Background to the Gospel of St Mark E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 521

Beschreibung

'Christianity was bound at first to be a matter of faith and is only now beginning, very gradually, to be a matter of knowledge.' – Rudolf SteinerRudolf Steiner gave 70 lectures on the four canonical Gospels, characterizing the distinctive contribution of each of the evangelists. The Gospel of Mark is a 'cosmic' text that calls for an astronomical as well as a human reading. It is also critical for understanding the evolution of Christianity, which depends on knowledge of 'the Mystery of Golgotha' (Christ's crucifixion, resurrection and ascension). 'We are only at the beginning of Christian evolution', Steiner states, reiterating that its further development will depend on spiritual knowledge. In order to develop such cognition, 'most important of all is reverence for the great truths and the feeling that we can approach them only with awe and veneration'. Many profound spiritual truths are indeed revealed in these lectures. Among the panoply of topics covered are: 'Mystery Teachings in St Mark's Gospel'; 'The Son of God and the Son of Man'; 'The Symbolic Language of the Macrocosm'; 'The Moon-religion of Yahweh' and 'The Penetration of the Buddha-Mercury Stream into Rosicrucianism'. This thoroughly revised edition includes notes and appendices by Frederick Amrine and an extensive introduction by Robert McDermott.Thirteen lectures, various cities, Oct. 1910–Jun. 1911, GA 124

Leseprobe

BACKGROUND TO THE GOSPEL OF ST MARK

Thirteen lectures given in Berlin, Munich, Hanover and Coblenz between 17 October 1910 and 10 June 1911

TRANSLATED BY E. H. GODDARD AND D. S. OSMOND REVISED AND EDITED BY FREDERICK AMRINE

INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT MCDERMOTT

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

CW 124

Rudolf Steiner Press

Hillside House, The Square

Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2023

Originally published in German under the title Exkurse in das Gebiet des Markus-Evangeliums (volume 124 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. Based on shorthand notes that were not reviewed or revized by the speaker. This authorized translation is based on the fourth German edition (1995), edited by Wolfram Groddeck und Helmut von Wartburg

Published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

© Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Rudolf Steiner Verlag 1995

This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-copying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 641 8

Cover by Morgan Creative

Typeset by Symbiosys Technologies, Vishakapatnam, India

Printed and bound by 4Edge Ltd., Essex

CONTENTS

Publisher’s Note

Introduction, by Robert McDermott

LECTURE 1

BERLIN, 17 OCTOBER 1910

On the Investigation and Communication of Spiritual Truths

The need for a new perspective of the Christ Event. The expansion of our views through the inclusion of oriental wisdom. The different aspects of the supreme truths and the fourfold Gospels. The need to put perceived truths into understandable terms. The study of spiritual science as preparation for ascent into the spiritual world. The need to overcome selfishness. The Mystery Drama The Portal of Initiation as a description of the path of initiation of a certain individuality.

LECTURE 2

BERLIN, 24 OCTOBER 1910

Higher Knowledge and the Human Being’s Life of Soul

Three possible views of man: the anthropological, the anthroposophical and the theosophical. The need for modesty in knowledge and the unbiased sense of truth in the human soul. The eyeless animals as proof of the former connection between the earth and the sun. The I-experience as a gateway to the spiritual world. The uniqueness of the I-perception over all other perceptions. The inner independence of personal feelings as a prerequisite for spiritual research. The knowledge of this fact in the ancient Pythagorean school.

LECTURE 3

BERLIN, 7 NOVEMBER 1910

The Tasks of the Fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch Correspondences between the development of the individual human being through seven-year cycles and the whole of humanity through the post-Atlantean cultural epochs. The pictorial knowledge of the ancient Indian Rishis inherited from Atlantis. Finding concepts for supersensible knowledge through Zarathustra. The application of psychic concepts to physical facts in the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch. The question of the justification of concepts in Aristotle and the justification of logic. Kant’s loss of connection with reality. The still unsuccessful attempt to renew psychology by Franz Brentano, and the need for a spiritual approach. The spiritualization of Copernicanism as a task for the future.

LECTURE 4

BERLIN, 6 DECEMBER 1910

The Symbolic Language of the Macrocosm in the Gospel of St Mark

The Gospels as descriptions of initiation processes. The transformation of the mysteries into historical facts by Jesus Christ. The drying up of the old revelation living in the astral body and the longing for a new revelation to be acquired through the ego. The reference to these facts in the prophecy of Isaiah and in the opening words of the Gospel of Mark. The mission of John the Baptist. The transition from the Aquarius initiation to the Pisces initiation. The cosmic forces as true reality versus the apparent reality of the physical. Experiencing this fact through the Gospel of Mark.

LECTURE 5

BERLIN, 19 DECEMBER 1910

The Two Main Streams of Post-Atlantean Civilization

The inability to really perceive our sheaths: astral body, etheric body and physical body. The causing of this inability by the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold. The Buddha’s true realization of the sheaths through initiation under the Bodhi tree. The preparation of this initiation by previous incarnations. The initiation of Zarathustra through the indwelling of a higher spiritual being. The resistance of the environment against such an event. King Duransarun as a representative of such resistance. Similar events in the life of the Celtic initiate Habich. The Buddhist way to the spirit within oneself; the Zarathustrian way to the spirit in the universe.

LECTURE 6

BERLIN, 16 JANUARY 1911

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

The significance of the exusiai within the Hierarchies. The speaking of these beings through the force of natural phenomena and through the words of the initiates. The true meaning of the Gospel text of Jesus’ powerful speech, Mark 1: 22. The change in Paul’s life through the Christ experience on the road to Damascus. The connection of the child with cosmic forces before the age of three. The saga of Orpheus as an image of humanity’s transition from the third to the fourth cultural epoch and the loss of macrocosmic consciousness. The union of the Son of God with the Son of Man during Christ’s three years.

