The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] Eight days ago, we began by discussing how to understand the language of John: how to read the Apocalypse, and what lies behind certain mysterious expressions—for example, the Lamb as the beast with seven eyes and seven horns. Then we tried to explain the beast with two horns and the number 666 as an example of how we must immerse ourselves in this mysterious book. Today, let’s once again bring the meaning of this book into focus.

[ 2 ] The writings of the New Testament are initiatory texts. Using individual parables as examples, we have seen what profound meaning they contain. All these parables have shown us that the deepest conceivable meaning regarding the evolution of the world is expressed in figurative form in the Gospels. It might occur to someone to ask why there are contradictions in the individual Gospels, why they do not agree with one another. The necessary explanations regarding this have already been set forth in my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact. The Gospels are not biographical records of Jesus Christ, but records of initiation. The Apocalypse, however, is the most profound record. A phrase used by Augustine is: What is now called the “Christian religion” is the ancient, true religion. What was the true religion is now called the Christian religion.

[ 3 ] We understand this word when we consider the central tenet of Christianity: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) Through this, Christianity has brought something entirely new into the world. These teachings are also found in other religious systems. But never, in the circles that understood what “Christ” is, was the main emphasis placed on the content of the teaching. The content of the teaching can also be verified from other ancient documents; with Christ, it is precisely a matter of what this individuality of humanity signifies. We can most easily gain an understanding of this by taking a look into the ancient places of initiation.

[ 4 ] Until the time of Christ Jesus, only a select few were initiated. After undergoing severe trials, they were admitted to the teachings of the higher worlds, as they now appear in my book Theosophy. One had to wait a long time before being introduced to the higher degrees of vision. Only the most highly initiated knew the tradition regarding the performance of the initiation. If someone was to become a disciple, he had to take this first step, then this second step, and so on. The initiation concluded when the disciple had passed through the preparatory stages and was led by the sage into the mysteries themselves. This took place in a state of consciousness called “ecstasy,” a state of dwelling outside the physical body. It was associated with a dimming of consciousness, yet at the same time with a vision of the spiritual worlds. Through inner training—brought about by impulses of the will, meditation, and the purification of the passions—the initiate had been brought to the point where he could take the final step. Then, for three and a half days, the initiator placed him in a state similar to the one we experience when we fall asleep in the evening. External sensory impressions vanished. For us, nothing takes the place of the visual and auditory impressions that disappear in the evening; but for the initiate, a new world appeared. He was surrounded by a new world, a world of astral light. Not darkness, nor anything that modern human beings experience during sleep, appeared there. The darkness was permeated by a spiritual light and by beings who incarnate within that spiritual light. These beings became visible in the astral light. Then, after some time, the astral world, permeated by light, began to resound with the harmony of the spheres. What had previously only been visible began to be heard; it was purely spiritual music. External music is merely a shadowy reflection of the sounds of the spheres, which the seer perceives, along with the inner nature of the spiritual beings. When we enter a room and there are people there who then begin to speak, they reveal their inner selves to us. So it is in the spiritual worlds. First, the beings become visible; then the inner being of these beings speaks to us. This is the harmony of the spheres.

[ 5 ] Then, when the initiate was brought back to physical perception, he found himself completely transformed, a new person. Everyone who returned in this way then uttered a specific phrase that was characteristic. It was: “My God, my God, how have you glorified me!” (See Matt. 27:46 and Mark 15:34)

[ 6 ] And so he returned—a messenger from the spiritual world, speaking from his own experience and personal encounters. He came to be regarded as a messenger from the spiritual worlds. What they had experienced up until they entered the spiritual worlds was precisely prescribed, step by step.

[ 7 ] Although the initiation rites were not recorded in detail, there were initiation canons in which all the stages were prescribed. Whether according to the Egyptian Hermetic tradition, the Persian school, the Greek Mysteries, or the Druidic or Drotten Mysteries, everywhere there were typical, traditional prescriptions regarding what one who was to become an initiate had to experience: namely, that life in the spirit would triumph over death. These initiation texts contained what one had to go through.

[ 8 ] Whenever the lives of the great apostles of religion and worldviews are described, typical, similar traits always emerge. The lives of Orpheus, Pythagoras, Hermes, and the Buddha share many common traits that are essential to all great religious heroes. Where does this come from? Secular scholars have believed that one borrowed from the others. But that was not the case. However, all these typical religious heroes had passed through these stages up to the highest level of initiation. In ancient times, there were no biographies that focused on the outer life. The further back we go beyond the turn of the era, the less emphasis we find placed on the outer aspects. In the case of humanity’s greatest heroes, there were no accounts at all of what they experienced outwardly on the physical plane. Their lives were entirely devoted to initiation. To recount the initiation was to recount their lives. The main thing about a Hermes or a Buddha was what he experienced up to the point of initiation. Since the stages of initiation were similar everywhere, one had to obtain a spiritual description of the lives of the great Initiates.

