission
which prepares for Christ's coming, was established, in
rudiment to begin with, by the mysterious Being who is
only to be discovered when the soul ascends through the
entire sequence of generations to Abraham, to the point
where this Being entered into Abraham's bodily
constitution, thereafter to work through the blood as a
kind of Folk-Spirit in the Hebrew people. If, therefore,
this secret of the evolution of humanity is to be
understood, a man must rise in soul to the Spirit who
implanted that power and seek for him in the realm where
he was to be found before he had penetrated into
Abraham. — The Essenes said: If a man desires to
ascend in soul to the Spirit inspiring the Hebrew people
and to know him in all purity, such a man, if he is an
Essene or a Therapeut, must undergo a certain development
whereby he purifies himself from everything that since
the time of Abraham has approached the human soul from
the physical world. The spiritual Being within man, and
all the spiritual Beings who work together to bring about
the evolution of humanity are to be experienced in their
purity only in the spiritual world; in the state in which
they exist within man they have been defiled by the
forces of the physical world of sense.
According
to the view held by the Essenes--and in a certain
province of knowledge it is of course absolutely correct
— every human being had within him whatever
impurities had made their way into the soul in the past,
clouding vision of the spiritual Being who had
established in Abraham the power of which we have spoken.
Accordingly it was essential that the soul of every
Essene should be cleansed of everything that had
penetrated into this power as a disturbing factor,
dimming the vision of the Being indwelling the blood of
the generations. The aim of all the methods of inner
purification, all the exercises practised by the Essenes,
was to liberate the soul from those inherited traits and
influences which might obscure vision of the Being who
was the Inspirer of Abraham. It was realised that the
soul and spirit within man, this inmost core of his
nature, had been clouded and sullied through the
inherited traits.
There is a
spiritual law which through their studies and clairvoyant
perception the Essenes were well able to grasp, namely
that the influence of heredity ceases only after 42
stages in the line of generations. Only after 42 stages
have all traces of heredity been eliminated from a man's
soul. He inherits something from his father and his
mother, something from his grandfather and grandmother
and so on, but the earlier the stages in the sequence of
generations, the less are inherited impurities within
him, and after 42 generations there are none; the
influence of heredity no longer exists. Hence the aim of
the methods of purification practised by the Essenes was
to eliminate, through exercises and strict training of
the inner life, whatever impurities had sullied the soul
in the course of 42 generations. Every Essene was obliged
to submit to severe discipline and to undergo difficult
mystical experiences leading through 42 stages. There
were 42 distinct stages on this mystical path to
purification; when he had passed through them in actual
experience an Essene knew that he was free from all
influences of the world of the senses, from all the
impurities in his inner nature resulting from
heredity.
Thus an
Essene rose in soul through 42 stages to the high level
where he felt the inmost core of his own being to be
related to the Divine-Spiritual. He said: By passing
through these 42 stages I reach the God for whom I aspire
! — The Essenes had clear perception of how a man
could rise in soul to a Divine Being who had not yet
descended into matter, for the path of ascent was known
to them from their own experience. Among all who were
living on the Earth at that time, the Therapeutae and the
Essenes alone were cognizant of the truth about what had
come to pass through Abraham. They knew the truth
concerning heredity through the generations and they knew
too that to ascend to a Being who has entered the stream
of heredity and reach the stage where that Being had not
yet descended into matter, a man must rise in soul
through 42 stages, corresponding to the 42 generations;
then the Being would be found. But they knew some-thing
else as well, namely this. — Just as a man must
ascend in soul through the 42 stages to reach this Divine
Being, so must the Divine Being himself take the path in
the opposite direction, descending through 42
stages if he is to penetrate into the blood of a man.
Just as there are 42 stages on the path of ascent to the
Divine Being, so must the Divine Being descend through 42
stages in order to become a man among men.
Such were
the teachings given among the Essenes, above all by
Jeschu ben Pandira, under the influence of the inspiring
Bodhisattva. Thus it was a doctrine of the Essenes that
the Being who had inspired Abraham to receive the Divine
Seed into his own organism, needed 42 generations to
descend to manhood.
