The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] As you all could see from my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact, if one wishes to understand the Gospels correctly, they must be interpreted in a very specific way. As I now continue my reflections on the Gospels here this winter, I would like to expressly note that it is not possible to, so to speak, start from the beginning again and again for the younger members, and that therefore some aspects of the discussions to come will certainly be difficult for younger members to understand. It has already been mentioned on occasion at the General Assembly how necessary it is for the younger members to participate in the courses that have been established so that they can always catch up on what was covered earlier; otherwise, we would not be able to move forward. But I would like to make one point in particular: It simply does not seem feasible for the younger members to truly work diligently to catch up on the introductory stages of Spiritual Science life. Therefore, it will happen again and again—I will speak hypothetically here—that the younger members will find this or that, which belongs, so to speak, to the higher realms of Spiritual Science and requires certain prerequisites, incomprehensible, and will consequently form a very peculiar opinion of Spiritual Science. This is then due to the members themselves, and not to what is actually intended.

[ 2 ] In my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact, it has been shown that we must essentially regard the Gospels as books of initiation. This means that these Gospels are, in essence, nothing other than ancient initiation rituals rewritten in a certain way. What might such ancient initiation instructions have contained? They primarily described how the candidate for training in the higher worlds was to be guided step by step along his path, how he was to gradually undergo certain inner experiences—certain experiences of his soul—and how he was to awaken the powers slumbering within his soul; how a higher stage was linked to a lower one, all the way up to that stage of initiation at which the spiritual world breaks into the soul of the initiate, and the mysteries of the spiritual world become accessible to him. Then he can look into this spiritual world; he can, for example, perceive the various beings of the individual hierarchies, as we have enumerated them over time and also characterized them in various contexts. What the initiate must do, then, was the subject matter of such initiation books.

[ 3 ] If we now trace back to pre-Christian times, we find that numerous people were initiated at the various mystery sites—not always in exactly the same way, but essentially the same way—and were led up the steps to the point where they could look into the spiritual world, where they could perceive the beings of the individual hierarchies spiritually—as opposed to physically—before them. That was the case in pre-Christian times. What does Christianity mean in relation to these initiates of the ancient mysteries? What does the Christ impulse mean to them? It means that a being who was outwardly known on the physical plane as Jesus of Nazareth did not reveal the mysteries of the spiritual world through the customary path of the ancient mysteries—not as had always been the practice in pre-Christian times—but in a different way. A personality who had been initiated in the sense of the ancient initiation rituals could, once the great event I have just described had taken place in their soul, step out among other people and speak of the mysteries of the spiritual realms. But with the Christ event, something came into being that enabled the personality of Jesus of Nazareth to speak of the mysteries of the spiritual realms without having been led to it through the traditional path. For this personality of Jesus of Nazareth was led to this by receiving the Christ Spirit within himself at the so-called baptism in the Jordan. From the moment this individual was, so to speak, initiated into world history during the baptism in the Jordan—that is, in a historical event—from that moment on, the Christ Spirit spoke to the world about the mysteries of the spiritual realms, but in a much higher way. Thus, with the Christ, there was something on the physical plane, open to the whole world, which previously had been accessible only to a certain degree in the depths of the mysteries—specifically to those being initiated—so that they could then go out and speak to their fellow human beings about the mysteries of the spiritual realms. If we were to create a mental image of this, we might say: We look into the ancient mystery temples and see how the hierophant initiated individuals so that they could look into the spiritual realms and then go out and teach about the spiritual world. All of this always took place in the deepest secrecy of the mystery temples. And in the outer world, outside the mysteries, there had never been anything like an ascent to the ability to speak of the spiritual realms. Now what had happened time and again in the depths of the Mysteries was, as it were, carried out into Palestine, presenting itself as an event in world history—the development of Jesus of Nazareth—and as a world-historical initiation in the Mystery of Golgotha. Thus, the Mystery, as it were, carried out into world history and presented as a historical fact before the whole world—this is how we must understand the connection between the Mystery of Golgotha and the Mysteries of the ancient sacred temples.

