The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] In the Gospel of John, everything ultimately culminates in what we call the “Mystery of Golgotha” occurring within human history. To understand this Mystery of Golgotha in an esoteric sense means, at the same time, to unravel the deep meaning of the Gospel of John. If one considers what actually lies at the heart of the entire Mystery of Golgotha and seeks to explain it in the sense of occultism, one must think of the moment of the crucifixion, when the blood of the Redeemer flowed from His wounds. And in doing so, we recall something we have said many times before in the course of these lectures: that for the knower of the spiritual worlds, everything that is material, physical, or corporeal is merely the outer expression, the outer manifestation of something spiritual.

[ 2 ] And now let us bring before our souls the physical event: Christ Jesus on the cross, blood flowing from his wounds. This image, whose content is a physical event—what does it express spiritually to those who can truly understand the Gospel of John?

[ 3 ] This physical process—the event at Golgotha—is the expression, the revelation, of a spiritual process that stands at the center of all earthly events. Anyone who interprets this term in the light of today’s materialistic worldview will not be able to grasp its true meaning. For they will not be able to conceive that, at that time, during this unique event on Golgotha, something took place that differs from other events that may be physically similar or identical. There is a tremendous, profound difference between all earthly events that occurred before this event on Golgotha and those that came afterward.

[ 4 ] If we want to truly grasp this in detail, we must say: Not only does the individual human being or any other individual entity possess a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body—as we have described in various ways in the preceding lectures—but a world body, too, is not merely this physical matter as it appears to astronomers and other physical researchers; a world body, too, has an etheric body and an astral body. Our Earth has its etheric body and its astral body. If our Earth did not have its own etheric body, it would not be able to support plants; if our Earth did not have its own astral body, it would not be able to support animals. If one wishes to imagine the Earth’s etheric body, one must conceive of its center as being at the center of the Earth, just as the physical body of the Earth has its center there. This entire physical body of the Earth is embedded in the Earth’s etheric body, and these two together are in turn embedded in an astral body.

[ 5 ] If someone had used clairvoyance to observe the Earth’s astral body over the course of its evolution, over long periods of time, they would have seen that this astral body and the Earth’s etheric body did not always remain the same, but that they changed.

[ 6 ] To visualize this clearly, let us imagine ourselves mentally outside the Earth on some other planet; let us imagine a clairvoyant person looking down upon our Earth from another planet. Such a person would not only see the Earth floating as a physical planet, but would also see an aura; he would see the Earth surrounded by a luminous aura, because he would perceive the Earth’s etheric body and astral body. If such a clairvoyant being were to remain on this distant planet for a long time—long enough to witness the pre-Christian era come to an end on Earth and the event at Golgotha take place—the following sight would present itself to him: The Earth’s aura, astral body, and etheric body present a certain spectacle of colors and forms prior to the event at Golgotha; but then he would see how the entire aura changes its colors from a certain point in time onward. What is that point in time? It is the very moment when blood flowed from the wounds of Christ Jesus on Golgotha. All spiritual conditions of the Earth as such changed at that very moment.

[ 7 ] We have said: That which we call the Logos is the sum of the six Elohim, who are united with the sun and thus bestow their gifts upon the earth spiritually, while outwardly the sunlight shines down upon the earth. Thus, the light of the sun appeared to us as the outer physical body for the spirit and soul of the Elohim or the Logos. At the moment the event at Golgotha took place, the power—the impulse—that previously could only flow to the Earth from the Sun in the form of light began to unite with the Earth itself; and because the Logos began to unite with the Earth, the Earth’s aura became different.

[ 8 ] Let us now consider the events at Golgotha from yet another perspective. We have already looked back at the process of becoming human and becoming Earth from a wide variety of perspectives. We know that before it became Earth, our planet underwent the three incarnations of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon; thus, the previous incarnation of our Earth was the ancient Moon. When such a planet has reached the goal of its evolution, it experiences something similar to a human being who has achieved the goal of their life in a single incarnation: the planet passes into another, invisible state of existence, called the Pralaya state, and then it incarnates anew. Thus there was also an intermediate state between the former incarnation of our Earth—which was the ancient Moon—and its present incarnation. Emerging, so to speak, from a spiritual, intrinsically animated existence that was, however, outwardly invisible, the Earth shone forth in that first state, from which then arose the states we described yesterday. Back then, when our Earth shone forth in that ancient time, it was still connected to everything that belongs to our solar system. It was still so large that it extended all the way to the outermost planets of our solar system. Everything was still one, and the individual planets did not branch off until later. Up to a certain point in time, the Earth was connected to our present-day Sun and to our present-day Moon. There was, therefore, a time when the Sun, Moon, and Earth were a single body—as if you were to take today’s Moon and today’s Sun, mix them together with the Earth, and form a great celestial body out of them. Such was our Earth once; such was it back then, when your astral body and I were still floating in a water-vapor-like formation, and even earlier. The Sun, Moon, and Earth were united. At that time, therefore, the forces that are in the Sun today—both the spiritual and the physical forces—were connected to the Earth.