LECTURE 7

BERLIN, 28 FEBRUARY 1911

The Higher Members of the Human Being’s Constitution: Their Relation to the Physical Body and the Outer World

The animating effect of action born of idealism, and the destructive effect of action inspired by passion. Dependence on external conditions as practical materialism. The special spirituality of human hands, and the importance of washing hands. The relation of the glandular organs to the etheric body and the nerve organs to the astral body. The importance of thyroid function to our concern for the environment. The relationship between sadness and cheerfulness to lived and depicted reality. A passage from Goethe’s Faust as an example.

LECTURE 8

BERLIN, 7 MARCH 1911

Laws of Rhythm in the Domain of Soul and Spirit. The Gospel of the Consciousness Soul The diversity of the four Gospels and the consideration of this diversity as an aid to a deeper understanding of the Christ Impulse. The rhythmic sequence of various mental processes. A reference in the Gospel of Mark to the lack of understanding of the Christ Impulse. The deeper meaning of Peter’s confession. The carrying of Mystery events into human history through the Christ. The affiliation of the four Gospels to four different epochs. The true meaning of the so-called ‘motor’ nerves. The working of the harmonies of the spheres in muscular movements. An indication of the reappearance of the Christ in the etheric.

LECTURE 9

BERLIN, 13 MARCH 1911

The Moon-religion of Yahweh and its Reflection in Arabism. The Penetration of the Buddha-Mercury Stream into Rosicrucianism

The relationship of moonlight to sunlight as a picture of the relationship of the Jehovah religion to the Christ religion. The repetition of the pre-Christian cultural epochs in the post-Christian ones. The religion of Muhammad as a revival of the ancient Hebrew Jehovah religion in the post-Christian period. The confluence of the Muhammad impulse and the Christ impulse from the sixth to the twelfth centuries. The oncoming wave of Greek culture from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. The new branch of Christianity that began after Goethe and the renewal of Buddhism as a Mercury stream. The legend of Barlaam and Josaphat. The contribution of the concept of karma to the understanding of facts newly discovered by natural science. The dispute between Haeckel and Wilhelm His as a symptom of the need for new scientific concepts. The difficulty of spiritual-scientific truths.

LECTURE 10

BERLIN, 10 JUNE 1911

Rosicrucian Wisdom in Folk-Mythology

The longing of many people alive today for spiritual knowledge and the spread of spiritual science in Europe. The inkling of the disappearance of the old spiritual treasures at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the necessity of their recovery through a future, scientifically based theosophy. Richard Rothe on Christof Oetinger. The preparation of today’s Rosicrucian impulse through fairy tales. The fairy tale of ‘The king’s son and the Flower Queen’ as an example. The revival of such images in the poem ‘Ritter Wahn’ by Julius Mosen. The emergence of fairy tales from the Christian Rosicrucian temples. The awakening of the content of fairy tales in the form of today’s spiritual science.

LECTURE 11

MUNICH, 12 DECEMBER 1910

Kyrios, the Lord of the Soul

The specifics of each Gospel. The spirituality of ancient languages and the inability of German translations to render spiritual facts. The true meaning of the opening words of Mark’s Gospel and the prophecy of Isaiah. The transition from initiation through the astral body to initiation through the I, the kyrios. John the Baptist as a precursor of this transition. From Aquarian initiation to Piscean initiation. A legend of Zarathustra’s childhood and its reappearance in the story of temptation in Mark’s Gospel.

LECTURE 12

HANOVER, 18 DECEMBER 1910

Mystery Teachings in St Mark’s Gospel

The Hebrew language as an expression of living thinking. The revival of the German language in the first Mystery Drama. The indwelling of an angel in John the Baptist, and the reference to this event in the prophecy of Isaiah. The new kind of initiation indicated in the opening words of Mark’s Gospel. The connection of this event with the events in the starry sky. The meaning of the respective positions of the sun for the deeds of Christ Jesus on earth. The instinctive emergence of ancient impulses of Egyptian wisdom in the soul of Johannes Kepler.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS (AFTER THE FOREGOING LECTURE)

The temptation of Jesus by the adversary powers, and its various representations in the first three Gospels. The work of Lucifer and Ahriman in human beings and their transformation through the Christ Impulse. The writings of Dionysius and their origins.

LECTURE 13 (INCOMPLETE)

COBLENZ, 2 FEBRUARY 1911

The Voice of the Angelos and the Speech of the Exousiai

The incomprehensibility of the opening words of the Gospel of Mark without the help of spiritual science. Nature and efficacy of the Seven Holy Rishis. The secret of the ancient languages: the visualization of the signs of the zodiac in the consonants and the planets in the vowels. The initiation of John the Baptist in the sign of Aquarius.

APPENDICES:

1. Goethe

2. The Hierarchies

3. The Etheric and the Astral Bodies

4. Cosmic Evolution

5. Ahriman and Lucifer

6. Platonism and Aristotelianism

7. Kant

8. Franz Brentano

9. Michelangelo (by Margot Amrine)

10. Raphael

11. Ernst Haeckel

Notes

Rudolf Steiner’s Collected Works

Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner

Index

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

THIS lecture cycle, held mostly in Berlin, took place during an important phase of the anthroposophical movement. Difficult decisions had to be made. Two months earlier, on 15 August 1910, Steiner’s first Mystery Drama, The Portal of Initiation, referred to as ‘a Rosicrucian Mystery’, premiered in Munich. A year later it become clear that the leadership of the Theosophical Society, which was committed to Eastern-oriented spiritual teachings, was not willing to tolerate the Rosicrucian-Christian element, represented by Rudolf Steiner, emerging as a contemporary philosophy. This led to Rudolf Steiner’s separation from the Theosophical Society in the winter of 1912/13, and the founding of the Anthroposophical Society.

Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on Mark’s Gospel in Berlin were repeatedly interrupted by his activities in other cities. The ten lectures from Berlin gathered here (from 17 October to 10 June 1911) are complemented by lectures held on 12 December 1910 (in Munich) and on 18 December 1910 (in Hanover). Incomplete notes from a lecture on the same subject, held in Coblenz on 2 February 1911, of which no complete transcript has survived, were also added to the edition of the Collected Works.

