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Report by John-Peter Gernaat The Gospel of John 11: 1 - 44 gives us the fifth of the seven “I am” statements of Christ in John’s Gospel and the seventh of the Seven Signs recorded in this Gospel. The fifth “I am” statement is “I am the resurrection and the life”, and the seventh Sign is the Raising of Lazarus from the tomb.
The initiation known as Temple Sleep was common in the Egypto-Chaldean Cultural Epoch. During this initiation the one undergoing initiation was able to enter a state of death where the astral body was completely released for the physical body and the etheric body lifted out of the physical body but was able to continue to sustain the physical body while outside of the body. The etheric could be called back into the physical body after three days. The effect of re-entering the physical body drew the astral body back into the physical. The initiate, because of careful preparation, was then able to relay the experiences that the astral body had encountered in the spiritual world. However, by the Greco-Roman Epoch the constitution of the human being had developed to the point where the etheric body was no longer able to sustain the physical body from the outside and Temple Sleep initiation could no longer be practiced after a time. In the Sign of the Raising of Lazarus the etheric body of Christ had been so penetrated by the incarnating Christ that it had loosened from the physical body and Jesus was able to make his life forces available to other people. Lazarus had died and experienced the first death where the etheric body leaves the physical body. However, his etheric body did not dissipate, and he did not experience the second death. It is worth noting that Jesus arrives at the tomb of Lazarus on the fourth day. This tells us that this had gone beyond a Temple Sleep initiation. This was indeed the last Temple Sleep initiation. On the fourth day the etheric life forces of Jesus, permeated with the Christ, were able to draw the etheric body of Lazarus from around his physical body back into the physical body and the etheric is able to call back the astral body. Lazarus had died and on the fourth day was called from the tomb by Christ. As a result of this death, Lazarus receives a title, he becomes John. This death also means that his final death was not a martyr’s experience (he did not have a bear witness in death). He was able to slip peacefully across the threshold into the spiritual world. More importantly, this death initiated him into being able to cross the threshold of death and return to life, which he did on the Island of Patmos. There he was called into the Spiritual World and experienced the revelation of the Spiritual World that he was asked to record. This revelation provides us with the Book of Revelation at the end of the New Testament. Lazarus receives an experience of Golgotha before Jesus was crucified; he experiences the Resurrection forces of Jesus Christ. This is the “I am” statement: “I am the resurrection and the life”. Christ calling Lazarus from the tomb expresses and manifests the overcoming of the dying earth existence. “I am the resurrection” is related to the Spirit Self of the Human constitution, The Sprit Self is the transubstantiation of the astral body through the ‘I’-constitution, through the Christ-in-me. When we relate the Signs to the Sacraments the seventh Sign is related to the Sacrament connected to the crossing of the threshold of life and death. This is the Sacrament of the Last Anointing. An anointing was only given in ancient times to someone who needed to cross this threshold while living on the earth. These were prophets, priests and kings. The last prophet was John the Baptist. No new message from the spiritual world has come since John the Baptist proclaimed the nearness of the Kingdom of God and the need to turn around within oneself. The fullness of revelation came with Christ and was expounded at hand of his Resurrection forces at work in Lazarus-John. Since then, we are able to deepen and more fully appreciate what has been revealed – for all that we need in revelation flows from Christ alive in our experience of earth existence. The role of the king has also come to an end as the human being in the age of the Consciousness Soul must become king in his or her own body. The time of an external king to guide the human being is over. Only priests are still anointed to cross the threshold into death to proclaim the message of the Divine when the ritual is fulfilled at the altar. The Last Anointing is the sacrament that strengthens the soul to cross into the spiritual world at death. Report by John-Peter Gernaat This talk was given on Sunday 4 February 2024, the first day of the first Trinity period of the year. On this day a change in the movements and gestures at the altar during the Act of Consecration of Man was introduced world-wide in The Christian Community. The change means that the chalice will remain centrally placed on the altar and in the central altar space for the duration of the Eucharist service, except when Communion is brought to the congregation.
