The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. The Reappearance of the Christ in the Etheric

[ 1 ] There is a certain connection between the past and the future of human development. When examined, this connection sheds much light on the questions we might ask, such as: What is our responsibility as human beings in any given era?

[ 2 ] When we gathered here some time ago, we spoke at length about the past of human development. Today, let us speak a little about the connection between the past and the immediate future of human development. We concluded yesterday by pointing to an important indication that tells us, as it were, from on high, that humanity needs a spiritual impetus—something like a new impulse of the times. We can only understand how this new impulse of the times must work if we view the last few millennia before the founding of Christianity in a certain context alongside the millennia after the founding of Christianity—the millennia in which we ourselves are now living.

[ 3 ] There is a certain law according to which certain events in human evolution repeat themselves, and we did, in fact, speak of such repetitions in human evolution during the last Stuttgart cycle. Today I would just like to point out in particular that when Spiritual Science points to such regular repetitions in human development, one should not believe that one can construct such repetitions purely through intellectual reasoning. For these repetitions must all be examined in detail; they must be identified in detail through spiritual research. Otherwise, one can go very, very far astray if one constructs new ones, as it were, based on the pattern of one repetition or another. Now there is a repetition that does, admittedly, resemble another: this is the repetition in which fundamental events—important events that were active before the founding of Christianity—recur in a certain way after the founding of Christianity. If one considers the last three millennia before the founding of Christianity, these three millennia belong to an epoch in the history of human development that is referred to as the so-called “dark age,” the “lesser dark age”: Kali Yuga.

[ 4 ] This Kali Yuga begins in the year 3101 before the founding of Christianity. Everything that we actually regard today as humanity’s great achievements—what we consider the defining characteristic of contemporary human culture—is linked to this dark age. Before this age, before this dark age or Kali Yuga, all human thinking and all the powers of the human soul were, in a certain sense, organized differently. In that age before 3101—this is an approximate figure, as development gradually transitioned from one set of characteristics to another—what existed previously was what might be described as the last remnants of ancient clairvoyance. In the course of human development, the ages follow one another: Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, Kali Yuga. The latter is of particular interest to us today. The earlier ages take us back to ancient Atlantis. And remnants of that ancient clairvoyance were still present in those times, so that before the dark age, human beings still had a direct awareness of the existence of a spiritual world, because they could look into it. This awareness of the spiritual world, so to speak, receded more and more from human perception, and on average, we can say, the abilities and powers began to develop that, on the one hand, limit human judgment to the sensory world and, on the other hand, develop human self-consciousness. All these powers begin in the Kali Yuga. And while human beings during this age were unable to look into the spiritual worlds, the firm inner anchor within them developed all the more within the physical-sensory world—that which we call the knowledge of self-consciousness. But do not believe that this knowledge of self-consciousness is already developed to a high degree; it must first develop further and further. But it could never have entered human consciousness if this dark age had not existed. Thus, in the three millennia before the founding of Christianity, human beings lost more and more of their connection with the spiritual world. They no longer had it as part of their immediate perception.

[ 5 ] During my last visit here, we saw how, as the first millennium drew to a close, a kind of substitute emerged for the ability to glimpse into the spiritual worlds—a substitute given to humanity through the selection of a particular individual, Abraham, who possessed a special structure in his physical brain, yet was unable to attain consciousness of the spiritual world through the old faculties. That is why, in Spiritual Science, we prefer to call the first part of the Kali Yuga the Abrahamic Age—that age in which human beings, while losing their direct view into the higher spiritual worlds, nevertheless develop something akin to a consciousness of God, which gradually grows more and more into their “I,” so that they increasingly form a mental image of God as related to the “I”-consciousness, the human “I”-consciousness. Just as the “I” of the world, so does the deity appear to that age—the first millennium of the Kali Yuga—which, at its conclusion, we may call the Abrahamic Age.

[ 6 ] This Abrahamic age was followed by the age of Moses, in which it was no longer the case, so to speak, that the God Yahweh—that the World-I—revealed Himself as a mysterious guide of human destinies, as a God of one people alone; rather, as we know, this deity revealed Himself in the age of Moses in the burning bush as the God of the elements. And it was a great step forward when, based on the teachings of Moses, the World-I came to be perceived as the deity in such a way that people said to themselves: The elements of existence—that which is seen with the physical eyes—lightning and thunder and so on—these are outpourings, are deeds of the World-I, ultimately the one and only World-I. - We need only make it perfectly clear to ourselves to what extent this was a step forward.

