""Here is the hour when the God in man awakens And measures himself with the creative Devas. Genius and Love announce the marvel The fire of heaven that falls to the black depths. For a new world, the winged soul sets sail. Be free, and you will be liberators! "Standing up, I'll write to myself: 'If the immortal flame that tames humans and makes man a king, hides in your hand, give me the spark! "But he replied: "The spark is in you; make it spring forth. I hear the crowd calling me from the hopeless sufferers and the faithless seekers. He left... and I saw a hollyhock, with a diamond in it, blooming at my bedside. But he was already walking in the customary shadow on the infinite road where his footsteps were engraved. A trail of light trailed behind him, and before him, the immense dawn was breaking.
Rudolf Steiner
The serpent was coiled on a cross for medieval alchemists, and Goethe experienced the beginning of modern science by understanding the primordial science borrowed from the Orient, al kemia, which became alchemy; alchemy is the secret fire that transforms matter. This fire enables the being to become this mysterious force.
For philosophers, it's a solar, serpentine fire that's both sacred and transformative. They represent the substances sulfur and mercury when in perfect balance. See the three fruits of the Earth that become a debt....This strength acquired through the serpent is said to heal all wounds of the soul. It is found in our organism and opens the Pineal Gland, the 7th chakra (Epiphysis) which secretes serotonin, the hormone of bliss. It brings harmony to all organs and activates the work of all other endocrine glands, including the pituitary gland (Hypophysis), 3rd eye, 6th Chakra. Alchemists knew that this mysterious force could be activated by sexual energy and transmutation, according to a person's will. It is awakened by a conscious Intelligence within us. Mystery schools the world over dealt with this. Initially, water awakened a healing fire. It represents the sexual energy from which the transformative and healing alchemical fire arises. The serpent is a powerful archetype of soul awakening, creative power and true self-knowledge. It enables you to paint your life like a real work of art, to discover your own Ethics.
The cosmic serpent is the bearer of the world and is said to be its origin. The Ouroboros (the snake that bites its own tail) is self-fecundating. It is synonymous with the principle of Life-Death-Life. Contraction, regeneration and expansion follow one another. It is a primordial, zodiacal wheel. At Chichen Itza (Mexico), on the day of the spring equinox, the shadow of the legendary feathered serpent Quetzalcóatl forms. It descends from the pyramid at the end of the day, in 7 exact triangles representing the 7 main chakras. He is the link between heaven and earth, day and night, the primordial waters of life and the earth. In short, the Materia Prima so dear to alchemists is our true nature. The power of the sacred feminine is known as the guardian of consciousness and Sophia. It helps us to let go of what constrains us, oppresses us and no longer serves any purpose. It's necessary to shed the past and humanity's collective suffering (patriarchy, slavery, abuse). We regenerate like Mother Earth. Quetzalcóatl succeeded in transforming himself into a divinity. Let's imitate him. Egyptian goddesses and oracles were represented by pythons and cobras protected by the god Apollo. Choosing our destiny and tearing back the veil of unconsciousness thanks to this Intelligence from the depths of the ocean is essential to the survival of our species. The power of the cosmos is represented by the serpent, the jaguar, the hummingbird and the eagle. The four fundamental powers of electromagnetism, the four bases of DNA in biology. Serpentine power is the love and passion of creation. Revealing our passions, biting the apple allows us to bite the fruit, to be healed and divine.
Shamans have revealed the return of the cosmic serpent to activate the earth's 7 chakras: 1st Mount Aconcagua Chile- Argentina 2ndMount Illimani Bolivia 3rdMount Salkantay Peru 4thPopocatépetl Mexico 5th Mount Shasta United States 6th Mount Logan Canada 7th Mount Denali Alaska. After 5,000 years, it left the Himalayas for the Andes to reconnect the feminine energies of South and North America. In the heart of Peru's secret valley, Pacha Tussa Mountain has received the ancestral consciousness of humanity's great serpent of light. Symbolic death and rebirth rituals are performed here. Inca prophecies indicate that humanity will face climatic and biological catastrophes on this initiatory path. Mother Earth loves her children, even though they have turned away from her.
