Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

In addition to the outer manifestation of Christianity as we know it from history, there exists a second, hidden stream of Christian thought and development, sometimes referred to as 'esoteric Christianity' or 'Rosicrucian Christianity'. Displaying an intimate knowledge of his subject, Rudolf Steiner throws light on this once secret, spiritual movement. But rather than relying on historical tradition or teaching, he presents wisdom and insight directly from the original metaphysical sources of esoteric Christianity.In these dynamic lectures, Steiner describes the influence of Christ's power throughout history, the workings of karma, the role of the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas, as well as the vital work of Christian Rosenkreutz, Jeshu ben Pandira and other key historical figures.This new edition - indispensable for serious students of esotericism - contains all 23 lectures and addresses of the original German collection. It features previously scattered, classic lectures such as 'The Etherisation of the Blood', 'Faith, Love, Hope' and 'Cosmic Ego and Human Ego'.

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY

and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz

Twenty-three lectures given between 17 September 1911 and 19 December 1912

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Lectures 13,19,21 and 22 translated by Matthew Barton, and all others revised by him

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, East Sussex RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

Originally published in German under the title Das esoterische Christentum und die geistige Führung der Menschheit (volume 130 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized translation is published by kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

Earlier English translations: Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1984 (13 lectures) and Faith, Love, Hope, Steiner Book Centre, N. Vancouver, no date (2 lectures). Single lectures from this volume have also appeared in: From Buddha to Christ, Anthroposophic Press, New York 1978; The Etherisation of the Blood, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1971; Cosmic Ego and Human Ego, The Nature of Christ the Resurrected, Anthroposophic Press/Rudolf Steiner Press, New York/London 1941; Facing Karma, Anthroposophic Press, New York 1975; Festivals and their Meaning, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1996, and The Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1950

Translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2000

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 307 3

Cover by Andrew Morgan Design Typeset by DP Photosetting, Aylesbury, Bucks.

Contents

Publisher’s Note

Foreword by Marie Steiner

The Christ Impulse and Historical Development

1. Lugano, 17 September 1911

2. Locarno, 19 September 1911

Buddha and Christ. The Sphere of the Bodhisattvas

Milan, 21 September 1911

Rosicrucian Christianity

1. Neuchâtel, 27 September 1911

2. Neuchâtel, 28 September 1911

The Etherisation of the Blood

Basle, 1 October 1911

Jeshu ben Pandira and the Christ Impulse

1. Leipzig, 4 November 1911

2. Leipzig, 5 November 1911

The Christ Impulse as Living Reality

1. Munich, 18 November 1911

2. Munich, 20 November 1911

Faith, Love, Hope. The Third Revelation to Mankind

1. Nuremberg, 2 December 1911

2. Nuremberg, 3 December 1911

Cosmic Ego and Human Ego. Supersensible Microcosmic Beings. The Nature of Christ

Munich, 9 January 1912

The Dawn of Occultism in the Modern Age

1. Kassel, 27 January 1912

2. Kassel, 29 January 1912

The True Attitude to Karma

Vienna, 8 February 1912

Intimate Workings of Karma

Vienna, 9 February 1912

The Death of a God and Its Fruits in Humanity

Düsseldorf, 5 May 1912

Address Given at the Opening of the Christian Rosenkreutz Group

Hamburg, 17 June 1912

The Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz. The Mission of Gautama Buddha on Mars

Neuchâtel, 18 December 1912

APPENDIX

The Significance of the Year 1250

Lecture notes, Cologne, 29 January 1911

The Seven Principles of the Macrocosm and their Connection with the Human Being

Lecture notes, Stuttgart, 28 November 1911

The Starry Heaven Above Me, the Moral Law Within Me

Lecture notes, St. Gallen, 19 December 1912

Notes

Publisher’s Note

The previous English edition of this book contained only 13 of the 23 lectures which appear in the original German language edition. As the volume documents such a critical period in the development of Steiner’s teaching—in particular his exposition of Christianity and its esoteric undercurrents—we felt it important that a complete edition should now be made available in English. We also felt that classic lectures such as ‘The Etherisation of the Blood’ should not be isolated to individual publications, but rather that readers should be given the chance of studying them in their original context.

In publishing an edition identical to the German, however, we have also included some repetition of content. This repetition was inevitable because Steiner was speaking on similar themes at different locations. We felt it justified, however, to publish the whole without further editing as there are also variations and important details which would otherwise be lost.