[ 7 ] If we go back beyond the Abrahamic era and beyond the Kali Yuga, we find that people perceive the spiritual realm through their direct insight into the spiritual worlds, which arose from the remnants of ancient clairvoyance. But they perceive this spiritual realm throughout all those ancient times. We would have to go back very, very far if we wanted to find something different. People perceive this spiritual reality during the Dyapara Yuga, Treta Yuga, and Krita Yuga. They perceive this spiritual reality in such a way that it presents itself as a multitude of beings. You know, of course, that when we ascend into the spiritual worlds, we find the hierarchies of spiritual beings there. These, of course, are under spiritual guidance—under a unified spiritual guidance. But in those ancient times, consciousness did not extend to this unified spiritual guidance. People saw the individual members of the hierarchies; they saw a multitude of divine beings. To synthesize them into a single unity—that was possible only for the initiated. But now the World-I—which human beings first perceived through the physical instrument of the brain, a capacity that was particularly pronounced in Abraham—presented itself to them; now human beings perceived this World-I as manifesting itself in the various kingdoms of nature, in the various elements.

[ 8 ] And another advance was the one made, so to speak, during the last millennium before the founding of Christianity, in the Solomonic era. We can thus distinguish the three millennia preceding the founding of Christianity in such a way that we might call the first millennium, for example, the Abrahamic Age—named after the individuality that emerges there and exerts its influence into the second. From the beginning of the Kali Yuga until Abraham, human beings prepared themselves to recognize the One God behind natural phenomena. With Abraham, this possibility arose. The One God became the guiding force behind natural phenomena and was sought behind them during the age of Moses.

[ 9 ] All of this then reaches a higher level during the Solomonic Age. And through this latter age we are led to that point in development where the very same divine essence—which beheld the Abrahamic age in Yahweh, which beheld the Mosaic age again in Yahweh—takes on human form. For one must strictly uphold this in any consideration of the matter conducted under the auspices of Spiritual Science: the Gospels are correct in this regard. We must not distinguish Christ from Yahweh any more than we distinguish the sunlight reflected back to us by the moon from direct sunlight. What kind of light do we have on a moonlit night? It is genuine sunlight, only reflected back to us by the moon; so that we can have this sunlight directly during the day, or reflected back by the moon on moonlit nights. What appears in this way in space also reveals itself in such a way that what was ultimately to appear as a spiritual sun in Christ previously manifested itself, so to speak, as a reflection. In Yahweh lies the reflection that precedes Christ in time. Just as moonlight reflects sunlight, so the Christ-essence reflected itself back to Abraham, Moses, and Solomon. It was always the same essence. It then appeared itself as the Christ-Sun precisely with the founding of Christianity. Thus we have the preparation for this great event in the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, and the Solomonic ages.

[ 10 ] Now, a repetition of these three ages—as they existed before the founding of Christianity—is taking place in the post-Christian era, but this time in reverse order. This repetition takes place in such a way that the essential character of the Solomonic Age in the first millennium A.D. is repeated, specifically so that the spirit of Solomon lives and works within the most outstanding spirits of the first Christian millennium. And it was, in essence, the wisdom of Solomon—it was that which had spread as the wisdom of Solomon—through which people sought to grasp the nature and essence of the Christ event. What had been learned from Solomonic wisdom was precisely what people used to seek to understand the significance of the Christ event.

