The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First lecture

[ 1 ] We have often spoken of the fact that Theosophy should not be regarded as something new. Other, external currents of knowledge often seek to be something new; but Theosophy aims to be—and should be—the expression, appropriate for our time, of the quest for wisdom as it has persisted throughout the ages; Theosophy sees in all temporal revelations various forms of a primordial wisdom that flows through all ages.

[ 2 ] The Apocalypse, which is one of the oldest texts of Christianity, has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways throughout the history of Christianity; and these various interpretations have always reflected the subjective perspectives of their respective eras. On the whole, however, if we let our gaze sweep quickly over the centuries of Christian development, we can already see the burgeoning materialistic interpretation of this book emerging in earlier times. There we find that the mistake was made quite early on: to see in the images of the Apocalypse specific events in the development of the earth and humanity, such as the descent of the promised Messiah into the world or even the establishment of a heavenly kingdom on this earth in a physical sense. When subsequent times failed to fulfill or reveal any of this, people in various parts of the Western world believed that they had erred in their dating of events and pushed the fulfillment of the prophecy further and further into the future. Around the 12th and 13th centuries, people began once again to interpret the Apocalypse in a more inward way. Thus, during that time, people began to see the kingdom of the Antichrist more and more in the external manifestations of Christianity. For many, the Roman Catholic Church itself became the embodiment of this kingdom of the Antichrist; the Roman Catholic Church, in turn, saw the same thing in Protestantism.

[ 3 ] In more recent times, which are so thoroughly imbued with a materialistic mindset, it was said that the author of Revelation could not, of course, have known anything about the future, but rather that he had described events that had already taken place. Thus, it was believed that in the beast with the two horns, he had seen such a great opponent of Christianity as Nero. When the text goes on to speak of earthquakes, swarms of locusts, and so on, it is not difficult to prove that such events occurred in those regions at that time. Well, this is what is called “objective research,” and yet it is, of course, entirely colored by subjective interpretation.

[ 4 ] Theosophy is now to become a tool for us to reinterpret the Apocalypse spiritually and thereby penetrate its meaning. Now one might think that this explanation through theosophy is also subjectively colored, like all other explanations. In a certain sense, it is; yet there is a difference between it and the other explanations. External historians aim to be objective; yet they can only be subjective. We, however, seek to explain subjectively in the sense that we are humbly aware: the wisdom of the world is always in harmony with progressive development, with the passage of time. If we do what is right for our time, this becomes a force that will continue to influence the future. Theosophy must not become a dogma. What we teach today as Theosophy does not change in its essence, but it does change in its forms. When the souls of the present age are reborn, they will be equally ready in times to come to embrace other, higher, future forms of spiritual life. Our interpretation of the Apocalypse will become outdated; future times will go beyond it. But the Apocalypse itself will not become outdated because of this. It is far greater than our interpretations, and it will find even deeper, even higher interpretations.

[ 5 ] Let us recall the first lines of Revelation as they truly read. We are told that the mystery of Jesus Christ is given to us in signs, that these signs are to be interpreted, and that the writer, to the best of his ability, attempts to interpret as much of the signs as possible. The Apocalypse was written with a different purpose than the Gospel of John. It is a personal experience when the writer tells us that he is describing the revelation of Jesus Christ, the appearance of the Christ. It is therefore something similar to Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus, the mystery of Paul. Paul is the one who did the most to proclaim and spread Christianity, even though he was not among the disciples who witnessed the events in Palestine or their tragic outcome: the crucifixion of Christ Jesus. We know that the Gospels depict the way in which all of this penetrated the hearts of the people of that time. Paul had also heard about everything recorded in the Gospels. Paul knew the events in Palestine in great detail, and yet he could not have imagined that the one who died on the cross was the promised Redeemer or Messiah. “The Messiah,” Paul told himself, “cannot end up like a common criminal.” It is difficult to understand Paul unless one looks more deeply into his soul and into the knowledge that lived within him as a Jewish initiate. He knew that the Redeemer, the Messiah, had revealed Himself beforehand in the burning bush and in the fire on Mount Sinai. Christ Jesus points to this when he says: “But if you do not believe his” — Moses’ — “writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:47) Christ is thus saying that he had previously revealed himself through external means, through the power of the elements, but that he then revealed himself through his life, suffering, and dwelling in the human body—having, so to speak, descended from the fire of Sinai. Paul, the Jewish initiate, was certainly familiar with the Christ foretold; for behind the mystery of Moses lies the following: In the time of the Old Testament and in the ancient Jewish mystery teachings, there were, as in all ages, mysteries and initiates. Let us adhere to the principle that initiation must also adapt to the circumstances of the times. If we consider this, then we must begin by imagining the human being as theosophy or spiritual science presents him: as a fourfold being, endowed with the physical body—which humans share with minerals—the etheric body, which they share with the plant kingdom, an astral body, which the animal kingdom also possesses, and finally the “I” or “I-bearer.” As human beings stand before us, they consist of these four members. During the day, they are connected to one another, but at night, the “I” and the astral body are in the spiritual world. Thus, modern human beings perceive nothing during the night. If a person now wishes to develop toward higher spiritual vision, they must apply certain methods of inner development to themselves. Anyone who wishes to ascend to the higher worlds must allow meditation and concentration to work upon their soul and immerse themselves in certain things, one of which—among hundreds—is, for example, the Rosicrucians.

