The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] Occult knowledge is—forgive me for saying this, but it must be said—truly no child's play; and anyone who approaches them with the idea of finding in them something like indifferent theories—theories that, while not indifferent to life, are nonetheless such that one engages only the intellect—will, in most cases, be in a state of considerable error. We have apparently been considering something quite external: the human form; but I have already told you that the occult aspirant must proceed from this form, as we have presented it before us as a threefold human being. In most cases, he must proceed from the sensations and feelings, from the impressions on the soul, that arise for him from the contemplation of the human form, because in this way he can take as his starting point something that is, so to speak, the most independent of the inner life.

[ 2 ] You see, it is certainly possible—and in certain cases even desirable—that not only theosophists but also occultists should draw more upon inner spiritual experience. But then there is always a kind of obstacle that, so to speak, prevents one from finding one’s way. You know from other lectures that spiritual beings and forces have contributed to the development of our inner being not only through everything that was already given to humanity when the Earth began its evolution, but also through many incarnations on Earth. Since time immemorial, the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces have been at work in the development of this inner being on Earth. If you take this into consideration, you will easily be able to say—and this is certainly true—that it is a precarious matter to assume that the inner human being can simply free itself from the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces, without becoming entangled in what one might incorporate into one’s occult views. Much, much can intrude from Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces, mingling itself into the soul, without one noticing it. For one believes many things to be extraordinarily good contents of the soul, and they are not, because they are in some way mingled with forces that Ahriman and Lucifer have exerted upon human beings. It is therefore safest for the occult aspirant to proceed from the human form. This human form has been influenced the least by what one might call Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. “The least”—I ask you to bear this in mind, for it has also gained influence, but indeed the least. A much greater influence was exerted on the inner life of the soul, so that in fact the human form still remains the healthiest starting point for the occult aspirant, provided he adheres to the ancient occult maxim that, in terms of his form, man is an image of the Deity. The aspirant does well to start from this point, for he connects with the Divine; he chooses the image of the Deity as his starting point, and that is exceedingly good, exceedingly important.

[ 3 ] But on the other hand, this presents a difficulty. If one starts from inner soul experiences and, through one’s occult development, comes to look into the spiritual world from these inner soul experiences, then the impressions of the spiritual world last relatively very long. In other words: If someone manages, purely through inner soul experiences, to cross the threshold and enter the spiritual world, then they experience spiritual vision, and they can, so to speak, take their time looking at things, because they last for a relatively long time. So this is, one might say, the more useful, the more comfortable approach when starting from inner soul experiences. But it does have the disadvantages described earlier. It does not prevent one from failing to properly assess or recognize Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences as such. In fact, my dear friends, it can be said that people are least likely to notice Lucifer and the Devil when they proceed from the inner life of the soul.

[ 4 ] Taking the human form as a starting point, on the other hand, has the disadvantage that the visions one arrives at—the imaginations—last for an extremely short time; they do not linger, so that one must necessarily develop a certain quickness of mind if one wishes to hold on to them.

[ 5 ] I would now like to describe to you what happens when an aspirant to the occult sets out from the human form and enters the supersensible world. I don’t know if every one of you has already had this curious experience, which is, of course, an everyday occurrence, but which one must actually have if one wants to know anything about it: that when one has fixed one’s gaze particularly on a bright object, the impression lingers in the eye longer than the eye is fixed on the object. Goethe, in particular, as he repeatedly recounts in his Theory of Colors, occupied himself extensively with these afterimages that remain within the organism—that is, within the human form. For example, if you lie down in bed in the evening, extinguish the flame of the light, and then close your eyes, you may still have an image of the flame before you for quite some time, lingering, as it were. For most people who have perceived such an afterimage, an external impression is exhausted once they have experienced this afterimage. Then they have, so to speak, lived out those movements, those vibrations that were evoked by the external impression. But then, for most people, this external impression has also passed.

[ 6 ] The occult aspirant must now also start from the human form—that is, from what constitutes the human form in ordinary life on the physical plane. As long as he perceives only the afterimages, the matter is not important. It only becomes important when something remains after the afterimage has faded. For what remains after the afterimage no longer originates from the eye, but is a process, an experience that we undergo through the etheric body. Anyone who has conducted this experiment themselves will no longer make the facile objection that this, too, could merely be an afterimage of the physical body. One says this only as long as one has not experienced the matter oneself. Once one has experienced it, one no longer speaks that way. For what remains is something entirely different from anything that stands in any external, physical-sensory relation to the external impression.