What is meant by Christ in the centre? When we encounter a circle we usually encounter the circumference of the circle, the periphery. But we can also understand that there is no circle without the centre point around which the circle is drawn. The periphery does not exist without the centre. It does not matter how large the circle is, it is held by the centre. Our experience of life comes from the creative act of the Divine. The creative activity of the Father God is through the Son God. This is wonderfully captured in the Trinity Epistle. We learn through the investigative work of Dr Rudolf Steiner that in development there is always a recapitulation of what came before. Thus, we may ponder what preceded the initial act of creation. The very first act of creation by the Divine was a recapitulation of the Divine essence. In the Earth Cycle of evolution there was a recapitulation of the previous stages of evolution before the full phases of our experiential reality came together. We experience four phases of matter, although schools still teach only three phases. Science has identified solid, liquid, gas and plasma as the four phases of matter experience. These are the same four phases that the ancient civilisations described as the four elements of earth, water, air and fire. They also represent the three stages of past evolution that the Earth Cycle recapitulated before the seven cultural epochs of the productive period of the Earth Cycle began. Those who have an understanding of the Great Cycles of earth evolution will know that the first can be described as Old Saturn and was experienced as warmth which we can identify with the material existence of plasma today. Rudolf Steiner has said that if we were to experience Adam and Eve, the community of the first human being, they would present as fiery beings. This was the recapitulation of Old Saturn. The second Great Cycle may be described as Old Sun and experienced as gaseous which was recapitulated in the Lemurian Epoch. The third Great Cycle may be described as Old Moon and was experienced as watery and was recapitulated in the Atlantean Epoch. This Epoch came to an end with the flood of Noah after which dry land appeared as we know it today. The first Cultural Epoch is known as the Ancient Indian Epoch; the second Cultural Epoch as the Ancient Persian Epoch, the time started with the ancient Sumerians; the third Cultural Epoch was the Egypto-Chaldean Epoch; the fourth Cultural Epoch was the Greco-Roman Epoch and we are currently in the Fifth Cultural Epoch with two more to follow. In any cycle of seven there is a turning point in the fourth period. The fourth Cultural Epoch of this time period in the Earth Cycle is marked by the birth of Christ at the baptism in the Jordan that was the beginning of the Mystery of Golgotha. Christ influenced the Earth Cycle at the experience of a centre of time. This was the turning point of time for the Earth Cycle and for the evolution of the human being. Christ is central to the human being. The incarnation of Christ provided the human being with their incarnated centre, the ‘I’-constitution which will transubstantiate the three-fold human earthly constitution into the three-fold spiritual constitution by sacrificing itself in the process of transubstantiation to become part of the three transubstantiated bodies. But if Christ is the centre this implies that there are two poles. These two poles provide the human being with the motivation we need as earthly beings. However, to remain fixated at either pole deprives the human being of their full development. These poles are named for the spiritual beings that influence the human being in the particular direction of the pole. Thus, we have the pole that wants us to fixate on earthly life and refute everything that is not physical and material. We speak of this as the Ahrimanic influence. The opposite pole draws us away from the earthly experience and suggests that we can skip the hardships of earth reality by withdrawing into a spiritual, dreamlike, euphoric existence. This is the influence of Lucifer. We know through the research of Rudolf Steiner that we would not be able to walk without these influences. The Luciferic influence allows us to overcome gravity in order to lift a foot off the ground. The Ahrimanic influence ensures gravity pulls our foot back to earth so that we do not float away. These two influences work to enable life on earth. One might describe, simplistically, the influence of Ahriman as gravity and the influence of Lucifer as levity. The centre point between two opposing forces is the fulcrum. Christ is the fulcrum that allows these two forces to come into balance. We need both forces of levity and gravity and our earthly human nature will tend to pull us in one direction or the other. We may tend towards materialism or, alternatively, prefer to exist in a state of meditation, avoiding a material life. Our challenge is to maintain a balance. We need to draw from both poles to be human beings but must learn to do so without losing the balance. How do we experience the centrality of Christ in the Act of Consecration of Man? During the Act of Consecration of Man, we are in conversation with Christ as earthly beings and as spiritual beings. The Epistle, that is a letter from the Angel of our Community that we hear and is read back to the Angel, is only possible while we are earthly beings. This is read (prayed) from the right of the altar. The right-hand side of the altar is connected with our earthly nature. The Word, the Gospel, is a message to us from Christ. It is the pure word of Christ in its ideal form, and we respond to the Word with the Creed. This ideal, spiritual proclamation and our ideal response to it, comes from the left of the altar. If we were in the spirit there would be no need for an epistle from the angel nor a proclamation from the spiritual world. The centre of the altar is the space of Christ where the substance of earth, sacrificed as the work of human labour – changing wheat into bread and grapes into ‘wine’ – can be transubstantiated through the Spirit. The transubstantiation occurs at hand of the spoken word that finds its echo in the soul of the participating congregation. The Spirit works through the words having been spoken, not just contemplated. The movements and gestures seen at the altar should present the picture of what is occurring. Therefore, as from the first Sunday of the first Trinity Time in 2024 the celebrating priest will no longer remove the chalice from the central area of the altar except for the distribution of Communion to the congregation, when the centre comes to the periphery. The priest also will remain with the chalice once the chalice in unveiled, except for the opening prayer of the Offertory. This will probably change in the future so that the priest does not physically move away from the chalice once it has been unveiled. This change brings the Act of Consecration of Man closer to the original celebrations as can be determined from the notebooks of the founding priests. No one is clear why the changes occurred that strayed from this original picture and it is good to return to the original. In renewing the rituals as we have done we can experience a recapitulation of what came before so that we live in the creative stream of the Divine when a new creation comes into being. Report by John-Peter Gernaat Something that is different in The Christian Community is that we do not begin the preparation for Holy Week and Easter with a period of that is called Lent. We begin the preparation for Holy Week and Easter with a period we call Passiontide. For centuries the preparation for Easter has begun on a day called Ash Wednesday. A period of forty days from Ash Wednesday takes us to the end of Thursday in Holy Week and the Last Supper. These forty days are a representation of a period of preparation. Forty is a significant number; it is the number of weeks of human gestation from conception to birth. The number forty is more important that the unit of time in terms of considering this period as a period of preparation.