London, September 2000

Foreword

The Theosophical Society, founded by H.P. Blavatsky,1 had the task of adding an occult element to the awakening European interest in oriental spirituality which had been greatly stimulated in the mid-nineteenth century by Schopenhauer and other major thinkers. The Secret Doctrine2 by H.P. Blavatsky excited a good deal of interest and caused the rapid expansion of the Theosophical Society in the English-speaking world. It made no effort to take account of Christianity. An attempt by rosicrucian occultists, drawing on the author’s mediumistic faculties, to place Christianity at the centre of the new movement, had already been previously deflected. And yet Western and Eastern wisdom needed to be brought into harmony. Ancient wisdom needed to live on in the future development of mankind, whose salvation was guaranteed by the Mystery of Golgotha. Similar to the way that Christianity in the past, still young and vigorous in belief, had assimilated science through a wave of Arabism, turning observation of nature into the science of nature, so present mankind, fallen prey to materialism and parched, had to be permeated with the knowledge of ancient wisdom in order to revive. This took place by way of Buddhist philosophy, with the result that the teaching of karma and reincarnation found entry to many souls and penetrated their understanding. The scientific works of Max Müller,3 Deussen4 and other significant philosophers opened up to Europeans a world of overwhelming spirituality and living imaginations. Intellectual knowledge and science, however, still needed to find a key to open its understanding of this world. The work done by Blavatsky and her pupils in this respect was insufficient. There was as yet no one suitable for this task. Through the particular constitution of her physical organism H.P. Blavatsky had been an instrument particularly open to the influences of the spiritual world. Her strong will suited her for carrying out difficult tasks in the service of mankind; but her thinking was disjointed and her character often slipped back into emotionalism. When her emotions broke loose catastrophe ensued, and sometimes even her whole aim and direction were radically altered. It would not be wrong to say: as an instrument open to spiritual influence, occult forces fought over her.

In order to turn knowledge of the occult worlds into a science of the spirit which might in time be attained by others through serious study, someone was needed who could devote himself to this transformation with his character and temperament completely under control, a grasp of contemporary knowledge and command of all the various fields of knowledge—to an extent which enabled him to reply to the fiercest criticism. An iron and yet flexible physical constitution were required in order to withstand the onslaught against him.

Such a person was Rudolf Steiner.5 His youth was spent in what might be called convivial seclusion and constant study. Hardly grown up, he supported himself by giving lessons, and then as an educator. On this foundation his lecturing and writing activity developed while he was still a young man. Since the life of spirit was quite natural to him, he quite consciously undertook the task of raising all the objections which the critical materialist brings to bear on revelations of the spirit, and to spare himself nothing which might be the smallest deviation from this line. This he called ‘creeping into the skin of the dragon’. He felt this difficult task to be his duty. Otherwise he would have considered himself as lacking the right to fight the difficult battle for mankind to the end, of wresting victory from abstract intellectualism. Only then would he be able to present the deed of the Buddha and the deed of the Christ as a harmonious unity; only then, when he himself had gained victory over the inner adversary and his hidden ways, would he be able to point the path of salvation through Christ’s deed. Thus armed, he made his appearance as representative of the ancient mystery teachings as they had been revealed to him in the light of Christ’s deed.

The Theosophical Society was alarmed. It saw the deep effect of Steiner’s teachings on souls in search of Christ. It did not want to expose its members to this, did not want to expose them to the danger of taking in Steiner’s teachings, thus abandoning the ‘orientalizing stream’. His lecture theme for the Congress of the Federation of European Sections, arranged to take place in Genoa,6 was on Buddhist wisdom and Western esotericism. They opposed this subject with an Indian boy, according to them the incarnation in the flesh of Christ Jesus. No common ground for serious debate, as should have taken place at the Congress in Genoa, could be found to cover such a gaping divergence; and now that Rudolf Steiner’s significance had been recognized such a debate was deemed much too dangerous an undertaking. It was better to avoid such hot issues altogether. The congress was cancelled at the last minute for reasons which never became clear.

And Steiner, who had already set out for Italy—as had many others—was able to speak only to group meetings, to small circles. There was no time to arrange for stenographers. But not everything was lost, due to the devotion of a number of members who were taking notes. However their note-taking quite naturally became more perfunctory towards the end, as they were caught up increasingly in the spirited fire of Rudolf Steiner’s words. The Locarno lecture and those given in Neuchâtel in particular give us cause to remember our dear Agnes Friedländer, who died of pneumonia in 1942 in a concentration camp. She was among those whose souls were particularly deeply affected by the transforming impulses alive in the Christ Mystery.

The lectures themselves have only been preserved as fragments. No satisfactory transcripts exist. It seems like a counter-attack by adversary forces that no experienced stenographer was present. They exist—apart from the shortened Kassel lectures—partly as fragments and partly as notes which have been pieced together. Nevertheless, the essential framework has been preserved and the effort was made to place them in context. This effort is not always successful as far as stylistic form is concerned; but the spirit is challenged and stimulated all the more to sharpen its powers of thought and embark on their study.

Besides emphasizing the particular character of spiritual science after the advent of Christ, the aim of the lectures given in 1911 and 19127 was to bring out the significance of karma, the course of our destiny, and to enable us to penetrate into its intimate nature. Even if the overall course of those reflections has been preserved only as a series of remembered images—the notes were frequently too brief to convey logical progression, and the haphazard collection of notes and headings tend to be little more than indications— the direction of spiritual impulses given by Dr. Steiner has been preserved and perhaps justifies this attempt at a compilation: these impulses can deepen the soul through meditative work and continue to be active within us.

Marie Steiner

The Christ Impulse and Historical Development

1. Lugano, 17 September 1911

We shall begin by discussing something of a general character. And since we are a small intimate circle, we can then elaborate on any aspect that especially interests you. I would like to make some general statements about the being of man in connection with World Being, with the macrocosm. And I will not approach it so much in the style of my book Theosophy—you can all gain what you need to from that—but I invite you to consider especially man’s inner nature.