[ 11 ] Then came the era that might be called the revival of the Age of Moses. The Age of Moses followed the Solomonic era after Christ. And as we enter the second post-Christian millennium, it is the spirit of Moses that once again permeates the best of this era. Yes, we can find this spirit of Moses revived in a new form. Whereas in pre-Christian times the spirit of Moses looked out into the world of outer physical nature to find the World-I, the World-God as Yahweh—precisely as the World-I—to find Him in lightning and thunder, to find it in that which can flow in from without as the great law of human action—just as the World-I flows in, as it were, from without to Moses, just as the World-I thus reveals itself, as it were, from without—so we find that in the second post-Christian era, the same essence announces itself from within the soul. The experience that was, so to speak, an external event for Moses when he withdrew from his people to receive the Decalogue—this significant event repeats itself. It repeats itself in the second post-Christian millennium through a powerful inner revelation. Things do not repeat themselves in exactly the same way, but rather in such a way that what follows appears as a kind of polarity. Just as God had revealed Himself to Moses through the elements of nature, so now, in the second post-Christian millennium, He revealed Himself from the deepest recesses of the human soul. And how could this appear more magnificent to us than when we hear a significant and grandly gifted person preach—preach in such a way that one hears: He proclaims mighty things from the depths of his soul. One can assume that he is deeply imbued with what might be called Christian mysticism. Then, to the very place where he is preaching, comes a seemingly insignificant layperson who at first listens to the sermons but then turns out to be someone who need not remain a layperson—but who can become the teacher of the preacher Tauler, prompting Tauler despite having reached such a high level, to suspend his sermons for a while, because he does not yet feel fully imbued with what lives within that layman. And when the same preacher, having been inspired, ascends the pulpit once more, the powerful impact of his sermon is symbolically expressed to us by the statement that many of his listeners fell down as if dead. That is to say, what was of a lower nature is put to death within them. It was a revelation of the World-I from within, with just as much power emanating from within as in the second age before Christ, with Moses, emanating from the elements. Thus we see the age of Moses revived here, in such a way that the entire spirit of Christian mysticism—from Meister Eckhart up to the later Christian mystics—was permeated and animated by this spirit of Moses. Oh, the spirit of Moses lived within these Christian mystics! It was present, so to speak, in such a way that it lived itself into their souls. That was the second age of the post-Christian era, in which the entire character of the Moses era itself was resurrected. Just as in the first millennium of the post-Christian era the Solomonic age brought forth, so to speak, all the elaborations of the Christian view of the mysteries— and everything we know, for example, in the Christian sense as the hierarchies—in other words, the wisdom concerning the higher worlds in detail—so, in particular, the second age of Moses gave form to what German mysticism was: the deep mystical awareness of the God of Unity, who can be awakened in the human soul, who can rise again in the human soul.

[ 12 ] And this Age of Moses has remained influential in all that has, since that time, sought to explore with ever greater precision the World-I, the One God. But in accordance with the course of human development, from our own times onward—from those times in which we are slowly transitioning into the third millennium—a renewal of the Abrahamic Age is taking place. Just as the Abrahamic Age, the Mosaic Age, and the Solomonic Age followed one another in pre-Christian times, so they follow one another in post-Christian times in reverse order: the Solomonic Age, the Mosaic Age, and the Abrahamic Age. We are moving toward this Abrahamic Age, and it must and will bring us something momentous. Let us just recall for a moment what the true significance of the Abrahamic Age actually was.

[ 13 ] The significance of the Abrahamic era was that, so to speak, the ancient form of clairvoyance had faded away, and that human beings were given a consciousness of God that is closely linked to human faculties. Everything that humanity could gain from this sense of God—which is bound to the human brain—has gradually been exhausted, and there is very little left to be gained for humanity’s sense of God through these faculties—very little indeed. In contrast, we are taking the exact opposite path in the new Abrahamic Age. We are taking the path that once again leads humanity out of merely physical-sensory perception, out of the combination of physical-sensory characteristics; we are taking the path that once again leads people back into those realms where they once were before the Abrahamic Age. We are following the path that will enable people to reenter states of natural clairvoyance, of naturally clairvoyant powers. In the Kali Yuga, it was, after all, only initiation that could lead one in a proper way into the spiritual worlds. Of course, initiation leads up to high levels that humans will only be able to ascend to in the very distant future, but the first signs of a renewed clairvoyance—which will emerge as a natural human ability—will become apparent relatively soon, the more we move toward the renewal of the Abrahamic era.

[ 14 ] Now that we have attained self-awareness, now that people have come to realize that the self is a firm center within, people are once again being led outward so that they may gain a deeper insight into the spiritual worlds. This is still connected to the era in which the Kali Yuga came to an end. The Kali Yuga lasts 5,000 years; it lasted until the year 1899. 1899 was indeed an important year for human development. This is, of course, an approximate year, since things happen gradually. But just as the year 3101 can be identified as the one in which humanity was led down from the old clairvoyance to sensory perception and intellectual judgment, so too is the year 1899 the one in which humanity received a new impetus to ascend to the very beginnings of a future human clairvoyance. And it is destined for humanity, even in this 20th century standing on the threshold of the next millennium—indeed, for a few people even in the first half of this 20th century—to develop once more the first elements of a new clairvoyance, a clairvoyance that will most certainly emerge in humanity if people prove capable of understanding this new clairvoyance. For we must be clear about this: two things could happen. It is already laid down in the depths of the human soul for the future that such clairvoyant abilities will emerge as natural abilities —we must distinguish between artificial clairvoyance and that clairvoyance which will emerge as natural clairvoyance—for a few people as early as the first half of the 20th century and, over the next 2,500 years, for an ever-increasing number of people, until finally there will be a sufficiently large number of people who, if they so desire, will attain this new natural clairvoyance.