[ 4 ] Now, although these initiation rites essentially followed the same stages everywhere, they differed in detail among the various peoples in different parts of the world, adapted to human individualities according to time and place. Let us now, with what we have just said in mind, put ourselves in the mind of one of those individuals who, as they are commonly called, participated as evangelists in the writing of our Gospels. Through their own occult training, such individuals were, in a certain sense, familiar with the initiation rites of this or that people, of this or that mystery. They knew what one had to go through to attain the ability to proclaim the mysteries of the spiritual realms and the spiritual hierarchies. And now, through the events in Palestine and the Mystery of Golgotha, they had come to realize that what one could otherwise see only as an initiate of the mystery temples had unfolded out in the grand scheme of world history for all people and was now to take root more and more deeply in the hearts and minds of all people.

[ 5 ] The evangelists were not biographers in our sense of the word, where one writes in biographies things that are really none of the world’s business and that no one needs to know about any influential figure. They were not biographers who dug up every private matter; rather, they were, in a sense, chroniclers of the life of Christ in that they said: Something happened with Jesus of Nazareth, in whom Christ dwelt, that we have seen time and again in the Mysteries—though there it was not condensed into individual years as a historical event. Here, on the other hand, it has become a historical event, but it is a repetition of the temple rituals. We could therefore describe the life of Jesus by outlining the stages that were otherwise undergone during the initiations.

[ 6 ] That is why the Gospels appear, so to speak, as initiation rites transposed into world history. We find the initiation rites of the ancient mysteries reflected in the Gospels, but in such a way that, in a certain sense, the reason is given as to why what once took place in the depths of the temples has now emerged onto the grand stage of world history. We find this explained in a certain way. And one might say that the evangelist who begins immediately with this explanation—who states right from the start why he has actually come to write about a world-historical event that fulfills an initiation precept on a grand scale—is the author of the Gospel of Mark. From the very beginning, he explains how humanity has developed so that this great event could take place—so that the initiation could be carried out of the depths of the temple onto the stage of world history. He points out from the outset that it is connected to an event of immeasurable importance in the entire development of humanity, one that the Hebrew prophets in particular foretold to the people. For what took place in Palestine as the Mystery of Golgotha was foreseen and foretold by the true initiates—and the Hebrew prophets belong to this group in a certain sense.

[ 7 ] If we put ourselves in the mind of a person like the prophet Isaiah—from whom the Gospel of Mark takes its starting point—then we find something like the following in his words. He says: A time will come when the state of human souls will be different from what it is now; but that time is already in the making. — This is what Isaiah meant in his own time. So what did the prophet Isaiah want to say? You know, of course, that the Gospel of Mark begins immediately with the quotation of this prophet’s powerful words. You are familiar with these words as they are commonly used, and as they are quoted in the Gospel of Mark roughly as follows. I will use a common translation of these words, as they appear in Carl Weizsäcker’s translation.

[ 8 ] “Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare the way for you. Listen—a voice cries out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’”

[ 9 ] This is how they appear in a translation considered to be exceptionally good among German Gospel literature.

[ 10 ] These words of Isaiah are, in fact, those through which the prophet points to the great event in world history that took place in Palestine—the Mystery of Golgotha. You know how much effort we had to put into our study of the other Gospels in order to render the key passages into German in a reasonably intelligible way. After all, the point here is not to provide a literal translation, but to render the relevant expressions in such a way that the deep, meaningful sense intended can resonate with us just as powerfully through the German words, not only for our theoretical understanding but also for our entire sensibility—just as it resonated with those who were familiar with the unique character of the speech of that time. For the speech of that time was completely different from today’s. Above all, it must be emphasized that that style of speech was not as abstract, as sober, and as philistine as our current usage; but rather, the manner of speech and the entire style of expression were such that one always discerned a richer meaning, a richer significance, a certain fullness of content alongside the immediate literal meaning of the words, and yet still knew unambiguously what that fullness of content was. It is essential to grasp that people heard a much richer world in the words than people today are accustomed to hearing in what is said. Now, it is precisely a characteristic of the ancient Hebrew language to be immensely rich in this regard, to conceal entire worlds behind the words, while using an image taken entirely from the sensory world. Expressions such as “prepare the way” or “make the paths straight” are images drawn from the sensory world—just as one prepares a path with shovels and spades. When such things were spoken, it was a distinctive feature of this language—which was particularly magnificent compared to all others—that behind these expressions, which outwardly applied to something, lay entire spiritual worlds—but in an unambiguous way, so that one cannot interpret them arbitrarily, as, for example, our modern scholars do with poets, by reading all sorts of things into them. One could not arbitrarily ascribe all manner of secrets to things. This was due in part to the fact that in the ancient Hebrew language, it was possible to convey the secrets of entire worlds through the personal use of vocalization—which, of course, is not expressed in writing—in the sound itself. There was a sensibility for such cosmic mysteries.