If now and then we contemplate ourselves as human beings, we are immediately struck by the fact that we experience the world about us through our senses, and then think about the impressions we have received. We constantly observe these two attributes of man’s being. If, for instance, we have put the light out at night and review the day’s impressions before going to sleep, we are conscious that all day long the world has worked upon us. Now only the memory pictures of the day’s impressions surge up and down in our souls. We know that we are thinking about them, our soul now inhabits the after-effects of what has taken place in us through outer impressions. Leaving more ordinary, trivial matters on one side, we see these memories of the day as individual to us. It is only because we are intelligent, individual human beings, beings with an intellect, that we are capable of receiving impressions of the world in this way.

Now, in our spiritual life this individual aspect is closely connected with external impressions. During the day, whilst we observe the world, our sense impressions and our thoughts intermingle. And at bedtime, when we no longer have any fresh sense impressions, but let those we have had pass through our soul, then we know very well that these are our pictures of what is outside. Our impressions of the outer world merge with what we are as individuals. They become one. Now, as we all know, one can make this inner, individual element within us more and more alive, more and more exact, by the means already known to us and described for instance in my book How to Know Higher Worlds. What you can experience first of all in your inner life, is that you feel you are not absolutely dependent in your thoughts on the external world. If, for instance, someone can think about what happened on Saturn, Sun and Moon, then he has higher thoughts of this kind. For of course nobody can have external impressions of what happened on old Saturn, old Sun and old Moon. We do not even need to go so far. If we ask ourselves in a quiet moment: ‘How many of my concepts have changed since my youth?’ this in itself is taking an independent, individual stand with regard to the world. When we form views about life, we feel ourselves becoming more independent in our intellect. Becoming independent in the individual element of the intellect is of great importance for human beings. For what does this mean? What does it mean for the human being to grasp general truths about life—not just in theory but through experience—even of things that are independent of external impressions? It means that he is becoming more independent in his etheric body. That is the first step in a long process. At the beginning he does not even notice that he is freeing his etheric body a little; ultimately he can make it completely independent of the physical body.

Whilst the beginning is just a tiny step towards becoming independent, the end is a total drawing out of the etheric body and a perceiving with it. We then have perceptions in the environment with this independent etheric body. We can even perceive in this way when we are not yet very advanced in inner mystical experience. We can grasp this and to a certain extent understand it if we remember what our perception is like in the physical body. With our physical body we perceive by means of our senses, which are independent of each other. Our eyes function separately and so do our ears. We can perceive the world of colour and the world of sound separately. We can no longer do this when we perceive with our intelligence. In the case of intelligence everything is a unity, nothing is divided into separate spheres. Likewise we cannot perceive with etheric eyes and etheric ears as though they were separate sense realms, but we perceive the etheric world in general. And when we begin to say something about it we can describe how etheric experience works as a comprehensive whole. I will not discuss how much further this experience can lead, but only point out that when we perceive how our intelligence forms general truths, then we can perceive something of the etheric elements.

Whoever perceives the etheric world and can gradually realize that a higher world of this kind exists, can have an inner conviction that an etheric body is the basis of the physical body. As soon as we speak of such a thing as the etheric body we must take our lead from important things we can learn through direct experience. As soon as we know that the physical body is interpenetrated by an etheric body we will readily understand the occultist describing how paralysis is an abnormal occurrence of what otherwise happens through normal training. It can happen that a person’s etheric body withdraws from his physical body. Then the physical body becomes independent. Paralysis could possibly result, for the physical body has been deprived of its enlivening etheric body. But we do not need to go as far as the appearance of paralysis, for we can understand its appearance in everyday life even better. For example, what is a lazy person? He is someone who has a weak etheric body from birth or who has let it grow weak through neglect. We try to correct it by relieving the physical body of its leaden heaviness and by some means making it lighter. A thorough cure, however, can only arise by way of the astral body, for this can stimulate the etheric body to fresh life. But you have to realize something else. The etheric body is actually the bearer of our whole intellect. When we go to sleep at night all our thought pictures and memories actually remain in the etheric body. The human being leaves his thoughts behind in the etheric body and does not return to them until morning. By laying aside the etheric body we lay aside the whole web of our experiences.

The nature of this etheric body, however, is such that when we investigate it in a spiritual scientific way we can quite clearly perceive that we are subject to a far greater number of changes in the course of time than we would imagine. We all know, of course, that man has passed through a series of incarnations. It is not for nothing that we are incarnated again and again. Man’s vision is limited. It is a general belief that our organization has always been as it is today. In fact, the human organization changes from one century to another, only we cannot perceive this externally. In the frontal lobe of the brain there is an organ with delicate convolutions, that has only developed since the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries. It is an organic form for the purely intellectual life of present centuries. We can well imagine that it is impossible for a detail of this kind to alter in the brain without, in fact, the whole human organization altering, even if only slightly. So that the human organization does indeed show signs of changes as the centuries pass by. But it is only through reading the Akashic Record that these changes can be confirmed, which is where changes in the etheric body can be best observed. We see that the people of ancient Greece or ancient Egypt had etheric bodies that were quite different. All the etheric streams in them were different.

Now in order to arrive at a thought that can be useful and productive for us, I would like to make a short digression and draw your attention to the fact that even in ordinary life you can assume the existence of more than one world. The human being goes to sleep without knowing that he is passing into another world. But the fact that he is asleep and does not know anything about it does not prove that this other world does not exist. Other worlds do impinge in a certain way. The human being perceives with his senses when he is in the physical world but not when he withdraws into himself: then he has a thought world which borders on the physical. And he finds within himself, in addition to the already developed element of intellect, two other elements as well that are quite different again. Can the human being develop these other elements?