Let us now transfer ourselves upon the Sun. There, the so-called Fire-Spirits had the same rank which human beings now have upon the earth. Of course, they did not have the same appearance, they did not look like men of to-day; these high individualities passed through the human stage upon the Sun under conditions which were quite different from the present human conditions. Also upon the Moon a host of Beings passed through the stage of humanity, and they came down to the Earth as higher Beings, as Lunar Pitris or Moon-Spirits, that had reached a higher stage than that of man upon the Earth. In Christian esotericism they are called Angeloi = Angels. Only upon the Earth the human being became MAN. The Lunar Pitris are Beings one degree higher than man, and above them stand the Fire-Spirits, who are one degree higher than the Lunar Pitris. The Fire-Spirits have reached a very high stage of development.Now we come to the Earth, to the Lemurian race which lived upon a continent situated between present-day Asia, Africa and Australia. There, man took on his present form through the fact that below, upon the physical earth, there lived highly developed beings, but physical beings, higher than the present animals and less developed than present-day man. These physical beings formed a kind of shell, a dwelling-place and they would have been condemned to decadence had they not been fructified by higher Beings. Only at that time the human souls entered the physical human bodies, and then began to shape the Subsequent form of the human body. In the past, the human soul was an integral part of higher Spiritual Beings. The physical shells of human bodies were upon the earth, and into these streamed the souls of higher Beings coming from above, from the spiritual worlds. In the spiritual worlds the souls were connected like drops of water in a sea, which were then poured into a number of vessels.
In 1795 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe produced his tale of tales-The fairytale of "The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily," an extraordinary masterwork that is unique among Goethe's works. An initiatory fable of transformation, the tale arose out of the Rosicrucian, alchemical impulses that play an important role in Faust and Goethe's other writings. Among those influenced by it was Rudolf Steiner, whose mystery dramas employ similar themes. The authors begin by placing the fairytale against the background of Goethe's life and cultural setting. They then discuss its importance in the development of Steiner's spiritual science. Finally, they describe its visual language, profound mystical insights, and relevance for us today. The book includes Carlyle's classic translation of the tale and illustrations, plus Steiner's essay on its inner meaning. The authors offer a positive look at the possibilities of the twenty-first century. They view Goethe's fairytale as fully relevant to our time, just as it was when Goethe first wrote it.
The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily (German title: Märchen or Das Märchen) is a fairy tale by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published in 1795 in Friedrich Schiller's German magazine Die Horen (The Horae). It concludes Goethe's novella rondo Conversations of German Emigrants (1795). Das Märchen is regarded as the founding example of the genre of Kunstmärchen, or artistic fairy tale.[1] The story revolves around the crossing and bridging of a river, which represents the divide between the outer life of the senses and the ideal aspirations of the human being. The tale begins with two will-o'-the-wisps who wake a ferryman and ask to be taken across a river. The ferryman does so, and for payment, they shake gold from themselves into the boat. This alarms the ferryman, for if the gold had gone into the river, it would overflow. He forces the will-o'-the-wisps to agree to pay him three artichokes, three cabbages, and three onions. The ferryman takes the gold up to a high place, and deposits it in a rocky cleft, where it is discovered by a green snake. The snake eats the gold and becomes luminous, allowing him to observe an underground temple where there is an old man with a lamp which can only give light when another light is present. The snake investigates the temple and finds four kings made of metal: one of gold, one silver, one bronze, and one a mixture of all three. The story then switches over to the wife of the old man, who meets a melancholy prince. He has met a beautiful Lily, but his happiness is prevented by the fact that anyone who touches her will die. The snake is able to form a temporary bridge across the river at midday, and in this way, the wife and prince come to Lily's garden, where she is mourning her fate. As twilight falls, the prince succumbs to his desire for the beautiful Lily, rushes towards her, and dies. The green snake encircles the prince, and the old man, his wife, and the will-o'-the-wisps form a procession and cross the river on the back of the snake. Back in the land of the senses, and guided by the old man, Lily is able to bring the prince back to life — albeit in a dream state — by touching both the snake and the prince. The snake then sacrifices