INTRODUCTION

BETWEEN 1908 and 1913 Rudolf Steiner delivered seventy lectures on the canonical gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The first of these was his lectures to fewer than a dozen members of the Theosophical Society in Hamburg on the Gospel of St John (May 1908). He then delivered a second set of lectures, The Gospel of St John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels (June-July 1909). He also delivered lectures on the Gospel of St Luke (September 1909) and two sets of lectures on the Gospel of St Matthew (November 1909 and September 1910). In the seventh lecture in the present volume Steiner characterizes the distinctive contribution of each of the four Evangelists and recommends that their Gospels should be understood in relation to the revelation of the others. Using a simple analogy, Steiner refers to the full set of Gospels as a tree, a full view of which requires a perspective from all four sides. He adds: ‘We find that the four Gospels do, in fact, present four different aspects’ (p. 4).

The Gospels of John and Mark entirely omit the first thirty years of the life of Jesus; both begin with John the Baptist. Only the Gospels of Luke and Matthew include an account of the birth of Jesus. For reasons which Steiner alone adequately provides, these accounts of the birth and the parents of Jesus are entirely different. The Gospel of Matthew focuses on the childhood of Jesus and the generations of the Hebrew people from whom the bearer of the Christ Being was born: The Gospel of Matthew ‘shows how the bodily nature in which Christ was to incarnate for three years was prepared by mysterious processes connected with the biological stock of the ancient Hebrew people’ (p. 164). Steiner states that the Gospel of Luke, in contrast to the Gospel of Matthew, ‘gives a picture of the evolution of Jesus of Nazareth’ whose incarnation he traces back to Adam: ‘the highest spirituality in human nature reveals itself when humanity’s descent is traced back from the time when we came forth, as earthly human beings, from the Godhead’ (p. 114). In his lectures on the Gospel of Luke, Steiner mentions for the first time the existence of two Jesus children, one descended from Solomon as described in the Gospel of Matthew and one descended from Nathan as described in the Gospel of Luke.

Steiner states that the Gospel of St John leads ‘in a very profound way to the Christ Being Himself ’. This Gospel presents ‘a vista of the highest human goals and at the same time of the sublime realities of the spiritual worlds’. He states that the Gospel of St John ‘may well be a manual of guidance for the spiritual life of [human beings] today’ (p. 123). The Gospel of John is generally considered the spiritually most advanced of the four Gospels, and Steiner’s lectures on the John Gospel are the most advanced of his lectures on the books of the New Testament. The other three Gospels and Steiner’s lectures on them are nevertheless significant on topics not included in the Gospel of John. This is no less so of the Gospel of Mark.

In the eleventh lecture in this volume Steiner explains the importance of the Gospel of Mark for the evolution of humanity and specifically for the evolution of Christianity: ‘In a certain respect, the Gospel of St Mark can lead us to supreme heights in our study of Christianity and it can give us insight into many matters communicated by other Gospels but in a less dramatic way’ (p. 164).

John the Baptist, His Angel, and the Transition from Aquarius to Pisces

Steiner expands on the profound, and profoundly mysterious, relationship between the prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist. In a way that anticipates John’s announcement of the coming of Christ eight centuries later, in ‘The Book of the Consolation of Israel’,1 Isaiah announces the end of a dark period and the revelation of ‘the glory of the Lord’.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God,

Speak tenderly to your Jerusalem,

And cry to her that her warfare is ended,

That her iniquity is pardoned

That she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries:

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up and hill be made low;

The uneven ground shall be made level and the rough places a plain.

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

And all flesh shall see it together,

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. [Is. 40:1-5.]2

In the Gospel of Mark the announcement by John repeats the announcement by Isaiah:

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,

Behold, I send my messenger before thy face who shall prepare thy way;

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. [Mk. 2:3.]

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

In Steiner’s account of the Gospel of Mark, John the Baptist was a prophet who, like Isaiah, was led by an angel and was a voice crying in the wilderness (p. 183). According to Steiner, the angel of the Lord works with individuals who are capable of receiving and acting on the direction of their angel. Isaiah and John—and after John the Baptist, Lazarus3 and Mary Magdalen4—were able to experience their angel and thereby serve as instruments of the evolution of humanity and Christianity. Steiner’s phrase, ‘experience their angel’ would seem to be the equivalent of initiation—one who is sent by the spiritual world to perform an important life-task. John the Baptist was able to serve as the bearer of the angel because he had received a particular form of initiation. In Steiner’s lectures on the Gospel of Mark, historical or evolutionary progress is indicated by the transition from the mission of John the Baptist to the incarnation of Christ—the announcer and He Who Is to Come—and correspondingly, the advance from the constellation of Aquarius to the constellation of Pisces. In the fourth lecture Steiner states:

In this lecture, I have put a twofold conception before you. First: the words at the beginning of St Mark’s Gospel indicate processes in the evolution of humanity, also historical processes, and they speak of a higher power who is not even human; rather, an Angel speaks through the body of John the Baptist. On the other hand, I have showed that the passages in question relate to happenings in the heavens—the progress of the spiritual Sun from the constellation of Aquarius to the constellation of Pisces. Every line of St Mark’s Gospel contains something that can be read rightly only if in following the words we always have in mind both a human and cosmic, astronomical meaning, and when we realize that there lives in humanity something that in its true significance can be found only in the heavens. [p. 60.]