[ 7 ] In most cases, for example, what remains after an impression of color or light is not an illusion of light or color. If it is light or color, then it is an illusion; but it is a sound that one knows for certain was not produced by the ear or through the ear. It may also be a different impression, but it is always an impression distinct from the external one. The occultist must accustom himself to bridging over, to overcoming, the external impression, for occultism is, for example, also there for the blind, who have never in their lives seen an external object, never had any external impression of light through their physical eyes. Most ghostly figures that people see, on the other hand, are merely memory images of sensory impressions that have been fantastically altered. Occult experience does not depend on whether one can use a sense organ or not, for it occurs independently of the sense organs.

[ 8 ] The occult aspirant must now fix the entire human form in his mind—after having formed a clear mental image of it—so that he has it vividly before him as an imagination. It does not matter at all which sense he uses or how he fixes this human form. The point is that he fixes the human form in the first place, that is, that an image, a vivid mental picture, is evoked within him by the human form. This may involve the occult aspirant taking the external image of the human form as his starting point. It may also involve him taking the inner bodily sensation, the feeling of being within the form, as his starting point. If the occultist now succeeds in ultimately perceiving something akin to an afterimage in relation to this human form—that is, if the person, after first taking in the human form experienced in the physical world and then allowing it to fade within themselves, just as an afterimage fades, as in the case I mentioned earlier— and to wait until this afterimage of the human form has passed, then the occultist receives that image of the human form which is now no longer an afterimage of the physical form, but is experienced in the etheric body. This afterimage is thus experienced in the etheric body. You see, for the occultist aspirant, it is a matter of experiencing oneself in the etheric body. Once the occult aspirant has reached the point of experiencing themselves in this way in the etheric body, this experience is no child’s play, for it immediately splits into two experiences. It does not remain unified. And these two experiences must be expressed through two words: one experiences, first, death, and second, Lucifer.

[ 9 ] Since these are not sensory experiences but experiences of a much higher order, it is naturally not entirely easy—precisely because the words are mostly taken from the sensory world and therefore their meanings also evoke the sensory world—to describe these experiences; for they are indeed experienced more as an inner experience than as an outer one, and when words are used, it is more to evoke a mental image, an image, of what one is actually experiencing.

[ 10 ] To experience death is roughly to realize that the human form one has just contemplated and taken for granted has no existence outside of earthly life. It is bound to earthly life. Anyone who wishes to transcend earthly existence, anyone who wishes to reckon with a supersensible life at all, must be clear about the fact that this human form can only be experienced as such on Earth, that it must break apart with death, must break apart at the very moment when the human being transcends earthly existence. In the etheric body, the human form can manifest itself in no other way than as one that is subject to death.

[ 11 ] This must be the first impression, and it is already a stumbling block for the occult aspirant; for the impression made by the broken human form is an extraordinarily profound one. For many who have aspired to the occult, it has in fact been the case that they have been unable to overcome this impression and have said to themselves: My fear of what may still lie ahead prevents me from going further. — It is necessary to see death, for the very simple reason that only then does one have full certainty: it is impossible to experience the higher world while inside the earthly body. One must step out of it; one must leave it behind.

[ 12 ] This, in turn, is the next impression. This does not mean that the higher world cannot be experienced at all while in the earthly body. But initially, nothing else is possible for the occult aspirant other than what has just been described. This is what is referred to by the words: “One experiences Lucifer.” Lucifer is actually there at first to draw one’s attention to something that is extraordinarily seductive. If one were to put into words what one experiences by becoming acquainted with Lucifer, it could be done in the following way. Lucifer draws one’s attention to the fragility of the human form by saying, as it were: Just look at this human form—it is broken; the gods, who are my enemies, have given you a fragile form.” — That is roughly what Lucifer tells you, and in doing so he draws your attention to the fact that the higher gods were compelled to make human beings fragile in this form; that they had no other choice, due to circumstances we will discuss later, but to make the human form fragile. And then Lucifer also reveals what he intended to make of humanity, what would have become of humanity if he alone, uninfluenced by his adversaries, had been able to shape humanity.

