Lecture IX
Ancient Revelation and Learning How to Ask
Modern Questions
Kristiania (Oslo), May 16, 1909
Today we
shall stress more the occult side of yesterday's
observation. The four post-Atlantean cultures somehow had to
reflect the great cosmic events in the souls of human beings
as they had happened in historical sequence. However,
beginning with the thirteenth or fourteenth century of our
cultural epoch, such a reflection no longer took place
because the external events in human evolution must be traced
to more profound reasons.
We know that
the etheric bodies of the great Atlantean initiates had been
preserved for the Seven Holy Rishis, and we also know how the
etheric and astral body of Zarathustra had been woven into
those of Moses and Hermes. At any time the possibility
existed that such etheric bodies, which had been cultivated
and prepared by the initiates, could be further used in the
spiritual economy of the world. But other things took place
as well. For especially important personalities, such etheric
bodies are formed in the higher worlds. When somebody was
especially important for the mission of humanity, an etheric
body or an astral body was woven in the higher worlds and was
then imprinted on this personality.
This is what
happened in the case of Shem who indeed has something to do
with the whole tribe of the Semites. A special etheric body
was coined for such a tribal ancestor, and Shem became a sort
of dual personality by this process. It may sound fantastic
to the modern mind, but a clairvoyant would see a personality
like Shem as he would see an ordinary human being with his or
her aura; but then also in such a way as if a higher being
that extends down from higher worlds completely filled his
etheric body and as if the aura became a mediator between
this personality and the higher world. Residing in a human
being, such a divine being, however, has a very special
power: it can multiply such an etheric body, and the
multiplied etheric bodies then form a web that is continually
woven into the descendants. Thus the descendants of Shem
received an imprint of the copy of his etheric body. However,
the Mystery Centers kept not only the multiplied copies but
also the etheric body of Shem himself. Any personality that
was meant to receive a special mission had to use this
etheric body if it wanted to be able to communicate with the
Semitic people, similar to the way in which a very educated
European would have to learn the language of the Hottentots
if he wanted to communicate with them. Therefore, the
personality with a special mission had to bear within himself
the real etheric body of Shem in order to be able to
communicate with the Semitic people. Such a personality, for
example, was Melchizedek: he could show himself to Abraham
only in the etheric body of Shem.
We now have
to ask ourselves something. If it is only now, in the fifth
post-Atlantean cultural epoch, possible for us to develop an
understanding for Christianity, what was the situation in the
remainder of the Graeco-Latin era, which lasted into the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? A mysterious, occult
process took place. Christ lived only three years in the
sheaths of Jesus of Nazareth, who was such a sublime
individuality that He was able to leave the physical world at
the age of thirty when the dove appeared over His head so
that He could enter the spiritual world. Since the
Christ-Individuality lived in the physical body, it filled
out the three highly developed bodies of Jesus. Invisible to
the physical eye, they were now multiplied as had formerly
been the case with the etheric body of Shem so that the
copies of the etheric and astral bodies of Jesus of Nazareth
were available from the time he died on the cross. This has
nothing to do with His ego; it passed into the spiritual
world and has repeatedly reincarnated itself afterward.
We see how
Christian writers in the first few centuries after the
Christ-Event still worked on the basis of an oral tradition
that was transmitted by the disciples of the Apostles, who
set great value on a direct, physical transmission of the
Christ-Event. However, this would not have been a sufficient
building block for later centuries, and that is why a copy of
the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth was woven into
especially eminent heralds of the Christian message beginning
with the sixth and seventh centuries. One such herald was
Augustine, who in his youth had to go through tremendous
struggles. However, only when the impulse of the etheric body
of Jesus of Nazareth came to work in him in a significant way
did he begin to become engaged in Christian mysticism of his
own initiative. His writings can be understood only in this
light. Many other personalities in the world, such as Columban,
[ Note 40 ]
Gallus,
[ Note 41 ]
and Patrick,
[ Note 42 ]
carried within themselves such a copy of Jesus's etheric body
and were therefore in a position to spread Christianity and
built a bridge from the Christ-Event to the succeeding
times.
By contrast,
we see human beings whose astral body received the astral
body of Jesus of Nazareth in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. Such a personality was Francis of Assisi. When we
look at his life from this point of view, we will understand
it in quite a few ways. His qualities of humility and
Christian devotion will become especially clear to us when we
tell ourselves that such a mystery lived in him. In the time
from about the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries such
human beings became the heralds of Christianity by the very
fact that the astral body of Jesus was woven into their own
astral body. Hence, they received Christianity by virtue of
Grace.