[ 9 ] What had once been experienced only in secret had become a historical fact in Christianity. Hermes had lived through what could be described of him in the inner mysteries, in places hidden from the profane gaze.

[ 10 ] In Christianity, what had previously taken place in the mystery schools was now experienced for the first time as an external, physical event. The life of Christ is the same life that all initiates had experienced when they first separated the etheric body from the physical body. Everything that Christ Jesus physically experienced on the physical plane, they had experienced in the etheric. Their final words were also: “My God, my God, how have you glorified me!” They had previously experienced in the etheric body what Christ Jesus was now experiencing in the physical body. Thus it came to pass that the prophecies of the prophets were fulfilled. This unique event marks the greatest turning point in our world history and divides it into two parts.

[ 11 ] The evangelists did not write an external biography, but rather drew upon the existing canonical initiation texts. All four Gospels should be regarded as initiation texts, each from a different perspective. However, since the initiation is described in the same way throughout, the four Gospels agree on the most important points. We can describe the life of the initiate if we regard it as a life dedicated to initiation. It would have seemed unholy to the evangelists to present an external, historical biography of Christ Jesus. They had to draw the building blocks for their writings from the mystery texts themselves. Thus, to a certain degree, what the prophets had foretold was fulfilled.

[ 12 ] In a certain sense, the Apocalypse represents a new kind of initiation; it illustrates how the ancient mysteries were transformed into Christian ones. When we look back at the ancient mysteries, we see a more or less consistent theme running through them. It consisted of the following: Whether we turn to Egypt, Persia, or India, whether we delve into the Orphic or the Eleusinian mysteries, we find a common thread: a prophetic reference to One who is to come. This thread was also present in the Nordic European mysteries: there was an ancient initiate whom they called “Sig.” The Drotten mysteries, which existed in Russia and Scandinavia, and the Druidic mysteries in Germania—all descended from an initiate named Sig, who was the founder of the Nordic mysteries. What took place in the mysteries has been preserved in the various myths and legends of the German people and other Germanic peoples. The myths and legends are pictorial representations of what was actually experienced. In the Siegfried saga, the trait that points toward an end is most pronounced. It finds its expression, mythologized, in Götterdämmerung. This is the underlying theme in all the Nordic mysteries.

[ 13 ] In all forms of mysticism, the image of the feminine has been used to represent the soul—an image that Goethe also employs in the “Chorus mysticus.” It is the eternal aspect of the human being—the divine soul—that draws people upward. Just as initiation was described in ancient Egypt and Persia as the union of the soul with the spiritual, so too was it depicted here in the North. Here in the North, people understood best that a man must prove himself on the battlefield. Among those who were held in high esteem in the North, it was the case that they were honored as warriors who fell on the battlefield; these were the ones who entered eternal life, while the others died a meaningless death. The fallen warriors were received by the Valkyries, their own souls; union with the Valkyrie was union with the Eternal. As for Siegfried, it is said that he had already united with the Valkyrie here on earth; this indicates that he was an initiate. The meaning of the story—that Siegfried experienced union with the Valkyrie while still on earth—is that he was an initiate. This legend reveals one thing to us in connection with “Siegfried’s death.” When one underwent initiation in the ancient mysteries, one was told: “We can bring you up to a certain point… only another can take you further—that other is Jesus Christ—; everything we can give you will be obscured when the one who brings the new initiation arrives.” — Siegfried is vulnerable to Hagen’s attack from behind because what is to be placed at that spot in the one who will supersede the old initiation has not yet been placed there. That spot will one day be made invulnerable when the cross has been placed upon it. This is how the Nordic mysteries pointed to Jesus Christ.

[ 14 ] In all the ancient mysteries, people looked forward to the One who was to come, who would live on the physical plane to establish a new world order. What is to come about through the impulses He has given is the new initiation. We find a description of this in the Book of Revelation. It describes how the initiation will unfold until Christ Jesus returns in a new form. The Book of Revelation points to the time when the organ for receiving Christ will be developed. The time leading up to the return of Christ Jesus is described in the Book of Revelation. We understand the individual words when we put ourselves in the mindset of one who has experienced such an initiation. Let us recall here the word of Christ—if we understand this, then we will also understand the Book of Revelation—it is the word: “Before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58) — Christ turns his gaze from the past to the present, because for him there is an eternal present.