[ 13 ] What Lucifer uses to show humanity what humanity would have become had he, Lucifer, been able to act alone, initially has something extraordinarily seductive about it, for Lucifer points this out to humanity in a way that is roughly as follows: Now take a look around you, see what remains of you after the human form has been shattered. — When the human form is shattered, when humanity then, so to speak, turns around spiritually and sees itself, so to speak, spiritually stripped bare, when the form has been taken away from it, then humanity sees two things. First, that what remains is indeed fit for the supersensible world, that it is in a certain sense spiritually related to the supersensible, that it is in a certain sense immortal, whereas the body is mortal. This is a powerful argument, a powerful means of seduction that Lucifer holds in his hand. First, the human being is made aware of the image of God that he possesses, which is, however, fragile and bound to the earth. Through Lucifer, he is shown that which is immortal within him. This is the temptation, the seductive impression. But when the human being contemplates what is immortal, when the human being takes in what removes the outer form after it has been broken into its three parts, from which we found it composed, then the human being sees himself, sees at whose expense Lucifer has made the human being immortal. There, when the human being looks back upon himself, he is no longer a human being; there, the human being is truly no longer a human being. What the human being is as the higher human being—as we have characterized him based on the threefold human being—has always been expressed in certain images by occult symbolism. These images were meant to speak to the human being throughout the ages. Very few people have understood these meaningful imaginations and images. The higher human being, whom a person can behold when looking at themselves, is different; it is not the same for everyone. It is also merely a more or less changeable image that speaks to them. But the image provides a rough mental image of what a person experiences as an impression. The human being no longer has a human face; he is more bull- or lion-like. It turns out—though it is not entirely accurate—that what is experienced in the supersensible world sometimes looks grotesque: when the woman looks back in this way, she feels more like a lion; the man, more like a bull. This is simply something that must be endured, for that is how it is. In connection with these two images, which merge into one another—since the man is not entirely stripped of his lion-like qualities, nor the woman entirely of her bull-like qualities, for they blur into one another—there is, as it were, flowing into them the image of a bird that has always been called an “eagle” and which belongs to this scene.

[ 14 ] All of that wouldn't be the worst of it. Some might still decide, for the sake of immortality, to be a bull, a lion, or an eagle. But that is only the higher human. The further descent downward is a wild dragon, a wild worm. That is what has always given rise to the dragon legends. Religious symbolism has indeed always handed down to humanity the four images—what one finds only in fragments in the supersensible world, namely the human being, the lion, the bull, and the eagle—and it has only hinted, in the manner in which you find these allusions in the Fall, that a wild worm also belongs to the human being. But it certainly belongs to the totality of the human being, as it is found there.

[ 15 ] And now is the moment when human beings must say to themselves: Although Lucifer can promise you immortality—and this is entirely justified—it is only at the expense of form and shape, so that you will live on in the form you have taken on under his influence. — Now one realizes that it is precisely in the course of Earth’s evolution that one has become such an inner being, and has become so because Lucifer has been at work throughout Earth’s evolution. Now one realizes that this earthly evolution, under the influence of Lucifer, has given humanity the supersensible upon the supersensible. For wisdom and everything connected with wisdom originates in many ways from Lucifer; and when one encounters him, Lucifer can point out just how much one actually owes to him. But everything that has now been characterized is, after all, connected with this.

[ 16 ] The question must therefore arise: Is there really nothing comforting in this self-knowledge? — For, after all, this self-knowledge is truly not comforting if this view can only be characterized by the fact that man has been reduced to an animal. This animal is tripled and does not belong to the higher animals, but has been reduced to that animality which is found on earth in the form of an amphibian. This view is truly not comforting.

[ 17 ] Everything I have just told you is what I meant when I said it is an impression that fleets by extraordinarily quickly. One must have great presence of mind to grasp the impression at all, to see it, so to speak. It passes very quickly. That is the disadvantage of starting from the human form: that people do not have enough presence of mind to grasp death and Lucifer, and then to look at themselves as well by turning around—I mean, of course, turning around spiritually. There is nothing comforting in what one sees there, for ultimately one has only two choices. One has the choice to cling to the mortal, the fragile, that which originates from the gods, from the opponents of Lucifer, or one has the choice of immortality, and then the price of this immortality is a degradation of the human form.

[ 18 ] The presence of all these things, the impression they make, is truly not a comforting one; at first, it is an immensely depressing, an immensely fatal and terrifying impression. This is why a large part of the occult teacher’s task consists in making people aware that when they have such an impression—indeed, when they have their very first supersensory impressions—they should not attach too much importance to them, for the simple reason that these first impressions, whether of a joyful or painful nature, must never be regarded as definitive. The right thing to do is to wait patiently. When performing the described soul experiment, one may have a rather hopeless impression several times, and one then needs courage to evoke it again and again. But if one wishes to make practical progress in occultism, one must do so, and the moment will eventually come when one can hold on to something.

