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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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233a. Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation: Hidden Centres of the Mysteries in the Middle Ages 05 Jan 1924, Dornach
Translated by Mary Adams

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have indeed the perpetual rhythmic alternation between the physical manifestation and the spiritual manifestation of the Moon. To understand what this really means we must look back to the event which is described, for instance, in my book, Occult Science.
Thus all that is left of a real process of the Mysteries which many human beings often underwent in ancient Mysteries—all that has remained is an abstract fixation of time. And so it is indeed with this Easter Festival.
The event in the Mysteries which I described the day before yesterday led the human being to understand the fact of death. I told you of how the idea of resurrection was brought home to man by such festivals as the Adonis Festival in Autumn time.
233a. The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries: Lecture IV 22 Apr 1924, Dornach

Now to enter into these things with sympathetic understanding we must grasp them, as I already said, as intimately as possible. How did the spiritual life of the world live in the Mysteries?
And from that moment there went forth the power to create a new thing, yet a strange new thing which has been little noticed by mankind. You must come to understand what was the real character of the new creation that went forth from the working together of Alexander and Aristotle.
Just because this misfortune came upon us, when we recognise and know the consequence of it, we may justly say: henceforth we understand that we can no longer merely represent an earthly concern, but we represent a concern of the wide ethereal universe wherein the Spirit lives.
233a. The Festival of Easter: Lecture I 19 Apr 1924, Dornach
Translator Unknown

How did they know this? Because the proceedings in the Mysteries, undergone by the neophyte that he might rise to Christ in the sun, could no longer be carried out in the same way as before, for the simple reason that human nature had in the course of time become different.
Mankind also lost understanding of the external festivals of the year: understanding that the coming of Autumn, bringing as it does death to the outward things of Nature, is the time when it is most easy to realize that the death of all these things is connected with the resurrection of what is spiritual.
This Anthroposophy will do, when people have realised how the old thoughts of the Mysteries can live on in rightly conceived thoughts of Easter; when they have acquired a right understanding of the body, soul, and spirit of man, and of the destiny of these in the physical, psychic, and spiritual heavenly worlds.

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