Lecture II

I showed in the book mentioned above that we have to accept the Gospels as “books of initiation.” This means that they are nothing less than accounts of the ancient ritual of initiation, paraphrased in a certain way. What is stated in these ancient writings? They mainly contain accounts of how the candidate in his training was led step by step along the path to higher worlds. How he gradually went through certain soul-experiences and was finally brought to the point where certain forces slumbering in his soul were awakened. We read how higher stages gradually evolved out of lower ones, up to that stage when the spiritual world dawned within the soul of the would-be initiate and the secrets of the spiritual world were revealed to him. He could then look into the spiritual world. He could behold, for example, the Beings of the different hierarchies as we have described them in other connections on many occasions. Thus the content of such “books of initiation” was what anyone seeking initiation had to carry out.