[ 19 ] One cannot cling to what the present offers, for everything one has gained in life reveals itself—because this body itself is fragile—as something fragile, as something transitory. Eternity is what Lucifer promises. One cannot cling to that either. But there comes a moment when one can cling to something, even if not to the present: to a memory that can remain with one from ordinary earthly life. This memory must remain with one like a thought from earthly life and must flow over into this encounter with death and Lucifer. It flows over, it comes once, it enters once, this memory, this thought, which can be one’s only hold. But this thought is an extraordinarily—one might say—weak thought. That is why a strong energy is also necessary to have this memory, this thought. The only thing one can recall as a certainty is the I-thought, the thought: You were a self over there. — But this thought is extraordinarily difficult to hold onto. Some people will know that it is already extraordinarily difficult to bring a dream from one state of consciousness into the present one. To carry the “I” thought over from the earthly world into the consciousness one has entered is immensely difficult, and yet it happens all too easily that this “I” thought, once one has entered the supersensible world, is like a dream one had in the earthly world and does not remember. Like a forgotten dream, this sense of self is when one enters into the other state of consciousness.

[ 20 ] And in this respect, the situation for humanity on Earth has deteriorated over the course of Earth’s evolution. While in ancient times, in times long past, it was relatively easy to carry the image of the self from this life into the next, it has become increasingly difficult over the course of human evolution.

[ 21 ] When I say that the “I” thought arises, you must understand that, for today’s occult aspirant, it does indeed arise; however, this thought is such that the “I” does not remain merely a dream image, but can flash up as a memory. Yet help is necessary for this. It cannot happen without help. This event can therefore occur; but it is not possible without help. That is the important point. Under the present conditions of Earth’s evolution, the “I-thought” would, in the vast majority of cases, remain for the occult aspirant—when he enters the supersensible world—something like a forgotten “dream,” if he did not have help.

[ 22 ] If I am to name the help that the occult aspirant needs today in order not to forget the “I” thought when he ascends into the supersensible world, there is only one way to express this, and that is living in harmony with the Christ impulse on Earth. That is the help. How a person has related to the Christ impulse during their earthly life, how they have allowed this Christ impulse to come alive within them, depends, in the present state of Earth’s development, on whether the ego-idea falls into oblivion upon ascending into the supersensible world, or whether the ego-idea remains with the human being as the sole firm foothold that the human being can carry from Earth into the supersensible world.

[ 23 ] You see, today’s Christian will have many meaningful and beautiful things to say about the Christ impulse. But the one who feels, in the Christian sense, that he is entering the higher worlds knows even more about this Christ impulse. He knows something extraordinarily important and significant. They know that this Christ impulse is, in fact, already the only help today that prevents us from forgetting the “I” concept in the development of the Earth. That the Christ could become a help in this regard as well—besides all that the Christ impulse has already been able to become for humanity on this Earth, besides the countless ways in which human culture has received and continues to receive comfort and goodness through the Christ impulse— that the Christ impulse could become a help insofar as it ensures that the concept of the “I” need not be forgotten by the Earth—what does this depend on, what is the reason for it? This must become the great question for us.

[ 24 ] If I am to answer your question about what this is connected to, I must draw your attention to certain things which, even if you do not know them from the occult, you can gain through a rational study of the Gospels. There are two things necessary to understand the reasons why the Christ impulse is such a help: first, an occultism truly in step with our times, and second, a truly rational engagement with the Gospels. These Gospels have something highly distinctive about them when we compare them as religious documents with other religious documents. They possess something that is, admittedly, not always pointed out. I ask you only to compare what is written in the Christian documents, the Gospels, with everything that the external history of religion can offer you, and with everything that the content of post-Christian religious foundations can offer you, even in the post-Christian era. If you look at the history of any founder of a religion and strive to understand him, you can do so only by getting to know and understanding the supernatural inspirations or intuitions that this founder possessed. If you ask the pre-Christian religious founders where their wisdom comes from, you will be told, for example, in the case of the Buddha, that he attained that high enlightenment—through which he was able to proclaim what he calls the sacred teaching—under the Bodhi tree. You are thus pointed to a supersensible enlightenment if you wish to understand the basis of the Buddha’s teaching. This applies in many ways even to the post-Christian era. Take Muhammad, for example: you will have to turn to the visions, to what was revealed to Muhammad from the supersensible worlds, in order to explain why he said this or that in a particular way. This is the case with all founders of religions—indeed, not merely with all founders of religions, but also with all significant revelators. Reference is made to their divine inspiration, to the supersensible that shone into them.

