Lessons for the Participants of Cognitive-Cultic Work 1906–1924

GA 265a — 6 February 1913, Berlin

The Three Sheaths of Christ

Notes by Alice Kinkel For all degrees

The physical body of Christ Jesus was given to the Earth and became one with the Earth.

The etheric body of Christ Jesus, parts of which were transferred to the people who were to be guides in a certain way.

Likewise, the images of the astral body of Christ Jesus were transferred to those people who had a special task in humanity.

There was no actual ego with this being, because the ego of Jesus of Nazareth left the three covers during John's baptism in the Jordan, but the fact that the Christ lived in the covers for three years has created something like a thin membrane, a kind of ego cover, which is incorporated into those who have a good understanding of the Christ being today.

When the seer looks into the spiritual worlds, he sees that the Christ has always been surrounded by the mystery of Golgotha and has lived in an etheric body that he has built up, surrounded by radiant life forces. The physical body was taken from the Christ forever by the mystery of Golgotha...

Materialism is something that manifests itself in the spiritual world. The materialists there present a terrible sight in the spiritual world. Through them, the Christ has suffered a second death in the spiritual world. As a consequence of this, the cross now appears in the spiritual world, growing out of the earth like a green bush, seized by flames of fire, charred and entwined with seven red roses. The cross with the body of the Lord is the symbol of the Mystery of Golgotha (the death of the physical body).

The Rose Cross is the symbol for the second death of the Christ in the nineteenth century, for the death of the etheric body at the hands of the materialists. The consequence of this is that the Christ can now be seen in the twentieth century as I have often told you, namely in the etheric body.

One can now see the cross growing out of the earth, black, charred by the fire of the materialists, and then the seven roses, red roses, shining on it. This is how the seer experiences the imagination.

By proclaiming this spiritual fact, you have now become confidants of a great mystery. Such secrets impose special obligations.

You have to be especially careful and watchful against those who have fallen away from us, so that nothing comes to their ears, because they hate us (Sonklar, Ostermann, Hübbe-Schleiden). What does all the hatred and enmity against us mean? It is because they hate us as the recognizers of the second death of Christ as the second sacrifice for humanity. This second death took place in the etheric sphere of the earth.

The “Temple Legend” and the “Dawn” are discussed. Those who let them sink in may say to themselves: I have tried hard, but now I have been a little absent-minded, my memory is fading. That is not a bad sign, because every person in the present has parts of himself that are dead, and materialists have the most of such inclusions. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a large number of materialists were in the life between death and a new birth; they formed a kind of sect in the spiritual world, hating everything spiritual, everything of a spiritual nature, even though they are in the spiritual world.

We have spoken of those who have fallen away; in order to prevent them from interfering with our work here with their thoughts, it is necessary to change the ritual.

(From here on, probably M.E. instead of F. M.)

Notes B from the estate of Elisabeth Vreede First degree

When the esoteric practitioner regularly performs his exercises and delves into the temple legend or the great cosmic images given to us in theosophy, or into Jakob Böhme's “Morgenröte” and the other symbols as given in this temple, he will notice that it may (is) as if his brain at a certain moment were unable to think further, as if a limit were set to his thinking.

The esotericist should feel and inwardly experience something like this. The ordinary person sometimes has the same feelings that his brain is failing him, but he does not come to experience and become aware of this fact. People actually oversleep their whole lives; not only by sleeping at night, but also during the day they oversleep the most important events because they are completely absorbed in the impressions they receive from the senses. All those who, in an important time such as our own, have turned against what they could have attained as a spiritual current, however clever they were in and of themselves, but refused to take in the spiritual, and devoted themselves entirely to materialism, have turned against everything spiritual after their death as well and developed a certain hatred there, which they then, as a force (or forces), projected back into the physical world. Basically, this has always been the case since the sixteenth century, and these feelings of hatred make themselves felt in the physical world and have their effect there. The worlds are not separate from each other, they permeate each other.