We find the number repeatedly in scripture. Noah and his family and a representation of all of creation were in the ark for forty days and forty nights. When the family of Israel left the condition of slavery in Egypt to a new beginning in the ‘Promised Land’ they wandered through the desert for forty years. The current conflict in Gaza has brought to everyone’s attention how very small the area between Egypt and Palestine is in reality, and it would be impossible to wander around in it aimlessly for 40 years, unless this period had less to do with getting to a destination and more to do with the time required for the preparation of arriving in the new land. Elijah journeyed for forty days and forty nights to arrive at the mountain where, at the threshold of a cave – between outer world and the inner world of the cave, he experienced in the ‘slender silence’ the Divine; in the pause that exists between one sound and another, one beat and another. Therefore, in undergoing a period in which something begins for us and needs to grow in us for it to come to birth, this number forty makes sense. Thus, the preparation for Easter was determined to be a period of forty days. To emphasise this very reality for the being of Christ on the earth the first Sunday of Lent has been marked for centuries, including for us, with a reading from the fourth chapter of Matthew: the Temptation. We heard this reading on the second last Sunday of Trinity after Epiphany. After forty days in the desert Jesus bearing the Christ is ready to meet the False Accuser. The week before Holy Week was known in the old tradition, as Passiontide. Our experience in The Christian Community is different. We extend Passiontide to four weeks – a period of a lunar month – and begin Passiontide when other churches are beginning the third week of Lent. The last week of Passiontide for us is Holy Week – the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. We have a different relationship to the period of preparation. It is not a forty day preparation, it is an intense four week preparation that mirrors the four week preparation for Christmas: Advent. It also mirrors the four weeks of Epiphany and of St John's-Tide and of Michaelmas. The experience of a lunar month is a different experience of rhythm and time. It allows us to enter into the preparation for Easter in a modern way, a way that suggests that we have gone through and completed over the centuries our Lenten preparation. We are now ready for a Passiontide preparation expanded to the four weeks before Easter Sunday. When The Christian Community was founded the cycle of the pericopes (the gospel readings from the altar) was set. Some Sunday’s pericopes were set as specified passages while some were indicated as to the content, but the passage left open for the priest to choose. As an example, the reading for the last Sunday of Epiphany is indicated as an appropriate healing to match the contents of the reading of the previous three Sundays, which are passages that are set. There is structure and guidance in the way that the cycle of pericopes is set. Some of the readings echo centuries of tradition. What we are doing in our context is to find a new possibility in our relationship to the Divine out of a form and a structure that has existed for centuries. The structure and the form and pattern are to a large extent maintained. We are looking at what is new in the way in which we approach it. Thus, although we start our preparation for Easter with Passiontide rather than Lent, the pericopes for the two Sundays before Passiontide follow the old tradition of Lent. These are the readings of ‘The Temptation’ and ‘The Transfiguration’. Thus, we prepare for Passiontide in as much as Passiontide is a preparation for Easter. We will follow the old traditions in the pericopes that are set for Passiontide as they continue the Lenten tradition. This will be explored in the next talks and in these talks we will explore what is new for us to understand, that takes us a step further, and is not just a repetition of what has been, but rather a transformation into what can be. In the reading of the last Sunday before Passiontide we hear something of the relationship to fasting from Christ. The disciples ask Jesus why they were unable to cast out the demon from the child who could not hold himself. Jesus points to this kind of healing, being able to move beyond into a new phase of life, one that does not throw one to left and right, into the fire and into the water, but keeps one centred, able to hold one’s self, happening at hand of prayer and fasting. Our understanding of prayer and fasting will be investigated in the next talk. Today, fasting does not necessarily require the abstinence of food and we will investigate what this means and what fasting today can mean. The pericopes for the two Sundays before Passiontide establish a pattern that we must understand. In both the readings there is the possibility of jumping ahead and not fulfilling what must come. What must come is hard, what must come is that the Son of Man, the Son of the Future Human Being – this human being bearing the full expression of Divinity in him (this is what the voice from the radiant cloud says: “This is my Son, in whom I am fully expressed”) – must undergo suffering and death. We express this in the Act of Consecration of Man, that what thinks in us is His Suffering and Death, His Resurrection and His Revelation through all Ages of the Earth to come. The old translation of the Act of Consecration used the word ‘passion’ where we now translate it as ‘suffering’. Passiontide is the time in which we learn how to manage suffering. We cannot escape it. We learn and grow through suffering in life. In the penultimate pericope of Trinity time between Epiphany and Passiontide we hear the False Accuser say to Christ that He should turn the stone to bread. The great power that involves bread is not the turning of stones to bread but rather the turning of bread into the Body of Christ. That is the great change that cannot occur until Easter, through the Mystery of Life and Death and the Mystery of Resurrection. Then the False Accuser tempts Jesus to throw himself off the temple and the angels will bear him up so that his foot does