[ 11 ] In Greek—the language in which we originally have the text of the Gospels—this is no longer the case to such a great extent. Nevertheless, even without resorting to occultism, it would still be possible to produce much better translations of the relevant passages from the Greek than those produced by the translators of the Gospels. For, essentially, one translator simply copied from another without even approaching the matter philologically to examine the facts when faced with the Greek text. Later, for the sake of completeness, I will show you through specific examples how mistakes were made and so on. Today, however, I do not wish to delay our reflections with that; rather, I will attempt—not philologically, but with the aid of what can be known from spiritual research—to bring to your attention some essential points from the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. So I would like to begin by citing the key passage from Isaiah’s prophecy that is intended to reveal what is to come with the events in Palestine, so that you may sense what is meant by it.

[ 12 ] The Greek text reads:

Behold, I am sending my angel before you, who will prepare your way.
A voice crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’

(Behold, I am sending my angel before you, who will prepare your way before you,
A voice crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.)

[ 13 ] It is now of the utmost importance that we understand clearly that the word “angelos”—messenger or angel—was used in those ancient times only in the sense in which we use it in our description of the hierarchies, that is, as a designation for those beings who, in the hierarchy—moving from top to bottom—immediately precede human beings. One must sense, when it says here τὸν ἄγγελόν, that a being from precisely this level of the hierarchies is meant. If one does not sense this, one cannot understand the entire passage at all. That is why only Spiritual Science can provide the foundation for understanding such a matter. But if we understand it correctly, we can thereby create a foundation for what occultism has to say about the Christ event. For what is the essence of the Christ impulse? We have put it this way: It is through the Christ impulse that full consciousness first entered the human soul—the awareness that an “I” is to take root in the human soul, a self-conscious “I,” and that from this self-conscious “I,” in the course of subsequent earthly evolution, all the mysteries must gradually emerge that previously came forth from the astral body through a kind of natural clairvoyance.

[ 14 ] The time in which we live was preceded by this other time, when people still possessed, to a certain degree, a natural clairvoyance within post-Atlantean culture, through which they could look into the spiritual world. In certain abnormal states of the soul, the mysteries of the spiritual world would flow down; people would look up into the hierarchies. Naturally, they looked most frequently and for the longest time toward the hierarchy closest to human beings—the hierarchy of the angels. They saw the angels as beings standing immediately above human beings. In those times of ancient clairvoyance, human beings did not yet realize that they possessed within themselves something that was meant to lead them upward into the spiritual world. They had to regard it as a grace bestowed upon them by external powers, as a sending in of the spiritual powers into the soul. Therefore, the prophets were able to point to the future in the following way: The time will come when human beings will feel their “I”; then they will know that it is the self-conscious “I” from which the mysteries of the spiritual worlds are to spring forth. Everything must come in its own time. But the time will come when human beings can say: When I have my “I” within me, I will ascend from the power of the “I” into the mysteries of the spiritual world.

[ 15 ] But this had to be prepared. Thus, the lowest level of the hierarchies—humanity—had to be prepared, so to speak, by sending humanity that which it is not yet, so that it might prepare itself for what it is to become. The messenger, the angel, had to proclaim to humankind that they were to become an “I” in the fullest sense of the word. And while the earlier angels had the task of revealing the spiritual world, a special angel now had to be given the specific task of going a step further in the revelations to humankind; he had to tell them that they should penetrate into their “I,” whereas the earlier angels had revealed things in a way that was not intended for an “I.”