[ 15 ] But two things could happen. One is that, although people have the potential for this clairvoyance, materialism will prevail for the next few decades, and humanity will sink into the quagmire of materialism. Then, although individual people will emerge and say that it is as if they could see something within the physical human being—something like a second human being—if materialistic consciousness goes so far as to declare Spiritual Science a folly and stifle all awareness of the spiritual world, then these initial predispositions will simply not be understood. It will depend on humanity itself whether what is about to unfold will turn out for the good or for the bad; for what is actually meant to come might pass by unnoticed. Or the opposite might occur: that Spiritual Science will not be suppressed. Then people will understand not only to cultivate such qualities in the secret schools of initiation, but also to nurture them when, like delicate little plants of the human soul life, they begin to appear around the middle of our century in this or that individual—who, as if from an awakened soul power, will say: “I see something like a reality, as described in Theosophy as the second human being within the physical human being.” But other soul faculties will also emerge, for example, an ability that people will notice within themselves. They will, so to speak, perform some action. As they look back on it, something like a dream image will appear before their soul, and they will know: “This is connected in some way to my action.” — And people will know from Spiritual Science: When such an afterimage of my action appears to me—which, however, differs quite significantly from that action—it is nothing other than a manifestation of the karmic effect of my action, which is to occur in the future.

[ 16 ] Such an understanding of karma will emerge for the individual in the middle of our century, because the Kali Yuga has come to an end and because, from one epoch to the next, ever new abilities arise in human beings. But if no understanding is fostered, if this ability is, so to speak, stifled, if those who speak of these abilities are locked away as fools, then this will result in disaster for humanity. People will sink into the quagmire of materialism. It will depend entirely on whether an understanding of Spiritual Science is awakened, or whether the materialistic countercurrent—whether Ahriman—will succeed in thwarting what Spiritual Science does with good intentions. Then, of course, those who are suffocating in this materialistic quagmire may come forward and say: “Well, those were fine prophets who said that people would see a second human being alongside the physical one!” Certainly, nothing will manifest if the abilities for this have been trampled to death. But if they do not manifest by the middle of the 20th century, that will not be proof that human beings are not predisposed to it, but only that people have trampled the young sprouts in the bud. What is said today is already there and can develop, if only humanity is willing.

[ 17 ] We are therefore on the very threshold of such a development. We are, so to speak, retracing the path of evolution. With Abraham, the consciousness of God was introduced into the brain; as we enter a new Abrahamic age, the consciousness of God is once again being led out of the brain, and over the next 2,500 years we will increasingly encounter people who will possess what the sublime mysteries of initiation reveal as the great spiritual teachings concerning the mysteries of the worlds. Just as the spirit of Moses reigned in the past age up to our own time, so now the spirit of Abraham begins to reign—so to speak, after having once led humanity into a consciousness of God within the sensory world, to now lead humanity out of it once more. For it is an eternal law of the world that, so to speak, every individual must perform a certain deed periodically several times—above all, twice—one time as the opposite of the other. What Abraham, so to speak, brought down into humanity’s physical consciousness, he will once again carry up for them into the spiritual world.

[ 18 ] Thus we see that we are living in significant, pivotal times, and we come to realize that spreading Spiritual Science today is not merely something one does out of personal preference, but rather something that our time demands. Preparing humanity for major moments of development is one of the tasks of spiritual research. Spiritual Science exists so that people may know what they are seeing. Anyone who is sincere about their era cannot help but realize that spiritual knowledge must enter the world so that what is to come does not pass humanity by unnoticed.