[ 9 ] Then came a time when the sun separated itself from the earth. But it was not merely the physical Sun with its physical light; rather, this physical Sun—which the physical human eye sees—separated, along with its spiritual and soul entities, at the head of which stand the Elohim, the true spirits of light, the inhabitants of the Sun; and what remained behind was what one would obtain if one were to mix today’s Moon together with the Earth. For a time, the Earth was separated from the Sun but still united with the Moon. It was not until the Lemurian epoch that the Moon separated from the Earth, and that is when the relationships between the three bodies—the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth—came into being as they are today. These relationships had to come into being in this way. The Elohim first had to act from the outside. One of them then had to establish himself as the Lord of the Moon and radiate back from there the mighty power of the other Elohim.

[ 10 ] Today we live on our Earth as if on an island in outer space, one that has separated itself from the Sun and the Moon. But a time will come when our Earth will reunite with the Sun and form a single body with it. By then, human beings will have become so spiritualized that they will once again be able to endure the Sun’s more powerful forces, absorb them into themselves, and unite with them. Then humans and the Elohim will dwell in the same realm.

[ 11 ] What effect will this have?

[ 12 ] If the event at Golgotha had not taken place, the Earth and the Sun could never have united. For through the event at Golgotha—through which the power of the Elohim in the sun, or the power of the Logos, united with the Earth—the impulse was given that drives the power of the Logos back toward the power of the Logos and will ultimately bring the two—the sun and the Earth—together again. Since the event at Golgotha, the Earth, viewed spiritually, has once again within itself the power that will reunite it with the sun. That is why we say: Through the event at Golgotha, what previously flowed into the Earth from without—the power of the Logos—was incorporated into the Earth’s spiritual existence. What lived in the Earth before? The power that radiates down from the Sun to the Earth. What has lived in the Earth ever since? The Logos itself, which, through Golgotha, became the Spirit of the Earth.

[ 13 ] Just as your soul-spirit dwells within your body, so too does the soul-spirit of the Earth dwell within the Earth’s body—that Earthly body composed of stones, plants, and animals upon which you walk; and this soul-spirit, this Earth Spirit, is the Christ. Christ is the Spirit of the Earth. So when Christ speaks to those who are his closest disciples—and on an occasion that ranks among the most intimate moments between him and his disciples—what may he say to them? What secret may he entrust to them?

[ 14 ] He may say: It is as if you were looking from your body into your soul. Your soul is within. And so it is when you look upon the entire globe: What now stands temporarily before you in the flesh is the same Spirit—not merely temporary in this flesh, but the Spirit of the entire earth, and it will become ever more so. — He was permitted to point to the earth as his true body: When you see the stalks and eat the bread that nourishes you, what are you truly eating in the ears of grain in the field? You are eating my body! And when you drink the sap of the plants, what is that? It is the blood of the Earth—my blood! —Christ Jesus said this verbatim to his closest disciples, and we must take these words literally. When he gathers them together and symbolically explains to them what we shall call the Christian initiation, he speaks a remarkable word to them as he announces that one of them will betray him. He says in verse 18 of chapter 13 of the Gospel of John:

“He who eats my bread tramples me underfoot.”

[ 15 ] This word must be taken literally. Human beings eat the bread of the earth and walk with their feet here on this earth. If the earth is the body of the Earth Spirit—that is, of Christ—then human beings are the ones who walk with their feet upon the body of the earth, and thus trample with their feet the body of the one whose bread they eat.

[ 16 ] We are granted an infinite deepening of the idea of the Lord’s Supper in the spirit of the Gospel of John when we come to know Christ, the Spirit of the Earth, and the bread that is taken from the body of the Earth. Christ points this out and says: “This is my body.” (Mark 14:22) Just as the muscular flesh of a human being belongs to the body of the human soul, so does the bread belong to the body of the Earth—that is, to the body of Christ. And the sap that flows through the plants and pulses through the vine is like the blood that pulses through the human body. And Christ may point to this and say: “This is my blood!” (Mark 14:24). Only those who cannot understand—or who refuse to understand—can believe that this truthful explanation would cause the Lord’s Supper to lose any of the holiness associated with it. But those who wish to understand will say to themselves: It loses nothing of its holiness through this, but the entire Earth is sanctified by this interpretation! And what powerful feelings can move through our souls when we are able to perceive in the Lord’s Supper the greatest mystery on Earth: the connection between the event at Golgotha and the entire evolution of the Earth; when we learn to feel in the Holy Communion that the flow of blood from the Savior’s wounds has not merely a human but a cosmic significance—namely, that it gives the Earth the power to advance its evolution.