Prior to the Incarnation of Christ, and particularly after the Mystery of Golgotha (Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection and ascension), spiritually advanced individuals saw the spiritual world by means of their astral body. As a result of the Incarnation of Christ, advanced individuals such as the authors of the Gospels were able to experience in the astral world something of what was later to be seen and known by the ‘I’. Steiner states that sentences in the Gospel of St Mark indicate ‘the significance of the Christ impulse for the “I” [of the human being]’ (p. 125). As Frederick Amrine explains in his Introduction to Christ and the Spiritual World:

‘The Christ-Impulse’ is shown to be not a poorly chosen metaphor, but a precise description. Like an impulse in physics, the Christ-impulse is a force that makes things happen in the world. The Christ-Impulse is, among many other things, the ultimate cause of the extraordinary blossoming of free, human thinking that takes place in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch [approximately from the 8BCE to the 15CE].5

While the iconography of John the Baptist is well established in the history of Christian art and devotion, Steiner explained to his audience in Berlin and Hanover in 1910 that John was essentially an angel. The iconographic appearance of John—the fleshly infant with his slightly younger cousin Jesus, the adult John in the rough clothing of an Essene, and John baptizing in the Jordan the One who will baptize with Spirit—that physical John was maya, an instrument of an angelic guide of John’s mission and actions. Only the bodies of spiritually advanced souls who are taken over by an angel are maya. Some exponents of Advaita (a-dvaita, non-dual) Vedanta (interpretations of the Upanishads), consider maya to be unreal. According to Shankara, for example, the foremost Advaitin philosopher, only Brahman is real. In Steiner’s use of this Sanskrit term, maya is less real than Brahman but not unreal.

The individuality who had lived in Elijah was reborn as John the Baptist who, like his predecessor, announced the incarnation of Christ. John, prophet of the Aquarian constellation, announced the divine ‘I’ who would lead humanity to the Pisces incarnation. Whereas John the Baptist could look through the material Earth into the Aquarius initiation, Jesus of Nazareth had been prepared for the Pisces Initiation and through it was able to receive the Christ into himself. Once united with Jesus by the Baptism in the Jordan, Christ was able to baptize with the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ drew to Himself those who were seeking a Pisces initiation.

Christ and the Evolution of the ‘I’

Following the publication of his Outline of Esoteric Science6 one year prior to these lectures, Rudolf Steiner delivered many series of lectures on the significant events in the fourth post-Atlantean age (8BCE—15CE). These lectures included important Greek and Hebraic figures and focused primarily on the Incarnation of Christ, the great transformation that Steiner subsequently referred to as ‘The Turning Point of Time’.7

From my book, Esoteric Science, you can gather how the central idea of Christ must penetrate into human souls, how the Christ is interwoven with the evolution not only of humanity, but of the whole world, and you will be able to recognize along which path progress will be made. [p. 136.]

In lectures 3, 9 and 11, Rudolf Steiner explains the importance of the ‘I’ in the evolution of consciousness. According to Steiner’s study of the evolution of consciousness—past, present, and future—Christ was an essential transformative force, or ‘impulse’, for the evolution of humanity. As a result of the Incarnation of Christ, spiritually awake souls have been able to experience Christ in their souls. The capacity for spiritual sight by the ‘I’ replaced sight by the astral body that was at its lowest level at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha.

Christ incarnated at the very time when humanity was least able to accept Him. Prior to the Incarnation of Christ only ‘a few individuals were able to experience in the astral world something of what was later to be seen and known by the “I”’ (p. 167). By the descent of Christ into Jesus of Nazareth and particularly by the Mystery of Golgotha, it became possible for individuals, and eventually all human beings, to experience their own ‘I’ and thereby the reality of Christ in their lives. Steiner states:

Hence the Prophets could point to the future, saying: ‘The time will come when man will be conscious of his “I” and know that it is by the self-conscious “I” that the secrets of the spiritual worlds will be unveiled. Man will be able to say: “I penetrate into the secrets of the spiritual world through the power of the ‘I’ within me.” [p. 52-3.]

‘In the course of human evolution, important steps that are eventually to take place have always to be prepared in advance. This was so in the case of the Christ Impulse as well, but there was necessarily a period of transition. There could be no sudden change from the time when we felt our astral body becoming unreceptive to the spiritual world, becoming barren and desolate, to a time when the “I” was kindled into activity through the Christ Impulse. It could not happen thus.’ Egohood was prepared, anticipated, as it were, in the astral body. It was through the ‘I’ and its development that we became earthly humans in the real sense (p. 167).

Steiner states that an increasing number of spiritually striving souls will be able to penetrate into the secrets of the spiritual world through the power of their ‘I’. Individuals will be able to see that ‘the Christstream will be the main current in the future’. Further: ‘The Christ impulse at the beginning of our era will become more powerful in human souls until it influences the whole of life on Earth’ (p. 129).

Zarathustra and Buddha

In this series of lectures Steiner explained to his audience of theosophists that Zarathustra as well as Buddha and several Bodhisattvas were related to Christ before His Incarnation on Earth. These theosophists were surely more devoted to Buddha than to Christ and probably were unfamiliar with Zarathustra—unless they happened to have heard Steiner’s lectures on the Gospel of Luke in the previous year in Dornach, Switzerland. In those lectures he ascribed profound significance to Zarathustra as well as to Krishna and Buddha for their respective traditions and in relation to Christ.8 In these lectures on the Gospel of Mark, Steiner emphasizes the separate contributions of Zarathustra and Buddha to the evolution of consciousness:

Now there are two main, fundamental ways in which we can establish a relationship with the supra-sensible worlds. One of these ways can be illustrated by the case of Zarathustra, the great leader of humanity of whom I shall shortly be speaking in a lecture for the public. The other way that such leaders of humanity establish a relationship with the spiritual worlds can be envisaged if we think of the characteristic features of the path followed by the great Buddha. These two outstanding figures differ widely in the whole manner of their work and activity. [p. 66.]