When we
know this we also know the source of the know-ledge that
enabled the writer of the Gospel of St. Matthew to
enumerate precisely these 42 generations. And it was
Jesus, the son of Pandira, who drew the attention of the
Essenes to one point in particular. — The 42
generations would not be completed until a further
hundred years had elapsed after the century in which he
was living. He therefore taught the Essenes that they
could rise in soul through the 42 stages only so far as a
link with historical events was still possible, and that
from that point onwards any further advance could only be
through grace from above. But, so he taught them, the
time will come when, as a natural happening, a man will
be born for whom it will be possible to rise through his
own blood to such a lofty height that there can descend
into him the Divine Power enabling him to bring to
manifestation the Spirit of the Hebrew people, the
Jahve-Spirit, in the blood of that people. Jeschu ben
Pandira taught: If Zarathustra, the herald of Ahura
Mazdao, is to incarnate in a human body, this body must
have been prepared in such a way that the
divine-spiritual Being indwelling it has descended
through 42 generations.
The Essene
communities, therefore, were the source of the teaching
concerning the generations with which St. Matthew's
Gospel begins. But to understand these facts thoroughly,
reference must be made to an even deeper aspect of the
subject.
Because man
is a twofold being, everything connected with his
development presents itself to us from two sides. During
waking consciousness the four members of man's being are
united and his twofold nature is not immediately
apparent. But during sleep he is quite clearly twofold:
his physical and etheric bodies remain in the physical
world and his astral body and Ego have emerged from the
other two members. As long as we are concerned with that
which makes man part of the physical world, we can speak
only of physical body and etheric body. In truth, all
man-made institutions and affairs in the physical world
concern the physical body and etheric body, although
during waking life the activity of the other members is
also involved. During the hours of waking consciousness
man works from his Ego and astral body into the other two
members; during sleep he leaves the latter to themselves.
But in reality, the moment he goes to sleep, forces and
beings begin to work from the Cosmos and to permeate the
members he has temporarily abandoned; it is a fact,
therefore, that a constant influence from the Cosmos is
exercised upon his physical and etheric bodies. These
bodies that re-main in the bed during sleep constitute
the outer side of man's structure and their attributes
are comprised within 42 generations, during which span
these attributes are transmitted by heredity. If we take
everything that belongs to the physical nature in the
first generation and then pass on through 42 generations,
when these have been completed, no trace at all will be
found of the rudimental qualities that were the most
fundamental in the first generation. In other words, the
active characteristics and forces in the physical and
etheric bodies of a human being arc comprised within 6
times 7 generations. Whatever the inherited traits in
these two bodies may be, they must be sought among the
ancestors, but only within the course of 42 generations.
Beyond that, nothing is to be found; everything belonging
to an earlier generation has vanished. The forces
inherent in the outer constitution of a human being are
therefore essentially connected with 42 generations.
In this
sense the evolution or development of man in Time is
based upon a principle of number. This must be studied
more closely, for it has an important bearing upon the
genealogy given in St. Matthew's Gospel.
Everything
relating to the physical body is connected with 42
generations, because everything that has to do with
development or evolution in Time is governed by the
number 7. Evolution through the period during which
physical attributes are inherited was known by the
Essenes to be connected with this number. An Essene said
to himself: You have to pass through 6 times 7 stages=42
stages; then you come to the next 7 stages which complete
the multiples of 7 : 7 times 7 =49 stages. It is however
the case that whatever lies beyond the 42 stages can no
longer be attributed to the forces and beings working as
active factors in the physical and etheric bodies. In
accordance with the law governing the number 7, the whole
evolution of the physical and etheric bodies is actually
achieved only after 7 times 7 generations; but in the
final 7 generations complete transformation has already
taken place and nothing of the earlier generations is any
longer present. The Essenes knew that what primarily
concerned them was comprised within the 6 times 7
generations; but that when the multiples of 7 were
complete, something new was there. In the sphere entered
after the 42 generations, they realised that they no
longer had to do with human but with superhuman
existence. They said: 6 times 7 generations are connected
with the Earth, and what lies beyond them to make 7 times
7 already leads beyond the Earth: this is the fruit for
the spiritual world. After the 6 times 7 generations the
fruit is produced which then, with the completion of the
7 times 7, emerges for the spiritual world.
Hence the
thoughts of those among whom the Gospel of St. Matthew
originated were somewhat to the following effect. —
The physical body used by Zarathustra must be of such
maturity that after the 42 generations it is already at
the point of spiritualisation, therefore of deification.
It is in existence at the beginning of the 43rd
generation, but instead of passing into the further
stages this body allows itself to be permeated by another
Being — by the spirit of Zarathustra who incarnated
on the Earth as Jesus of Nazareth. — Thus through
the fulfillment of the mystery of numbers the most
fitting body and the most fitting blood had been provided
for the Zarathustra-soul in Jesus of Nazareth. —
Such is the preparation of whatever relates to physical
and etheric body in human evolution.