A simple reflection can show that something else is more characteristic of our inner life than merely having thoughts. This is present whenever we feel ourselves to be moral human beings. That is the world where we connect a feeling of sympathy or antipathy with certain definite experiences. This goes beyond intellectual experience. Someone shows goodwill to another and we are pleased, or he shows ill will and we are displeased. That is something quite different from what is experienced purely intellectually. Mere reflection does not produce in us the feeling of whether a deed is moral or not. A person can be highly intelligent in an intellectual way, without feeling the repulsive nature of a purely egotistical action. That is another realm of experience, which we also become aware of when we admire what is beautiful and elevating in works of art, or are repulsed by what is ugly. What elevates us in works of art cannot be grasped by the intellect but only by our life of soul. So we can say: something comes into our life in this way which is beyond the intellect. If an occultist observes a soul at the moment when it is experiencing aversion from an immoral deed, or pleasure in a moral one, he perceives a higher level of soul life. The mere having of thoughts is on a lower level of soul life than pleasure in or aversion from moral or immoral deeds. If the human being strengthens his etheric body and so develops a more intense feeling for what is moral or immoral, this can be seen not only as increased strength in his etheric body but as an increase of strength in his astral body too, an especial intensification of the astral forces. So that we can say: a person who has particularly sensitive feelings about moral and immoral deeds will acquire especially strong forces in his astral body, whilst a person who only improves his etheric body intellectually—with exercises, say, that strengthen the memory—can certainly develop his clairvoyance a great deal, but he will not get beyond the etheric-astral world, because the intellectual element alone is active within him. If we want to get beyond the astral world we must do the kinds of exercise in which we develop sympathy for moral deeds and antipathy for immoral deeds. Then we do indeed ascend to a world that is behind our world in more than just an astral sense. We then ascend to the heavenly world. So that we can say: in the great invisible world the heavenly world of the macrocosm corresponds to our response to moral or immoral impressions, and the astral world of the macrocosm corresponds to our intellectual-sense perception of the physical world. All that develops within the intellectual element corresponds to the astral world, whilst what can be developed in relation to moral or immoral deeds corresponds to the heavenly world, the world of devachan.

Then there is yet another element in the human soul. There is a difference between feeling happy about moral deeds and feeling responsible enough to carry out what thus appeals to you, and to withstand doing what is not moral. A feeling of responsibility for our actions is the highest level we can reach in the world today.

So the human being’s soul stages can be set out like this:

1. The sense person.

2. The intellectual person, who relates to the first invisible world.

3. The aesthetic person with moral feelings, who is attracted or repelled by moral and immoral deeds. This corresponds externally to the lower devachanic world.

4. The morally active person.

Actually carrying out what we feel within ourselves to be the highest moral ideals corresponds externally to the higher devachanic world, the world of reason, ruled by those beings who represent absolute reason in the world. When the human being can grasp that his moral impulses give a shadow picture of the highest world from which he comes, he has understood a great deal about the macrocosm.

So we have the physical world and the world of the intellect, the moral world or the heavenly world of lower devachan, and the world of reason or higher devachan. Cosmic worlds cast in us shadow pictures of the sense world—the intellectual world: intellectual clairvoyance; the aesthetic world: moral feeling; the world of reason: moral impulses for deeds. Through a kind of self-knowledge man can perceive these different stages within himself.

Now this whole configuration of the human being has altered in the course of time. In ancient Greek or Egyptian times the human being was not at all as he is today. In the Greek age man was so constituted that higher beings ruled over the soul element within him, and so he felt a kind of natural obligation towards those beings. We now live in the age when man is ruled by his intellect, and so he feels something like an aesthetic-moral obligation. In those olden times however, it would have been impossible for anyone to have conceived of acting in a way contrary to a moral impulse that presented itself. In Greece they still felt pleasure and displeasure so strongly that they had to act accordingly.

Then came the modern age, when people do not even feel an obligation towards the aesthetic element, as one can see from the saying: ‘There’s no accounting for tastes’—though people who have a developed taste can probably agree among themselves.

What was felt in earlier times to be a necessity in the moral and aesthetic sphere is nowadays felt to be so in the intellectual sphere: to have a certain standard in thinking—not thinking as you like but conforming to the laws of logic. This brings us, however, to the lowest point of human experience. At the moment we are at a transitional stage, as we can well see. For if we look at past millennia we see the physical body of man drying up more and more, until he has become quite different. One and a half millennia ago the physical body was considerably softer and more pliable. It has become harder and harder. On the other hand something quite different has occurred in the etheric body, something that the human being could have less experience of because this etheric body has passed through an upward development. It is significant that we stand at the important moment when the human being must grow aware that his etheric body should become different. That is the event that will take place in this twentieth century. Whilst on the one hand an intensification of the intellectual element is making itself felt, on the other hand the etheric body will become so much more independent that human beings are bound to become aware of it. For a period of time after the Christ Event people did not think as intellectually as they do today. Strengthening the intellectual element causes the etheric body to become more and more independent, so that it can also be used as an independent instrument. And during this process it can be seen to have gone through a hidden development which makes possible the perception of the Christ in the etheric body. Just as the Christ could formerly be seen physically, He can now be seen etherically, so that in this twentieth century a beholding of the Christ will occur like a natural event, in the way Paul saw Him. A number of people will be able to see Christ in the etheric, which means that we shall know Him even if all Bibles are destroyed. We shall not need any records then, for we shall see Him. And that is an event equal in importance to what occurred on Golgotha. In the centuries to come a greater and greater number of people will reach the stage where they can see the Christ. The next three millennia on earth will be devoted to the kind of development whereby the etheric body becomes more and more sensitive, so that certain people will experience this and other events. I will just mention one more thing to come: there will be more and more people who want to do something and then have an urge to hold back. Then a vision will follow, and these people will perceive increasingly clearly that what happens in the future is the karmic result of what they have previously done. A few people who are ahead of the rest already feel such things. It happens especially with children.