Steiner calls Zarathustra the leader of the Northern Path which leads to an experience of the macrocosm, and calls ‘the great Buddha’ the leader of the Southern Path. As in many of the lectures to this community of theosophists, Rudolf Steiner is respectfully recounting the importance of Buddha—and Krishna—while gently insisting that the Northern/European path should focus on Christ and His high spiritual agents: Sophia, Michael the Archangel, Zarathustra, and Christian Rosenkreutz. While Buddha is not intended to be the primary teacher of the West, he nevertheless exercises a profound influence as the guide of the Southern path (India and east Asia). Steiner’s separation from the Theosophical Society under the leadership of Annie Besant, a process that began at the International Meeting of the Theosophical Society in Munich in 1907, was due primarily to the primacy that Besant attributed to Krishna and Buddha in contrast to the primacy that Steiner attributed to Christ.9

Steiner credits the Buddha-stream with bringing primarily to Asia and increasingly to the West the teachings of karma and rebirth. This teaching is central to Steiner’s mission and to the teaching and practice that he considers an essential contribution to the spiritual life of the West. He states that ‘Buddhism has progressed to further stages of development’. He also asserts: ‘We look to the Buddha who has moved onwards and from spiritual realms exercises an enduring influence upon human culture.’ And: ‘We have now reached the point where a fusion of Christianity and Buddhism will take place, just as in the case of the Yahweh-religion and Christianity’ (p. 138).

Human Development in Relation to the Historical Epochs

According to the popular Christian view, the human being consists of body and soul, the latter a vague concept that refers to a person’s spiritual life and possibly one’s life after death. Individuals who do not affirm the soul typically hold the dominant modern Western scientific paradigm according to which the human being is a body which generates sense impressions and sustains thoughts, emotions, memories, aspirations and other features of human experience, all of which are ultimately physical. In contrast to these views of the human being, Steiner affirms four components:

• physical (which he researched extensively and did not consider unreal or unimportant),

• etheric (the life-principle which the physical body possesses by virtue of being alive),

• astral (the soul, the source and expression of human personality), and

• the human spirit or ‘I’ which, since the Mystery of Golgotha, is united with the Logos—irrespective of whether the individual is aware of this relationship.

Based on his reading of the Akashic Record, Steiner stated that the human physical body passed through three planetary periods prior to its development on Earth: a Saturn period, a Sun period, a Moon period. Because the physical body is constantly influenced by the etheric, astral and ‘I’, all of which evolve, the human body has continued to develop during its Earth evolution.

In lecture three, ‘The Tasks of the Fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch’, Steiner reveals an enormous number of important ideas about the evolution of humanity and its impact on the development of human beings who bear within themselves ‘the fruits of past phases of evolution’ (p. 31). The human being is a microcosm corresponding to the evolution of each epoch.

Along with Steiner’s account of the two Jesus children and his account of Buddha on Mars, his serious affirmation of Atlantis as a continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean—‘between America and Europe’*—tends to lead a reader new to Steiner to incredulity. His account of Atlantis is neither myth, nor fantasy, nor science. It was made possible by his clairvoyant reading of the Akashic Chronicle (or Record). This is the same ability that enabled him to read or picture the initiation of Lazarus and the conversation between Mary Magdalen and the Glorified Body of Christ in front of the tomb. It is unclear to scholars of Plato whether he intended his famous account of Atlantis† to be myth or historical fact.

Steiner’s focus in this lecture is on the seven epochs following the sinking of Atlantis, the first of which was Old Indian civilization during which the human etheric body developed. The astral body evolved during the Persian epoch. The astral body then developed through three soul moods: the sentient soul developed during the Egypto-Chaldean period, the intellectual soul through the Greco-Roman period, and the consciousness soul has been developing in the West since the Renaissance.‡

The fourth post-Atlantean epoch led by the Graeco-Roman civilization, including the culture of the Hebraic people, led to the separation of the spiritual and physical. It was at the end of the first third of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch that Christ incarnated. ‘The epoch when humanity was least able to accept the Christ is when He incarnated.’ Despite the resistance to the mission of Christ, His death and resurrection made it possible for human beings to realize their ‘I’ and its relation to the Logos. Steiner explains: ‘Christianity was bound at first to be a matter of faith and is only now beginning, very gradually, to be a matter of knowledge’ (p. 41). The task of the present age is to develop spiritual knowledge, or spiritual science, the essence of anthroposophy, and thereby to live with the transformative knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha.

The Value of Spiritual Knowledge

Rudolf Steiner was able to relate the status, mission and impact of John the Baptist and Elijah, Buddha and Zarathustra, as well as the even more mysterious events that comprise the Mystery of Golgotha, because he was able to read the Akashic Record. He repeatedly stated that, in principle, anyone can read this script that contains all the deeds and ideas of the past, including those not available from any other source. He also states, however, that to access this source a person needs to be spiritually prepared, free of ego-interference. The capacity of the earthly (lower) ego is a potential obstacle for modern Western spiritual seekers. In the time of the sentient soul (prior to classical Greek and Hebraic consciousness), most individuals were able to know the events of the past almost automatically. This capacity characteristic of Original Participation (Owen Barfield’s phrase10) was lost to make possible the evolution of individual consciousness and human freedom.

For consciousness to evolve at present, two streams must converge: the inauguration of ‘new ideas and concepts of reality’, which can be accomplished exoterically (i.e. by intellect), and ‘a deeper understanding of the Christ-problem and the Mystery of Golgotha’ which can only be accomplished by drawing from the Akashic Record—exactly as Rudolf Steiner did throughout his twenty-five year esoteric career, including in particular his research concerning the events described in the New Testament. As he states:

Spiritual Science would still have been able to describe the events in Palestine even if there had been no historical record of them. The real authority for what we have to say about the Christ Event is not to be found in any written document but in the eternal spiritual record known as the Akasha Chronicle, decipherable only by clairvoyant consciousness. [p. 1.]

Throughout these lectures on the Gospel of St Mark, Rudolf Steiner was focused on the evolution of Christianity and the importance of a true understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha for that evolution. ‘We are only at the beginning of Christian evolution’ (p. 190). Its further evolution will depend not on faith, but on knowledge. ‘What lies in the womb of the future can become living power if there are enough souls who realize that knowledge is a duty’ (p. 161). And further: ‘To “believe in good faith” is not enough; everyone should convince themselves of the truth’ (p. 191). Doing so is more than a duty; it can also be a blessing if the spiritual seeker is motivated by service of humanity: ‘[They] can gain only as a servant of the world in general, and [they] gain it for [themselves] only by gaining it for others’ (p. 10).

