Christ Module 5 - Initiation and spiritualization
The title of this study module points to how the MoG affected initiation, and what it means for the future ascent of Man - hence 'spiritualization', see also Man's transformation and spiritualization
- This module will go into the symbolism of the rite related with initiation: how that was in the old mysteries, and how this changed through Christ. It brings us closer to the symbolism of the Last Supper, and the deeper meaning of the circle of twelve apostles, the acts performed and words spoken.
- 'Spiritualization' refers to the change, through the MoG, from the descending into the ascending evolution. And the fact that the descent into matter and the physical (that can be symbolized by the lower abdomen: lower desires and egotism, sexual reproduction and death), now found its turning point into ascent and spiritualization of Man (meaning the end of sexual reproduction and death, the development of the higher principles, in which the heart plays a key role). The heart is not just a symbol here, the human heart is a future organ which is just at the beginning of its development, and as a voluntary muscle will be the tool of the soul through which Man will create.
Note that the scope of the modules was defined based on the top lectures on the Mystery of Golgotha. In other words: these are aspects on which Rudolf Steiner shed light in these core lectures.
Aspects
- Impact of Christ and MoG on initiation
- initiation as basis for authority vs trust/freedom
- Before & after: what was different before and after the MoG - how did it affect initiation?
- Mysteries of the Spirit, the Son and the Father
- Holy Spirit (& sin against) and Pentecost
- wisdom instead of opinions -> Spiritual science
- meaning of Pentecost or Whitsuntide
- EELS
- Holy Supper Symbolism - apostles
- Christ and the circle of the 12 apostles - a special relationship, Da Vinci’s painting
- symbolism of the circle of 12 in initiation
- Twelve: 12 petals heart, 12 virtues, 12 initiators, zodiac
- Holy Supper Symbolism of bread and wine
- body of Christ as spirit earth
- outward symbols re two preparations in Mysteries replace blood relationships
- Two kingdoms
- The Transubstantiation
- Mystery of the Heart - what is the importance of the heart in all this (this 'detail' we are told of about one of the apostles lying on the breast of Christ-Jesus)
Each of these areas individually represents a vast scope that we can continue to go into deeper. This page however is about the holistic view where all these perspectives meet. Therefore separate pages are made to 'drill-down' on each area from here.
Inspirational quotes
You do not become a son of God, a child of the spirit, through another person. Everyone becomes this through God himself.
It is only a matter of being aware of this.
You have the seed of the divine in you, and you merely have to make the effort and you can find it in yourself.
Illustrations
Schema FMC00.100 provides an overview on the topics in this study module. In summary it visualizes:
- the initiatory processes and rituals in the Mysteries since the Atlantean epoch and previous cultural ages like ancient India, Persia, Egypt.
- how the Last Supper contains links and pointers to these old mysteries
- but also how it contains deeper symbolism and pointers for the future
Schema FMC00.468 provides the key statement and illustration of the fructification of Man by the Christ Impulse, and specifically how the evolved consciousness soul is the gateway for this spiritual fructification by Man's higher triad (consisting of spirit-self or manas, life-spirit or budhi, and spirit-man or atma) through the Christ Impulse as the budhi life-giving influence driving this.
Schema FMC00.468A is a variant of Schema FMC00.468 and provides an original drawing from someone who attended the lecture. From the careful drawing in these handwritten notes, one can get a better feel of how Rudolf Steiner was drawing this. Indeed in the further processing of producing typoscripts upto publishing in the GA, the original drawings often change considerably, and one may sometimes wonder what Steiner was really drawing. On the right, the blue and red was added for ease of readability.
The drawing illustrates rather beautifully how Man's higher triad really penetrates into the highest 'stratum, or layer' of the soul, the consciousness soul (red). The horizontal lines delineate Man's bodily principles, as probably this was how the drawing was build up. This penetration is drawn as a drop trickling in, see also Schema FMC00.046 and Schema FMC00.443 on Development of the I where this 'trickling down' imagery is similarly used to show this sort of penetration or spiritual fructification.
See also Note 1 in the Discussion area below.
Schema FMC00.191: depicts several BBD drawings of the monstrance or sanctissimum (or 'sanctum sanctorum') as symbol of the transubstantiation: the shining, like a small Sun, in the sanctissimum wherein the host is carried on a crescent cup.