[ 25 ] With Pythagoras, you know this for certain. With Plato, it is implied throughout that he did not reveal everything he knew, but that he was certainly inspired by the Mysteries in what he did share—that is to say, he was deeply immersed in the higher worlds. Even with Socrates, there is mention of a daimonion, and it would simply be nonsense to omit the daimonion. What he developed for humanity on the basis of pure reason alone, he received through his daimonion. This is the case everywhere you look in the world.

[ 26 ] And now I ask you to compare this with the Gospels. If you examine the Gospels carefully, you will find within them only a single instance of a genuine indication that, in the sense of what one experiences during any initiation, Christ Jesus, during the three years of his earthly life, looked into or had to look into the supersensible world. The only place where you will find such a reference is in the account of the Temptation, and there you are not told that Christ had to learn to hold fast to a supersensory, benevolent God, but it is only stated that he had an encounter with what was evil to him—with Satan, with Lucifer.

[ 27 ] You are told that, from the very beginning, this temptation was no longer a temptation for him. Read the passages for yourself and you will see how uniquely the Gospels portray that Christ went through something that the initiators have always had to go through; how from the very beginning he clings to his God, how he resists the temptations and utters the words: “Get behind me, Satan! For it is written: You shall worship God, your Lord, and serve Him alone”; how Lucifer can no longer tempt him and leaves him. All the other scenes that now follow, everything else the Gospels say, offer nothing more that can be compared to what must be told about the life course of initiates, insofar as one describes that and how they have learned, in the course of their lives, to ascend into the spiritual worlds.

[ 28 ] One can, as I did in my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact and as I have repeatedly done in my lectures, speak of Christ from the outset as an initiate, one who has a direct connection with the supersensible world; but one cannot speak of his initiation, nor of a process of initiation. One can say that he is an initiate, but one cannot say anything about how he became an initiate. That is a tremendous difference.

[ 29 ] If you compare everything you are told about the lives of initiates with what is recounted in the Gospels, then you may find, as I have described in my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact, that the Gospel writers simply had to draw upon the ancient rituals used for initiation in order to depict the life of Christ. In doing so, they also recounted the outward life of Christ Jesus. But they could never say that he actually went through that. Take a striking scene like the Transfiguration or the prayer on the Mount of Olives; these are all things that, if one were to recount them from the perspective of another initiate, would have to be presented differently. One would then not only have to say that he went up to the Mount of Olives, where the drops of blood-like sweat came upon him, but one would also have to tell what he experienced there, how he was transformed on the Mount of Olives. But Christ was not actually transformed. Rather, he meets his God on the Mount of Olives as one of whom one cannot claim that he still has anything to learn. And for him, what he went through during the Transfiguration was not an epiphany. For the others, for his companions, it had been an epiphany; for him, it was not. For him, it is a matter of course. He could learn nothing more from it.

[ 30 ] What, then, must be the case with another initiate? There, we must be shown how he has gradually advanced along the path of knowledge. In the case of higher initiates, it can be said that they brought many prerequisites with them from their earlier incarnations and had only the final stage left to pass through. We find none of this in Christ. The story of the temptations, as already indicated, is all there is. What is present in him is a supreme permeation with divine self-consciousness. This forms the beginning of the three-year Christ life. Then we have before us in this Christ Jesus a remarkable picture: we have before us something that, so to speak, brings about the highest divine revelation from within the immediate earthly human being. With another initiate, we must say: He had passed this or that stage, and then he was able to bring about this or that revelation. — But with Christ Jesus, all of this wells up from the very beginning, and we are not told that during the three years of Christ Jesus’ life, he had passed this or that stage. And if one were to regard even the description of the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus as such stages, one would thereby show that one is not clear about the fact that the resurrection took place through the power that was already in the living Christ; that this is not an act of initiation, that Christ Jesus was not raised by another initiate, but by the divine power originating from beyond the earth, by the power imparted to him through the baptism of John. Thus the Resurrection was already a reality in Christ, whereas the act that can be called Resurrection in other Initiates had to be brought about through the deeds and revelations of an older Initiate.