In the first lecture in this series, Steiner states that ‘there are dangers in penetrating into the spiritual world without proper preparation’ (p. 10). In his foundational book, How to Know Higher Worlds,11 he explains that reverence is the primary prerequisite for spiritual knowledge. In his answers to questions following the twelfth lecture, Steiner warns against ahrimanic deceptions, e.g., ‘some special diet and some other material practices’, for anyone seeking spiritual knowledge (p. 189). Instead, he emphasizes that ‘the most important of all is reverence for the great truths and the feeling that we can approach them only with awe and veneration’ (p. 4).

There are many profound spiritual truths revealed in these lectures which warrant awe and veneration.

Robert McDermottDecember 2022

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* See An Outline of Esoteric Science, translated by Catherine E. Creeger (Hudson, NY: Steinerbooks, 1997), 239-52, and Rudolf Steiner, ‘Our Atlantean Ancestors’, Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earth and Man, translated by Karl E. Zimmer (NY: Harper & Row, 1981), and Rudolf Steiner, Occult History: Historical Personalities and Events in the Light of Spiritual Science (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1957), 43-48.

† Plato, Timaeus, 23d-27d and Critias, 108c -121e.

‡ See An Outline of Esoteric Science, translated by Catherine E. Creeger (Hudson, NY: Steinerbooks, 1997, 252-80).

LECTURE 1

BERLIN, 17 OCTOBER 1910

On the Investigation and Communication of Spiritual Truths

NOW that we are resuming activities in the Berlin Group, it is well to look back a bit upon that which passed through our souls since the time when last year the work of the Berlin Group began in the same way.

You will remember that about a year ago, in connection with the General Meeting of the German Section, I gave a lecture to the Berlin Group with the title: ‘The Sphere of the Bodhisattvas’.12 In that lecture on the mission of the Bodhisattvas in the world my purpose was to introduce the subject to which our main attention was to be directed in the Group meetings last winter. Our study was concerned with the problem of Christ, particularly in relation to the Gospel of St Matthew13 and also in relation to the Gospels of St John and St Luke.14 And I indicated that at some later date we should be preparing for a still deeper study of Christ in connection with the Gospel of St Mark.

In these studies, we were not attempting a mere exposition of the Gospels. I have often spoken of this in perhaps radical terms, and made it clear that anthroposophy would still have been able to describe the events in Palestine even if there had been no historical records of them. The real authority for what we have to say about the Christ Event is not to be found in any written document, but rather in the eternal, spiritual record known as the Akasha Chronicle,15 decipherable only by clairvoyant consciousness. I have often explained what this really means. And then we approach the Gospels in such a way that what we have first discovered from spiritual research is compared with what—let us say in reference to the events in Palestine—is given us in the Gospels or the other records of the New Testament. To be sure, we have then found that in order to read the Gospel records as they should be read, we first learn to penetrate—without reference to them—into those mysteries that correspond to the events in Palestine. We find that by first researching the corresponding events free from these records, our reverence towards them grows to a very special degree.

But if we do not look merely to our own interests, which are provisionally very narrow, but rather see that the whole configuration of our times, of our contemporary culture, demands a new understanding of the records of Christianity, then we become clear that through anthroposophy we are called upon not simply to satisfy our own need for knowledge of the events in Palestine. Rather we are called upon to translate from anthroposophy into the language of contemporary cultural needs what we have to say about the significance of the Christ Event for the whole of human evolution. It is insufficient, however, for us to restrict ourselves to that which previous centuries have contributed to the problem and the figure of Christ.

If that were sufficient for the cultural needs of the modern age, we should not find so many people unable to reconcile their sense of truth with accepted Christian tradition and who in one way or another actually repudiate the accounts of the events in Palestine as they have been handed down and believed in for centuries. All this makes it clear that modern culture needs a new understanding, a new enunciation, of the truths of Christianity.

Among many other aids to the investigation of Christian truths, one is particularly effective. It consists in extending our vision and our feeling and perception beyond the horizons within which, in recent centuries, we have had to seek an understanding of the spiritual world. Here is a simple indication of how these horizons can be widened.

Goethe16—to take as an example this master-spirit of recent European culture—was, as we all know, a man of titanic genius. Many studies have helped us to understand what depths of spiritual insight lay in Goethe’s personality and to see that we ourselves can attain a high level of spiritual understanding through contemplating the texture of his soul.

But however good our knowledge of Goethe may be, however deeply we steep ourselves in what he has to offer, there is something we shall not find in him, although it is essential if our vision is to be broadened in the right way and our horizon widened for our most urgent spiritual needs. There is no indication that Goethe had any inkling of certain things we can learn about and benefit from today—I mean, the concepts of the spiritual evolution of humanity that first became accessible to us in the nineteenth century through interpretations of documentary records of the spiritual achievements of the East. There we find many concepts which, far from making an understanding of Christ more difficult, if rightly applied help us to realize the nature of Jesus Christ. Therefore, I believe that there could be no better introduction to the study of the problem of Christ than an exposition of the mission of the Bodhisattvas, as they are called in Oriental philosophy. They are the great spiritual individualities whose task it is from time to time to influence evolution. In Western culture, there had for centuries been no knowledge of concepts such as that of the Bodhisattvas: yet only by mastering such concepts can we acquire some measure of knowledge of what Christ has been for humanity, what He can be and will continue to be.

So we find that study of an extensive ambit of the spiritual development of humanity can be fruitful in order to comprehend in a dignified way what we are obligated to comprehend for the cultivation of the culture in which we stand. From another point of view as well it is important, when reviewing past centuries, to emphasize clearly the difference between people living at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and those living in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, as well as the fact that until about a century ago very little was known in Europe about Buddha and Buddhism. Finally, we must remember that the impulse leading to the goal of our endeavours is the feeling that comes over us when we confront the great spiritual truths. For what really matters is not so much the knowledge that someone may wish to acquire, but rather the warmth of feeling, the power of perception, the nobility of will, with which his soul confronts the great truths of humanity. In our Groups, the prevailing tone and atmosphere are more important than the actual words spoken. These feelings and perceptions vary greatly, but the most important of all is reverence for the great truths and the feeling that we can approach them only with awe and veneration; we must realize that we cannot hope to grasp a great reality through a few concepts and ideas casually acquired and coordinated.