[ 17 ] Thus, the one who understands this deeper meaning of the Gospel of John should feel how he is connected not only through his physical body to the physical body of the Earth, but also, as a spiritual-soul being, to the spiritual-soul being of the Earth, which is Christ Himself; how Christ, as the Spirit of the Earth, permeates it as His body.

[ 18 ] When we feel this, we can say: What dawned on the writer of the Gospel of John at the moment when he was able to behold the profound mysteries connected with Christ Jesus? There he saw what power, what impulses were all present in Christ Jesus, and how these impulses must all work within humanity, if only humanity were to receive them.

[ 19 ] To gain a clear understanding of this, we must once again consider how human evolution actually takes place. After all, a human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and the “I.” How does this evolution occur? It occurs as the human being, starting from the “I,” gradually works through, purifies, and strengthens the other three bodies. The “I” is called upon to gradually purify the astral body, cleanse it, and raise it to a higher level. When the entire astral body has been purified and strengthened by the “I’s” own power, it will become the spiritual self, or Manas. When the etheric or life body has been completely worked through and strengthened by the power of the “I,” it will become the Buddhi, or the life spirit. When the physical body has been completely overcome and conquered by the “I,” it will become the Atma, or the spiritual human being. And then the human being will have reached the goal that initially lies before them. But this will not be achieved until a distant future. Furthermore, what is described here—that the human being, consisting of the four members: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I,” and who, through his “I,” transforms the other three members into the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being—is meant to imply that the “I” is working with full consciousness in this process. However, this is still largely not the case with people today. In essence, people today are only just beginning, with full consciousness, to work their Manas into their astral body. This is the stage at which humanity now stands. But unconsciously, with the help of higher beings, human beings have already transformed their three lower members during the course of Earth’s evolution. In ancient times, they unconsciously transformed their astral body, and as a result, the astral body is permeated by the feeling soul. Unconsciously, the “I” has worked into the etheric body, and this unconsciously transformed etheric body is what you will find described in a systematic context in Theosophy as the “intellectual soul”; and what the “I” has unconsciously worked on in the physical body is what you will find referred to there as the “soul of consciousness.” The soul of consciousness, then, arose toward the end of the Atlantean epoch, when the etheric body—which had previously been outside the physical body with regard to its head region—gradually drew itself entirely into the physical body. Through this, human beings learned to say “I.” Thus, human beings gradually transitioned, along with their limbs, into the post-Atlantean epoch.

[ 20 ] Our time is destined for the Manas, or spiritual self, to be gradually integrated into what has already been unconsciously absorbed. Human beings must, so to speak, develop Manas within themselves using all the powers they have acquired through possessing a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, a sensory soul, an intellectual soul, and a conscious soul—using all the powers these members can provide—but also, albeit very sparingly, the potential for the life spirit, or Buddhi. Thus, our post-Atlantean era faces the significant task of working to ensure that human beings consciously develop these higher aspects of their being within themselves: Manas or the spiritual self, Buddhi or the life spirit, and Atma or the spiritual human being—even if the ultimate goal will not be attained until the distant future. Human beings must already begin today, step by step, to develop within themselves the powers to evolve their higher self from their lower self,

[ 21 ] Now let us ask ourselves: What is present in human beings that prevents them from having developed these higher faculties yet, and what will be present in the future that differs from this? How will the human beings of the future differ from those of today?

[ 22 ] When the fully developed higher human being is one day realized, the entire astral body will be so purified that it will simultaneously have become Manas, or the spiritual self; the etheric body will be so purified that it will simultaneously be the life spirit or Buddhi; and the physical body will be so transformed that, just as truly as it is a physical body, it will simultaneously be the spiritual man or Atma. The greatest power will lie in overcoming the lowest body, and therefore the overcoming and transformation of the physical body will represent the highest victory for humankind. When human beings fully accomplish this, this physical human will be the spiritual human or Atma. Today, all of this exists in human beings only as a potential; but one day it will be fully realized within them. And turning one’s gaze toward the Christ Personality, toward the Christ impulses—drawing strength and allowing oneself to be strengthened by the Christ impulse—this draws forth within the human being that which enables him to accomplish this transformation.

