Christ, the I, and the Threshold of Spiritual Development

GA 266III — 17 February 1920, Dornach

Esoteric Lesson

It is necessary for us to know that we live in three areas, in three currents, namely in the physical world, where we perceive and process perceptions with our mind connected to the brain; then the world on the threshold, where the mind is no longer sufficient to explain experiences; and finally the world beyond the threshold, where one enters into relationship with spiritual beings. Humanity as such stands on the threshold.

Everything in nature and the external world around us is on this side of the threshold, but we may ask where we can find the experiences of the threshold revealed. These can be found in religious creeds of various kinds. In their cults, customs, and so on, they tell of that which cannot be grasped by the mind.

The experiences at the threshold have something confusing about them; but this is because everything that is brought from the sensory world loses its meaning there. Modern religious creeds, however, have no real religious impulses; therefore, they want to permeate everything with intelligence, which must fail there. Therefore, they cannot understand Christ as an extraterrestrial being, and especially the resurrection. When theologians speak of Jesus as is customary today, they actually deny that Christ rose from the dead, and only when one understands the events in Palestine as something that cannot be grasped by the intellect, something that can only be understood supersensually, does one cross the threshold.

The confusion that arises from the fact that everything that comes from the sensory world loses its meaning only ceases when the light from beyond the threshold falls into this confusion; but this is not possible without Christ. If we do not connect ourselves with Christ in such a way that we can say, “Not I, but Christ in me,” then we cannot even continue to live as human beings in the future.

The deity we call God the Father has given humanity the power to feel ourselves as an I, a continuous I through incarnations; but this power is exhausted, and the gods have determined that human beings must now continue their I out of themselves, out of their own free will, so that they can also feel themselves as I for further incarnations. Otherwise, we would run the danger mentioned last time, that people would become soulless, that the thread of the I would be severed. Christ came down from the spiritual world, died, and rose again to ensure that this would not happen to humanity. Meditation is given to us for this purpose.

An I gave me the divine
Humanity points me to Christ,
- Christ makes me human
the soul will be enlivened by the spirit.

Many secret societies know such truths, but they want to keep them for themselves. Therefore, such secret societies do not so much want to deny these truths as to win them for themselves, divert them from their current course, and present them to the world as originating from themselves. Nothing would be easier than to make spiritual science popular. I (Dr. Steiner) need only withdraw and spread the word that I have died, and the secret societies would soon help the truths of spiritual science to achieve a popularity that would strengthen their power. One should therefore not argue with the Jesuits, for example, who are now fighting so hard against spiritual science, in the same way that one might engage in a factual battle with other opponents. It cannot be a question of converting the Jesuit—of convincing him through arguments—and the refutations that are brought against him are actually very valuable to him, because they are the weapons he himself will one day use when he comes to defend the supersensible truths on his own behalf. At most, it can be a matter of trying to enlighten other people about the nature of the Jesuit attack, but not of refuting the Jesuit attack itself.

Addition by Helene Finckh:

The ego is actually only a shell; and it will become thinner and thinner; but Christ steps in for it; but Christ can only be found in humanity, not in individual human beings.

At the beginning and end of the lesson: O man, know thyself ...