Although the
ego of Jesus of Nazareth left its three sheaths at the
baptism of John, a copy of this ego remained in each of them
similar to the imprint a seal leaves behind. The Christ-Being
took possession of these three bodies and of that which
remained as the imprint of the Jesus-Ego. Beginning with the
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, something like
an ego copy of Jesus was woven into human beings who began to
speak of an “inner Christ.” Meister Eckhart and
Tauler were individuals who spoke from their own experience
like an ego copy of Jesus of Nazareth.
There are
still many people present who carry within themselves
something like the various bodies of Jesus of Nazareth, but
these are now no longer the leading personalities.
Increasingly we can see how there are human beings in the
fifth epoch who must rely on themselves and on their own ego
and how such inspired people have become a rarity. It was
therefore necessary that a spiritual tendency develop in our
fifth epoch to ensure that humanity would continue to be
imbued with spiritual knowledge. Those individualities who
were capable of looking into the future had to take care that
human beings in the times to come would not be left simply to
rely on their human ego only. The legend of the Holy Grail
relates that the chalice from which the Christ Jesus took the
Last Supper with his disciples was kept in a certain place.
We see in the story of Parsifal the course of a young
person's education typical for our fifth post-Atlantean
epoch. Parsifal had been instructed not to ask too many
questions, and his dilemma arose from his following those
instructions. That is the important transition from the
traditional to more modern times: in ancient India and later
with Augustine and Francis of Assisi the student had to live
in a state of the highest degree of passive devotion. All
these humble people allowed themselves to be inspired by what
was already alive in them and by what had been woven into
them. But now things changed in that the ego became a
questioning ego. Today, any soul that accepts passively what
is given to it cannot transcend itself because it merely
oberves the happenings in the physical world around it. In
our times the soul has to ask questions; it has to rise above
itself; it has to grow beyond its given form. It must raise
questions, just as Parsifal ultimately learned to inquire
after the mysteries of the Grail's Castle.
[ Note 43 ]
Spiritual
investigation today begins only where there is questioning,
and the souls today that are stimulated by external science
to ask questions and to search are the Parsifal souls. And
this has led to the introduction of Rosicrucian education
— that much maligned mystery school of thought —
that accepts tradition gratefully but does not accept
traditional wisdom blindly. Yet that which today constitutes
Rosicrucian spiritual orientation has been investigated in
the higher worlds directly with the spiritual eye and with
the means the student himself has been instructed to utilize
This has not come about simply because this or that is
written in old books or because certain people believed one
thing or another. Rather, the Rosicrucian spiritual method
proclaims wisdom that has been investigated today. It was
gradually prepared in the Rosicrucian schools that were
founded in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as a
result of the work of an individuality by the name of
Christian Rosenkreutz.
This
accumulated wisdom can today be proclaimed as Spiritual
Science. This is so because today it is no longer possible to
instill in human beings what is to inspire them from the
inside without their having a hand in the process. Today
people who feel that Spiritual Science speaks to their hearts
must approach it through their own free will, through their
own free impulse, and through the fact that they feel
enlivened by spiritual knowledge. Hence we need not attempt
to stir up an interest in Spiritual Science.
Through this
theosophical-Rosicrucian orientation of the spirit, we again
bring close to ourselves what is still present in the copies
of Jesus of Nazareth's ego. Those who prepare
themselves in this manner will pull into their souls the copy
of the ego of Jesus of Nazareth so that they become like
imprints of a seal, and it is in this way that the Christ-
Principle finds its way into the human soul. Rosicrucianism
prepared something positive, and since anthroposophy is meant
to become life, the souls that absorb and truly accept it
will gradually undergo a metamorphosis. To accept
anthroposophy within yourself means to change the soul in
such a way that it is able to come to a true understanding of
the Christ.
The
anthroposophist makes himself or herself a living recipient
of what was given to Moses and Paul in the
JavehChrist-Revelation. It is written in the fifth letter of
the Apocalypse that the people in the fifth cultural epoch
are those who can really absorb the things that will be quite
obvious for the cultural period of the Philadelphia
community. The wisdom of the fifth cultural period will open
as a flower of love in the sixth period.
Today mankind
is called upon to accept into itself something new, something
divine, and thereby to undertake again the ascent into the
spiritual world. The Spiritual Scientific teaching of
evolution is being imparted not because people are supposed
to put their blind faith into it, but because mankind is
supposed to reach an understanding of it through its own
powers of judgment. This teaching is being directed to those
who bear the core of the Parsifal nature within themselves.
And it is not being proclaimed just in special places or to a
special group of people, but human beings from all of
humanity will come together to listen to the call of
spiritual wisdom.
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