itself, transforming itself into a pile of precious stones, which are then thrown into the river. The old man then directs them towards the doors of the temple, which are locked. The will-o'-the-wisps help them enter by eating the gold out of the doors. At this point, the temple is magically transported beneath the river, surfacing beneath the ferryman's hut, which transforms into a silver altar. The three kings bestow gifts upon the sleeping prince and restore him. The fourth, mixed king collapses as the will-o'-the-wisps lick the veins of gold out of him. We also find that Lily's touch no longer brings death. Thus, the prince is united with the beautiful Lily, and they are married. When they look out from the temple, they see a permanent bridge which spans the river — the result of the snake's sacrifice — "and to the present hour the Bridge is swarming with travellers, and the Temple is the most frequented on the whole Earth". It has been claimed that Das Märchen was born out of Goethe's reading of The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz and that it is full of esoteric symbolism. In 1786, Goethe observed that The Chymical Wedding contains “a pretty fairy story” for which he had no time at the moment. Rudolf Steiner, in his 1918 book Goethe's Standard of the Soul, speaks of it as follows: “On the river stands the Temple in which the marriage of the Young Man with the Lily takes place. The ‘marriage’ with the supersensible, the realisation of the free personality, is possible in a human soul whose forces have been brought into a state of regularity that in comparison with the usual state is a transformation.”[3] This article led to an invitation to speak to the German Theosophical Society which eventually led to Steiner becoming its General Secretary. Tom Raines gives the following historical background for “The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily”: This Fairy Tale was written by Goethe as a response to a work of Schiller’s entitled Über die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen (Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man). One of the main thoughts considered in these ‘letters’ centred around the question of human freedom... Schiller saw that a harmonious social life could only be founded on the basis of free human personalities. He saw that there was an "ideal human being" within everyone and the challenge was to bring the outer life experiences into harmony with this "ideal". Then the human being would lead a truly worthy existence.
Schiller was trying to build an inner bridge between the Person in the immediate reality and the 'ideal human being'. He wrote these ‘Letters’ during the time and context of the French Revolution. This revolution was driven by a desire for outer social changes to enable human personalities to become free. But both Schiller and Goethe recognised that freedom cannot be ‘imposed’ from the outside but must arise from within each person. Whilst he had an artistic nature, Schiller was more at home in the realm of philosophic thoughts and although Goethe found much pleasure in these ‘Letters’ of Schiller, he felt that the approach concerning the forces in the soul was too simply stated and, it should be said, working in abstract ideas was not Goethe's way. So he set about writing a Fairy Tale that would show, in imaginative pictures, the way in which a human soul could become whole and free, thereby giving rise to a new and free human community. And this was published in Die Horen in 1795.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Snake_and_the_Beautiful_Lily
Whatever you may say,” continued the Snake, resuming the interrupted conversation, “the temple is built.
But it does not yet stand upon the river,” replied the beautiful Lily.
It still rests in the bowels of the earth,” continued the Snake. “I have seen the Kings, and spoken to them.
And when will they awake?” inquired the Lily.
The Snake answered, “I heard the mighty voice resound through the temple, announcing that the hour was come.
A ray of joy beamed from the face of the beautiful Lily as she exclaimed, “Do I hear those words for the second time to-day? When will the hour arrive in which I shall hear them for the third time?”
steinerlibrary.org/Books/22/APC1925/Chapter_04.html
www.rudolfsteinerbookcentre.com.au/product/2976/Time-is-a...
rsarchive.org/RelAuthors/GoetheJW/GreenSnake.html
The Green Snake
The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
A Quest for the Higher Self
In 1920 Rudolf Steiner spoke of Goethe’s fairy tale TheGreen Snake and the Beautiful Lily as the archetypal seed of the Anthroposophical movement. The destiny of the first Goetheanum can be said to lead to ‘rebirth out of the ashes’. On 1 January, 1923, was the tragedy of the burning of the first Goetheanum. In retrospect (and from an alchemical point of view), it can be seen as a ‘mystical death’ by fire, Out of the living etheric forces of the First Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner brought forth ‘The Foundation Stone Mantrum’ as an act of creative will. In response to the ‘cry of longing of mankind for the spirit’ had The House of the Word been built, and the 2nd Goetheaunum was to rise, phoenix-like out of the ashes.