not touch a stone. What is needed is that the body will be lifted onto the cross and the feet nailed to it. Lastly, the False Accuser shows Jesus the glittering kingdoms of the world, but the real Kingdom is the Kingdom within us, and this does not happen without Whitsun. Whitsun does not happen without the Resurrection. Everything depends on the great Mystery of Easter to happen. It is not possible to jump ahead of it so that it does not happen. In ‘The Transfiguration’ Peter sees a spiritual conversation happening between the Law, the Prophets and the Christ – Moses and Elijah and the shining, radiant Jesus bearing the Christ. Peter thinks that this is the conclusion and wishes to establish it through the reference to the Festival of Tabernacles, and now inaugurate a permanent set of tent-canopies. As they come down the mountain Jesus reminds the trio of disciples that the Son of Man, the Son of the Future Human Being, must suffer. Passiontide is about understanding why we must suffer and knowing that we cannot avoid it. These two pericopes prepare us for Passiontide, knowing that we cannot jump ahead no matter the alure of the temptation. We must face the world. Nothing in the world changes except through the human being and the world is in a state of chaos because nothing changes in us. The changes must take place through our actions. Our activity in the world requires a certain suffering to be endured. We grow and learn through suffering. Yet, our task – for the one who follows in the path of Christ – is to relieve suffering for the other. The path of Passiontide is not so much giving up something but rather giving freely of ourselves. We replace fasting with a different form of giving. We have the traditional readings of the Lenten period in the structure of The Christian Community, but at hand of a new way of experiencing the preparation for Easter. This allows us to reflect on what it means for the outer form to remain as it was but for our inner experience to change. The form remains but the content is new. The structure remains but the experience is renewed. There is tension between the two poles of that which is formed and the formless. There is another tension between renewal and repetition. We work with renewal in form, not just repetition in form, nor do we try to find renewal in the formless. The form is needed to renew something. The structure is needed to embody it with new meaning. The tension we carry in this community of Christians is to find renewal in the form. It is not to change the form but rather to change the experience of the substance within the form. This is the tension that we have with our new understanding of the preparation for Easter with Passiontide. We also have the beautiful sequence of readings that have been with us for centuries and we must find new meaning within them. That is the amazing reality of a living scripture. The scripture must be telling us what must be happening for us today. They must speak into the experience of our lives, not just speak about the experience of the disciples at the time of the occurrences in Palestine. When we read the story, we should not be reading a story of what occurred then, but rather the story should help us come to terms with what is happening in our world now. Scripture must address how we must be today. Otherwise, scripture is the past without meaning for the present. It lives when it is available to us in the present in order to prepare us for the future. Passiontide is a preparation for our future. FebruaryList of articles
At Christmas 1923, Rudolf Steiner gave a foundation stone verse (a meditation) not to be buried in the earth but rather to be inscribed on the hearts of human beings who wish to follow the insights given to us as human beings from the being of Anthroposophia. In connection to this Christmas Conference of 1923 Rudolf Steiner coins the expression: spiritual forces to refer to the esoteric nature of this Christmas Conference. In July of 1924, he spoke of “those spiritual forces which guide the anthroposophical movement in the spiritual world [which have] now come to meet … a higher benevolence … which flows through the anthroposophical movement.” This movement, too, guided and shaped our founding as a religious renewal movement, as The Christian Community – a true and modern Community of the Christ. The Foundation Stone Meditation will guide our work in the Holy Nights of 2023. We will consider it, the rhythms Steiner recommended to accompany the days of the week, and the unfolding of the future cycles of time (captured in this verse) as described in the New Testament book of the Revelation to John (The Apocalypse). The description above was the introduction to the eight talks and discussions held during the Holy Nights printed in the newsletter. The talks coincided, day for day, with the days of the week in 1923, one hundred years earlier, that Rudolf Steiner presented the Foundation Stone Meditation to the Christmas Conference. We worked, therefore, with a clear sense of significance of the day that we were studying. Rudolf Steiner first shared the Verse on Tuesday 25 December 1923. We began on Tuesday 26 December 2023. The reason was that Rudolf Steiner began on the Wednesday to share a rhythm that could be carried through the week so the Verse could begin to live in the rhythm rather than in an overarching message. The Verse was shared so that we, those who come after who carry a clear sense of Divine purpose for the unfolding of the human being, can place the verse in our hearts. It was not meant as a verse that would be written down and then folded up to be placed in a beautiful dodecahedron into the foundation of a building. A dodecahedron had been placed into the foundations of the first Goetheanum that had burned down a year prior. When the second Goetheanum was build that foundation stone remained within its foundations. The Foundation Stone Verse was given to be a living foundation in the hearts of human beings upon which to build towards the realisation of the Future Human Being that is presented in chapter one of the Book of Revelation. We are to embody the verse. The verse also serves, through the rhythm of the days, to help us re-member ourselves upon waking each morning to