[ 16 ] This is what Isaiah points out: The time of the Mystery of the “I” will come, and one will be sent from among the general host of angels to show you that this Mystery of the “I” is coming. — Only in this way can we understand what it means that the angel, the messenger, is to be sent ahead. To whom, then, is this messenger to be sent ahead? He is to be sent ahead of the human being who is to attain a self-conscious “I,” and he is to come as a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi, which generally had not yet spoken to humanity in such a way as to presuppose that the human being was a self-conscious “I.” This messenger, then, of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks, is to come and draw humanity’s attention to the fact that it must prepare itself to make room within—in its soul—for the “I,” for the full assertion of the “I.” This passage thus essentially points to the great turning point in the development of the human soul: that human beings, who previously, so to speak, always had to go out from within themselves to enter the spiritual world, can henceforth remain within their “I” and draw the mysteries of the spiritual world from the “I” itself.

[ 17 ] Let us compare an old soul with a soul from the time of the approaching Christ impulse. Let us picture a person from pre-Christian times, especially from earlier centuries. If he wanted to ascend into the higher worlds, he could not do so while maintaining his sense of self—to the extent that it had already developed. He had to virtually renounce it, had to enter a state of self-renunciation, had to merge into the world of the hierarchies, into the world of spirituality itself. His consciousness was attuned downward. This was an ancient feeling from earlier, pre-Christian times.

[ 18 ] What, then, was the situation of a person who no longer truly lived in an age when it was appropriate to find one’s way into the spiritual world through self-denial, but who lived in an age when one could find oneself at the stage of developing the “I”? The “I” was, of course, already present in the Atlantean era; but the fact that it could become a source of complete certainty regarding the greatest mysteries was brought about only by the Christ impulse. Precisely for this reason, a person of the old initiation felt something like this: “If I want to enter the spiritual world, if I am to acquire the revelations from the spiritual world, then I must suppress a certain part of myself, and I must make other parts of my soul particularly alive.”

[ 19 ] What did he have to suppress? And what did he have to bring to life in a special way? Whatever was to gradually develop into the “I,” he had to suppress; it had to become, so to speak, darker and duller in his soul. He was not to give that any consideration at all; it had to become something barren, something empty within him. In contrast, the astral body—that is, the body capable of clairvoyance to a certain degree—had to be particularly enlivened. Then the old clairvoyant observations entered the astral body.

[ 20 ] I said that the “I” was already present to a certain degree. But it was of no use if one wanted to explore the mysteries of the spiritual world. The “I” had to be suppressed, and the astral body had to be aroused. But arousing the impulses in the astral body has become increasingly impossible. In ancient times, one of the most fundamental characteristics of human beings was their ability to suppress their “I” and set the astral body in motion, so that the mysteries of the spiritual world could flow into them. But the very nature of further development lay in the fact that the astral body became increasingly incapable of receiving the mysteries of the spiritual world. A person had to say to himself, for example: “My astral body is becoming increasingly incapable of achieving what people in the past achieved through clairvoyance; but what is within me—my ‘I’—does not yet want to come out fully; it cannot yet bring itself to achieve anything on its own.”

[ 21 ] And the very best clairvoyants felt, above all else, something barren, something desolate in their souls. That was the “I,” to which no impulse had yet been given. And alongside this, they felt the impossibility of ascending into the spiritual world through the “I.” From this you can glean the state of mind in which someone found themselves at the time of the approaching Christ impulse, someone who wished to gain insight into the spiritual world. Such a person had to say to themselves: In my astral body, I can no longer develop what was once possible; yet my “I” cannot yet receive an impulse; there is still something barren in my soul that cannot ascend into the spiritual world.

[ 22 ] At that time, as the Christ impulse drew near, certain methods and exercises were employed that consisted of learning to become acquainted with that which could not yet be filled with the Spirit. Anyone who wished to ascend to the higher worlds was told: “Realize this: you cannot ascend with your astral body; above all, you must enter that place within yourself where, as a human being, you feel as if you have no connection whatsoever with the outside world.”

[ 23 ] Such was the atmosphere during the time of the approaching Christ Impulse for those who sought initiation. And everyone seeking initiation had to realize: With regard to my astral body, I must refrain from ascending into the spiritual world, for the time has passed when one could enter the spiritual world through the astral body. The ego is not yet prepared for this. But from what is striving to emerge and penetrate the spiritual world—where it seeks to receive the impulse—I can discern—and this is all I can do—that there is something striving with all its strength and power toward the spiritual impulse!

