Esoteric Lessons 1904–1909

GA 266I — Berlin

The Task of Spiritual Science

Notes from a private esoteric lesson, Berlin, 1903 or 1904

Hegel has a beautiful saying: The deepest thought is connected with the figure of Christ, the historical and external one. And it exemplifies the greatness of the Christian religion that it exists for every stage of education. The most naive consciousness can grasp it, and at the same time it is an invitation for the deepest wisdom. The history of its development has already taught us that the Christian religion is comprehensible to every level of consciousness. It must be the task of the theosophical spiritual movement, or of spiritual science in general, if it understands its task, to show that it calls for penetration into the deepest wisdom teachings of humanity as a whole. Theosophy is not a religion, but a tool for understanding religions. It relates to religious documents in the same way that mathematical teachings relate to documents that have appeared as mathematical textbooks. One can understand mathematics from one's own mental powers, understand the laws of space without regard to that old book. But once one has understood them, once one has absorbed the geometric teachings, one will appreciate all the more that old book which first presented these laws to the human mind. So it is with theosophy. Its sources are not in documents, nor are they based on tradition. Its sources are in the real spiritual worlds; there they are to be found and grasped by developing one's own spiritual powers, just as one grasps mathematics by seeking to develop the powers of one's intellect. Our intellect, which serves us to grasp the laws of the sensory world, is carried by an organ, the brain. To grasp the laws of spiritual worlds, we also need corresponding organs. How did our physical organs develop?

Through the action of external forces: the forces of the sun, the forces of sound. This is how the eye came into being, how the ear came into being — from neutral, dull organs that initially did not allow the sensory world to penetrate and only opened slowly. In the same way, our spiritual organs will open when the right forces act upon them.

What, then, are the forces that are now rushing upon our still dull spiritual organs? During the day, forces penetrate the astral body of modern man that work against his development, even destroying organs that he once had before the bright consciousness of day had opened up to him. In the past, man perceived astral impressions directly. The environment spoke to them through images, through the expressive form of the astral world. Lively, structured images and colors floated freely around in space as expressions of pleasure and displeasure, sympathy and antipathy. Then these colors settled, as it were, around the surface of things, and objects took on fixed contours. This was when the human physical body became increasingly solid and structured. When his eyes opened fully to physical light, when the veil of Maya was lifted from the spiritual world, the astral body of the human being received impressions of the environment through the physical and etheric bodies, and then transmitted them to the I, from where they entered the human consciousness. He was thus constantly engaged, constantly active. But what was at work in him were not plastic, formative forces corresponding to his own nature. They were forces that consumed him, killed him, in order to awaken the ego-consciousness. Only at night, when he submerged himself in the homogeneous, rhythmic-spiritual world, did he regain his strength and was able to supply the physical and etheric bodies with energy again. From the conflict of impressions, from the killing of the astral organs that had previously been unconscious in the human being, the life of the individual ego, the ego-consciousness, had arisen. From life came death, from death came life. The circle of the serpent was complete. Now, out of this awakened ego-consciousness, the forces had to come that would rekindle life in the dead remains of the former astral organs and form them into plastic shapes.

Humanity is moving toward this goal, guided by its teachers, its leaders, the great initiates, whose symbol is also the serpent. It is an education toward freedom, and therefore a slow and difficult one. The great initiates could, so to speak, make the task easier for themselves and for human beings if they worked on the astral body at night, when it is free, in such a way that they imprinted the astral organs into it, working on it from outside. But that would then be working within the dream consciousness of the human being, an intervention in his sphere of freedom. The highest principle of the human being, the will, would never unfold. The human being is guided step by step. There has been an initiation in wisdom, one in the mind, and one in the will. True Christianity is the summary of all stages of initiation. The initiation of ancient times was the foretelling, the preparation. Slowly and gradually, the newer human being emancipated himself from his initiator, his guru. At first in full trance consciousness, but equipped with the means to imprint in the physical body the memory of what had happened outside the physical body, the initiation took place. Hence the necessity of also detaching the etheric body, the carrier of memory, together with the astral body. Both plunged into the sea of wisdom, into Mahadeva, into the light of Osiris. This initiation took place in the deepest secret, in complete seclusion. No breath of the outside world was allowed to intrude. The human being was as dead to the outer life, and the tender germs were nurtured away from the blinding light of day.

Then the initiation emerged from the darkness of the mysteries into the brightest light of day. In a great, powerful personality, the bearer of the highest unifying principle, the Word that expresses the hidden Father, that is his manifestation, that by taking on human form therefore became the Son of Man and could be the representative of all humanity, the unifying bond of all egos: in Christ, the life spirit, the eternally unifying, the initiation of all humanity took place historically—and at the same time symbolically—on the level of feeling, of the mind. This event was so powerful that it could have an effect on every individual who lived it after him, right down to the physical, to the appearance of the wounds, to the most piercing pains. And all depths of feeling were shaken. An intensity of feeling arose that had never before flooded the world in such powerful waves. In the initiation on the cross of divine love, the sacrifice of the self had taken place for all. The physical expression of the self, the blood, had flowed in love for humanity and had such an effect that thousands were drawn to this initiation, to this death, and let their blood flow in love, in enthusiasm for humanity. How much blood was shed in this way has never been emphasized enough and is no longer conscious to people, not even in theosophical circles. But the waves of enthusiasm that flowed down and rose up in this flowing blood have done their work. They have become powerful impulses. They have made people ripe for the initiation of the will.

And this is the legacy of Christ.