VI. The Son of God and the Son of Man. The Sacrifice of Orpheus

Think, hypothetically, of a man descending and passing through his first incarnation: there he learns certain things. In his second incarnation he learns more; and so on through all the incarnations. Their course, to begin with, is one of descent: man becomes more and more deeply entangled in the physical world. Then he begins an ascent and can rise to the extent to which he receives the Christ Impulse into himself. One day he will find his way again into the spiritual world; but he will then take with him whatever he was able to acquire on the Earth.