[ 19 ] But these things are also linked to others. In certain other contexts, everything is renewed in such a similar cycle. We are moving toward a time in which more and more of what existed in the pre-Christian centuries is to be renewed for humanity, but everything will be imbued with what humanity has been able to gain through the great Christ event. We have seen that humanity has now relived that great moment—which Moses experienced through his impressions of the burning bush and the lightning on Mount Sinai—in a Christian form of inner experience. For now it is clear to the Tauler and Eckhart: when what Moses called Yahweh dawns upon them from within, it is the Christ; it is no longer the reflected Christ-essence, but the Christ Himself, rising from the depths of the heart. It is, so to speak, directly relived in a Christianized form—a form transformed by the Christ impulse—by the Christian mystics: that which was experienced by Moses. And in this transformed, new form, what was, so to speak, experienced in the pre-Christian, Abrahamic era will be experienced anew. And what will that be? All the things and events that, so to speak, normally occur in human development—all of these, as it were, cast their light ahead. I do not wish to repeat the trite expression that is often used; I do not wish to say “cast their shadows,” but rather “cast their light.” Thus, in a certain sense, something of future events is cast ahead in the light of what we call the conversion of Saul to Paul: the event at Damascus.

[ 20 ] Let us consider what this event meant for Paul. Up until this event, Paul was, so to speak, familiar with everything that was characteristic of the ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings. What did Paul know? From his knowledge of the ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings, Paul knew that one day an individual would descend who would represent to humanity the one who would overcome death. He knew: An Individuality would one day appear in the flesh, and through its life this Individuality would demonstrate that the spirit lives on beyond death in such a way that, for this very Individuality during its earthly incarnation, death means nothing more than another physical event. He knew this. And he knew something else from his ancient Hebrew esoteric teachings. He knew that when the Christ who was to come—the Messiah—had been present in the flesh, when he would have risen from the dead and, so to speak, triumphed over death, then the spiritual sphere of the Earth would have changed, and clairvoyance would have undergone a transformation. Whereas previously a clairvoyant had not seen the Christ Being in the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth—he could only see it by gazing upon the Sun Spirit—Paul knew that, through the Christ impulse, a change would have to occur in earthly existence such that, after the victory over death, the Christ would be found in the earthly sphere by the clairvoyant consciousness. Thus, when a person becomes clairvoyant, he must see Christ in the earthly sphere as the active Earth Spirit. But what Paul could not bring himself to believe, when he was still Saul, was that the one who had lived in Palestine and died on the cross—of whom his disciples said he had risen—was truly the one of whom the ancient Hebrew mystery teachings had spoken. The significant point is that Paul was not convinced by what he physically saw of what is recounted in the Gospels. He only began to be convinced that Christ was also the foretold Messiah when that foreshadowed light appeared to him—when, as if by a grace from above, he became clairvoyant and discovered Christ in the earthly sphere. So he must have told himself: He was already there; he had already risen. Because Paul himself had seen Christ clairvoyantly in the spiritual sphere of the Earth, he knew: Now he is here. - From that moment on, the conviction regarding Christ Jesus was within him. Thus, the fundamental event was that he clairvoyantly discovered Christ Jesus in the earthly sphere during the event at Damascus. So if, for example, Paul had not been able to hear the accounts of the deeds of Christ Jesus in Palestine, if he had not been able to hear the Gospels from personal experience, but had lived a little later, it might have been that he would have experienced this Christ event at Damascus only later. But then he would have come to the same conviction. For this event revealed to him the fact: Christ was there! And the One who reveals Himself in the earthly sphere—that is the One of whom the ancient Hebrew mystery teachings speak! —This Christ event is not bound to a specific point in time. It simply took place very quickly for Paul [after the Mystery of Golgotha], so that Christianity could take its course through Paul.

[ 21 ] However, during the Kali Yuga—which lasted until 1899—humanity had not yet reached a stage where a person could simply experience a “Paul-like” event out of the blue. Human capacities had not yet matured to that point. That is why some experienced it precisely as a grace. And others experienced similar events through grace as well. But now we are in that age in which that powerful transformation is to take place, in which the first seeds of natural clairvoyance are developing. We are entering the Abrahamic age; we are being led out into the spiritual world. This makes it possible for a certain number of people—and for more and more people over the next 2,500 years—to relive the Damascus experience. And this will be the great and mighty aspect of the coming age: that for many people the Damascus experience will be revived, and that for those who possess the abilities just mentioned—which are said to be emerging—Christ, who once dwelt in the spiritual sphere of the Earth, will become perceptible and will shine forth. As people become capable of seeing the etheric body, they will learn to see the etheric body of Christ Jesus, just as Paul saw it. This is what begins as the defining characteristic of a new age, and what will already become evident among the first precursors of humanity with these abilities between 1930 and 1940–45. If people are attentive, they will experience this event at Damascus—and with it, clarity and truth about the Christ event—through direct spiritual vision.

