Cosmic Evolution, Human Freedom, and Christ's Judgment

GA 266III — 14 July 1914, Norrköping

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

What we would like, my dear sisters and brothers, is that all who participate in an esoteric hour should be thoroughly imbued with its significance. Additions in round brackets from an otherwise identical record. We should consciously step out of our everyday lives; it must be as if the veil separating us from the spiritual world were being drawn away, so that we can immerse ourselves completely in it. The same thing happens in meditation. (In proper meditation) we should become free of our bodies, abandon everything connected with the physical, extinguish all interests of everyday life, and be devoted solely to the object of our meditation. We should step completely out of our bodies, leave them behind completely, just as we do when we sleep, except that in meditation it happens consciously. But there is one thing we take with us: our breath, the action of our lungs and heart, the breath of life that Yahweh Elohim once breathed into earthly man.

When we are thus completely devoted to our meditation, we will have the feeling that our brain is only an ether brain. (We must realize:) When a person thinks, this has nothing to do with his brain. When he believes (feels), this has nothing to do with the organ of the heart. Just as when a car drives across a road and the wheels leave deep tracks, this has nothing to do with the car as such, but depends on the condition of the road—so too, one must not judge the organs by what one sees externally, as physiology and anatomy do. It is not the organs that think and feel, but the spiritual beings and forces that work within them. Just as letters are only signs for the content of a word, so too are the organs only signs through which higher beings express themselves in human beings.

We can see three stages of development of our planet Earth: the present one, the Earth; the previous one, the Moon; and the future one, Jupiter. Most of you will know that, in addition to the cerebrum, the instrument through which we think, we also have a cerebellum, which is located further down in the neck. Every physiologist and anatomist knows this, but they do not know that it is a remnant of the ancient lunar era. It stands there as a document of the ancient lunar era, as a sign of the battles that the gods fought for us. What was thought on the moon became the cerebellum. But there was no error in our thoughts at that time, for it was divine powers that thought for us and guided our thoughts. At that time, man had no freedom; divine beings guided and directed him. But now, on Earth, he has attained freedom and independence and must take responsibility for what he thinks.

Remnants of the lunar period can also be found in the cerebrum: the pineal gland and the mucous gland; on the moon, these were what are now the lungs and heart in humans.

And through our life here on Earth, we live our way up to Jupiter. (We are already preparing this future state of the Earth, Jupiter.) What humans are now in their actions, their deeds, their entire being, will form the cerebrum on Jupiter. And what they now think in their cerebrum will one day form their cerebellum on Jupiter. It is no longer the gods who monitor their thinking; humans on Earth have become free. He must bear the consequences of his thoughts himself, and his cerebellum sits on his neck like a judge, warning him, for it will transfer the effects of everything he has thought on Earth to Jupiter.

And now I ask you (if we allow this fact to sink in with all its magnitude and responsibility): Do we still need a court? Is this judgment not much more gripping, more powerful than even Michelangelo could depict in his “Last Judgment”? Consider the tragedy that lies in the fact that human beings must now bear the consequences of their deeds, their feelings, and their thoughts themselves!

But we have one consolation, one support (in the midst of this tragedy): Christ has entered into the evolution of the earth; if we entrust ourselves to him, he will carry our deeds, our feelings, and our thoughts over to Jupiter. That is why it is so important that spiritual science (Christ science, the knowledge of Christ) is entering our time (the time of the development of the consciousness soul) so that understanding of the true Christ may come alive again.

Even Blavatsky, in her “Secret Doctrine,” spoke of Yahweh as “Moon-Gort”; but because she mixed her own feelings into it, (many things are incorrect in it and) much of the bad karma that weighs on the Theosophical Society has arisen from it. And since Yahweh was so little understood, it was no wonder that the Christ being is now so little understood. In order to correct this, it was necessary to speak of Lucifer and Ahriman right at the beginning of our movement, for only through (an understanding of their nature and work) can Yahweh be correctly assessed. And only then can people be led correctly into the spiritual worlds, when they are guided through Lucifer and Ahriman so that they come to Christ there. If Christ is not placed at the center (of all esoteric striving), then they are led to Lucifer.

People do not like to call things by their proper names; they deceive themselves about their true nature. But what is called scientific (in certain circles) is actually of an Ahrimanic nature. Thus, the leading journal of the Theosophical Society stated that the “Secret Science” was psychic-mystical, whereas the writings of Annie Besant and Leadbeater were scientific and occult. But that is Ahrimanic; and what is called psychic and mystical should be called “Christian.” For the whole “secret science” and all our work has been founded from the beginning on the knowledge of Christ, and it has been inspired by the Christ Being Himself. Let us always keep this in mind, my dear sisters and brothers.

