8. Christmas: A Festival of Inspiration

A deep emotion awakens in our souls when we take for our meditation a feeling, compressed into the one night of the 24th and 25th December, of what mankind has become from Adam and Eve to the birth of Christ in Jesus, through the Luciferic powers. If we can realise that, we shall really grasp the significance of this Festival, and realise the goal before humanity. It is as though humanity, if it would use its opportunity and take these sign posts of time as material for meditation, could really become aware of its pure origin in the cosmic forces of the universe. Here, looking up into the cosmic forces of the universe and penetrating a little by means of Anthroposophy, through the true spiritual wisdom into the secrets of the universe, humanity can first become ripe to understand this, that what as the Christ-Birth Festival was once understood by the Gnostics, was in fact the festival celebrated on January 6th, the Festival of the Birth of Christ in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, as a higher stage of the Birth-Festival of Jesus. To enable us to plunge into the twelve great Forces of the universe, the twelve Holy Nights are set between the Christmas Festival and the festival which should be celebrated on the sixth of January, which now is the festival of the Three Holy Kings, and which in fact is the festival we have been speaking about.