[ 6 ] When modern people sleep, nothing they experience during the day can make such a strong impression on their astral body that it continues to have an effect during the night. When a normal person today falls asleep in the evening, their daily life is as if it had been erased. For the initiate, however—even if he remains unaware of the transformation of his astral body for a long time—the situation is different. When he begins to practice meditation and allows the exercises prescribed in occult schools to take effect, the clairvoyant sees—whereas in the ordinary person something disorganized and chaotic is visible—entirely different currents, forms, and organs in the meditator. This is evident as the effect of the exercises, even if the student himself remains unaware of it for a long time. His astral body becomes a different entity, no matter how brief the meditation may be. Previously, the astral body was chaotic, and everything the person did was drowned out by the impressions of the day. Only the guidelines of occult training provide something that overpowers all everyday impressions. That is why this transformation of the soul was called purification or catharsis. The student becomes purified, whereas in the ordinary person, the astral body continues to be chaotic and disordered.

[ 7 ] Now, however, the teacher must also help the student become aware of the spiritual world around him. So that what took place in the astral body could be carried over into the etheric body, the following was done with the student in earlier times. When the student was ready—that is, had reached the level of initiation—he had to spend some time, usually three and a half days, lying down, during which the initiator induced a state of complete lethargy or numbness. The etheric body was then drawn out, and the astral body pressed everything it had prepared within itself through the occult exercises into the etheric body. Otherwise, the physical body acts as an obstacle to bringing to consciousness what a person experiences in the spiritual world. At that very moment, when the initiator removed the etheric body from the physical body, enlightenment occurred, and the enlightened one now experienced the spiritual world; and after three and a half days, he had become an initiate who could speak of the spiritual worlds.

[ 8 ] We can find the same process in the mysteries of various peoples. But for the initiates of the Old Testament, the initiation was different; for they relived what Moses had experienced on Mount Sinai. Thus they were able to tell the people that the Messiah would appear, that the Messiah would come forth from their own people, and that he would embody in his own physical body the principles of all human evolution. That was the highest moment of the initiation, when the enlightened Hebrew was permitted to experience that Christ would arise in the future. Paul, as a Jewish initiate, knew all of this; nevertheless, before the event at Damascus, he could never have believed that the One who died on the cross was the same One.

[ 9 ] Paul now speaks of himself as having been born prematurely—that is, as one initiated by grace. He emphasizes that he did not receive his initiation through a gradual process of training; yet he is closer to the spiritual world than those who have descended deeper into the material realm. Thus he was able to experience what the “crown of life”—the final act in Old Testament initiation—was: the crowning through the appearance of Christ. In a radiance of light, he beheld what the Old Testament initiates had always experienced; what they had experienced as a future event, he now saw as a manifestation that told him this being was the same as the one who had lived and died in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. He now knew: the Messiah, the Christ, is already here.

[ 10 ] The fact that the Christ was to come had been the greatest event of the ancient initiation. That He had died and yet lived on—connected to earthly existence and continuing to work in the development of humanity—is what we see throughout all of Paul’s letters. He viewed this event as something that had already become a reality.

[ 11 ] Let us now consider all the other initiations that were neither ancient Hebrew nor Christian. It was known that in ancient Atlantean times, human beings took on a form that was quite different from that of today. The etheric body is, after all, the shaper of the physical body; through initiation, one always perceived what, as the etheric body, underlay the physical body. In the spiritual world, one had to dispense with the image of the physical human body; one saw only the etheric body of the human being.

[ 12 ] In the ancient Hebrew initiation, however, the culmination was always seen as the physical human being being spiritualized and transported into the spiritual world. And Christ was understood to be such a human being—the first true human form that would ever be seen moving from the physical world into the spiritual world. Thus, in the Hebrew initiation, it was envisioned that in the distant future, through the “Son of Man,” Christ, the physical form would be sanctified and purified. That is why Paul knew that the one who appeared to him as a human figure near Damascus could be none other than Christ.

[ 13 ] The apocalyptic writer describes something similar when he speaks of the “Son of Man.” He calls the seven churches the “seven stars” and the “Son of Man” the spiritualized, purified form within the physical body—not merely within the etheric body, but the physical human form transfigured and sanctified.

[ 14 ] Thus he presents to us the very same thing that Paul had beheld on the road to Damascus, and he explains what the impetus of this Christ event was to mean for all of humanity. He speaks to us of the seven churches in the seven letters or epistles to the churches as representing the task of the seven post-Atlantean cultures; and he depicts the seven cultures that will follow ours—those of the seventh great main age—in the seven seals; but he depicts the seven cultures of the seventh great main age in the seven trumpets.

[ 15 ] We can observe what is unfolding as today’s culture in the physical world. But what unfolds in the sixth great epoch can be experienced in advance through the images of the astral world. The seventh great epoch, on the other hand, can be experienced in the sounds of the harmony of the spheres, in the Devachanic world. It is experienced as a consequence of the Christ impulse.

[ 16 ] Thus, the Apocalypse is a depiction of what the Christian initiate experienced: a description of Christian initiation, a portrayal of the experiences of one who has been initiated in the Christian sense and who has understood what came into the world through Christ.