An interesting way of exploring the time element in ‘The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily’ has been offered by Paul M. Allen in The Time Is at Hand.1)
I will also relate a short summary of the fairy tale in its sequence, as the times of days occur, woven into a tapestry, corresponding to the steps, which are involved in the alchemical transmutation inherent in this fairy tale.
‘Alchemy can perhaps best be described as a process of metamorphosis, a changing of form by means of the activity of the three fundamental powers of the soul; thinking, feeling and willing; These three can be likened to the nature of the substances Salt, Mercury, and Sulphur as they work upon the elements inherent in all created things Earth, Water, Air and Fire, transforming these from their fallen states of unredeemed matter to a restoration of their archetypal , original spiritual condition.’1)
I was privileged to know Agnes Linde, Herman’s daughter in the early to mid 1980’s, while I was living in Dornach. She was a Eurythmist and a painter. I was often able to observe the original illustrations made by her father of ‘The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily’, which portray the interwoven correspondence to Steiner’s first Mystery Play, ‘The Portal of Initiation’.
Now, let us begin with the following correlations involving the soul transformations of J. W. Goethe’s ‘The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily’:
At Midnight begins the Transmutation –Prima Materia, in Goethe’s allegorical fairy tale. This Corresponds to Study or Pure Thought in the Rosicrucian Initiation, as Rudolf Steiner spoke of at The Munich Conference.
Here begins the fairy tale…
‘In his little hut by the great river, which a heavy rain had swollen to overflowing, lay the ancient ferryman, asleep, wearied by the toil of the day’
This is the state at the beginning of the process of transmutation, ‘the given’, the basis, in musical expression, Prime. The ferryman meets the mischievous, unevolved, Will-o-the–Wisps who wish to cross the mysterious river, while boisterously shaking out heaps of glittering gold. The ire of the Ferryman is aroused; and disembarking, when he reaches the other side of the river, he gathers the gold pieces (which cannot be allowed to fall into that elemental stream), and throws them into a cleft of rock where they can safely lie.
Having now arrived on the other side of the realm, the earthly world, the Will-o-the-Wisps meet the Green Snake, who is swallowing the gold, (or the wisdom of spiritual science) and who is able digest it, having suffered and become open to spiritual understandings.
Afterwards, the Snake meets the Old Man with the Lantern in the subterranean temple, and undergoes a beginning step of initiation, as she answers the Sphinxlike questions of the four Kings in the temple, and comes to the first declaration of ‘The time is at hand’
In Christian Gnostic Initiation this can be compared with ‘The Washing of the Feet’
‘The time is at hand’, these words appear in the first verses of the book of Revelations. This ‘time’ is, paradoxically, referring to an individual as well as a universal moment of initiation.
At Dawn the alchemical experience of Separation or Clarification of the Elements occurs; this is Imaginative Knowledge, in the Rosicrucian Initiation, The Second in musical intervals.
The Wisps go to the Old Woman’s cottage, and rudely devour the gold from the walls of the cottage, and again shower the realm with gold pieces. They cannot comprehend the Old Woman’s wisdom either, but can only intellectualise or ‘parrot’ undigested knowledge. Their gold pieces kill the dog Mops.
The Old Woman has somehow promised the Will o the Wisps to repay their debt to the Ferryman for their crossing. He can take no gold, only ‘fruits of the earth’: three cabbages, three artichokes, and three onions, deeds of thinking, willing and feeling. However the Giant who is bathing in the river, spots the Old Woman with her basket of fruits of the earth. He is able with his shadow to snatch up an artichoke (which represents deeds of the will) out of the basket. Mops has also been taken along in the basket, to give to the Fair Lily, on the Spirit side of the river. She can mysteriously make dead things living, and living things dead. Such is her nature. Before meeting the Prince, the Old Woman is obliged to pay a debt to the river to make up for the lost artichoke, and enable her to cross the river; this entails placing her hand in the stream, which causes it to blacken. Painful but necessary, these events have a relation in the Gnostic Christian Initiation, to the Scourging.