We have also spoken of how, at the death of Christ Jesus at Golgotha, the physical body penetrated into the physical substances of the earth and how, from this, strength arose for individuals to undergo martyrdom in the first post-Christian times. In his time, the etheric body of Christ also dissolved into the earth as an etheric substance, and this opened up the possibility for individual personalities to absorb this etheric substance, and thus certain tasks could be accomplished by these individual personalities here on earth.

The astral body of Christ also entered the astral substance (aura) of the earth at a certain time, and with that, human astral shells could also be clothed, which produced certain events on earth.

And now the I-substance can be imparted to people. For even if Jesus of Nazareth also left his three veils at the baptism, still a part of the I-substance remained with the veils, and so this power was also added to the earth.

The new thing that is now gradually being revealed (communicated) to people is a reminder or repetition of what Paul experienced near Damascus. He saw the etheric form of Christ. But the fact that this is now to become visible to us is due to the fact that a new mystery of Golgotha has taken place in the etheric world, as it were. What took place here in the physical world at the crucifixion as a result of the hatred of people who did not understand, has now been repeated on the etheric plane through the hatred of people who, as materialists, entered the etheric world after death.

Consider once more how, in the Mystery of Golgotha, a cross was erected from dead wood, on which the body of Christ hung. And then we see that wood of the cross in the etheric world as sprouting, sprouting wood, green, living wood, charred by the flames of hatred, with only the seven blooming roses appearing on it, representing the sevenfold nature of Christ; then we have the image of the second “mystery of Golgotha”, which has now taken place in the etheric world. And through this dying, this second dying of Christ, it has become possible for us to behold that etheric body. The denser, dead part of the etheric body of Christ Jesus will be seen by people.

This is one of the greatest mysteries that is now to be revealed to the esotericist and about which nothing more can be said at present. Everyone should reflect on it and incorporate it into their meditation.

What has already been said, how hatred against our movement will grow ever greater, should be repeated and particularly emphasized. This hatred will not only come from materialists, but also from pseudo-spiritualists, even from pseudo-theosophists, who will create their own concept of Christ so that the truth about the Christ will not be known.

So it will be more necessary than ever that we stand together and feel united against this attack of hatred. It has even already been possible to betray these (F.M.) mysteries by people entering with too little seriousness and dignity.

Therefore, everyone should be reminded of the seriousness and dignity of such sacred things as are spoken of in our temple. Because of this betrayal, it has become necessary to change our ritual and to transform it so that, while the meaning remains essentially the same, the rituals will be different than before, so that they will not resonate with those of others.

Record C by Alice Kinkel Third Degree

What do we walk on in our world? On a corpse! — The mountains of the earth, what are they? The solidified thoughts of the gods! - The dying of the earth was a slow process that began in the fourth period of the Atlantean era, and the death rattle of the earth falls into the pre-Persian era, the Zarathustra era.

Leonardo da Vinci was an emissary of Rosicrucianism; he did not write in mirror writing for nothing. He worked for sixteen years on the painting of the “Last Supper”, and just as long on the statue of Franz Sforza. For the Last Supper, he could not find a model for the two main figures; Christ and Judas; Christ, from whose face the inner light should shine, and Judas, from whom the inner blackness should look out. The shadow on Judas' face cannot be explained technically either. Only a fragment of the painting remains, but it still gives some idea of the wonderful distribution of light and shadow in the painting and of its overall powerful beauty.

There is another picture that is truly moving, a picture in which the master Lionardo stands before his completed painting, the “Last Supper”, and is dissatisfied by it, because one cannot paint Christ in our age.

The statue, the other great work of Lionardo, was destroyed, that is, the model of it, when it was to serve as the centerpiece at a festival.

What we do and think as human beings here and the movements we make are what the gods did in the past to bring this world into being.

The seeds of the future are to be sown through the work and ritual in our M.E. lodges. Magic is not something that performs arbitrary actions or strange customs, but magic is what prepares the future of humanity and the world.