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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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233a. The Easter Festival in the Evolution of the Mysteries: Lecture II 21 Apr 1924, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner
Inasmuch as human beings participate in the cosmos as a whole, this secret was related to human nature. It must be understood that with respect to our whole nature we are connected with the cosmos, just as through our physical bodies we are connected with the earth.
In descending from pre-earthly existence to a new life on earth the human being has very definite experiences. When he has undergone everything necessary in the period between death and a new birth, the human being prepares to come down to earth, to unite himself with a physical body provided by an earthly father and mother.
This procedure, however, is different from the one I described the day before yesterday. The latter, as you will recall, led to an understanding of the nature of death. I said that the process of resurrection, which was symbolized by the rituals of the Adonis cult and of others like it, demanded that one first undergo a kind of death experience in order to rise in the spiritual world after three days.
233a. The Easter Festival in the Evolution of the Mysteries: Lecture IV 22 Apr 1924, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner
One of the purposes of the festivals is to try to cultivate this reverence in ourselves by understanding how the spiritual has developed throughout human history. Through the festivals we can learn to look very intimately at how historical events pass spiritual contents on from one age to another.
Such harrowing events can indeed call forth a true step forward in human evolution. To understand such matters we must examine them, as I mentioned before, on as intimate a level as possible. We must look at the particular way in which the world's spirituality lived within the Mysteries.
At Samothrace, however, these Mysteries were remembered and preserved, even practiced. Under their influence, Alexander and Aristotle experienced something akin to a memory of Ephesus, in whose spiritual life both had of course participated in an earlier incarnation.
233a. Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation: Research into the Life of the Spirit During the Middle Ages 04 Jan 1924, Dornach
Translated by Mary Adams

Rudolf Steiner
It is, you know, quite difficult to make the man of today understand what is meant by “glowing enthusiasm.” Even in the beginning of the nineteenth century men knew better what it is than they do today.
They spoke of the Element of Warmth, and by the Element of Warmth they understood Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones—and that is the Saturn existence. The description went further.
There is no doubt about it: if we want to get near the men of real knowledge in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, we must understand these things. Indeed we cannot even understand the men of still later times, we cannot understand Albertus Magnus, if we read him with the knowledge we have today.
233a. Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation: Hidden Centres of the Mysteries in the Middle Ages 05 Jan 1924, Dornach
Translated by Mary Adams

Rudolf Steiner
It is impossible to bring them into relation with one another. And so, since I do not understand Nature, since Nature reveals nothing to me, neither do I understand the Revelation of Religion. And the teacher made answer: I understand you well; it is even so. If you must speak thus, if it is with your heart and soul as you say, then you, as you stand in the world today, will not be able to understand either Nature or Revelation: for you live in a body that has undergone the Fall—such was the manner of speaking in those days—and this “fallen” body is not suited to the earthly environment in which you are living.
Under the guidance of the teacher and because of the special kind of fruitfulness that worked in the conversation it ended with the pupil saying these words: “Now I understand what Spirit it is that works in the Revelation.
233a. Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation: The Time of Transition 06 Jan 1924, Dornach
Translated by Mary Adams

Rudolf Steiner
But the physical body they looked upon as “fallen,” and information that came by the help of mediumship they could not but regard under all circumstances as acquired by the help of Ahrimanic or Luciferic powers. In those times, things like this were still clearly and exactly known.
For a period of time, however, the human intellect and understanding will be so constituted that it will have to be suppressed in order for that which is of the Spirit to be able to speak to the human soul.
And much that was written in those days possesses a certain charm which we only understand when we know how this atmosphere of brotherhood which permeated the spiritual life of many circles in Europe in those times, shed its radiant light into the writings.
233a. Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation: The Relationship of Earthly Man to the Sun 11 Jan 1924, Dornach
Translated by Mary Adams

Rudolf Steiner
And together with this knowledge went an understanding of the Earth, that saw in the Earth too a heavenly body having its Intelligence and its Demon. The understanding however for star Intelligence and star Demonology was little by little completely lost, with all that was involved in it.
Such books are invariably pointers to what was once understood in olden times, was once an inward knowledge-experience, but when Eliphas Levi, for example, was writing his books, was no longer understood.
233a. Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation: Occult Schools in the 18th and First Half of the 19th Century 12 Jan 1924, Dornach
Translated by Mary Adams

Rudolf Steiner
But now there is something else that will help you to come to an understanding of the matter. Paradoxical as it may sound, it is yet true that such a book as my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity cannot be grasped by mere Logic, it must be understood by the whole human being. And in point of fact you will not understand what is said in that book concerning Thinking, unless you know that in reality man experiences Thought by means of the inner knowledge and feeling of his skeleton.
Facts that we put to practical use in various ways and that are of great value to us, were known and understood even as late as the nineteenth century by men who based their knowledge on good old traditions of knowledge and insight.
233a. Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation: The Tasks of the Michael Age 13 Jan 1924, Dornach
Translated by Mary Adams

Rudolf Steiner
Most of that which has been transmitted to mankind under the name is charlatanry. Nevertheless, as I have explained on former occasions, there did exist an individuality whom we may describe by the name of Christian Rosenkreutz.
They had the consciousness that they were drawing forth their knowledge from the inner being of the human soul. The exercises they underwent were intended, as you know, to stir the human heart to its depths, to inform the human heart and mind with experiences which man does not undergo in the ordinary round of life.
The Greek saw his Zeus, his Gods, in the astral light; but he had the feeling that the astral light only reflected the Gods to him under the Proper conditions. Hence he assigned his Gods to special places—places where the air could offer the proper resistance to the inscriptions in the astral light.
233a. The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries: Lecture I 19 Apr 1924, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner
The candidate was treated like one who is about to die. He was given to understand that when he was now laid in the coffin, he would have to undergo what the human being undergoes in the first three days after death.
What the soul of every candidate for Initiation underwent, Christ Jesus underwent even in the body. That is to say, He underwent it on a different level.
Hence what the candidate for Initiation in the ancient Mysteries had undergone in his soul, could be undergone in the entire human nature by Christ Jesus upon Golgotha. Those who still had knowledge of the ancient Mysteries and of the above Initiation-rite—it was they who understood most deeply what had happened upon Golgotha.
233a. The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries: Lecture II 20 Apr 1924, Dornach

Rudolf Steiner
During the last three, four or five centuries humanity of the civilised world has undergone an evolution of soul and spirit which led man farther and farther away from the thought of his connection with Cosmic powers and Cosmic forces.
Still, life could not subsist under such conditions. Yet this is what is required of the modern man with regard to Nature through the very ordering of present-day civilisation.
In most of the ancient Mysteries Christophorus was the name for those who attained the fourth Degree. In the third Degree man had to understand certain things; above all he had to understand that for the moments of Knowledge the craving for the physical body must cease.

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