[ 15 ] If we want to understand what this means, we need only recall the fourfold nature of the human being. It consists of four members: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I.” As the “I” shines forth in the course of development, the astral body and the etheric body change, and ultimately the physical body as well: this “I” exists for eternity; it is born from the womb of higher spirituality. Whether we look to the past or to the future, this “I” is the eternal. When we consider the individual human being, we may ask ourselves: What transformations has his “I” undergone? If we look back to the great Atlantean Flood, and then further back, we do not find the “I” in a body such as the present one; at that time, it was a state in which we were not yet able to think as well as we do now. When we look to the future, we find the “I” in ever more perfect bodies, the perfection of which we cannot even imagine through our thinking at this time. We cannot yet conceive of the perfection of thought, the purity of feeling, and so on, in the future bodies. Those who are initiates must, of course, make use of the human form as it is at any given time. Christ, too, had to use the form that was customary at that time; yet if we look more deeply behind it, we see in him a stage of development that humanity will not reach until the distant future. Christ Jesus was the firstborn among those who can overcome death.

[ 16 ] Let us compare the two modes of evolution. Today, a human being is born, goes through a life cycle, dies, passes through an astral state and through Devachan, and is then reborn. If we go back to the beings that existed before the middle of the Lemurian period, they are beings that do not die and are not reborn. They continually change their bodies, just as we do between physical birth and physical death. Then a certain revolution takes place. In modern humans, spiritual and physical life alternate. As for the group souls of animals, they shed the individual animals, but they themselves do not perish.

[ 17 ] When we try to imagine the Supreme Being—the One who, in the beginning, was as highly developed as others will be at the end of their evolution—we are presented with the image of Christ: He was the “I” who, even in the beginning, was as perfect as humanity will be at the end. “Grace be with you, and peace, from him who is, and who was, and who is to come...” (Rev. 1:4) He is the First and the Last.

[ 18 ] This is how the one who gives the Revelation to John is described. It is a Christian book; this is proven by the passage that reads: “...and of Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. He loved us and washed us from our sins with his blood, and has made us kings and priests before God, his Father; to him be glory and power from everlasting to everlasting! Amen.” (Rev. 1:5–6)

[ 19 ] Christianity represents the highest possible degree of individualization of human beings—the freedom of the human being as an individual. At the dawn of humanity, we see small communities bound by blood ties. Those of the same blood love one another. Then Jesus Christ comes and expands all ethnic communities to encompass all of humanity. All ethnic religions are overcome through him. Christianity is a world religion. In it, there are only human beings; Christianity knows only human beings. Christianity could never speak of a community of religions, but only of a community of human beings. An era began in which the secret mysteries became accessible to all through the Mystery of Golgotha, which stands at the center of the world. Gradually, all those who exist as chosen priests and kings are ceasing to exist. This points to a final state in which everyone is a priest and a king—a state that sweeps away all differences and makes all people equal. That is why the Book of Revelation says: “... and has made us kings and priests before God and his Father...” (Rev. 1:6)

[ 20 ] The book represents a true initiation, an ascent that begins with learning on the physical plane. This stage is depicted in the section that discusses the seven letters to the seven churches. The seven letters represent what one must first learn. This is followed by a series of images that lead us to the astral plane. Then one sees groups of beings transforming in the astral light: “...and the one who sat there was like jasper and sardius in appearance; and a rainbow was around the throne, like an emerald in appearance.” (Rev. 4:3) — “And before the throne was a sea of glass, like crystal...” (Rev. 4:6) The transparency symbolizes the nature of astral light. In astral light, one can see right through objects; they appear glass-like. The entire astral world is like a sea of glass.

[ 21 ] Then come the four living creatures; these are said to represent the human group souls. They were full of eyes, both inside and out, and never rested, day or night...: because there is constant movement in the astral realm, and because the astral eyes are everywhere and everything is transparent to them, both within and all around.

[ 22 ] We see, then, how the mysteries of the physical plane are first described, and then, from the sealed book, the astral imaginings. They come to us in images.

[ 23 ] Once the seer has perceived the spiritual beings in the astral light for a time, they begin to sound. When the sixth seal is opened, this is described as the sounding of the trumpets. This is the devachanic state: The seer becomes clairaudient; his clairaudient ear is opened.

[ 24 ] Next comes the stage where the beholder expands his consciousness to encompass the entire world. This is symbolized by the devouring of the book. It expresses the ascent into the realm of the higher spiritual worlds.