But now
there are in man — hence also in him who was to be
the bearer of the Christ Being — not only physical
body and etheric body but astral body and Ego as well.
Therefore the astral body and Ego too, not only the
physical and etheric bodies, had to be adequately
prepared. For an event of such stupendous importance this
could not be accomplished in one personality, and
two were necessary. The physical body and the
etheric body were prepared in the personality with whom
the Gospel of St. Matthew is primarily concerned; the
astral body and Ego-principle were prepared in the
personality of whom the Gospel of St. Luke tells and whom
we know as the Nathan Jesus. During the early years this
was a different personality. Whereas Jesus of St.
Matthew's Gospel received the suitable physical and
etheric bodies, Jesus of St. Luke's Gospel was to receive
the suitable astral body and Ego-principle. How could
this come to pass?
As I said
before, it is a fallacy due to the assertions of an
inferior kind of clairvoyance that the whole astral being
and the Ego of a man are contained in the cloudlike
formation hovering near the physical and etheric bodies
of one who is asleep. The truth is that when, during
sleep, man passes out of the physical and etheric bodies,
his being expands into the whole Cosmos, into everything
pertaining to the Cosmos. The mystery of our sleep is
that We draw from the world of t he stars — hence
we speak of ‘astral’ body — the purest
cosmic forces We then bring these forces with us when, on
waking, we descend into the physical and etheric bodies.
We emerge from sleep strengthened and vitalized by
everything we have been able to draw into ourselves from
the Cosmos.
When a man
develops clairvoyance in its higher form to-day —
and this applies also to the time of Christ Jesus —
what experiences must he undergo? In the conditions
normal at the present time, man becomes unconscious when
with his astral body and Ego he passes out of the
physical and etheric bodies. Clairvoyant consciousness
must, however, be brought to the stage where there can be
vision through the astral body and Ego alone, to the
entire exclusion of physical and etheric bodies. This
clairvoyant consciousness then participates in and
perceives the happenings of the world of the stars
— not only gazes into that world but actually
penetrates it. Just as the consciousness unfolded by the
Essenes rose upwards through the chronological sequence
of generations governed by the number 7, so must a man
pass through the stages that make it possible for him to
have clairvoyant vision of the Cosmos.
I have
often spoken of where the danger lies for development
either in the one direction or in the other. Among the
Essenes it was fundamentally a matter of descent into the
physical and etheric bodies in order that after
traversing the 42 generations they might find the Divine.
With them it was as if, on waking, instead of seeing the
world around him, a man were to plunge into his physical
and etheric bodies in order to observe their forces
— in other words, to perceive his external nature
from within. Normally, man does not descend consciously
into these bodies on waking; lie is protected from doing
so because at the moment of waking his consciousness is
diverted to the environment and is not directed to the
forces of the physical and etheric bodies. What was
essential for the Essenes was to learn to perceive all
the forces and capabilities originating from the 42
generations, to learn to disregard entirely what the eyes
observe in the outer world and to plunge straightaway
into their own physical and etheric bodies where they
then beheld the living produce of the secret of 6 times
7=42 generations.
Man must
raise his consciousness in a similar sense if his aim is
to ascend into the Cosmos in order to learn of the
mysteries underlying cosmic existence. This is a mightier
task. When descending into his own inner nature the only
danger facing him is that of being laid hold of by its
forces, by desires, passions and other tendencies in the
soul to which lie generally pays no heed or even has no
inkling that they exist, because in ordinary
circumstances his external interests keep him from direct
knowledge of them. In normal circumstances there is no
possibility that he will be overpowered by these forces,
because at the very moment of waking his attention is
diverted by the appearance of the outer world. Whereas,
therefore, when descending into his inner nature the
danger is that a man will be overwhelmed by his own
lowest and most egotistical urges, a different danger
confronts one who is living through the experience. of
expanding over the Cosmos. This danger cannot be more
exactly characterized than by saying: One who at the
moment of going to sleep does not become unconscious but
retains so much consciousness that in his astral body and
Ego he has an instrument for perception of the spiritual
world — for such a one the danger may be that he is
utterly dazzled, as if he were facing the blinding rays
of the sun. He is dazzled and bewildered by the
stupendous grandeur of the impressions.