[ 24 ] This spiritual experience of everyone who sought the path to spiritual light during that time was called the path into the solitude of the soul or, alternatively, the path into solitude. So what was the messenger—who was to prepare people for the Christ event—to do? He had to tell the people who wanted to know about the approaching impulse what the path into solitude was like. He had to know solitude thoroughly. He had to be a preacher of the solitude of the soul.

[ 25 ] Through the Gospel of Mark, you will come to understand more and more that, in certain cases, the great spiritual beings through whom the important events of human development are to take place choose their instruments from among physical beings—provided they are suitable—and take on an incarnation in order to dwell in the soul embodied in the flesh. That messenger of whom Isaiah spoke—who must not be understood as a human being in the ordinary sense—took possession of the soul of the reincarnated Elijah, lived within it, and was the messenger whose purpose was to alert people to the approaching Christ impulse. And it was through the soul of John the Baptist that the messenger, to whom Isaiah had referred, then spoke.

[ 26 ] So where does the voice of the messenger resound? In what I have just described to you as the solitude of the soul. There we can then read what is written in the Gospel of Mark: “Hear the call in the solitude of the soul.” ὲν τῇ ὲpήμω (tē erēmō) must not be translated simply as if it were meant merely in an external sense, with the image of the desert; rather, an image is presented here through which we are to perceive the entire spiritual world. ὲν τῇ ὲpήμω actually means: in solitude.

[ 27 ] Now, in order to understand this saying more fully, we must consider its actual meaning—as it still exists in traces in Greek, but as it can be determined by correlating Greek with the original tradition—the meaning of what was felt when hearing the word Kyrios or “Lord,” which is usually translated here as: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Such a word did not have that abstract, philistine meaning in the ancient vocabulary and style of expression that it has today. In this age of materialism, people have become philistines, especially with regard to language, and no longer perceive in language what might be called the “body” of spiritual beings—that is, the ability to sense a whole world through words, as in ancient times. Today, one can at best try to revive this once more. Thus, in The Gate of Initiation, I have attempted to depict how it will be possible to perceive worlds.

[ 28 ] What did one feel when uttering the word “Kyrios” in a context such as the one described? One sensed that it was meant merely as a metaphor for what takes place within a person, for what arises in a person’s inner spiritual life. One sensed the emergence of the “I”—rising from the depths of the soul and pressing ever more strongly to the surface—as the appearance of a Lord and Ruler, as the guiding force among the soul’s powers—just as we say today: Human beings have thinking, feeling, and willing; these various soul powers are, so to speak, the servants of the soul. But there is one Lord in the soul, one Kyrios: the “I.” This is expressed by the fact that we do not simply say, “It thinks within us.”—In ancient times, one could not say, “I think,” but rather, “It thinks.”—And with regard to feeling and willing, one likewise said, “It feels, and it wills within.”

[ 29 ] At the time when the Lord of the soul forces—the “I”—asserted Himself, this great turning point in human evolution was felt so strongly that people began to say: “I think, I feel, I will.” — In earlier times, the souls were, as it were, in a certain sense in a subconscious state, trapped and submerged in the serving forces. Now the Lord of the soul’s powers, the “I,” was approaching. This passage does not initially refer to any particular personality or being, but only to the emergence of the “I” as the Lord within the entire structure of the soul: The Lord within the soul is coming!

[ 30 ] This was also proclaimed in those temples that were meant to prepare people for what might happen to humanity. It was proclaimed with holy awe and reverence: Until now, souls had only serving powers within them: thinking, feeling, and willing. But now the Lord, the Kyrios, is drawing near within the human soul. This great process is underway, though it will develop gradually—until the end of the Earth’s age, when it will become ever more powerful. But it is coming. And Christ brings the initial impulse. It is the great hour in the course of the world clock when Christ lives. There the world clock stands in the sign where the “I” will rise ever more powerfully as the Lord of the soul’s powers. And the goal will be reached when the Earth falls back into the cosmos and humanity ascends to higher levels.