Noon brings the Clarification and Uniting of Active and Passive, and the Rosicrucian stage of Inspiration. The interval of the Third is evoked. The Old Woman meets with the Prince, who is also seeking the fair Lily. The Prince is suffering from melancholy and can offer little information about his own being. They travel on the same path and cross the river together in reverence, at noon, on the back of the Green Snake who habitually offers service to all who are able to cross. This is the first bridge. In Christian Gnostic terms, it corresponds to the Crown of Thorns.
Twilight appears as the Mystical Death, the transmutation of substance into carbon (the Philosopher’s Stone) The stage of Intuition. This is the fourth interval of music. All meet in the Kingdom of the Lily. Mops is brought back to life by the Lily’s touch. The Youth, overcome with desire, passionately reaches out and touches the Lily, which causes his death. The Snake then forms a protective ring around the Youth and the Canary bird that she had inadvertently killed. These events would be comparable to The Crucifixion in the Christian Gnostic Initiation,
Midnight is the next time, the Washing or Purifying, Correspondence between the Microcosm and the Macrocosm the reuniting of the soul and the body, the greater and lesser worlds – Macrocosm and Microcosm; this is the fifth musical interval; the Old Man with the Lantern assigns tasks. The Old Man declares that at this point, ‘An individual helps not but he who combines himself with many at the proper hour does help.’ The procession crosses the bridge again on the back of the Snake. The Youth has a first awakening. For this to happen, the Lily must touch the Snake with the right hand and her lover with the left. The Snake then makes a final sacrifice and becomes a permanent jewelled bridge leading to the temple. All enter the temple and greet the Kings. This is related to The Mystical Death in the Christian Gnostic Initiation.
At Dawn is theBursting Out, Living into the Macrocosm where reborn purified element appears in many colours, the Macrocosm: the sixth interval of music; the Temple rises to the surface of the earth. The final initiation of the Youth and the investiture into Kingship then occurs, as does the demise of the Mixed King. This corresponds to the Burial and Resurrection in Christian Gnostic terms.
Bright Noonday brings aboutthe Chymical Wedding, the Stage of Divine Bliss, Royal Marriage, the Seventh interval in music, rejuvenation, including the healing of the Old Woman, and the transformation of the Giant.
‘All debts are paid’ There is a Michaelic bridge, the sacrifice of the Snake, now serving all of humanity. Goethe’s text end with the following words:… ‘and to the present hour the bridge is swarming with travellers, and the Temple is the most frequented on the whole earth. This stage must relate to the Ascension of the Soul in Christian Gnostic terms.
The Octave, then, would be related to the ultimate realities of the Eternal. Humanity will have been guided from the world of images in Space (the Earthly world, through events taking place in Time ( the Soul’s transformation ) as pictured allegorically in the ‘Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily’ – to pure Spirit, those ultimate eternal realities.
1) The Time is at Hand, Paul M.. Allen, Anthroposophic Press, RR4 Box 94 A-1, Hudson , NY 12534
www.exploringtheword.com.au/research/the-green-snake/
The beings who poured out the souls from above were those who had passed through their human stage upon the Moon, the Moon-Spirits, whose stage of development was one degree higher than that of Man so that they could pour one part of their being into mankind, thus enabling it to develop further, Man could then transform his organism more and more. He could lift himself up from the earth and stand upright, he learned to walk, to speak and to become independent.
There was a certain relationship between all these souls, for they came from a common spiritual chorus. All those who had received a drop from the same being, greatly resembled each other. Members, of the same tribe first had such related souls, then the members of a race or nation, for example, the whole Egyptian or the whole Jewish nation. They had souls that had come from a common source. From the Moon-Spirits man had received the Spirit-Self and this enabled him to become an independent being, an Ego.
But something which man could not obtain from the Moon Spirits, could only be given to him by a still higher Being, common to all men, who had already completed its humanity upon the Sun: a Fire-Spirit. Many Fire-spirits had developed upon the Sun and exercised their influence upon the Earth, for they were high spirits. One of these Fire-Spirits was called upon to pour out his being upon the whole of mankind. A Spirit who belonged to the whole Earth was able to pour out over the whole of mankind, into each one of its parts, the element of the Sun or Fire-Spirits, the Buddhi, or the Spirit of Life. But in the Lemurian and in the Atlantean age the human beings were not ripe enough to receive this from the Sun-Spirit.