I have often said that we cannot accurately visualize a tree that is not actually in front of us if we have drawn a sketch of it from one side only, but that we must go round it and sketch it from many different sides. Only by assembling these different pictures can we obtain a complete impression of the tree. This analogy should make clear to us what our attitude should be to the great spiritual truths. We can make no progress at all in any real (or apparent) knowledge of higher things by approaching them from one side only. Whether or not there is truth in the particular view we may hold, we should always be humble enough to recognize that all our ideas are, and cannot help being, one-sided. If we intensify such a feeling of humility, we shall welcome all ideas that throw light on any possible aspect of the great facts of existence. The age in which we are living makes this necessary, and the necessity will be increasingly borne in upon us. Consequently, we no longer shut ourselves off from other views or from paths to the supreme truths, which may differ from our own or from that of contemporary thought. During the course of the last few years, in considering the fruits of Western culture, we have tried always to maintain the principle of true humility in knowledge. I have never had the audacity to attempt to give one single survey of the events that comprise what we call the problem of Christ. On the contrary, I have always said that we were approaching the problem now from one point of view, now from another. And I have always emphasized that not even then has the problem been exhausted, but rather that much further patient work is necessary.

The reason for studying the four Gospels separately is that we can then approach the problem of Christ from four different standpoints. We find that the four Gospels do, in fact, present four different aspects, and we are reminded that this stupendous problem must not be approached from one side only, but rather from at least the four directions of the spiritual heavens indicated by the names of the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If this is done, we shall come increasingly to understand the problems and the great truths that are needed for the life of the human soul; and on the other hand, we shall never say that the one form of truth we may have grasped is the whole truth.

All our studies this last winter have been directed towards evoking a mood of humility in knowledge. Indeed, without such humility, no progress in the spiritual life is possible. Again and again I have stressed the basic qualities essential for any progress in spiritual knowledge, and anyone who has followed the lectures given here week by week will confirm this.

Progress in spiritual knowledge—this is of course one of the basic impulses of our movement. What does it mean to the soul? It fulfils our soul’s worthiest needs and longings, and provides the support that everyone conscious of their true humanity requires. Moreover, this support is completely in line with the intellectual needs of the present day. The progress in knowledge made possible by anthroposophy should throw light on things that cannot be investigated by our ordinary senses, but only by our faculties as spiritual beings. The great questions about our place in the physical world and what lies beyond the manifestations of the senses in this world, the truths concerning what lies beyond life and death—these questions meet a profound need, indeed the most human of all needs, that of the human soul. Even if for various reasons we hold aloof from these questions and succeed for a time in deadening ourselves by maintaining that science cannot investigate them, that the necessary faculties do not exist, nevertheless in the end the need and longing to find answers to them never disappears. The origin of what we see developing in the course of childhood and youth, the destination of what lies harboured in our soul as our bodily constitution begins to wilt and wither; in short, how we are connected with a spiritual world—these questions arise from a deep human need, and we can dispense with the answers to them only when we deaden ourselves to our true nature.

But because these questions spring from so deep a need, because the soul cannot live in peace and contentment if it does not find the answers, it is only natural that people should look for an easy, comfortable way of finding them. Although many people would like to deny it, these questions have become particularly urgent in every domain of life, and what a variety of paths to the answers are offered to us! It can be said without exaggeration that the path of anthroposophy is the hardest of them all. Many of you will admit that some of the sciences today are very difficult, and you will hesitate to tackle them because you are frightened by what you will have to master if you are really to understand them. The path of anthroposophy may appear to be easier than, let us say, that of mathematics or botany or some other branch of natural science. Yet in the strictest sense, the path of anthroposophy is more difficult than that of any other science. This can be said without exaggeration. Why, then, does it seem easier to you? Only because it stirs the interests of the soul so forcefully and makes so compelling an appeal. It may be the most difficult of all the paths along which we are led into the spiritual world today, but we should not forget that it will lead to the highest within us. Is it not natural that the path to the highest should also be the hardest? Hence we should never be frightened by or blind to the inevitable difficulties of the path of anthroposophy.

Among many features of this path, one has repeatedly been mentioned here. A person wishing to follow it must, to begin with, seriously imbibe what spiritual investigation has already been able to present about the mysteries and realities of the spiritual world. Here we touch upon a very important chapter of progress in anthroposophy. People speak glibly about an anthroposophy that cannot be corroborated, about spiritual facts alleged to have been witnessed and investigated by some initiate or seer, and they ask: Would it not be better simply to show us how we can quickly make our own way upwards into regions from which to glimpse the spiritual world? Why are we constantly told: This is what it looks like, this is how it appears to such and such a seer? Why are we not shown how to make the ascent quickly ourselves?

There are good reasons why facts that have been investigated about the spiritual world are communicated in general terms before details are given of the methods of training whereby the soul itself can be led into those higher spheres. We gain something very definite if we apply ourselves reverently to the study of what spiritual investigations have revealed from the spiritual world. I have often said that the facts of the spiritual world must be investigated and can be discovered only by clairvoyant consciousness; but I have as often said that once someone possessed of clairvoyant consciousness has observed these facts in the spiritual world and then communicates them, they must be communicated in such a way that even without clairvoyance, everyone will be able to test them by reference to the normal feeling for truth present in every soul, and by applying to them their own unprejudiced reasoning faculties. Anyone endowed with genuine clairvoyant consciousness will always communicate the facts about the spiritual world in such a way that everyone who wishes to test what they say will be able to do so without clairvoyance. But at the same time they will communicate them in a form whereby their true value and significance can be conveyed to a human soul.