There is a tremendous difference between what trained clairvoyants experience and what I have described here as something that will come about in the natural course of events. Since time immemorial the trained clairvoyant experienced the Christ by means of certain exercises. On the physical plane, if I meet someone he is there in front of me; with clairvoyant vision, on the other hand, I can perceive him in quite different places and we do not actually meet. It has always been possible to see the Christ clairvoyantly. But to meet Him, now that He stands in a different relationship to humanity—helping us from the etheric world—is something which is independent of our clairvoyant development. From the twentieth century onwards, in the next three thousand years, certain people will be able to meet Him, meet Him objectively as an etheric form. That is very different from experiencing a vision of Him through inner development.

This places the exalted Being we call the Christ in an altogether different sequence of evolution from that of the Buddha. The bodhisattva who became Buddha was born into the royal house of Suddhodana and became Buddha in the twenty-ninth year of his life, so that he did not need to undergo further incarnations. When such a being, a bodhisattva, becomes a Buddha or Master, this signifies a higher form of inner development, that any human being can pass through. The esoteric training of a human being is a start in the direction that can lead to Buddhahood. That has nothing to do with what happens around us. Such people appear at certain times to help the world forward. But those events are different from the Christ Event. Christ did not develop out of another human individuality. He came from the macrocosm, whilst all the bodhisattvas have always been connected with the earth.

So we have to be clear that in so far as we speak about bodhisattvas or Buddhas we do not come near to the Christ. For Christ is a macrocosmic being who became connected with the earth for the first time through the baptism by John. That was His physical manifestation. Now the etheric manifestation is coming, then will come the astral one and a higher one still after that. Human beings will first have to be far advanced before they experience that higher stage. What human beings can experience belongs to the general laws of the earth. The Being whom we call by the name of Christ or by other names will also bring about what we can describe as the saving of all souls on earth for Jupiter existence, whilst everything else will fall away with the earth. Anthroposophy is not something arbitrary, but something of importance that had to come into the world. The world must learn to understand the Christ Being who lived for three years on the earth at the beginning of our present era.

In my book The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Humanity you will find details about the two Jesus boys. The Christ Event was prepared for by an individuality connected with the sect of the Essenes, Jeshu ben Pandira, who was born a hundred years before the two Jesus boys were born in Palestine. So you have to distinguish between them and Jeshu ben Pandira, of whom Haeckel,8 among others, has spoken in a most derogatory way. The Matthew Gospel,9 in the main, originated from this most exalted person, Jeshu ben Pandira, as a preparation for what was to come.

In what way should we understand the relationship of Jeshu ben Pandira to Jesus of Nazareth?

The individualities have nothing to do with one another initially, except that one prepared the way for the other; as individualities they are in no way related. The facts are that in one of the Jesus boys, the one described in the Luke Gospel, we have a somewhat indefinable individuality, so far difficult to understand in that He could speak immediately after birth in a way His mother could not understand. He was not intellectual, this individuality of the Luke Gospel, but tremendously vital and elemental in the realm of moral feelings. The astral body of this being was influenced by the individuality of the Buddha.

When he had reached the Buddha stage, Buddha did not need to incarnate on earth any further. As long as he was a bodhisattva he continued to incarnate. After he had become Buddha he was active from the higher worlds, and his activity flowed through the astral body of the Jesus of the Luke Gospel. The forces emanating from Buddha are in the astral body of this Jesus boy. Thus the Buddha stream is contained within the Jesus of Nazareth stream.

On the other hand, what is told in Eastern writings and is also known to be correct by Western occultists, is that at the moment the bodhisattva becomes Buddha a new bodhisattva appears. In the moment when Gautama Buddha became Buddha this bodhisattva individuality was taken from the earth, and a new bodhisattva became active. He is the bodhisattva who is to become a Buddha in due time. In fact the time is exactly determined when the successor of Gautama Buddha, Maitreya, will become a Buddha: five thousand years after the enlightenment of Buddha beneath the bodhi tree. Roughly three thousand years after our time the world will experience the Maitreya Buddha incarnation, which will be the last incarnation of Jeshu ben Pandira. This bodhisattva, who will come as Maitreya Buddha, will also come in a physical body in our century in his reincarnation in the flesh—but not as Buddha—and he will make it his task to give humanity true concepts about the Christ Event.