While it
was necessary for the Essenes to recognize that all
inherited attributes in the physical and etheric bodies
were connected with the secret of the number 6 times 7, a
certain secret of number was also connected with the
attainment of knowledge of the mysteries of the Cosmos,
of the Great World. Again, the best approach to this
secret was to turn to movements and constellations in the
Cosmos, to the manifestations of the stars themselves. As
we have heard, 6 times 7 stages lead to the secrets of
man's inner nature; the secrets of cosmic space are
reached after 12 times 7=84 stages. A man who has passed
12 times 7 stages arrives at the point where the
labyrinth of the spiritual forces of the Cosmos is no
longer bewildering; he attains the state of calm in which
he can find his bearings in this labyrinth and see
through its intricacies. In a certain sense that too was
a teaching given by the Essenes.
When a man
who possesses the clairvoyant faculties here described
goes to sleep, his being flows out into conditions
expressed in the secret of the number 12 times 7. But at
the last of these stages he is already in the
super-sensible; for when he has completed the it times 7
stages he has reached the boundary of the conditions to
which the numerical secrets apply. Just as the 7 times 7
stages have already led into the Spiritual, so too have
the 12 times 7. To reach the Spiritual along this path a
man must have passed through t times 7 stages in the
astral body and Ego. This is indicated in the stellar
script itself, 7 being the number of the planets and I 2
that of the constellations of the Zodiac which the soul
must traverse in cosmic space. As the seven planets group
them-selves within the twelve zodiacal constellations and
pass in front of them, when a man is ascending in soul
into the Cosmos he must pass through 7 times 12, or
rather 7 times it stages to reach the Spiritual.
You can, if
you like, picture the 12 constellations of the Zodiac as
the spiritual periphery, with man himself in the centre.
If he is to reach the Spiritual, he cannot begin by
spreading as it were from the centre, but he must expand
in spirals, gyrating in 7 spirals and passing all the 12
constellations in each complete circuit — therefore
7 times 12 stages. Man expands in spirals gradually into
the Cosmos — all this is of course only a
figurative description — and if, circling in this
way, he were to have passed through the 12 constellations
for the seventh time, he would have reached the
Divine-Spiritual. Then, instead of looking into the
Cosmos from the centre, he looks inwards from the
spiritual periphery, from the twelve stations, and from
these vantage-points he can behold the external world and
all that is in it. There must be twelve such
vantage-points; one alone does not suffice. Thus a man
who aspired to reach the Divine-Spiritual must sublimate
astral body and Ego through 11 times 7 stages; when 12
times 7 stages had been scaled, he was within the
Spiritual.
Astral body
and Ego had in this way to pass through 1 2 times 7, or
rather t times 7 stages to reach the Divine. But if the
Divine is to descend and a human Ego be made fit to be
its vehicle, the descent must equally be through times 7
stages.
Therefore
in setting out to describe these spiritual forces whereby
astral body and Ego were rendered fit to be bearers of
the Christ, it was natural that the Gospel of St. Luke
should indicate how the Divine-Spiritual Power descended
through 11 times 7 stages. And this the Gospel does.
Because the Gospel of St. Luke is describing that other
Personality for whom astral body and Ego-bearer were
prepared, it does not — as the Gospel of St.
Matthew — describe 6 times 7 generations, but a
sequence of it times 7 stages through which the Power
indwelling the Individuality of the Jesus of whom this
Gospel is speaking, came down from God himself. This is
expressly stated. Count the stages enumerated in St.
Luke's Gospel as those through which the Divine Power
descends, and you will find that there are 77.
Because the
Gospel of St. Matthew is describing the secret of what is
taking effect during the descent of the Divine Power
working formatively in physical body and etheric body,
the ruling number is 7 times 7. And in the Gospel of St.
Luke the number 11 times 7 must necessarily appear,
because this Gospel is describing the descent of the
Divine Power by which the astral body and Ego are
transformed. From this we can realise what deep
foundations underlie these presentations and how in very
truth the secrets of Initiation, the stages in the
descent of the Divine-Spiritual into a human
individuality and in the expansion into the Cosmos arc
indicated in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke.
We will
speak again to-morrow of the reasons why the Gospel of
St. Luke enumerates a line of generations and why, in an
age when the mystery of Christ Jesus was imparted to only
a very few human beings, it was made known that from God
and from Adam down to the Jesus of St. Luke's Gospel
there had been 77 generations.
Notes:
1. Scene 3, pp.
1o7-8, in the translation by Adam Bittleston. The
whole scene should be read.
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