When we read the Akasha Chronicle (See Rudolf Steiner's bookThe Akasha Chronicle) we find that something very strange took place at that time: The human beings consisted of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Spirit Self, but this only lived in them in a very weak form. The Buddhi or Life-Spirit soared above every human being — it could be perceived in the Akasha spaces. In the astral space every human being was surrounded by Buddhi, but it remained outside and was not strong enough to enter man. This Buddhi was a part of the great Fire Spirit who had poured out his drops on the human beings, but these drops could not enter the human beings.
Christ's deeds on earth gave man the capacity to absorb into his Manas what we designate as Buddhi.
What Christ fulfilled upon the earth, was prepared by other great teachers who had preceded him, by Buddha, by the last Zarathustra, by Pythagoras, who all lived about 600 years before Christ, and who were men who had already absorbed a great deal of what lived in the surroundings of man. They had absorbed the spark of Christ. Also Moses belongs to them. But the Ego of the other people had not yet absorbed this spark.
Into the physical, etheric and astral body of Jesus of Nazareth had entered the whole Fire-Spirit, the one source of all the different sparks that lived in the human beings. This Fire-Spirit is the Christ, the only divine Being who lived on earth in this form. He entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth and as a result, all those who feel united with Christ Jesus are able to absorb Buddhi. The possibility to absorb and take in the Buddhi begins with the appearance of Christ Jesus. St. John the Evangelist designates it as the Divine Creative Word. The Fire-Spirit that poured his sparks into men is this Divine Creative Word.
As a result, the following took place: Whereas the Moon-Spirits could create differentiated tribes among men by sending down their drops, Christ was a uniting Spirit for the whole earth, and the human beings were thus united into a family all over the world. Whereas the differentiations among men were brought about by the drops poured out by the different Moon-Spirits, the unity among men was brought about by the Spirit poured out by Christ Jesus. What unites men came down to the earth through Christ Jesus.
When speaking of the last Judgement, Christ says in his prophecy: “When the Son of Man shall Come in his glory” (he means by this: when the drops of Christ shall all have entered into the human beings, when all shall have become brothers) “he shall say unto them on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was hungred and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me drink.” (St. Matthew 25, 35) Then the only difference among men will be that between good and evil.
Christ says to His disciples: “What ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done unto me.” This signifies: Christ Jesus indicates the time when the drops poured out by Him will all be absorbed, so that when one man faces another, this drop of Christ within him will face the drop of Christ in the other. The power whereby the Buddhi could be called into life in man, this power went out from the life of Christ upon the earth. We should therefore look upon Christ as the uniting Spirit of the Earth.
If we could look down upon the earth from a distant star, through an epoch of many thousands of years, we would find a moment when Christ was active on the earth, so that the whole astral substance of the earth was permeated by Christ. Christ is the Spirit of the Earth, and the Earth is His Body. Everything that grows upon the earth is Christ. He lives in every seed, in every tree, all that grows upon the earth. That is why Christ indicated the bread and said: “This is my Body.” And of the juice of the grapes (at the LAST SUPPER the juice of grapes was passed round, not fermented wine) he had to say: “This is my Blood,” for the juice of the fruits of the earth is his blood. Consequently mankind must appear to him like beings who walk about upon his body. That is why he told his disciples after having washed their feet: “He that eateth bread with me, lifts up his heel against me.” (Treads on me). This must be taken literally, in the meaning that the earth is the body of Christ Jesus. Because he took upon himself the evolution of the earth, a distant spiritual being might see that more and more of Christ's spirit flows into the human beings; the single drops of Christ Jesus penetrate into the individual human beings. Finally the whole earth will be peopled by transformed, Christianised men, by men who have become divine through Christ. Only those who do not participate in this, will be put aside as evil; they must wait for a later time in order to follow a course of development leading to goodness.