[ 31 ] Only by feeling as one must have felt back then can one gain a mental image of what Isaiah meant to say and what John the Baptist took up again. Attention should be drawn to the great event in the human soul, to the further development of the human soul. But then we must also translate the word eddeiag (eutheias) not as “straight,” as it is usually translated in an abstract sense, but as “open”—not merely straight, but open—so that the paths become passable. So the Kyrios comes, setting His course toward the human soul. But the human being must do something to enable the Lord to truly take hold of the human soul. The path must be cleared; it must be made open. In short, if we want to translate the passage in question in a way that makes sense, it should actually be translated—if we adhere somewhat to tradition—as follows:

[ 32 ] “Note”—“See” is no longer the right word—“I send my angel before the ‘I’ within you; he shall prepare the way.

[ 33 ] “Hear the call” — ‘Soul’ isn't written there, but everyone knew it — “in the solitude of the soul” — that call, which longs for the Lord of the soul: “Prepare the way for the Ruler of the soul; work so that the path may be open to Him”—or the course.

[ 34 ] In this phrase, you have a mental image of what one can feel in the words of Isaiah. These words and what lies within this phrase were taken up again by the angel, the Angelos, in the soul of John the Baptist. Why was he able to do that?—To answer that, we must delve a little into the nature of John the Baptist’s own initiation and how that initiation worked within his soul.

[ 35 ] From earlier descriptions, you know that a person can either be initiated by descending into the depths of their own soul, or can be awakened to a stepping out of the soul, to a liberation from the body, and to an outpouring of the soul’s powers into the macrocosm. These two paths have been followed in a wide variety of ways by different peoples. When a person wished to pour out his soul into the macrocosm, the twelve stages to be traversed in the process were, so to speak, marked by the twelve signs of the zodiac, as his soul force flowed out toward specific points and in specific directions within the macrocosm. Now, in general, an extraordinary amount had already been achieved—and, specifically for a certain purpose in the development of world history, something significant had been accomplished—when any soul was developed to such an extent that it could receive within itself all the forces of the macrocosm that originated from those world mysteries which corresponded to a single constellation. For in the ancient initiation rites, it was generally the case that one person, for example, was initiated into the mysteries of the macrocosm in such a way that the outflow of his soul into the macrocosmic realm moved in the direction of Capricorn, while for others it moved in the direction of Cancer, Libra, Virgo, and so on. I have repeatedly emphasized that there are twelve different ways to flow into the macrocosm, which are symbolically represented by the twelve signs of the zodiac. Now, if someone were to attain initiation through the outflow of the soul into the macrocosm, and if he were not to attain immediately the highest, the solar initiation, but rather, so to speak, a partial initiation, then his soul’s gaze, his soul’s light, would be directed toward the mysteries associated with a certain constellation. For this to happen, however, his gaze had to become independent of the material world; that is to say, arrangements were made—either during the mystery rites or, as in the case of John the Baptist, through a grace from above—so that the person’s gaze was directed toward a constellation, but in such a way that the Earth lay between him and the constellation in question. That is to say, at night his gaze had to be directed through the Earth toward the constellation. When one sees a constellation with the physical eyes, one sees the physical constellation. But when one can see through the materiality of the Earth—with the physical constellation thus covered by the materiality of the Earth—one sees not the physical but the spiritual, that is, the mysteries expressed by the constellation.

[ 36 ] John the Baptist’s vision had been trained so that he could see through the material earth at night to the constellation of Aquarius. He had thus undergone that initiation—when the Angelos took possession of his soul—which is called the Aquarius Initiation. Thus John the Baptist—with all that he himself knew and felt—was able to place all his faculties at the disposal of the Angelos, so that through the Angelos everything that constituted the Aquarius Initiation could be expressed, along with all that served as an indication that the reign of the I, the xVoiog, the Lord, would come into the soul. That was what the Aquarius Initiation provided.

[ 37 ] At the same time, however, John the Baptist pointed out that the time had also come when this Aquarian Initiation was, so to speak, at a crossroads, where it must be replaced by another so that one might fully understand the approaching reign of the “I.” That is why he said to his innermost disciples: “I am the one who is able to make available to his angel all the powers that come from the Aquarian initiation. But after me, one must come who can make the subsequent powers available to his angel.”

[ 38 ] If you consider the sun’s path during the day from the constellation of Aries through Taurus, Gemini, and so on to Virgo, you must consider its path at night from the direction of Libra and Aquarius toward the constellation of Pisces; that is the direction toward the spiritual sun. John had received the Aquarius initiation, and he pointed out that the one who is to come will have the Pisces initiation—that is, the initiation that must follow the John initiation and was regarded as a higher one. That is why John the Baptist said to his inner circle of disciples: “Through the Aquarius Initiation, I can only provide my angel with the powers to proclaim that the Lord, the xVo10g, is coming; but one will come who possesses the powers symbolized by the Initiation associated with the constellation of Pisces. And he will receive the Christ!”