What, then, does this communication and presentation of spiritual facts mean to the soul? It means that anyone who has some idea of conditions in the spiritual world can direct and order their life, their thoughts, their feelings, and their perceptions in accordance with their relationship to the spiritual world. In this sense, every communication of spiritual facts is important, even if the recipient cannot investigate those facts with clairvoyant consciousness. Indeed, for investigators these facts acquire a human value only when they have clothed them in a form in which they can be accessible to everyone. However much clairvoyants may be able to see and investigate in the spiritual world, it remains valueless both to them and to others until they can bring the fruits of their vision into the range of ordinary cognition and express them in ideas and concepts that can be grasped by a natural sense of truth and by sound reasoning. In fact, if their findings are to be of any value, they must first have understood them fundamentally; their value begins only at the point where the possibility of reasoned proof begins.

There is a radical test that can be applied to what I have just said. Among many other valuable spiritual truths and communications, you will certainly attach very great importance to those concerning what we can take with us through the gate of death of the spiritual truths we have assimilated on the physical plane between birth and death. Or, to put it differently: How much remains to someone who, by cultivating the spiritual life, has mastered the substance of communications relating to the spiritual world? The answer is: Exactly as much remains to such a person as they have fundamentally grasped and understood and have been able to translate into the language of ordinary human consciousness.

Picture to yourselves someone who may have made quite exceptional discoveries in the spiritual world through purely clairvoyant observation, but has never clothed them in the language of ordinary life. What happens to such a person? All their discoveries are extinguished after death; only so much remains of value and significance as has been translated into language that, in any given period, is the language of a healthy sense of truth.

It is naturally of the greatest importance that clairvoyants should be able to bring tidings from the spiritual world and make them fruitful for their fellows. Our age needs such wisdom and cannot make progress without it. It is essential that such communications should be made available to contemporary culture. Even if this is not recognized today, in fifty or a hundred years it will be universally acknowledged that civilization and culture can make no progress unless people become convinced of the existence of spiritual wisdom and realize that humanity must founder unless spiritual wisdom is assimilated. There is something that will be necessary to the humanity of the future if they will evolve further, more necessary than all externally visible means of culture, and that is the assimilation of spiritual wisdom. And even if all space were conquered for the purposes of intercommunication, humanity would still have to face the prospect of the death of culture if spiritual wisdom were rejected. This is true beyond all shadow of doubt. Insight into the spiritual world is absolutely essential.

In addition to the value of spiritual wisdom for single individuals after death, there is its value for the progress of humanity on the Earth. To have the right idea here, we have to distinguish between clairvoyants who have been able to investigate the spiritual world and express their findings in terms of healthy human reason, and those whose karma while they were incarnated made it impossible for them to see into the spiritual world, and who had consequently to rely upon hearing from others about the findings of spiritual research. What is the difference between the fruits enjoyed after death by two such individuals? How do the effects of spiritual truths differ in an initiate and in one who knows them only by hearsay and cannot see into the spiritual world? Is the initiate better off than someone who could only hear these truths from someone else?

For humanity in general, vision of spiritual worlds is, of course, worth more than absence of vision. A seer is in touch with those worlds and can teach and help forward not only our own development, but also that of spiritual beings. Clairvoyant consciousness, then, is of special value. For the individual, however, knowledge alone has value, and in this respect, the most gifted clairvoyants are not to be distinguished from those who have merely heard the communications without being able in the present incarnation to look into the spiritual world themselves. Whatever spiritual wisdom we have assimilated will be fruitful after death, no matter whether or not we ourselves are seers.

This confronts our soul with one of the great moral laws of the spiritual world. Admittedly, our modern conception of morality may not be subtle enough to understand this ethos fully. No advantage is gained by individuals—except perhaps a merely selfish gratification—because their karma has made it possible for them to see into the spiritual world. Everything we acquire for our individual life we must acquire on the physical plane, and we must mould it into forms appropriate to that plane. If a Buddha or a Bodhisattva stands at a higher level than other humans among the Hierarchies17 of the spiritual world, it is because that individuality has acquired these higher qualities through a number of incarnations on the physical plane. Here is an indication of what I mean by the higher morality, the higher ethics, that results from the spiritual life. Let nobody imagine that they gain any advantage over their fellows through developing clairvoyance, for that is simply not so. They make no progress that can be justified on any ground of self-interest. They achieve progress only in so far as they can be more useful to others. The immorality of egoism can find no place in the spiritual world. A person can gain nothing for themselves by spiritual illumination. What someone does gain they can gain only as a servant of the world in general, and they gain for themselves only by gaining it for others.

This, then, is the position of spiritual investigators among their fellows. If their fellow humans are willing to listen to them and assimilate their findings, those humans make the same progress as they do. This means that we must employ spiritual achievement only to further general human well-being, and not for any selfish purposes. There is a realm where someone is moral not merely of their own volition, but because immorality or egoism would be of no advantage. It is also easy to realize that there are dangers in penetrating into the spiritual world without proper preparation. By leading a spiritual life, we do not achieve anything that will fulfil a selfish purpose after death. On the other hand, someone may wish to gratify an egotistic purpose in their life on Earth through spiritual development. Even if nothing egotistic can benefit existence in the spiritual world, there may be a wish to fulfil some egotistical purpose on the Earth.

Most people who follow the path leading to higher development are likely to say that they will obviously strive to discard egoism before trying to enter the spiritual world. But believe me, there is no province of life where deception is likely to be as great as it is among those who claim that their endeavours are free from egotistic interests. It is easy enough to say this, but whether it can become a fact is quite another matter. It is a different matter because when we begin to practise exercises that can lead into the spiritual world, then for the first time we confront ourselves as we truly are. In ordinary life, very few things are experienced in their true form. We live in a web of representations, of impulses of will, of moral perceptions and conventional actions, all of which originate in our environment, and we seldom stop to ask ourselves how we would act or think in a given case if our upbringing had not been what it was. If we were to answer this question honestly, we would realize that our shortcomings are very much greater than we have assumed them to be.