All the different nations had Mysteries, before Christ appeared on earth. The Mysteries revealed what was to take place in the future. After a long training, the pupils had to undergo a preparation which consisted in a sepulchre. The hierophant was thus able to transfer the pupil into a higher state of consciousness which made his body lie inert in a kind of deep slumber. In ancient times, the consciousness always had to be abated in order that the divine essence might enter man. In this lowered state of consciousness, the soul was led through the spheres of the spiritual world and after three days the hierophant called the pupil back into life. Through this experience he felt that he had become a new man and he obtained a new name. He was called Son of God. The whole process took place upon the physical plane, when Christ appeared and passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. In the ancient initiations the life-drops of Christ's spirit first called the pupils back into life and they were told: “He who will Christianize all men, will appear one day. And He will truly be the Incarnated Word. You can only experience this for three days, when you travel through the kingdoms of heaven; but One will come, Who will bring the Kingdoms of Heaven down to the physical world.”
The Initiate experienced upon the astral plane what Christ lived through upon the physical plane, namely that from the very beginning there existed a Divine Word that poured out its drops over the human beings; but the Ego-men could not absorb these drops. St. John, the herald of the Christianized Ego-man who has taken in the Christ, or the Word, reveals this. St. John speaks of the Word that existed upon the earth from the very beginning:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life and the life was the light of men.
And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe.
He was not the light-, but a witness of the Light.
For the true Light that lighteth every man was to come into the world.
He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not.
He came to each man (to the individual Ego-man) but the individual men (the Ego-men) received him not.
But as many as received him, to them he gave power to manifest themselves as children of God.
Those who believe in his name, are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we have heard his teaching, the teaching of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.
The word “grace” in verse 14 has for St. John the same meaning as Buddhi; “truth” is Manas, the Spirit-Self.
John bare witness of him and cried saying: This was he of whom I spoke. After me cometh one who existed before me. For he is my predecessor.
And of his fullness have we all received grace upon grace.
For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
No man hath at any time seen God with eyes. The only begotten Son who lived in the bosom of the Cosmic Father hath become our guide in this vision.
[Dr.Rudolf Steiner's rendering of the text.]
All initiations into the Mystery of the Spirit pointed to the coming of Christ Jesus. This initiation was attained in the Yoga sleep, in the Orphic sleep, in the Hermes sleep. When the initiate woke up again and returned into his body, so that he could again hear and speak with his physical senses, he uttered the words which are rendered as follows in the Hebrew language: “Eli, Eli, lama sabathani.” The pupil of the Mysteries woke up with the words: “My God, My God, how thou hast raised me!”
This was the initiation during the ancient Jewish epoch. During his three days' sojourn in the higher worlds, the initiate experienced the whole course of mankind's future development, all that awaited him in the future development of humanity. As a rule, these future stages of human development were not perceived abstractly in his vision.. Each stage was represented by a personality. The seer saw twelve individualities. They represented twelve stages of soul-development. The soul-forces thus appeared in the external form of twelve persons. At a certain moment, the initiate saw a certain scene: His own individuality became transfigured — the stage which the whole of humanity will reach when it shall be filled by Buddhi, when it shall be Christianized. He identified himself with God and behind him he saw the twelve soul-forces. John was immediately behind, he was the last of the twelve who announced his fulfilment. And he saw himself transfigured, he saw the stage which he would reach when perfection will be attained; he saw his soul-forces in the external form of persons, and perceived St. John, the herald of the Christ-stage of development. During the Yoga-sleep, these twelve figures grouped themselves around him, and the scene arose which was designated as the Mystical Supper. This image had the following meaning: When the initiate sits there surrounded by his soul-forces, he says to himself: These are one with me; they have led me through the development of the earth; the feet of this apostle enabled me to walk on along my path, the hands of that apostle gave me the power to work. ... The Holy Supper is the expression of man's fellowship with the twelve soul-forces.
Human perfection consists in the falling away of the lower soul-forces, so that only the higher forces remain behind; in future, man will no longer have the lower forces; he will, for example, no longer have the forces of procreation. John's soul-power above all will raise those lower forces to the loving heart. It will send out streams of spiritual love. The heart is the most powerful organ, when Christ lives in man. The lower soul-forces are then raised from the abdominal regions to the heart.