guide our days. Remembering Tuesday 25 December 1923 Michaël began with a reading from a lecture given on Christmas Eve that prepared the conference for receiving the verse. When Rudolf Steiner finally gave the verse, he did not give it in its entirety. Here it will be helpful to refer to the copy that is attached as a download as it has been annotated for ease of reference. These annotations indicate four verses and two stanzas to each verse. These annotations are there only to make it easier to refer to a particular order in which the Foundation Stone Verse was spoken out by Rudolf Stiener on the eight days during which it was presented. Thus, when Steiner first spoke the Foundation Stone Verse, he spoke verse 1 stanza 1, verse 2 stanza 1, verse 3 stanza 1, the whole of the verse 4 and then went back and spoke verse 1 both stanzas, verse 2 both stanzas and verse 3 both stanzas. (In the rest of this report a shorthand will be used: V1S1 to refer to verse 1 stanza 1, etc.) One can feel that Rudolf Steiner was building a sense of past, present and future: always being in the unusual space of being in three modes of time. We do not have a way of expressing linguistically in English that we, human beings, are in a space of past, present and future all the time. We carry a clarity of what we know and remember from our past and are always developing what is becoming in our present being. The idea that we are always past, present and future in one is not one that is always easy to grasp or to express in language. In Koine Greek it was more possible to express the three tenses in one, but when we translate scripture into modern languages we become stuck in a tense. A good example is John’s Prologue: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God”. In this sentence ‘beginning’ indicates past tense and so we are comfortable with the verb ‘was’, yet the word in Koine Greek suggests that we should translate the verb as ‘was, is and shall be’: “In the beginning was, is and shall be the Word, and the Word was, is and shall be with God”. We can read this also as “In the beginning was the Word; in the beginning is the Word; in the beginning shall be the Word”. This allows us to establish a relationship to each of the tenses and what they move in us. The extract from the lecture by Rudolf Steiner was read to give his description of memory: localised memory, rhythmic memory and temporal memory. (This forms part of GA 260 and is available on the Rudolf Steiner Archive https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA260/English/AP1990/ChrCnf_index.html). In this lecture Rudolf Steiner tells us that monuments were erected by ancient civilisations in a time when they did not have the kind of memory that we have today. The peoples of these early civilisations were taught that wherever they had a particular experience, to set up a memorial. These memorials allowed them to re-experience the event in their head, because the head can call up again everything that has connection with the earth. The principle of olden time was that: we give over to the earth that which we have experienced in our head. This points to an epoch of localised memory. This was a time when everything connected with memory was connected with setting up signs and memorials on the earth. The word memorial embodies the connection of memory at that location. The memory of human beings was outside of the head not within. Memory was carried in memorials and the presence of one of these memorials brought back to the head the original experience. Without the memorial the human being had no memory. The memory was connected with place. We still use this memory for our soul development. An example would be a picture of the Madonna that we hang up so that when we stand in front of it, we can recall memories that we are oblivious of during the rest of the day. We place the picture specifically for the soul work we wish to accomplish in regard to a particular stream of thinking. A second stage of memory development in the human being was achieved in rhythmic memory. This was a memory that was achieved through rhythm; the rhythm allowed the human being to develop a memory of something. The example given was that in order to remember a cow the human being did so through a rhythm such as the sound made by the cow. Thus, “moo-moo-moo” would have invoked the memory of a cow. We can see the development of this memory repeated in the development of children who use repetitive rhythm to remember ideas or concepts. Children will repetitively listen to the same story, and this brings them a sense of comfort because their memory is rhythmic. The ancient art of verse developed from this need to remember which was possible only through rhythms. It was only in the third stage of the evolution of memory development that the human being developed time-based memory or temporal memory. This is the memory that we still have today. We remember what is inserted into our lives in the course of time. This is a far more abstract form of memory than localised or rhythmic memory. The time of the transition from rhythmic memory to temporal memory was historically the time when colonies were planted from the East in Greece. The fear of adults is to lose the events that were placed into course of their lives. This is the condition of dementia. People in a state of dementia will still have a very clear memory of dance or music or verses or prayers which lives in the rhythmic memory. At 10am on Christmas day 25 December 1923 Rudolf Steiner spoke the Foundation Stone Verse. This verse resonates strongly with the ancient concept of ‘know yourself’. The translation of the Verse that you can download from the link, and forms page 2 above, is one that Michaël has worked on for a long time and is currently, for him, the best expression of the original German. This translation may change over time as the understanding of its true essence develops further. Rudolf Steiner spoke V1S1, V2S1, V3S1. He then continued his lecture: https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA260/English/AP1990/19231225a01.html. This lecture is related to the understanding of the three-fold human being and how this bears a relationship to the cosmos and developing an understanding of ‘know yourself’ and how the Verse can be laid as a foundation stone in our hearts. He brought the lecture to the event of Christmas, the day on which this lecture was being given, as memory of the turning point of time when the child was born into whom the spirit being of Christ would enter. He then spoke V4S1, V4S2. He then called upon those gathered to “once more gather before our souls all that follows from a true understanding of the words ‘know yourself in spirit, soul and body’. The Verse gathers all knowledge of the human being from the cosmos and places it in the human heart so that it may speak to us “everything that the universe has to say to this human existence and to this human life and to this human work”. He spoke V1S1, V1S2, V2S1, V2S2, V3S1, V3S2. Concluding: “My dear friends, hear it as it resounds in your own hearts! Then will you found here a true community of human beings for Anthroposophia; and then will you carry the spirit that rules in the shining light of thoughts around the dodecahedral Stone of Love out into the world wherever it should give of its light and of its warmth for the progress of human souls, for the progress of the universe.” In the evening Rudolf Steiner gave another lecture (that is not found in the GA260 on the internet). In this lecture he speaks of realms beyond the earth where in the first realm we may place the First Hierarchy of the Angels: the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones and into the second realm the Second Hierarchy of Kyriotetes, Dynamis and Exusiai and into the third realm the Third Hierarchy of Archai, Archangels and Angels. The fourth realm is then the realm of earth where the human being lives. We experience it merely as places of outer objects, but the ancients experienced it as penetrated with the elemental spirits of water, air and of earth. This was Asia. Asia meant the lowest spirit realm in which, as human beings, a person felt that they lived. The ancient human being could only experience the natural world, even to the level of molecules, as being spiritual entities that worked in the natural world. Oxygen was a spiritual stimulus to life in living organisms and nitrogen was a spirit that weaves through the cosmos and works on organic matter is such a way as to prepare it to receive a soul nature. Only initiates in these ancient times could see nature as we see it today, and we now in our process of initiation must carry in ourselves the spiritual-connection picture that we no longer see when we look out into nature. The morning was concluded by each one internalising the Verse of the Foundation Stone of World Love, of World Imagination, of World Thought. Remembering Wednesday 26 December 1923 This talk and the six following this talk are currently being edited and will appear here in the course of February 2024. Below is a summary of the talks as they pertain to the rhythms that Rudolf Steiner gave for the days of the week out of the Foundation Stone Meditation. The Foundation Stone Meditation – the study of the Holy Night of 2023 into 2024 by Rev. Michaël Merle Report by John-Peter Gernaat Rudolf Steiner first shared the Verse on Tuesday 25 December 1923. We began on Tuesday 26 December 2023. The reason was that Rudolf Steiner began on the Wednesday to share a rhythm that could be carried through the week so the Verse could begin to live in the rhythm rather than in an overarching message. The Verse was shared so that we, those who come after who carry a clear sense of Divine purpose for the unfolding of the human being, can place the verse in our hearts. It was not meant as a verse that would be written down and then folded up to be placed in a beautiful dodecahedron into the foundation of a building. Michaël introduced the Christmas Eve lecture in which Rudolf Steiner introduced different types of memory that the human being possesses and how these evolved. From this lecture it becomes clear why he presents with the Foundation Stone Verse seven rhythms that we may incorporate into that part of our memory where rhythmic remembering lives, so that we take the essence of the Verse across the threshold into life between death and a new birth. It is here, in this period of life, that we will recognise the reality of this Verse. When Rudolf Steiner spoke the Foundation Stone Verse he spoke it in various ways. In order to be able to share this without each time writing out what he said you are asked to refer to the Verse as it is presented here (see the loose inserted page). This translation of the Foundation Stone Verse is the translation that Michaël has been working on for a long time. No translation from the German is ever perfect and every translation is an interpretation. This is currently the best translation that Michaël can offer. The presentation of it has been annotated with line numbers and verse and stanza numbers. In describing what Steiner spoke you will find here verse 1, stanza 1, abbreviated as V1S1 for easy reference. On the Tuesday 25 December 1923 Rudolf Steiner first spoke the Foundation Stone Verse. He spoke V1S1, V2S1, V3S1. He then spoke V4S1 and V4S1. Then he spoke V1S1&S2, V2S1&S2, V3S1&S2. On Wednesday 26 December 1926 Rudolf Steiner spoke V1S1, V2S1, V3S1 and then he presented the first rhythm. The Wednesday rhythm is:
On Thursday 27 December 1923 Rudolf Steiner spoke V1S1, V2S1, V3S1 and he then presented the Thursday rhythm. The Thursday rhythm is:
On Friday 28 December 1923 Rudolf Steiner spoke V1 line 1-15, V2 line 1-15, V3 line 1-15, and he then presented the Friday rhythm. The Friday rhythm is:
