The Rudolf Steiner Archive

15. The Initiation of Wisdom, the Mind, and the Will. The Task of the Theosophical Spiritual Movement, or Theosophy in General

[ 1 ] Hegel has a beautiful saying: “The deepest thought is connected with the figure of Christ—the historical and outward one.” And what is great about the Christian religion is that it is accessible at every stage of education. Even the most naive consciousness can grasp it, and at the same time, it is a call to the deepest wisdom.

[ 2 ] The history of its development has already shown that the Christian religion is comprehensible to every level of consciousness. It must be the task of the theosophical movement—or of spiritual science in general, if it understands its mission—to demonstrate that it calls upon us to penetrate the deepest teachings of human wisdom. Theosophy is not a religion, but a tool for understanding religions. Its relationship to religious texts is similar to that of mathematical theory to the texts that have served as mathematical textbooks.

[ 3 ] One can understand mathematics through one’s own mental faculties and grasp the laws of space without reference to that ancient book. But once one has grasped them—once one has internalized the teachings of geometry—one will appreciate all the more that ancient book, which was the first to present these laws to the human mind. So it is with theosophy. Its sources [are not found in documents; they do not rely on tradition. Its sources] lie in the real spiritual worlds; there they must be found and grasped by developing one’s own spiritual powers, just as one grasps mathematics by seeking to develop the powers of one’s intellect.

[ 4 ] Our intellect, which enables us to grasp the laws of the sensory world, is housed in an organ: the brain. To grasp the laws of spiritual worlds, we likewise require corresponding organs. How did our physical organs develop? Through the action of external forces upon them: the forces of the sun, the forces of sound. This is how the eye came into being, and how the ear came into being—from neutral, dull organs that initially did not allow the sensory world to penetrate them and only slowly opened up. In the same way, our spiritual organs will also open up when the right forces act upon them.

[ 5 ] What, then, are the forces that are now flooding into our still dull spiritual faculties? During the day, forces penetrate the astral body of modern human beings that work against their development—forces that even destroy those faculties they once possessed, before clear daytime consciousness had yet opened up to them. In the past, human beings perceived astral impressions directly. The environment spoke to them through images, through the expressive form of the astral world. Lively, structurally coherent images and colors floated freely through space as expressions of pleasure and displeasure, sympathy and antipathy. Then these colors, as it were, settled upon the surface of things, and the objects took on definite contours. This occurred as the human physical body became increasingly solid and structured.

[ 6 ] When his eyes opened fully to physical light, when the veil of Maya was drawn over the spiritual world, the human being’s astral body received impressions from the environment as they passed through the physical and etheric bodies; he then transmitted them to the “I,” from where they entered the human being’s consciousness. He was thus constantly engaged, constantly active. But what was at work within him were not plastic, formative forces corresponding to his own nature. They were forces that consumed him, killed him, in order to awaken the “I”-consciousness.

[ 7 ] Only at night, when he immersed himself in the rhythmic-spiritual world that was one with him, did he regain his strength and was able to replenish the forces of his physical and etheric bodies. Out of the conflict of impressions, out of the withering away of the astral organs that had previously acted unconsciously within the human being, the life of the individual “I”—the “I”-consciousness—had arisen. From life, death; from death, life. The circle of the serpent was complete. Now, from this awakened sense of self, the forces had to arise that would rekindle life in the withered remnants of former astral organs and give them tangible form.

[ 8 ] Humanity is moving toward this goal; it is guided there by its teachers, its leaders—the great initiates, whose symbol is, after all, the serpent. It is an education toward freedom, and therefore a slow and difficult one. The great Initiates could, so to speak, make the task easier for themselves and for humanity if, at night when the astral body is free, they worked on it in such a way as to imprint the astral organs upon it, acting upon it from the outside. But that would then constitute an intervention within a person’s dream consciousness—an encroachment upon their sphere of freedom. The highest principle of the human being—the will—would never come to full expression.

[ 9 ] Humanity is guided step by step. There has been an initiation into wisdom, one into the mind, and one into the will. True Christianity is the synthesis of all stages of initiation. The initiation of antiquity was the forerunner, the preparation. Slowly and gradually, modern humanity emancipated itself from its initiator, its guru. At first, the initiation took place in a state of full trance consciousness, but equipped with the means to imprint upon the physical body the memory of what had occurred outside the physical body. Hence the necessity of separating the etheric body—the vessel of memory—along with the astral body. Both plunged into the Sea of Wisdom, into Mahadeva, into the Light of Osiris. This initiation took place in the deepest mystery, in complete seclusion. Not a breath of the outside world was allowed to intrude. The person was as good as dead to external life; the delicate seeds were nurtured away from the blinding daylight.

[ 10 ] Then initiation emerged from the darkness of the mysteries into the brightest light of day. In a great, mighty personality, the bearer of the highest unifying principle, the Word that expresses the hidden Father, that is His manifestation, which, by taking on human form, thereby became the Son of Man and could serve as a representative for all of humanity, [a] unifying bond of all “I’s”: In Christ, the Spirit of Life, the Eternal Unifier, the initiation of all humanity took place historically—and at the same time symbolically—on the level of feeling, of the soul. This event was of such power that it could continue to have an effect on every individual who relived it, extending into the physical realm, even to the appearance of the stigmata, even to the piercing pains. And the depths of all emotion were stirred. An intensity of feeling arose such as has never before flooded the world in such mighty waves.

[ 11 ] In the initiation at the cross of divine love, the [sacrifice] of the Self had taken place for all. The physical expression of the “I”—the blood—had flowed forth in love for humanity, and this had such an effect that thousands flocked to this initiation, to this death, and let their blood flow forth in love and enthusiasm for humanity. Just how much blood has flowed in this way has never been emphasized enough; it no longer comes to people’s consciousness, not even in theosophical circles. Yet the waves of enthusiasm that flowed down and rose up in this pouring blood have fulfilled their purpose. They have become powerful sources of inspiration. They have ripened humanity for the initiation of the will.

[ 12 ] And this is the legacy of Christ.