Genuine occultists recognize the incarnations of the bodhisattva, the Maitreya Buddha-to-be. In the same way as other human beings, this individuality will also go through a development of the etheric body. When humanity becomes more like him who is to become the Maitreya Buddha, then this individuality will go through a special development that in a certain respect, in its highest stages, will be something like the baptism of Jesus of Nazareth: he will undergo an exchange of individuality. In both cases another individuality comes in. They grow up as children in the world, and after a certain number of years their individuality is exchanged. It is not a continuous development, but a development that undergoes a break, as was the case with Jesus. In His case there was an exchange of individuality of this kind in the twelfth year and then again at the baptism by John. This kind of exchange occurs, too, with the bodhisattva who is to become the Maitreya Buddha. These individualities are suddenly as it were fructified by another. The Maitreya Buddha, in particular, will live with a certain individuality until his thirtieth year, and then an exchange will occur in him, as we find with Jesus of Nazareth during the baptism in Jordan. We will always recognize the Maitreya Buddha, however, from the fact that nothing will be known of him prior to this exchange of individuality, even though he is present. And then he will suddenly reveal himself.

Leading an unknown life is characteristic of all bodhisattvas who are to become Buddhas. The human individuality in the future will have to be more and more self-reliant. It will be a characteristic of his that he will pass unknown in the world for many years, and it will only be possible to recognize him then through the fact that he works from out of his own inner strength as a self-reliant individual. It has been known for thousands of years past, and is now recognized by occultists of the present day, that the nature of his being needs to remain unknown throughout his youth until the time of the birth of the intellectual soul, indeed even until the birth of the consciousness soul, and that he will come into his own with the help of nobody but himself.

Any true occultist would find it strange for a Buddha to appear in the twentieth century, as every occultist knows that he can only come five thousand years after Gautama Buddha. However a bodhisattva can and will be incarnated.

It is part of an occultist’s basic armoury to know that the Maitreya Buddha will be unknown in his youth. That is why I have been emphasizing for years that we should bear this principle of occultism in mind: before a certain age nobody should be obliged by any central office or organization to speak about occult matters. I have stressed this for years. When younger people speak, they may do this for good reasons, but they do not do it as an occult duty.

The Maitreya Buddha will make himself known through his own power. He will appear in such a way that he can receive no help except from the power of his own soul being.

To approach true theosophy, understanding for the whole of earth evolution is a necessity. Those who do not develop this understanding will destroy the life of the modern theosophical movement.10

The Christ Impulse and Historical Development

2. Locarno, 19 September 1911

I am very happy to be speaking to you today—among these peaceful mountains and within view of that wonderful lake— about matters appealing to our deepest interests, that is, revelations, realities of the life of the spirit. And the most obvious fact that strikes those of us who have gathered here today to visit our Alpine friends, is this: that a number of our friends have withdrawn up here, not necessarily for the sake of solitude, but at least for the peace and charm of the mountains. And if they ask themselves what their hearts are looking for, they might find that it is something very similar to man’s present-day longing for the spirit. And perhaps it is no illusion to assume that in the wider world the same impulse is at work as the one that has spurred people on to come up here into the solitude of the mountains.

Man knows, or senses dimly, that there is spirituality in all that surrounds us in nature, in forest and crag, wind and storm; the kind of spirituality which, according to a well-known Western figure, is more consistent than man’s actions, feelings and thinking. We cannot help sensing that in everything that surrounds us as forest and crag, mountain and lake, the spirit is coming to expression. And in spiritual science we become more and more aware that there is spirit in everything that expresses itself in nature round about us and in the firm earth beneath us. Looking back into the ancient past we can tell ourselves that we descend from a spiritual past and are the children of ancient times. Just as we create our works of art, exploring what we can make of the material to hand, in just such a way did our ancestors create their implements and tools. And the phenomena of nature are the product of the work of the ancient gods in times long past. And if we permeate ourselves with such a feeling, the whole of nature will gradually become for us what it has always been for spiritual knowledge through the ages. Even though it will seem a maya, it will become the kind of maya that is beautiful and great, for the very reason that it is divine-spiritual creation. So when we go out into nature we are among memorials reminding us of the spiritual activity that took place in ancient, pre-earthly times. Then we are filled with that tremendous enthusiasm that deepens our feeling for nature and can fill us with warmth.

When we can enhance our feeling for nature through spiritual science we should also feel that it is in a certain respect a privilege to dwell within the spirit of nature. And it is a privilege. For we can and ought to bear in mind how many people there are who are unable to get close to the creations of nature in their present incarnation. How many people there are today, especially in cities, who no longer have the chance of feeling the uplifting quality of the divine in nature! And when we look at nature with a power of observation enhanced by spiritual science, then we know the intimate connection that exists between what we feel for nature and what we call morality—moral life being the highest thing we can strive for in this life.

It is a paradox perhaps, but it is true to say that those people who live in towns and have to forget what oats, wheat and barley look like, unfortunately get separated in their hearts, too, from the deepest moral sources of their existence. If we bear this in mind, then we will certainly regard it as a privilege to be able to be close to the sources of nature’s spirit, for a feeling like this of itself leads to another which, supported by spiritual science, must become known in the world: that is, the truth of reincarnation. To begin with we take it on trust, this truth concerning man’s repeated earth lives. But how can a soul retain composure at the present time, when it sees what very different paths of life people tread, and experiences all the glaring but inevitable inequalities in the world? The human being who is privileged to be near the well-springs of nature, not only feels that he has every reason to be happy in knowing the truths of spiritual science, but also feels a great responsibility, a great obligation towards this knowledge of the spirit. For what is the greatest thing that these souls will be able to bring to the gate of death, these souls who today have the privilege of enjoying peace and health in nature? What will be their finest contribution?

