The Rudolf Steiner Archive

80. The Feast of the Epiphany

[ 1 ] Before I begin a new chapter, as I mentioned last time, I will insert and add something to the Christmas reflection I presented in the Monday lectures. You may recall how I linked the significance of Christmas to the entire development of our cultural epochs, and how, precisely through this, Christmas derives its significance at the turn of the ages, both looking back and looking forward.

[ 2 ] Today I would like to speak about a feast that seems to hold less significance for modern peoples than Christmas—the Feast of the “Three Kings,” celebrated on January 6, the feast of the Magi who come from the East to pay homage to the newborn Jesus of Nazareth. This Feast of the Epiphany will gain increasing significance as people come to understand the true, actual symbolism behind this feast as well. We are dealing here with something important. You can already see this from the fact that a highly developed symbolism underlies this feast of the three Magi from the East. This symbolism—like all mysteries—was kept very secret well into the fifteenth century, and until then, no specific allusions were made to it. From the fifteenth century onward, however, some light was shed on this festival of the Magi from the East through the appearance of exoteric depictions portraying the Three Kings as a Moor—an inhabitant of Africa—that is, Balthasar; then a white man—a European—who is Melchior; and an Asian king with the skin color of the inhabitants of India—who is Caspar. They present gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem as their offerings.

[ 3 ] These are three very significant offerings, and this resonates with the profound symbolism of this festival on January 6. Esoterically, however, the festival is a very important one. January 6 is the same date on which the so-called Festival of Osiris was celebrated in ancient Egypt—the festival of the rediscovered Osiris. As is well known, Osiris is defeated by his adversary Typhon; he is sought by Isis and found again. This rediscovery of Osiris, the Son of God, is represented by the festival of January 6. The Feast of the Three Kings is the same festival, except that it has become Christianized. We also find this festival among the Assyrians, the Armenians, and the Phoenicians. Everywhere, it is a festival linked to a kind of general baptism, in which a rebirth takes place from the water. This already suggests the connection with the rediscovered Osiris.

[ 4 ] What exactly is the “vanished Osiris”? The “vanished Osiris” represents the transition that takes place between the period before the middle of the Lemurian race and the period after the middle of the Lemurian race. Before the middle of the Lemurian race, there were no human beings endowed with Manas. It was not until the middle of the Lemurian era that Manas descended and impregnated humanity. Within each individual human being, a tomb is created for Manas—divided among humanity—for Osiris, who is depicted as dismembered. A certain number of tombs are shown in Egypt—this is the Manasic deity that has been divided and dwells within human beings. “In the Egyptian secret language, human bodies are called ‘tombs of Osiris.’ [Plato, too, refers to human bodies as ‘tombs.’] Manas remains unfree until the reemerging love can set Manas free.

[ 5 ] What is the re-emerging love? That which arose with the fertilization of the Manas in the middle of the Lemurian epoch—somewhat before and somewhat after—was the entry of the principle of passion into humanity. Before that time, there was no true principle of passion. The animals of earlier eras were cold-blooded. And even human beings themselves were not yet endowed with warm blood at that time. Comparatively speaking, the people on the Moon were like fish, and the people of the third round, too, had the same temperature as their surroundings.

[ 6 ] “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters,” the Bible says of that time. The principle of love was not yet within beings, but existed outside as manifest earthly kama and earthly passion. This is selfish love. The first bringer of selfless love is Christ, who was to appear in Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 7 ] Who, then, are the magicians? They are the initiates of the three preceding races, the initiates of humanity up until the appearance of the Christ Being—the love free from egoism, the resurrected Osiris. The initiates were beings endowed with Manas; they are magicians. They offer gold, frankincense, and myrrh as gifts. And why do they appear in the three colors—black, white, and yellow? Black as Africans, white as Europeans, yellow as Indians. This is connected to the root races. The black ones are the remnants of the Lemurian race, the yellow ones are the remnants of the Atlantean race, and the white ones are the representatives of the fifth root race, the Aryans. Thus, in the three kings or Magi, we have the representatives of the Lemurians, the Atlanteans, and the Aryans. They bring the three gifts: The European brings gold, the symbol of wisdom and intelligence, qualities that found their foremost expression in the fifth root race. The initiates of the fourth root race, the Atlanteans, offer as a sacrifice what is most important to them. They no longer had a direct connection with the Deity—rather, a kind of suggestive influence, something like universal hypnosis. This connection with the Deity is maintained through sacrifice. The feeling must rise so that God may also inspire that feeling. This finds its symbolic expression in the incense. This is the general symbol for sacrifice, which has to do with intuition.