Every initiate experienced this in the Mysteries of the heart. It re-echoed in the words: “My God, my God, how thou hast raised me!” With the appearance of Christ Jesus, the whole Mystery, the whole experience, became reality upon the physical plane. At that time there were brotherhoods in Palestine which had developed out of the old order of the Essenes. Among their institutions, they also had a meal symbolizing the mystical Holy Supper. “To eat the Easter Lamb” is a general expression for something which took place at Easter. Jesus sat down with the Twelve and inaugurated the Holy Supper with the words: “At the end of the evolution of the earth, all men will have absorbed what I brought down to the earth, and the words, ‘This is my Body, This is my Blood,’ will then be true.” Afterwards he said: “There is one among you who will betray me.” This is brought about by the power of egoism. But as surely as this power of egoism is the source of treason, so surely will this lower soul-force be raised to a higher stage. One of the disciples rested upon Jesus' bosom, he rested upon Jesus' heart. This means that all the lower forces, every form of egoism, will be raised to the heart. At this point Jesus repeated to his Disciples the words: “Eli, Eli, lama sabathani” — “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him!”
The same event which took place upon Golgotha took place in the ancient Mysteries. Under the Cross stood the Disciple “whom the Lord loved,” the Disciple who had rested upon his bosom and had been raised to his heart. Also the women are there under the Cross: the mother of Jesus, his mother's sister Mary, and Mary Magdalene. John does not say that the mother of Jesus was called “Mary,” but that this was the name of his mother's sister. His mother's name was “Sophia.”
John baptises Jesus in the river Jordan. A dove descends from heaven. At this moment a spiritual act of conception takes place. But who is the mother of Jesus who conceives at this moment.
The Chela, Jesus of Nazareth, at this moment divests himself of his Ego, his highly developed Manas is fructified and the Buddhi enters into it. The highly developed Manas that received the Buddhi is Wisdom — Sophia, the Mother who is fructified by the Father of Jesus. Maria, which is the same as Maya, has the general meaning of “Mother name.” The Gospel records: “The Angel came in unto her and said: Hail thou that art highly favoured, — behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son — the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.” The Holy Ghost is Jesus' father: the descending dove fructifies the Sophia that lives in Jesus.
The Gospel should therefore be read as follows: “Under the Cross stood the mother of Jesus, Sophia.” To this mother Jesus says: “Woman, behold thy son.” He himself had transferred the Sophia that lived within him to the Disciple John; he transformed him into a son of Sophia and said: “Behold, thy mother.” “Henceforth you should recognise the divine wisdom as your mother and dedicate yourself to her alone.” John had recorded this divine wisdom; Sophia is embodied in the Gospel of St. John. Jesus had given him this wisdom, and he was authorized by Christ to transmit it to the world.
The highest Spirit of the Earth had to incarnate in a physical body; this body had to die, it had to be killed and its blood had to flow. A special meaning is attached to this. Wherever there is blood, there is Self. The Self rooted in the blood had to be sacrificed in order that the old communities based on Self might come to an end. All individual forms of egoism flow away with the blued of the Crucified Christ. The blood of racial communities changes into a blood which is common to the whole of mankind, because the blood of Christ was sacrificed at the moment when he hung upon the Cross.
Here too something took place which might have been observed by an astral observer in the astral atmosphere. When Christ died upon the Cross, the whole astral atmosphere changed, so that events could take place which could never have taken place before. This has become possible because by shedding His blood, Christ gave the whole of mankind a Self that is common to all. The blood that streamed out of the wounds of Christ Jesus gave to the whole of humanity a Self which is shared by all. His three bodies remained hanging upon the Cross and were then revived by the Risen Christ. When Christ abandoned his physical frame, the three bodies were so strong that they could utter the words of initiation which follow the transfiguration: “Eli, Eli, lama sabathani!”
To all who know something of the Mystery-truths, these words must have revealed that a Mystery had been enacted. A small correction in the Hebrew text therefore gave rise to the words contained in the Gospel: “Eli, Eli, lama sabathani!” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!”
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