[ 22 ] And a strange parallelism of events will unfold. For in the next two decades, people will increasingly stray from the letter of the Gospels; they will no longer understand them. We can already see today how trivializers everywhere “prove” to people, using the Gospels, that these are not historical documents, that one cannot invoke a historical Christ at all. Historical documents will lose their value for humanity, and the number of those who deny Christ Jesus will grow ever larger. And only those who are short-sighted will believe that the matter can still be upheld by mere history alone. It is not those who are sincere in their commitment to Christianity who reject an understanding of the spiritual proof of Christ Jesus. The spiritual proof of Christ Jesus will be provided by nurturing people’s abilities so that they may perceive the truly existing Christ in His etheric body. For, in essence, no matter how good of Christians those who rely solely on documents may call themselves, they are destroying Christianity; no matter how much they may rant and no matter how loudly they may proclaim what they know about Christianity from the documents, they are destroying Christianity because they reject a spiritual teaching through which, in our century, Christ will become the truth for humanity through direct vision.

[ 23 ] When our calendar began, humanity had already descended into the Dark Ages for more than three millennia and was dependent on its external abilities. At that time, the Christ could not have revealed the abilities necessary for human development in any other way than through physical incarnation. At that time, physical abilities were at their peak; therefore, the Christ had to appear in a physical body. However, humanity would not have advanced a single step if it were not able to find the reality of the Christ in higher worlds through higher faculties. Just as the Christ had to be found through mere physical faculties back then, so too will people, with their newly developed faculties, find the Christ in that world where only etheric bodies are visible. For there is no second physical incarnation of the Christ. He was in a physical body only once, because human faculties were required only once to receive the Christ in a physical body. Now, however, with their higher faculties, they will be able to perceive the all the more real etheric body of the Christ.

[ 24 ] This is what one might call that momentous event that lies ahead of us: the reappearance of Christ Jesus—gradually, first to a few, then to more and more people. It is an event that is not only significant for those who will still be incarnated in the flesh at that time. A number of people who are incarnated today will still be incarnated at the time this Christ event occurs. They will experience it just as it has been described. Others will have passed through the gate of death. But, as we once saw in a lecture here—that the event at Golgotha was not merely an event for the physical world, but had an effect extending into all spiritual worlds, just as Christ’s descent into the underworld was a real fact—so too will the Christ event, which will take place in our century, have an effect into the world between death and a new birth as well—albeit in a different form than what human beings here on Earth will encounter. But one thing will be necessary: those abilities through which one will be able to perceive the Christ event between death and a new birth—these cannot be acquired between death and a new birth; they must be acquired here on the physical plane; they must be brought with us into the life between death and a new birth. There are indeed abilities that must be acquired on Earth. For we have not been placed on the physical Earth in vain. Anyone who believes that we have been placed on Earth in vain is mistaken. We must acquire abilities there that we cannot acquire in any other world. And the abilities to understand the Christ event, of which we have spoken, and the events that follow—these must be acquired here on this Earth. And those people who are now acquiring these abilities here on Earth through the proclamation of Spiritual Science will carry these abilities with them through the gate of death. It is not merely through initiation, but through the understanding acceptance of the proclamation of Spiritual Science that one acquires the abilities—the possibility—to perceive the Christ Event even in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. But those who turn a deaf ear must wait until their next incarnation to acquire here the abilities that must be acquired here in order to experience the Christ Event there. Thus, no one should in any way believe that the proclamation of the Christ event—which can only be understood within the context of the entire teaching of Spiritual Science—will bear no fruit for them if, by the time it occurs, they have already passed through the gate of death. It will bear fruit for them.

[ 25 ] Thus we see that spiritual research is the precursor to a new Christ event. But those who take the essence of the spiritual teaching to heart—as the very substance of their entire inner life, as living reality—will then truly grow toward a spiritual understanding of the matter; they will then come to realize that, through Spiritual Science, they must learn to thoroughly understand our newly awakening age. We must learn to understand that in the future we are not to seek the most important events on the physical plane, but rather outside the physical plane—such as the Christ, whom we will have to seek as an etheric form in the spiritual world at the time of his return.