[ 8 ] In esoteric terminology, myrrh is the symbol of mortification. What does mortification mean? What does resurrection mean, as we see, for example, in the resurrected Osiris? I will simply refer here to Goethe, who says:

And as long as you do not have that,
this dying and becoming,
you are but a gloomy guest
on this dark earth.

[ 9 ] Jakob Böhme expresses the same idea with the words:

Those who do not die before they die will perish when they die.

[ 10 ] Myrrh is the symbol of the death of the lower life and the resurrection of the higher life. It is therefore also offered by the initiate of the third root race. There is a profound meaning in this. Remember who Jesus of Nazareth is. A highly evolved chela was born within him. At the age of thirty, he surrendered his life to the descending Christ, the descending Logos. The Magi foresaw all of this. It is a great sacrifice on the part of Jesus of Nazareth that he exchanged his “I” for the “I” of the Second Logos. This occurs for a very specific reason. Only when the sixth sub-race has arrived will the possibility gradually arise for human beings—for the human body—to be ready, from earliest childhood, to receive something like the Christ principle. Only in the sixth root race will humanity be so fully mature that the bodies will not first have to be prepared and conditioned over the course of years, but will be capable of receiving the Christ principle from the very beginning. In the fourth subrace of the fifth root race, the body still had to be prepared for thirty years. This is exactly as it was in the Nordic regions, where Sig’s body was prepared so that he could—and did—place his body at the disposal of a higher being.

[ 11 ] In the sixth root race, it will be possible for human beings to place their bodies at the disposal of a being as exalted as Jesus was when he founded Christianity. When Christianity was founded, it was still necessary for a chela to sacrifice his “I,” to put it to death, and to send it up into the astral plane so that the Logos could dwell in the body. This is something that is also illuminated by the final moment on the cross, when you consider the last words: Who else could understand the words:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? [Matthew 27:46]

[ 12 ] In them you will find an expression of the fact that has come to pass. At the very moment Christ died, God left the body, and the body of Jesus of Nazareth uttered those words—the body that was so highly developed that it could express this fact. Therefore, these words express an incredibly momentous event. And all of this is expressed in the myrrh, which is the symbol of sacrifice, of self-denial—the sacrifice of the earthly in order to bring the Higher to life.

[ 13 ] In the middle of the Lemurian era, Osiris had to find his tomb, and Manas had to enter into human beings. Under the guidance of the magicians, humanity had to be educated until the Budhi principle—the principle of love—shone forth in Christ Jesus. Budhi is heavenly love. The lower, sexual principle is ennobled by Christian love. Through this, the Kama principle rose to glory; it was purified in the fire of divine love.

[ 14 ] The fact that Melchior represents the principle of wisdom—the intelligence of the fifth root race—is symbolized by gold; this expresses the idea of sacrifice. Secondly, the fact that we are dealing with a principle of ritual sacrifice is expressed by incense. This is the principle of the fourth root race, the Atlanteans. It will then be further developed until Christianity has fulfilled its task in the sixth root race, which will once again have a sacramental tradition, so that it will fill sensory existence with acts of worship and sacrifice. The sacraments have, for the most part, lost their meaning today; the sense of them is no longer there. It will be restored through what is symbolized by the incense: the higher human being is born. In the Lemurian race, Osiris meets his death; in the seventh root race, he rises again [in full].

[ 15 ] As you can see, the Feast of the “Three Kings,” through what they proclaim with their sacrifice, represents the history of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth root races.