There are seven rhythms connected with the Foundation Stone Mediation and seven signified that we are in a process of time. This is a relationship to past, to present and future. This means that we need to consider where we work most consciously in the span of our individual lifetime. The reality is that we can best grasp, because we are most conscious, in the period between death and a new birth. Therefore, the period that we are looking at in terms of these rhythms is this period between death and a new birth and becoming conscious now in this time before death of how we can work in preparation through practice for the time after death. In the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday rhythms we encountered the three principal beings who work together in the development of the way of being for the modern human being which is Anthroposophia. These beings are Christ, Sophia (the being of Wisdom) and Michael. We see them at work together with each stepping forward on Wednesday, on Thursday and on Friday with what each brings. With the Wednesday rhythm we encounter the mystery of the human ‘I’ and the Divine ‘I am’. Christ is not mentioned in the Wednesday rhythm but it is the Christ ‘I’ and the relationship of our earthly ‘I’ to the Christ ‘I’ that becomes the bearer of the rhythm on Wednesday. On Thursday we move from rhythm to inner rhythm, and we are with Sophia in the mystery of human inner being, the mystery of the soul. This is the soul rhythm. On Friday we are in the mystery of Cosmic rhythm with Michael and in the heart-rhythm. In the Wednesday rhythm we come into contact with the idea of the Future Human Being, with the Christ Being in Jesus. With the second (Thursday) rhythm (Moon sphere) we come strongly into contact with the Third Hierarchy. The third rhythm (Friday) takes us into the Sun sphere and the Second Hierarchy. In the fourth rhythm we are connecting with the First Hierarchy. On Saturday 29 December 1923 Rudolf Steiner spoke V1 line 1 – 21 (excluding line 20); V2 line 1 – 21 (excluding line 20); V3 line 1 – 21 (excluding line 20) (Michaël spoke the entire V1, V2 and V3) and then he presented the Saturday Rhythm. The Saturday rhythm is:
The fourth in a cycle of seven is always the turning point. This is the rhythm of the Cosmic Midnight Hour. We are with the Angels, all the Choirs of Angels. We are in the space that Steiner says is about the recreation of the archetypal picture of the Cosmic Human Being. It is the original design, but whenever we reach the Cosmic Midnight Hour, we bring from everything that we have experienced and from everything that we have processed another element of the realisation, of manifestation, of that Cosmic Archetypal Human Being into reality. We bring the experience that enlivens the picture and makes it evermore a reality. Eventually the picture will be a full mirror of what we have become. These rhythms provide a picture of what it means to move through death, the inner planets, the outer planets, the Cosmic Midnight Hour, an insight into the nature of the spiritual cosmos with the fifth rhythm, and insight into the cosmos of soul with the sixth rhythm, and an insight into the nature of the physical cosmos with the seventh rhythm. These last three rhythms are also strongly connected to the three Hierarchies: the spirit, the soul, the body. On Sunday 30 December 1923 Rudolf Steiner spoke V1S1, V2S1, V3S1 and began to present the Sunday rhythm before reading V4S1&S2 and continuing the presentation of the Sunday rhythm. The Sunday rhythm is: On Monday 31 December 1923 Rudolf Steiner spoke V1S1, V2S1, V3S1, V4S1&S2. He presented the Monday rhythm. The Monday rhythm is:
The fourth rhythm, the rhythm of the Cosmic Midnight Hour brings us to the meaning of the Cosmos and of the fixed stars. It is revealed out of the forces of the Father God. The fifth rhythm takes us through Sun sphere on the descent to earth, and the meaning of the Sun and the planets (the mobile star) are revealed out of the forces of the Son God. The sixth rhythm is the meaning of the Earth and the whole of earth evolution revealed out of the forces of the Spirit God. We see the Earth when we approach it through the Moon sphere. When we have passed through the Sun sphere the human soul is earth-focused. On Tuesday 1 January 1923 Rudolf Steiner presented the Tuesday rhythm. The Tuesday rhythm is:
The seventh and final rhythm is the rhythm connected with the forces of the human being into which Christ incarnates. These are the forces of the beginning of the Fourth Hierarchy. We are the first beings that are created to become the Fourth Hierarchy. The picture of the seventh rhythm is the picture of the future that will be realised on Vulcan, the last embodiment of the earth cycles.
10 February 1913 (GA 265) from Rudolf Steiner: “I am compelled to train myself to be the revealer of the Divine archetypal image in me.” On Tuesday evening Rudolf Steiner gave a lecture in which he emphasises the development of a new human culture, a culture that does not come from looking at the world around us, but streams from the Spiritual World through us to establish Human Culture on the earth, rather than to impose earthly culture into the earth. We are already in a turning point of time in the withdrawal of the Mighty Spirits of Form who withdraw so that the Mighty Spirits of Personality can create the seed for the next great Cycle of Time (the Jupiter Cycle). It is now the time of the person who takes responsibility and carries it in their person. We cannot rely any longer on the outer form if it does not come from the inner space. We are in this renewal in the consciousness soul age. The first three Great Cycles – Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon – are the gifting of who we are. In this fourth Great Cycle, Earth, the turning point of time is experienced; something new must arise. The human ‘I’ has been planted as a seed into the human being but it is our responsibility to take hold of this seed in consciousness for the future to arise. This time in evolution is critical to the future of the human being. Heaven has poured itself into the human being and now the human being must take up the work or else nothing moves forward. The resistance we experience in life on earth is there for the initiative to arise in the human being. This is reflected in chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation. What is difficult in life is worth it. by Rev. Reingard Knausenberger This was a theme, explored during two Epiphany Sundays, and the first discovery was, to not only notice what is written in the Bible, but also what is withheld in silence, and not mentioned. For it is worthy of note, that all four Gospels are silent about the time of Jesus’ life after the birth until his baptism in the Jordan. Only one significant spotlight is shone by Luke on the boy as a twelve-year-old, highlighting that as an obviously very important event.