[ 39 ] In this way, John the Baptist pointed to Jesus of Nazareth. And that is why the ancient traditions have assigned the symbol of the fish to Christ Jesus. And because everything that happens externally is a symbol of inner processes—even though it also takes place externally—fishermen are assigned as assistants to those initiated through the symbol of the fish. All of these are at once external, historical events and, at the same time, deeply symbolic acts pertaining to spiritual mysteries.

[ 40 ] “And a higher consecration will come upon humanity!” said John. He could only bestow the consecration that comes from Aquarius, the water-man. And John described himself as a water-man. That is quite clear. But we will have to see more and more how the images used to represent human mysteries are also connected to astronomical and cosmic mysteries. “I have baptized you with water,” said John. Water baptism, however, was something within the power of those who had received the initiation of Aquarius from heaven. But since the spiritual sun moves in the opposite direction to the physical sun—for while the physical sun moves from the constellation of Virgo to the constellation of Libra, the spiritual Sun advances in the sense of the progression from John the Baptist to Jesus of Nazareth, from Aquarius to Pisces—when someone appears in the world with the initiation of Pisces and is capable of receiving those spiritual powers, that spiritual impulse, for which this initiation of Pisces must serve as an instrument; thus it is possible not only to baptize, as John baptized, but to baptize in a higher sense, as John describes it as the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

[ 41 ] In today’s lecture, I have, in a certain sense, presented two aspects to you. First, that the words under consideration here in the Gospel of Mark refer to processes in human evolution—including historical processes—in that they speak of a higher power that is not even human, but an angel, yet which speaks through the body of John the Baptist. On the other hand, I have shown that the descriptions given refer to events in the heavens, namely the advance of the spiritual sun from the constellation of Aquarius to the constellation of Pisces. The Gospel of Mark does indeed contain in every line something that can only be read if, while following the words, one always keeps in mind both a human meaning and a cosmic, astronomical meaning, and if we are clear that there is something living within the human being that, in its true meaning, can only be found in the heavens.

[ 42 ] However, one must understand the connection between the macrocosmic mysteries and the mysteries of human nature a little more precisely. Today, at the end of this talk, I can only hint at what lies behind this. My intention today was merely to offer some insights in this direction. For we will have to delve into the depths of the Gospel of Mark, which will require you to reflect on them for a very long time if you wish to elevate them to more than mere intuitions. But I would like to clarify how the Gospel of Mark should be read through the following.

[ 43 ] You are all familiar with the rainbow. For a child, for example, the rainbow represents a reality in the sky. Unless someone has explained it to the child, the child will initially believe that it can grasp the rainbow with its hands, that it can touch it. Later, a person learns that, fundamentally, this rainbow does not exist independently, but only comes into being when a certain combination of rain and sunshine is present; and when the rain and sunshine change their relationship to one another, the rainbow disappears again. It is therefore not a reality; it is only an illusion; the reality lies in the rain and sunshine in relation to the rainbow.

[ 44 ] When a person makes a little progress on the path of occult development, there is something they instinctively compare to a rainbow, saying: “It is actually, when you get right down to it, nothing real at all, but only an illusion held together by external factors.” - Do you know what this illusion is? Human beings themselves! Human beings are merely an illusion. And if one perceives them as reality through the physical senses, one succumbs to an illusion; one then surrenders to Maya, the great nothingness. For Maya, composed of mahat aya—mahat = great, ya = being, a = not, negation—thus aya = nothingness—; mahat aya means “the great nothingness.”