[ 16 ] By what are the Three Wise Men guided, and where are they led? They are guided by a star, and they are led to a cave in Bethlehem. This is something that only those familiar with the so-called lower or astral mysteries can truly understand. To be guided by a star means nothing other than to see the soul itself as a star. But when does one see the soul as a star? One sees the soul as a star when one can perceive it as a luminous aura. Then the soul is a star. What kind of aura shines brightly enough to guide? First, there is the aura that merely glows, that has only a dim light. That cannot guide. Then there is the higher aura, the aura of intelligence. Although it has a fluid light, a welling light, it is not yet guiding. But the bright aura, illuminated by Budhi, is truly a star—it is something radiant and guiding. In Christ, the Budhi star that shines in the evolution of the human race rises as humanity progresses. What shines for the Magi is nothing other than the soul of Christ Himself. The Second Logos Himself shines upon them, and He shines over the grotto in Bethlehem.

[ 17 ] The grotto is nothing other than that in which the soul dwells: the body. The astral seer sees the body from within. For the astral seer, everything is reversed; one sees everything upside down. For example, one sees 365 instead of 563. Thus one sees the human body as a grotto, as a cave, and so the Star of Christ, the soul of Christ, shines within the body of Jesus of Nazareth. This is to be conceived as a reality unfolding in the astral realm. It is a process within the lower mysteries. There, the Christ-soul truly shines as an auric star, and it leads the initiates of the three races to Jesus in Bethlehem.

[ 18 ] So this is a festival that has been celebrated every year on January 6. It is one of those mentioned in Light on the Path. A number of festivals take place each year. This is one of them, during which the Star of Bethlehem appears to the Magi. The first four sentences from “Light on the Path” form the core of the four celebrations:

Before the masters can speak, the voice must first unlearn its wounds.

[ 19 ] This is the preparation for the fifth round. This sentence appears at the temple’s entrance gate. And then comes the great revelation. The festival on January 6 will grow in significance. People will come to understand more and more what a magician is and who the Masters are. They will then move from an understanding of Christianity to an understanding of Theosophy. On these days, January 6, the festival of the great Magisters—the Masters—will also be celebrated among the Theosophists. - The New Year’s celebration is the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus, for Christ had not yet been born at that time. The Jewish New Year begins in October. But the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus of Nazareth has been adopted into Christianity. The fact that Jesus was also a Jew before that is still celebrated in Christianity through the New Year’s celebration.

[ 20 ] [Notes presumably from the Q&A session following the lecture on December 30, 1904]

[ 21 ] On the next planet, a person attains psychic consciousness; on the following planet, superpsychic consciousness; and on the seventh planet, spiritual consciousness. The adept can artificially induce these states of consciousness.

Christ's death on the cross caused him pain.

[ 22 ] On the Devachan plane, one does not feel one’s own pain and suffering, but one can perceive and feel all the pain of humanity. All suffering experienced by others is felt, while one is elevated above one’s own suffering. Regarding the levels of consciousness:

1. Daytime consciousness.
2. A more subdued, dream-filled consciousness.
3. Dreamless sleep consciousness, the sleep trance experienced by mediums.
4. Deep trance or [induced] trance; can be achieved by mediums; chains of worlds.
5. Psychic consciousness—this is the consciousness one has when one sees life.
6. Superpsychic consciousness, in which one succeeds in making the astral body stand upright.

[ 23 ] The physical body has gone through the seven stages. The astral body will go through them in the near future. Beyond spiritual consciousness lies mastery. Spiritual consciousness is synonymous with discipleship.

[ 24 ] The states that preceded the development of our Earth—the ancient lunar and solar states—are esoteric.

[ 25 ] What is now our inner life used to be all around us. The mystic possesses within himself what was once spread out around him. The teaching that flowed from Budhi is called esoteric Buddhism.

[ 26 ] Consciousness, which passes through 343 stages, corresponds to a Pitri evolution. The planetary chain

[ 27 ] Physical states of consciousness.

[ 28 ] Kama was the first to emerge; it was the passion for goodness. Atavism is defined as a persistence of earlier stages of development.