[ 23 ] If a person today has not yet undergone this transformation, what are the consequences for them? Spiritual science expresses this very simply: Because the astral body has not yet been purified, has not yet been transformed into the spiritual self, selfishness or egoism is possible; because the etheric body has not yet been permeated by the “I,” lying and error are possible; and because the physical body has not yet been permeated by the “I,” illness and death are possible. There will no longer be selfishness in the once fully developed spiritual self; there will be no illness or death, but only healing and health in the fully developed spiritual human being—that is, in the fully developed physical body. What, then, does it mean for a human being to absorb the Christ impulses? It means that he learns to understand the power that lies in Christ; he absorbs within himself the forces that enable him to exercise mastery even over his own physical body.

[ 24 ] Just imagine if a person could fully absorb the Christ impulse within themselves, if the Christ impulse could be fully transferred to a person, if Christ Himself were standing directly before a person, and if the Christ impulse were to be directly transferred to that person. What does that mean?—If the person were blind, he could regain his sight through the direct influence of this Christ impulse, because the ultimate goal of evolution is the overcoming of the forces of illness and death. When the author of the Gospel of John speaks of the healing of the man born blind, he is speaking from such depths of mystery; he is using an example to show that the Christ-force is a healing force when it manifests in its full strength. Where, then, is this power? In the Body of Christ, in the Earth. This Earth need only be truly permeated by the essence of the Christ Spirit or the Logos.

[ 25 ] Let’s see if the author of the Gospel of John recounts the event in this way. How does he tell the story? The blind man is there; Christ takes some earth, spits on it, and places it on him—he places his body, imbued with his Spirit, upon the blind man. With this description (9:6), the author of the Gospel of John reveals a mystery that he knows intimately. And now we must—setting aside all prejudices—speak more precisely about this one of the great signs of Christ Jesus, so that we may come to know the nature of such a thing exactly and not concern ourselves with the fact that our very clever contemporaries consider what is now being said to be madness or folly. Rather, let us say this: there are great, mighty mysteries in the world that are not yet within humanity’s reach today. People today, no matter how developed they may be, are not strong enough to actually perform these great mysteries. One can know about them, one can understand them, if one can experience them spiritually; but to translate them into the physical realm—of that, our humanity, having descended so deeply into matter, is incapable.

[ 26 ] All life actually consists of opposites, of extremes. Life and death are such extremes. For the occultist’s perception and mindset, something very peculiar arises when, for example, he sees a corpse and a living person side by side. When one has a living, awake person before one, one knows that a soul and a spirit dwell within them. But in this awake person, they are, so to speak, cut off from all connection with the spiritual world in terms of consciousness; they do not look into the spiritual world. When we have the corpse before us, we sense that the spirit and soul that belonged to this corpse are now on their way to passing into the spiritual worlds, that there the consciousness—the light of the spiritual world—shines upon them. And so the corpse becomes a symbol of what happens in the spiritual worlds. But even in the physical realm, the reflections of what happens in the spiritual realm are present—albeit in a remarkable way. When a human being descends once more to be born, a physical body must be formed for them. Matter must, so to speak, coalesce so that a body may be formed for them. And to a clairvoyant, this coalescence of matter appears as though the consciousness there in the spiritual world were dying. There it dies—here it comes to life. In the coalescence of matter into a physical human body, one sees, in a certain sense, a spiritual consciousness dying first. And indeed, in the decay or burning of the physical body, when the parts move apart and dissolve, the opposite occurs at the same time in the spiritual realm: the emergence of a spiritual consciousness becomes evident. Physical dissolution is spiritual birth. That is why, for the occultist, all processes of decomposition and dissolution are something entirely different. A cemetery, where physical bodies disintegrate, is—from a spiritual point of view, setting aside the people and focusing instead on what is happening spiritually within the cemetery itself—a remarkable process: a continuous shining and glimmering of spiritual births. — Let us now suppose that a person were to subject themselves physically—though this is, of course, not recommended to anyone, since today’s bodies simply cannot withstand it—let us assume a person were to undergo a certain form of training; they would train their physical body by breathing the air of decay for a prescribed period of time, with the conscious intention of absorbing the spiritual process just described. If they do this in the proper manner, then in future incarnations—it cannot be achieved in a single incarnation—they may indeed be incarnated with that power which imparts life-giving and healing impulses. Inhaling the air of the dead is part of the training to gradually develop one’s saliva into the power that, together with ordinary earth, produces what Christ rubbed into the blind man’s eyes.