If we look for a moment at what is taught us by the spiritual powers that are closer to us now than they were in the nineteenth century, what can we learn? We can learn, without any doubt, that we can take something different with us into our following incarnations, in our deepest soul, in our deepest feeling, if we imbue ourselves with spiritual science, than we could if we kept aloof from it. Nowadays we are certainly not expected to take what spiritual science can give us as an abstract theory. What your souls receive, what enters into you as theory, is there so that it can come alive in you. And this happens with some people in this incarnation and with others in the next. It will become real, immediate life, the life we cannot conceive of unless we devote ourselves to that prophetic vision which prompts us to ask: Where does this development lead? With all its fruits it leads straight into outer life. And what we can only express in the form of words today, will become vision, vision in the young, vision in the old, vision that brings blessing.

All those people who have not yet been able to approach the warmth and light of spiritual science and to acquire the fruits of spiritual science for themselves, will feel the blessing of such vision! Everything that can exist in the way of outer personality will in the future have that fire in it for which our present-day theories are the fuel. It is just a handful of people who have the will to be the real bearers of what, in the future, will have to reach all those who are in need of it, that is the real, genuine fruits of human love and human compassion. We do not study spiritual science for the sake of our own satisfaction but so that we can acquire gentle hands that have the power to bless, and gentle eyes whose look alone works upon others, so that we can give out all that springs forth from the eyes, all that we call spiritual vision. Those people in particular who have this attitude, and who have the good fortune to live so close to nature should pay heed right now to the way everything is changing at present! It is changing, in fact it is changing throughout the cosmos.

It is wrong to say nature makes no leaps. Nature is perpetually making leaps, from leaf to blossom, from blossom to fruit. When the chick develops out of the egg, that is a leap. To say that nature makes no leaps could not be further from the truth. There are leaps everywhere, sudden transitions. And we are living in such a time of transition. During our lifetime there has been a year of great importance:11 the year 1899. The turn of the twentieth century is significant for the whole of cultural development because it is the time when the stream that came from the East and mingled with Western culture ceased in order to make way for what can be drawn from the life of nature to enliven the deepest levels of our life of soul.

Those whose spirit is awakened will be able to see beings of a new order in the processes of nature. The human being who has not yet become clairvoyant will increasingly be able to experience that despite all his melancholy feelings concerning all that continually dies away there is something of a rejuvenating quality in nature. The human being, though, whose clairvoyant faculties have awakened, will see new elemental beings issuing out of dying nature. Whilst in outer physical nature relatively little will be seen of the great change at the turn of the twentieth century, the spiritually awakened soul will feel: times are changing, and we human beings have the task of preparing spirit knowledge. It will become more and more important to observe such things and carry them in our consciousness. For people are free either to take up such things for the salvation of humanity or to pass them by, which will lead to disaster.

That is to say, at the turn of the century a relatively new kingdom of nature-beings will come to life, arising from nature like a spiritual spring, and human beings will be able to see and experience this. And, though it would show great apathy of soul if a person were unable to perceive the sprouting forth of springtime, there is still more than this to come. Those people who will grow able to experience as a fact of nature what has just been described, will preserve these impressions in quite a different way than through ordinary memory. They will carry beyond the threshold what streams towards them in the form of new elemental spirits, as the seeds carry their life through the winter into spring. What was experienced in spring and what was experienced in autumn, this bursting forth of nature in the spring and this melancholy in autumn, had no connection one with the other in the past. What issues from the memory of the cosmos enables us to carry over something of what we have experienced in the autumn into the spring. If we let the elemental forces of autumn work in us, then we can feel in a new way what will be given us in the future. Everything will acquire something new in the future, and it is our duty to prepare ourselves through our knowledge of the spirit to understand it. For spiritual science has not come into the world through the personal whims of human beings, but because new things are happening in the heavens, that can only be perceived when people take up the results of spiritual research. This is why the theosophical movement has come into being.

In moral life it is the same as it is in nature: the life of the soul will experience a transformation. Certain things will happen of which people have as yet no idea. I would just like to mention one example. There will be more and more people, especially children, who will have the experience that when they intend doing something or other in the future, a voice will speak in their souls urging them to be still and listen to what is to be told them from the spiritual world. Something will come to meet them, appearing before their eyes like a vision. First of all they will be strangely touched by these visions. When they have made a greater contact with spiritual science they will then realize that they are seeing the karmic counterpart of the deeds they have just done. The soul is being shown: you must strive to take yourself in hand so that you can take part in future evolution. And it is also being shown that there is no such thing as a deed without consequence. And this will be a driving force bringing order into our moral life. Moral impulses will be planted in our souls like a karma, in the course of time, if we prepare ourselves to open our spiritual eyes and our spiritual ears to what can speak to us from the spiritual world.

We know that it will take a long time before people learn to see in spirit. But it will begin in the twentieth century, and a greater and greater number of people will acquire this capacity in the course of three thousand years. Humanity will devote itself to such things during the next three millennia. In order that these things can happen, however, the main streams of development—again directed by beings who oversee the spiritual guidance of humanity—will take their course in such a way that human beings will be able to come to an understanding of occult life as I have described it today.