[ 26 ] What has just been said will be repeated over and over again in the coming decades. But there will be people who will misunderstand this, who will say: “So the Christ is to return!” — Because they will bring into this view the belief that this is a physical return, they will provide fuel for all those who will appear as false messiahs. And there will be plenty of such people in the middle of the 20th century who will exploit people’s materialistic beliefs, who will exploit people’s materialistic thinking and feelings, in order to pass themselves off as the Christ. There have always been false messiahs. Take, for example, the period before the Crusades, when a false messiah appeared in southern France, whom his followers saw as something like Christ incarnate in a physical body. Before that, a false messiah had appeared in Spain and gained many followers. In North Africa, a man who claimed to be the Christ caused a great stir. In the 17th century, a man appeared in Smyrna as the Christ and drew immense crowds. His name was Sabbatai Zevi. People made pilgrimages to him from Poland, Hungary, Austria, Spain, Germany, France—from all over Europe and from large parts of Africa and Asia. In past centuries, this was not so serious, for humanity had not yet been called upon, so to speak, to distinguish the true from the false. Only now have we entered an age in which it could prove disastrous if people were to fail this spiritual test. Those who know that human abilities continue to evolve—that those who had to see the Christ in the physical realm were, in fact, called upon to see him in that way only during the founding of Christianity, but that humanity would not progress unless it rediscovered the Christ in a higher form in our own century—will pass this test. And those who strive for Spiritual Science will have to prove themselves to be the ones who can distinguish the false Messiahs from the one and only Messiah, who does not appear in the flesh but, to the newly awakened faculties, appears as a spiritual being. And the time will come when people will once again look into the spiritual world and see there the land from which flow the streams that provide true spiritual nourishment for all that happens in the physical world.

[ 27 ] We have always seen, after all, that it was possible for people, through ancient clairvoyance, to look into this spiritual world. The Eastern scriptures also contain, within their tradition, something like a legacy of an ancient spiritual realm into which people were once able to look, and from which they could draw everything that could flow into the physical world from the supersensible. Many descriptions of that realm—which people were once able to reach and which seems to have withdrawn—are filled with wistfulness. This realm was indeed once accessible to people, and it will be accessible to them again now that Kali Yuga, the dark age, has come to an end. Initiation, however, has always led into it, and for those who have received initiation, there has always been the possibility of directing their steps into that mysterious land, which withdrew during the Kali Yuga—a land spoken of as having vanished from the realm of human experience. The writings that speak of this ancient land are deeply moving. It is the same land where the initiates repeatedly return to draw from it the new currents and inspirations for all that is to be given to humanity from century to century. Time and again, those who are connected to the spiritual world in this way return to this mysterious land, which is called “Shamballa.” It is the primordial source into which the clairvoyant gaze—which has withdrawn during the Kali Yuga—has penetrated; a place spoken of as an ancient fairy-tale land, yet one that will return to the realm of humanity. Shamballa will exist once more after the Kali Yuga has come to an end. Humanity will once again grow into the land of Shamballa through normal human abilities, from which the initiates must draw strength and wisdom for their mission. Shamballa exists, Shamballa existed, Shamballa will be there again for humanity. And among the first things people will behold when Shamballa reveals itself again will be the Christ in his etheric form. There is no other guide for humanity into the land declared lost by the Eastern scriptures than the Christ. The Christ will lead people to Shamballa.

[ 28 ] This is what we should take to heart: what humanity can become if it understands the symbol mentioned yesterday in the right sense. If humanity understands that it must not sink any deeper into the material world, that it must turn back, that a spiritual life must begin—then it will become apparent, first to a few, then —in 2,500 years—for more and more people, the land of Shamballa, interwoven with light and radiant with it, brimming with infinite abundance of life, and filling our hearts with wisdom. This is what must be described—for those who wish to understand, for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see—as the event that marks the greatest turning point in the evolution of humanity at the dawn of the Abrahamic Age following the founding of Christianity. It will be the event through which people will come to understand the Christ impulse to a greater degree. For the remarkable thing will be that, through this, wisdom will lose nothing. The more visions people attain, the greater Christ will appear to them, the more awe-inspiring he will seem to them! Only when people are able to cast their gaze into Shamballa will they be able to regain insight into many things contained in the Gospels—things for which, however, people will need a kind of Damascus experience in order to recognize what is given in the Gospels. Thus, in that time when people will be most skeptical of the sacred texts, the new confession of faith in Christ Jesus will arise through our growing into the realm where we will first encounter him: through our growing into the mysterious land of Shamballa.