[ 31 ] This is why, in my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact, which was written more than ten years ago and published shortly thereafter, I had to present the matter in such a way that it can be summarized roughly as follows: Christ lived on Earth. Various events took place during this life of Christ. How, then, does one describe these events? They are best described by recounting what an ancient initiate went through. What the ancient initiates experienced in their mystery schools developed of its own accord in the case of Christ as a historical fact. That is why the evangelists were able to use the ancient initiation texts—not to describe an initiation of Christ, but to write a biography of him. — This is the crux of the argument in my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact.

[ 32 ] The greatest misunderstanding of the Christ-life arises when one does not speak of the Christ as an Initiate, but instead applies the processes of Initiation to the Christ-life as if the Christ-life had undergone an Initiation during the course of Earth’s evolution. That would be the greatest mistake one could make. Anyone who speaks of the Christ life as something that can somehow be explained as an initiation commits the greatest error against the spirit of Christianity. Such a person would conceive of Christianity as if its founder had not already been an Initiate, but had only just become one, as if one were to describe initiation processes for the Christ life.

[ 33 ] Therefore, when speaking of the Christ-life, it is necessary to always make it very clear that the terms used must never be interpreted in the same sense as in the ancient or any other initiation, but rather in an absolutely physical and earthly sense, as referring to a historical event outside the realm of initiation.

[ 34 ] This is extremely important, and it cannot be emphasized enough just how important this is; for the greatest mistake one can indeed make is to overlook what has just been said, and to speak of a Christ Initiation not in the sense presented in the cycle “At the Gates of Theosophy” or in the lectures on the Gospel of John, but rather in such a way that one clothes the Christ Life in the form of an initiation narrative. This would contradict any reasonable interpretation of the Gospels from the outset. The essence of the Gospels would not be captured at all, nor would what occultism has to say about this Christ life be captured. Let us bear this clearly in mind: when we speak of other founders of religions, we must speak in such a way that they have become Initiates, and that we have grounds to view their lives in such a way that we include the Initiation in their lives; but that we must portray the life of Christ in such a way that, while it unfolds on earth and is meant to convey divine revelations, nothing shines into this life of Christ that would itself constitute an initiatory process.

[ 35 ] Christ was the initiator. You need only read the section in my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact on the true meaning of the miracle of Lazarus. There you will find that what Christ performed there was an initiation. He himself was able to initiate; but one cannot say, in the same sense that one must speak of Lazarus being initiated by Christ, that Christ was initiated on earth. One cannot say that in the same sense. In place of the initiation stands the baptism by John in the Jordan. But if the baptism by John were the corresponding act of initiation, then it would be described differently; then it would be described in such a way that Christ would stand before us as the one to be initiated, and a far more exalted initiator would perform the initiation. But the instrument is not a higher initiator, but John the Baptist, who, according to the facts, must not be placed higher than Christ Jesus is placed. It has often happened that this very mistake has been made. For the relationship of humanity to Christianity, however, for the correct understanding of Christianity, this error will always prove extraordinarily disastrous. One should therefore also avoid speaking of it as if Christ had passed through, for example, a stage of birth, childhood, baptism, transfiguration, or awakening in the same sense that another initiate has passed through such stages. For the moment one applies the terms birth, baptism, transfiguration, and ascension to Christ in the same way, one has completely misunderstood Christianity.

[ 36 ] Understanding all of this is necessary if you wish to answer the question of how the Christ impulse came to enable human beings to carry the memory of the “I” from ordinary earthly life into the life of the supersensible worlds.

[ 37 ] I now ask you to consider, to clearly consider, that today I have tried to show you how the encounter with death and with Lucifer takes place, how this places the occult aspirant in a desolate situation, and how he can only extricate himself from this desolate situation if he is able to retain the memory of the I-idea. And also take note of the fact that the greatest help for the present in maintaining the I-idea consists in the fact that the human being has established a relationship with the Christ impulse during his earthly life.

[ 38 ] Note also that I began to explain this fact by stating that the life of Christ is different from that of any other initiate, that Christ appeared as such from the very beginning, that while we are given an account of his earthly deeds, we are not told he was influenced by a daimonion like Socrates, or that he sat under the Bodhi tree like Buddha, or had visions like Mohammed. All of that would make it impossible to understand Christ.

[ 39 ] How the Christ impulse becomes the means for the occult aspirant to step over into the spiritual world with the “I” thought and to have thoughts that have not died out, and what the supersensible world is like as soon as one enters it with this “I” thought—we will speak of this tomorrow.