We came over from the moon, where we were still in the bosom of the gods: Ex Deo nascimur. With Christ we are to unite ourselves on earth, die into him: In --- morimur. Thus the Holy Spirit will lead us over into the new earth embodiment, Jupiter: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Record B

All those who want to advance through meditation and concentration as truly serious esotericists want, in essence, nothing more than to become better, different people. In ordinary life, we think through the instrument of our brain, that is, by means of our physical body. In meditation, it is different. If the esotericist devotes himself completely to his meditation, the state he enters is similar to the state of sleep, but with consciousness maintained. We switch off everything that is connected to the physical body; only the breathing process remains; it is breathed into man as the breath of Yahweh. In meditation, we think with our etheric body; the lungs and heart expand and become the brain, but the etheric brain, and just as our head relates to the rest of the physical body, so this etheric brain relates to the heavenly body. You cannot understand human beings using the methods of external science, through physiology, anatomy, chemistry, etc. It is like trying to understand something written on a piece of paper by examining the paper and ink; this does not enable you to understand what is expressed in the symbols. The organs of the human being are such characters through which the divine-spiritual beings speak: our larynx, our heart, our lungs, our brain are such characters. Thinking works by condensing the substance, first in the brain, and feeling forms the heart organ. The human being was not always as he is now. On the old moon, the human being breathed in warmth; we have something in our heads that we brought over from the old lunar development, as a remnant, as a monument to the lunar period; it is the leaf-like cerebellum in the back of our heads. At that time it was not small; it has shrunk; and what were the lungs and heart of the old lunar human beings, we carry as the pineal gland and mucous gland in our heads. The lungs and heart of the lunar human being were transformed and became the brain for the Earth human being. In the same way, the lungs and heart of the Earth human being will be transformed and become the brain for the Jupiter human being. This is being prepared through our esoteric exercises.

Through the cerebellum, which was a large brain during the lunar period, the deity spoke to the human being; it is the deity called Yahweh who had connected himself with the development of the moon. Now this may be spoken; it has already been spoken once, by Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, where she calls Yahweh a moon deity. But it is not important merely to state facts; it is important how they are stated. Much of the bad karma of the Theosophical Society can be traced back to Blavatsky's disparaging remarks about this. For this reason, the teachings about Ahriman and Lucifer had to be brought forth and placed in their proper context. Just as Yahweh worked through the lunar brain to influence and guide human beings, so too should earthly human beings

in freedom, but by accepting Christ within himself, carry out his actions and deeds. Freedom did not yet exist for the lunar human being; it was brought to humans by Lucifer. Just as humans feel Yahweh as their judge sitting on their necks, so will what is evil and good stand before the Jupiter human being as the consequences of his deeds on earth. He will look at it. It will be a terrible judgment, more terrible than Michelangelo depicted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel: Man will then no longer be guided as Yahweh guided him through his work on the cerebellum.

Record C

When we come together at such a time, we would like it to be available to all people, so that the veils separating us from the spiritual world may be torn apart, and such a mood of prayer is the right mood in which to receive the messages given to us in esoteric hours.

In everyday life, we live in our physical bodies, using our senses and our intellect. When we meditate, we live in our etheric bodies. In meditation, we must become completely free of the physical body. When we meditate, we live in the heavenly body, in Christ. What do we do when we meditate? We form something new, we create something new in the cosmos, we imprint a new etheric body on the cosmos. When we consider this, then the great responsibility of what we do as human beings by becoming meditators gradually dawns on us.

We know that the previous embodiment of our Earth was the old Moon.

Now we ask ourselves: Has everything that was our body on the moon passed away? Is there nothing physical left of it? No, it has not passed away at all; we still carry it within us. You still carry the entire moon human being within you today. In your cerebellum, you carry what was once the brain of the moon human being. And in your present cerebrum, you carry within you, even in a horizontal position, in two organs that are no longer active today, that have, as it were, atrophied and dried up, the remnants of the old lunar human being: shrunken, they carry him within them in the pineal gland and the mucous gland. The lungs of the old moon man have become today's pineal gland, and we also carry his heart as a mucous gland in our brain. And the present human being will become the brain of the Jupiter man, and you will be unable to think well on Jupiter if you have acted badly here on Earth. And what is today the brain of the human being on Earth will be the small brain of the Jupiter man.

Today, behind us, still unconscious to us, stand the divine-spiritual beings who worked on us on the moon and created us through the previous stages of development, and they say to us: You shall follow the truth and not surrender to error. They are our judges and they admonish us to become worthy of all the power, work, and sacrifice that the hierarchies have expended for humanity's development. These are the beings of the Elohim, Yahweh, who worked in us on the moon. Unbeknownst to us, they stand behind us today on Earth as admonishers, as judges.

On Jupiter, however, a being will sit on the neck of human beings, who will tell them: This is good and this is evil! - The one who will sit on our necks as the judge will be Christ (reference to Michelangelo's painting “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel in Rome). Something else entirely, beyond what humans have been able to conceive or imagine, will in truth be what humanity experiences as the judgment on Jupiter.

In bondage on the moon, the beings that you now have behind you on Earth as admonishing gods worked on you. Through the freedom of Earth, you will know on Jupiter who sits behind you as your judge.

The final decision for humanity, whether to continue with Christ in evolution or to remain behind, will only be made on Venus, but the judgment will take place on Jupiter. The conclusion of the hour was marked by a reference to the inexhaustibility of our Rosicrucian motto: E.D.N. I.C.M. - P.S.S.R., which is explained in the three meditations: I turn to things ...; Spiritual light warms me ...; Luminous I and luminous soul ... which are given to help us ascend more quickly into the spiritual world.