[ 45 ] On the path of occult development, a person comes to compare themselves to something like a rainbow. Human beings are merely illusions. And everything that presents itself to the physical senses is an illusion. Even the sun, as a physical celestial body, is an illusion. What physical science describes as a ball of gas in outer space is perfectly adequate for practical purposes. But whoever takes it as reality surrenders to Maya, to illusion, to the great nothingness. What is true is that there is a gathering place for spiritual hierarchies, whose actions are expressed in warmth and light, and which flow to us from the sun as warmth and light. What we perceive as warmth and light is an illusion. But everything is an illusion. For instance, a person believes they have a heart in their chest. But the heart is an illusion, nothing more. It is similar to when we walk out onto the streets in the evening amid the autumn fog and see certain rings around the streetlights; but these rings are not real either—they are caused by very specific forces. In the same way, the human heart is brought about by very specific forces. You can create a mental image of this, for example, in the following way. Suppose the circle represents the vault of heaven; then, from one side, a certain kind of force flows into us, and from the other side, other forces flow in: these forces intersect. In truth, there is nothing within a human being where they believe their heart to be, other than forces that flow in from the heavens and intersect. Set aside everything else and imagine only forces coming together as they do in a rainbow: the result is the human heart. The same is true of the other organs: they are intersecting forces that arise from the intersection of the relevant cosmic forces.

[ 46 ] When you walk from one place to another and say, “I have the impulse within me to walk from here to there,” you are expressing something that, in this sense, belongs to Maya. Why? Because forces come from the macrocosm that intersect down here, and through this intersection they give rise to an illusionary construct regarding the direction and the forces of walking. What has come together here below is merely an intersection of cosmic forces. And if we want to know the truth, we must ask: What is happening in the macrocosm? What do the cosmic forces—the upper and the lower—bring about?—They bring about within us what appears as though we have a heart, a liver, and so on, or what appears in such a way that we say: “I am walking from there to there.” If we want to describe it truthfully, we must describe the cosmic forces.

[ 47 ] If we are to describe what John the Baptist did by baptizing people, we must describe what the macrocosm commanded him to do—that is, the forces symbolized by the forces of Aquarius. These were once decreed in the Great World Lodge and sent into the forces of John. Thus, we must read in the language of the worlds what happened at a specific place. Thus, the writer of the Gospel of Mark interpreted the events that took place in Palestine by observing the corresponding celestial phenomena. He describes astronomical phenomena and says: Understand things this way: if there is a wall here on which a shadow play is visible, then if you wish to know the true reason for it, you must look at what is actually being reflected in the shadows. I am describing what happened at the Jordan, which was, however, merely the instrument for something else; for in truth, I am describing what acts upon the earth from the macrocosm through astronomical forces!

[ 48 ] The author of the Gospel of Mark describes cosmic forces. Everywhere there are celestial phenomena. And what he describes is the expression, the projection, the shadow image that all the processes in the macrocosm cast down upon the small earthly region of Palestine. We must realize this if we wish to gain even a little insight into the full magnitude and significance of this document, the Gospel of Mark. But first we had to gain some sense of what is actually before us. We had to understand that at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark it is said: The prophet Isaiah foretold that the Lord of the soul forces would come for humanity, and that the messenger would live in John the Baptist, who would prepare people for the coming of this Ruler of the soul forces. - This Messenger had to take up residence in a body belonging to a human soul that had been initiated with the forces of Aquarius. In this way, he was able to set in motion what needed to be done on Earth through a personality such as Jesus of Nazareth, who had prepared himself to receive the Pisces Initiation and thereby be able to receive the Christ.

[ 49 ] What happens on Earth are reflections of cosmic processes that relate to cosmic conditions just as a rainbow relates to rain and sunshine; thus, we must study rain and sunshine if we wish to describe the rainbow. And if we want to know what was in the heart of John the Baptist, or of Jesus of Nazareth, who became the dwelling place of Christ, then we must study cosmic processes. For the whole world spoke out on behalf of humanity in the events that took place in Palestine and on Golgotha. And anyone who reads the Gospel of Mark in any way other than as merely providing the letters for great world events stands on no other standpoint than that of one who says: here is a group of such strokes, there is a group of other strokes—but who does not point to what the word “Lord” signifies, who points only to the black strokes. This, however, is precisely how the Gospel of Mark is described in our time. For what is recounted in the Gospel of Mark is merely the very outer layer of the letters. One must move closer to understand what the events in Palestine were meant to point toward, as in a shadow play.

[ 50 ] Try to understand what it means when it says, “Earthly events are a shadow of macrocosmic events”—and you will have taken the first step toward gradually understanding one of the world’s greatest texts, the Gospel of Mark.