The Easter Event at the Goetheanum

The event in Bern was immediately followed by the one that took place at the Goetheanum itself. My topic was: Easter, a piece of mystery history. I attempted to show how the roots of Easter lie in the mysteries. How, prompted by the mysteries, festivals were celebrated in ancient times at which the image of the god of life force and beauty was sunk into the sea — or in some other way — amid expressions of mourning, and after about three days was brought back to the light of day amid joyful celebrations. Such festivals did not symbolize something remote from human beings, but rather presented the participants with the fact that, after passing through the gate of death, human beings begin a new — spiritual — life after a few days. The cult ceremony was intended to present to the human being's sensory eye what he experiences supersensually immediately after death. In the earliest times, this representation did not yet refer to the reawakening of nature in spring. It merely represented something that human beings experience as a being transcending nature.