There are two main streams. The first is known through the fact that there is a so-called school of Western philosophy, and that the most elementary concepts of the spiritual world arise from the purest depths of philosophy. And it is remarkable what we see when we make a survey of what has gradually taken place within the science of Western culture. We see how some people become purely intellectual, whilst others are rooted in the religious life, yet at the same time are filled with what can only be given through vision of the spiritual world underlying all existence. On all sides we see spiritual life flowing out of Western philosophy. I will only mention Vladimir Soloviev,12 the Russian philosopher and thinker, a real clairvoyant, though he only saw into the spiritual world three times in his life: once when he was a boy of nine, the second time in the British Museum, and the third time in the Egyptian desert under the starry heavens of Egypt. On these occasions there was revealed to him what can only be seen by clairvoyant vision. He had a prevision of the evolution of humanity. There welled up in him what Schelling13 and Hegel14 also achieved through sheer spiritual effort. They stood alone on the heights of thinking, and so we may now place them on the summit which all educated people will eventually reach. All this has come to expression in the course of previous centuries, particularly the last four centuries. When we survey this and work on it with the methods of practical occultism, as has been done recently in order to make a special investigation into what purely intellectual thinkers from Hegel to Haeckel15 have worked out, we can see occult forces at work here too. And a very remarkable thing comes to light: we can speak of pure inspiration in the case of just those people who appear to have least of it. Who inspired all the thinkers who are rooted in pure intellectualism? Who gave the stimulus for this life of thought that speaks out of every book to be found even in the lowliest cottage? Where does all this abstract thought-life in Europe come from, that has had such a remarkable outcome?

We all know, of course, how the following great event took place. An important individuality in the evolution of mankind, one of the individualities that we call a bodhisattva, incarnated in the royal house of Suddhodana. We all know that this individuality was destined to ascend to the next rank after that of bodhisattva. Each human being who progresses and reaches the rank of bodhisattva must become a Buddha in his final incarnation. What does this rank of Buddha signify? What does it signify in the case of the particular bodhisattva who attained the rank of Buddha as Gautama Buddha? It signifies that Buddha—as with every other Buddha—does not need to incarnate on earth any more in a body of flesh. And therefore Gautama Buddha was destined, like every Buddha, to work henceforth from the spiritual world. He must not appear again on the earth in physical form, but his achievements in the course of incarnations enabled him henceforth to send his influence into our civilization.

The first great deed that the Buddha had to accomplish as a purely spiritual being was, as I indicated in Basle,16 to send his forces down into the astral body of the Jesus boy described in the Luke Gospel, which came to significant expression in the Christmas message: Divine beings are revealing themselves in the heights, and peace shall come to men of good will on earth.

If our souls are stirred by this message that angel beings hovered in the aureole above the angelic child, we should know that in this aura around Jesus the forces of the Nirmanakaya17 of the Buddha were active. Since then, the spiritual forces of the Buddha have been incorporated in the highest individualities involved in the events of which the Mystery of Golgotha speaks. His forces thus work also in the world view of western philosophers. He himself is the driving force working out of the spiritual world, stimulating a life that has penetrated as far as intelligence and has then gone astray.

If we read Leibniz,18 Schelling and Soloviev today, and ask ourselves how they have been inspired, we find that it was by the individuality who was born in the palace of Suddhodana, ascended from bodhisattva to Buddha and then continued to work selflessly. In fact he continued to work in such a selfless way that we can go back in time today to a point when not even the name of Buddha was mentioned in the West. You do not find the name of the bodhisattva who became Buddha, not even in Goethe! You know, though, that he lives in everything. He has met with so much understanding that he works on unnamed in Western literature. The Middle Ages knew about this, too, but did not speak about it in this way then. They tell us something different.

In the eighth century there lived a man called John of Damascus19 who wrote a book in the form of a narrative. What was it about? He relates that there once lived a great teacher who became the teacher of Josaphat, instructing Josaphat in the secret doctrine and the great Christian truths. And if you investigate all this you find truths concerning those things. You also find narratives from Buddhist literature. When we follow up our theme we come upon a legend, the one that relates that Buddha went on living, not in an earthly human form but in an animal form, that of a hare. And when a Brahman once happened to find a hare—which was the disguised Buddha—the Brahman complained to him about the misery of mankind outside in the world, and Buddha made a fire and roasted himself, in order to help mankind. The Brahman took him and transported him to the moon. When you know that the moon is the symbol of eternal wisdom, which lives in the human breast, then you see there is a consciousness of Buddha’s sacrifice, which has been developed and presented in these old legends.

What is Buddha’s task out there in the spiritual world? It is his task now and for evermore to kindle those forces in our hearts that can give birth to great wisdom. This is how we must understand one force streaming through our world; it is the Buddha force. It is also represented in the form it has taken in our century, even though here it has been reduced to abstraction. We have to try, however, to understand the occult significance of every spiritual form. Alongside this force is the other one, whose source was the Mystery of Golgotha, and which combined with the Buddha force to make a necessary whole. Of this force too we must partake in earthly life. This force, emanating from Golgotha, with which all people have to connect themselves, not only affects man’s inner life but involves our whole earthly existence.