Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha

Christ single group soul of humanity (vs prev blood/nation based)Resurrection body = cleansed phantom from luciferic ‘fall’ influence

Lecture extracts

1915-12-28-GA165

Luciferic influence

Certainly, we must consider the fact that, at the beginning of earthly evolution, human beings were exposed to luciferic temptation. Consequently, their normal progress of evolution was changed. Thus we are faced, symbolically, with Adam cast out of paradise; his being is other than what it was destined to be before luciferic temptation.

How does this manifest?

Imagine that Lucifer had never approached humankind, and that human beings had lived without the luciferic impulse. In that case, human beings would have lived in a different way in their ether body. When we pass through the portal of death, we still retain our ether body, and then we cast it off. Nevertheless, this ether body more or less continues its existence. As a result of luciferic temptation, it caries the impressions of everything we do and think. We know that human beings die; that they pass through the portal of death; that the physical body is surrendered to the elements; that, after a few days, the ether body detaches itself from the human being; and that human beings then continue along whatever path them must take. At the same time, in this etheric part are the impressions of what the ether body had become as a result of thinking, feeling, and actions, in an inevitable accordance with luciferic temptation.

Now imagine the earth. The human physical body enters this earth; it is given over to the earthly elements, but the ether body remains connected with the earth. Thus, we have the ether bodies of human beings; they are present in the atmosphere of the earth. And they are different from what they would have been had the luciferic temptation never taken place.
Everything I've said thus far about ether bodies in general refers, of course, to these ether bodies. But what I am saying today also refers to them.
So we may repeat: Human beings are embedded in the earth; what we leave behind on the earth — all that our ether body has become during earthly life — has become more dry, more “woody,” than it would have become had the luciferic temptation not occurred. More wood-like, drier — in fact, this difference does exist. Imagine that the luciferic temptation had never taken place; after death, human beings would leave behind a far more rejuvenated ether body, a much “greener” ether body, as it were. Because of the luciferic temptation, human beings leave behind a far more dried-up ether body than would have otherwise been the case.

This was expressed in the legend that tells us a dried-up Tree of Paradise arose from Adam's grave.

But what lives in the earth actually lived before the Mystery of Golgotha in the human ether body, infected by Lucifer. It was precisely this element into which the body of Jesus of Nazareth entered as a healer, or as a “phantom,” as I explained in my lectures at Karlsruhe. Imagine that Adam's grave — Adam surrendered as a physical body to the earthly elements. Arising from his grave is the dried-up ether body, the representative of the human past that was infected by Lucifer and remains intact after death. This is, at the same time, the tree upon which one may be crucified.

In fact, such a crucifixion actually does take place when the “phantom” of Jesus of Nazareth remains behind on earth after the Mystery of Golgotha, and through it unites with the earth. This is expressed in the legend that tells us this tree was handed down from generation to generation and became, in turn, the cross on Golgotha. This is a pictorial view that corresponds to the fact — that, through the crucifixion, the phantom of Jesus of Nazareth united with what lived in the earth etherically, as a totality of ether bodies infected by Lucifer. Those bodies were, of course, scattered, rarified, and dissolved, but they were nevertheless existent in the form of forces. This is very significant and infinitely profound fact that we must keep in mind, and it illuminates for us the mysteries of the earth.''''

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1911-10-11-GA131

https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA131/English/RSP1973/19111011p01.html

death and phantom and lucifer

But into the human organisation, in so far as it consists of physical body, etheric body, and astral body, the Luciferic influence penetrated, and the consequence was the disorganisation of the Phantom of the physical body. As we shall see, this is symbolically expressed in the Bible as the Fall, together with the fact, related in the Old Testament, that death followed the Fall. Death was indeed the result of the disorganisation of the Phantom of the physical body. The outcome is that, when man goes through the gate of death, he has to see the dissolution of his physical body. This crumbling physical body, lacking the strength of the Phantom, is indeed borne by man from birth to death. The crumbling away goes on all the time, and the decomposition, the death of the physical body, is only the final stage of a continuous process. For if the disintegration of the body — preceded by the disorganisation of the Phantom — is not countered by processes of reconstruction, death finally ensues.

''''1911-10-11-GA131

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Key paragraph – cells multiplying analogy

Now, just as it is very easy, from the standpoint of modern anatomy or physiology, to refute what has been said in this lecture — apparently to refute it — so is it very easy to raise another objection.

Some such question as this might be asked:If indeed Paul really believed that a spiritual body had risen, what has this spiritual body which had risen out of the grave to do with what every man now bears in himself? This is not hard to understand: we need only consider the analogy offered by the coming into existence of a human individual.

• - As physical human being he begins from a single cell; a physical body consists entirely of cells which are all children of the original cell; all cells which compose a human body are traceable to the original cell.
• - Now imagine that, through what we may call a mystical Christological process, man acquires a body quite other than the one he has gradually acquired in his downward evolution.
  (DL editor: see above paragraph)
• - Then think of each of these new bodies as having an intimate connection with the pure Phantom that rose from the grave, somewhat as the human cells of the physical body are connected with the original cell. That is, we must think of the Phantom as multiplying itself, as does the cell which gives rise to the physical body.

So, in the evolution which follows the Event of Golgotha, every man can inwardly acquire something which is spiritually descended from the Phantom which rose from the grave, just as — to echo Paul — the ordinary body which falls into dissolution is descended from Adam.

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