[ 29 ] A distinction is made between states of consciousness, states of life, and states of form.

[ 30 ] An individual is a being imbued with manas.

[ 31 ] States of Consciousness in Planetary Evolution:

1. Deep trance consciousness
2. Dreamless sleep consciousness
3. Psychic consciousness
4. The waking state
5. The archetypal state of consciousness

[ 32 ] States of consciousness in humans:

1. Deep trance consciousness
2. Dreamless sleep consciousness
3. Dream-filled sleep consciousness
4. The waking state
5. The psychic state of consciousness
6. The suprapsychic state of consciousness
7. the spiritual state of consciousness

[ 33 ] Beings derive their form from the mineral kingdom. They become a center only when life becomes conscious. The soul extends into the body. The lower realm possesses life only because the higher realm sinks into it and spreads throughout it. Consciousness arises when the higher realm extends beyond life and death. Consciousness is synonymous with “dhyanic.” Substance is synonymous with “equilibrium.” Beings of consciousness are all-encompassing—angels of the cycles—planetary Dhyanis. Our Earth also has its own Dhyani.

[ 34 ] At the end of the seventh round, the Earth will be ready for plants and animals to be entrusted to humankind. Consciousness and form are in balance when form is guided by consciousness. Uncontrolled form strives upward toward consciousness.

[ 35 ] Elemental spirits are beings that are more powerful in form than in consciousness and life. The opposite of these are the Dhyanis. The elemental spirits are the inhibiting forces. All parasitic beings are filled with elemental beings—for example, mistletoe, and the spider, which spins its web from within itself. Everything parasitic is an expression of the eighth sphere of the Moon. — Nightmare. Sphinx.

[ 36 ] Among the Atlantic race, the Turanians have become known for their elemental spirits.

[ 37 ] Consciousness, life, and form—every being must pass through these many times, each time in seven stages.

[ 38 ] States of consciousness:

1. Trance consciousness is universal consciousness; it is the most dulled state of consciousness, corresponding to the forms of crystals and stars, but not to those of human beings.
2. Dreamless sleep is less dull but more confined; a plant-like consciousness is present there. It is an extraordinary sign of [...]—no world systems are perceived there.
3. Dream-filled sleep—in this state, consciousness is not as all-encompassing but already encompasses the mineral, plant, and animal realms.
4. The waking state—it encompasses the mineral, plant, animal, and human realms.
5. Psychic consciousness—it is the consciousness of the astral world. There, one not only sees the sour face but also experiences the sour feeling.
6. Superpsychic consciousness.
7. Spiritual consciousness—this is endowed with direct perception of the spiritual.

[ 39 ] The Seven Realms and What Prevails Within Them:

1. The First Elemental Kingdom—Being asserts itself
2. The Second Elemental Kingdom—Life asserts itself
3. The Third Elemental Kingdom—Sensation or outward consciousness asserts itself
4. The Mineral Kingdom—Being becomes objective
5. The Plant Kingdom—Life becomes objective
6. The Animal Kingdom—Sensation and consciousness become objective
7. The Human Kingdom—Higher consciousness and the “I” have entered into objectivity.

[ 40 ] Phases:

1. The Arupic Form
2. The Rupic Form
3. The Astral Form
4. The Physical Form
5. The Plastic Form—it is not rigid, but manifests itself from the inside out.
6. The intellectual form
7. The archetypal form

[ 41 ] Life, Form, and Consciousness—the Earth’s current waking state. The seven globes—the phases of existence. We evolve from physical, seeing beings into beings who can also perceive into the higher realms of existence; we enter the region of permeability. We can now see only a part of the cosmos. When we say today that a celestial body is visible, it means that it is in the stage of the fourth state, the state of the mineral kingdom. World year—world month—world day.

[ 42 ] Consciousness corresponds to the sun, form to the moon, and life to the earth.

[ 43 ] There are 7 × 7 = 49 metamorphoses of life that give rise to consciousness. These constitute a world year. On the higher plane, consciousness is, in turn, form.

[ 44 ] Animals with an external skeleton belong to the Lunar Epoch—the crab stage.