[ 27 ] This mystery, through which one partakes of death—the T'od iBt, or breathes it in—and thereby receives the power to heal, is the secret to which the author of the Gospel of John alludes by showing us signs such as the healing of the man born blind. And it would be far better, rather than having people endlessly debate whether such a thing should be interpreted one way or another, for them to learn that such a thing exists literally, as described in the healing of the blind man, and for them to gain respect for a figure such as the author of the Gospel of John, so that they might say to themselves: It was such a personality who was well initiated into these mysteries, and we must try to acquire an understanding of these mysteries. |

[ 28 ] However, it was necessary for me to point out beforehand that one is entering a branch of anthroposophy in which certain prejudices are set aside when a true mystery such as the “spinning of the Earth” as a remedy is recounted, and it is stated that such an event also has a literal meaning.

[ 29 ] But now let us try to understand how closely we grow together through knowing such things, in light of the idea that occupies us today: that Christ is the Spirit of the Earth and the Earth is his Body. We saw the Christ spiritualizing the Earth through an example, and we saw him give a part of himself in order to accomplish what is at stake here.

[ 30 ] And now let’s consider something else. Let us add to everything we have said today that Christ says: The deepest mystery of my being is the “I Am”; and the true and eternal power of the “I Am”—or of the “I”—which has the power to penetrate other bodies, must flow into human beings. It is contained within the Earth Spirit. — Let us keep this in mind, and take it very seriously—utterly seriously—that by seeking to impart to every human being the true possession of the “I,” Christ intends to awaken the God within every human being, to gradually kindle the Lord and King within every human being. What does this reveal to us? It reveals nothing less than that Christ, in the most eminent sense, expresses the idea of karma, the law of karma. For once one fully understands the idea of karma, one will understand it in this Christian sense. It means nothing less than that no human being should set themselves up as a judge over the innermost being of another human being. Whoever has not yet grasped the idea of karma in this sense has not grasped it in its depth. As long as one person judges another, one person subjects the other to the compulsion of one’s own ego. But if one truly believes in the “I Am” in the Christian sense, one does not judge; then one says: I know that karma is the great balancer. Whatever you have done, I do not judge! — Let us suppose that a sinner were brought before someone who truly understands the Word of Christ. How would that person behave toward this sinner? Let us suppose that all those who claim to be Christians would accuse this person of a grave sin. The true Christian would say: Whatever you may bring forward—whether he did it or not—the “I Am” must be respected; it must be left to karma, to the great law that is the law of the Christ Spirit itself. It must be left to Christ Himself. - Karma unfolds in the course of Earth’s evolution; we can leave it to this evolution itself to determine what punishment karma imposes upon the human being. One might perhaps turn to the Earth and say to the accusers: “Mind your own business!” It is up to the Earth to bring the punishment to expression. So let us inscribe it into the Earth, where it is already inscribed as karma anyway!

“But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
Early in the morning he returned to the temple, and all the people came to him; and he sat down and taught them.
But the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery and set her in the midst of the crowd,
and said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the very act of adultery.’
But Moses, in the Law, commanded us to stone such women; what do you say?’
They said this to test him, so that they might have grounds to accuse him. But Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
And as they continued to question him, he stood up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone at her.”
Then he bent down again and wrote on the ground.
When they heard this, they went out one by one, beginning with the elders and ending with the youngest, their consciences convicting them; and Jesus was left alone, with the woman standing in the middle.
But Jesus stood up; and when he saw no one but the woman, he said to her, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” (8:1–10)

[ 31 ] He says this to divert attention from any external judgment and to point to inner karma.

“But she said, ‘Lord, no one.’” (8:11)

[ 32 ] She is at the mercy of her karma. The only thing to do is to stop dwelling on the punishment that is being fulfilled through karma and instead strive to improve herself:

“But Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more!’” (8:11)

[ 33 ] Thus we see how the deepest idea of Christ—the significance of his being for the Earth—is connected to the idea of karma: If you have grasped my being, then you have also grasped the one whose essence I express, and that the “I Am” brings about balance. — Independence and inner integrity—that is what Christ has given to humanity as an impulse.

[ 34 ] People today have not yet come very far in understanding true, inner Christianity. But when people learn to understand what lies within a text such as the Gospel of John, they will gradually absorb the impulses contained within it. Then, in the distant future, the Christian ideal will be fulfilled.

[ 35 ] Thus we see how, in the post-Atlantean era, the first impulse flows into the Earth to develop the higher human being.

[ 36 ] Tomorrow we will explore the development of humanity in connection with the Christ principle, particularly in this post-Atlantean era, in order to use this as a starting point to show what Christ will be in the future.