Based on the lectures Rudolf Steiner held during 1913 and 1914 named The fifth Gospel (GA 148), where he shares his research into this question, one can be reminded of the last verse (John 21: 25) of the Gospel of John: ‘Jesus did many other things, but if they were all written down one after the other, I do not think the world itself could contain the books that would have to be written.’ Puberty is a difficult time for every growing child, where one’s whole organisation transforms and inner sensations and experiences present themselves, which can be confusing, chaotic, emotional and causing deep feelings of loneliness and not being understood. From about 18-24 years a sense of wanting to explore the world, find purpose and meaning, acquire skills and interact with different kinds of people arises, also often also a desire to test oneself. Then a third phase until 28/29 years could be felt as a desire to ‘come home to oneself’, searching with whom, to which goals and purpose to commit to. The fifth Gospel takes one on a journey of sensing the unfathomable pain and suffering that Jesus’ soul went through during these years of growing from twelve years into adulthood in his thirtieth year. His experienced realising of the desperate situation of all humankind being on a trajectory of hopeless decline, with no possibility or hope of rejuvenation, or true purpose…finding no one able to understand and to share this depressing reality with…until his mother, who has always ‘carried and nurtured in her heart’ the unusual instances around him, can offer him her heart as a receiving vessel, in the most significant conversation of all time that changed everything and made the baptism possible. What these lectures open up, as one engages wholeheartedly with the content, is more, much more than an intellectual understanding of why Christ was desperately needed ‘to save all humankind’, and how it in fact could happen that the Son of God could make his home in a human body and go through true human experiences, even death, which is not a heavenly, but an earthly event. All this inevitably brought us then to the engaging questions: what about Christ now in our current time, where is his Passion and death, his resurrection continuing, as we endeavour to progress in our evolution to be truly human? What is our task in the present, where is awakening needed? What does it mean: where two or three are gathered, there I will be, how does that happen? What new abilities are needing to be developed now, to be real servants and companions of Christ in the transformation of ourselves and the earth? To name but a few of the new avenues that open up to be explored more in depth. JanuaryList of articles
by John-Peter Gernaat In December the Gospel Study considered John 9 into John 10 with the sixth sign and the third and fourth ‘I am’ statements.
The sixth sign may be related to the Sacrament of Marriage (see in previous reports how the signs have a relationship to the sacraments). The sign is the healing of the man born blind and raises the question as to who sinned that he was born with this condition. The sign considers how to manage relationships. In this sign there is a grace that intervenes and takes matters beyond nature. We bring preconditions into our earthly life at birth. But we must move for these preconditions to move forward. In this the Divine can be made manifest in us. In meeting the Christ-in-me in our lives and working with this power something can develop. We enter life blind to our earthly destiny. Through a relationship with Christ, we can find our destiny and overcome the knots of karma. In our life in the daytime, we can work. When we sleep and are in the world of spirit, we can only reflect on what the day brought. Therefore, it is in the light of day that we find our relationship with the Divine through the relationships of life. The mark that we are aiming to hit is the mark of love and when we miss the mark of love, we refer to this as sin. Our destiny is to transform the cosmos of wisdom into a cosmos of love. The ‘I am’ statements of Christ are expressions of the Human Being, with the indwelling Christ, who can represent the Divine. “I am the door” is an understanding that the astral body is connected with the soul constitution. The soul lives in the astral body. It is in the soul that the door can exist. The door is the threshold from here to there. Across this threshold the sense impressions of the material world meet the intuition of the spirit. “I am the good shepherd” is a reflection of the constitution of the ‘I’. The good shepherd has the ability to manage the soul constitution consisting of the sentient soul, the mind (or social) soul and the consciousness soul. We, as humans, are the shepherds. We are not the sheep. We must take leadership of ourselves. This passage (John 10) is closely connected with the constellation of Aries which was understood by ancient civilisations as the constellation of the Hired Man. It represented the additional labour needed at the time of lambing and of harvest. But it was realised that the hireling does not care for the sheep in the way that the shepherd does, and the imagination of Aries changed in the ancient Sumerian world to the constellation of the Good Shepherd who cares for the sheep throughout the year. It then became understood as the constellation of the ram, and we know the connotation of the ram from the story of Abraham and Isaac. The ram caught in the bush is sacrificed in the place of Isaac. The constellation of the ram now becomes for us the constellation of the lamb. The lamb becomes associated with the Passover when it is the blood of the lamb that is smeared on the door jamb. In the Book of Revelation the lamb has become the newly-born lamb. The words that Christ spoke were connected to the mighty constellations of the zodiac for those who heard him. Christ was connecting himself to mighty spiritual images and for this, some thought he was mad. But Christ created a new relation to the constellations. What he was saying was understood as there being a god among the people. Only Jesus with the Christ in him could make this claim that the Divine now lives in the human being. The I-organisation is a gift from Christ that each one of us can now take hold of through the Christ-in-me. Each one of us can now open and close the door through the indwelling Good Shepherd. If we are not the Good Shepherd, we become the Hired Man who flees when things turn bad. It is only the Doorkeeper who can truly and freely open and close the door. Christ came on earth for all humanity and once we listen, we can become one humanity with one Shepherd, the Christ-in-me. Religious practices only matter if they lead to us our true humanity. by John-Peter Gernaat A question was asked in the Spiritual Well-being discussion group as to what we can do to work towards becoming the ideal of the future Human Being. For this Michaël brought again the exercises that Rudolf Steiner gave and are often referred to as the six subsidiary exercises. To read more review this report.
Michaël also introduced the Rosicrucian meditation based in the stages that Christ follows in the Gospel of John on the way to the Resurrection. By following these stages we can undergo a true Christian initiation in being under way with Christ. These stages are:
We can become aware of how much of our action is reactive and goes back to what we learned from our parents. ‘When I can take hold of myself in balance, I am not pushed from side to side by circumstances around me.’ |
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