Lecture X

We will once more remind ourselves that there are two modes of Initiation. The process in one is that a man descends into his physical body and etheric body, learns to know his own inner nature and comes into contact with the forces that work creatively in him. And in the other mode of Initiation a man is led out into the spiritual world, into the Macrocosm. Now we know that this—as regards what actually happens, not as regards consciousness—takes place every time a human being goes to sleep; his astral body and Ego, withdrawn from his physical and etheric bodies, pour into the world of stars and absorb its forces—hence the designation, astral’ body. Through this form of Initiation a man is able not only to survey happenings on the Earth but to expand into the Cosmos, to gain knowledge of the world of the stars and absorb its forces, But the condition that can only gradually be attained by man (in Initiation) was present in the,Christ in the form consonant with His special nature after the Baptism by John. In Him, however, it was not comparable with the state of sleep; it was present in Him when He was not sleeping but was awake in his physical body and etheric body. He was able to unite Himself with the forces of the world of stars and carry those forces into the physical world.