The monstrance represents the Sun and the Moon, and the symbol shows the sun (the Christ, the spirit) gains victory over the moon (the physical, as the influences that gave human beings their physical form come from the moon) through the Mystery of Golgotha.
What is currently merely an empty symbol, was once a reality in the (semi-)ancient mysteries. The priest initiate experienced how preserved fermenting substances in sacred crystalline vessels became transformed in such a way that he saw a small sun or a small natural monstrance in the crystalline vessel, as the substances spread sunshine around them. The priest saw how the substances and forces shone in the sacred crystalline vessels, and knew how the transubstantiation occurred. (1924-09-05-GA346 - see Greek mysteries#1924-09-05-GA346).
Today the sanctissimum in the Mass shows the rays of the Sun, but the connection of the Christ with the Sun and the reality behind the symbol have been totally lost. (1924-07-11-GA237)
Compare with the symbol of new moon at Easter and Schema FMC00.116 on Holy Grail : the spiritual sun Christ (host) shines in the 'crescent cup'. The GA343A lecture uses this description of sunlight and moonlight (see also 1908-05-20-GA103).
Also (not as a symbol but conceptually): on Schema FMC00.468 on Christ Module 5 - Initiation and spiritualization .. the physical holder or cup is Man's lower bodily structure, and the Christ Impulse fructifies this and so through "not me, but the Christ in me" .. Mankind and future Earth become a Sun. More on this 'starting to shine' on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension
Lecture coverage and references
The following excerpt 'binds together' the different perspectives
1906-12-02-GA097
As introduction to this study topic we start with the extract from 1906-12-02-GA097 where the Mysteries of the Heart are linked with the Holy Supper and EELS.
Human perfection consists in the falling away of the lower soul-forces, so that only the higher forces remain behind; in future, man will no longer have the lower forces; he will, for example, no longer have the forces of procreation. John's soul-power above all will raise those lower forces to the loving heart. It will send out streams of spiritual love. The heart is the most powerful organ, when Christ lives in man. The lower soul-forces are then raised from the abdominal regions to the heart.
Every initiate experienced this in the Mysteries of the heart. It re-echoed in the words: “My God, my God, how thou hast raised me!”
With the appearance of Christ Jesus, the whole Mystery, the whole experience, became reality upon the physical plane. At that time there were brotherhoods in Palestine which had developed out of the old order of the Essenes. Among their institutions, they also had a meal symbolizing the mystical Holy Supper. “To eat the Easter Lamb” is a general expression for something which took place at Easter. Jesus sat down with the Twelve and inaugurated the Holy Supper with the words: “At the end of the evolution of the earth, all men will have absorbed what I brought down to the earth, and the words, ‘This is my Body, This is my Blood,’ will then be true.”
Afterwards he said: “There is one among you who will betray me.” This is brought about by the power of egoism. But as surely as this power of egoism is the source of treason, so surely will this lower soul-force be raised to a higher stage.
One of the disciples rested upon Jesus' bosom, he rested upon Jesus' heart. This means that all the lower forces, every form of egoism, will be raised to the heart. At this point Jesus repeated to his Disciples the words: “Eli, Eli, lama sabathani” — “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him!
the Meuss translation reads
That was the initiation known in ancient Judaism. The initiate would be in the higher worlds for three days and experience the whole progress of future human evolution, what was to come for him in human evolution. In the perceptions he had during the three days, the future stages for humanity were not as a rule seen in abstract form but every stage was represented by an individual. The initiate would perceive twelve people. They represented the twelve stages of inner development. Powers of soul thus appeared before him in the form of human individuals.At a given moment the initiate would see a particular scene. He would see his own individual nature taken to the stage where the whole of humanity is filled with buddhi, meaning that it will be christed. He would see himself in the God, with the powers of soul ranged behind.
Immediately behind him stood John, the final figure who indicates that he had reached completion. He would see himself transfigured in a state he would achieve when he had reached completion; his powers of soul personified, with John the final stage of completion, proclaiming the Christ stage.
In the yoga sleep those twelve figures would then make a group, gathering for the `mystic communion' as it was called.This would be as follows. The human being sitting surrounded by the powers of soul would say to himself: these are at one with me; they have taken me through earth evolution. I have walked with the feet of these apostles. The communion meal means that the twelve powers of soul are at one with the human being. Completion or perfection is reached when the lower soul qualities drop away and only the higher ones remain. Humanity will no longer have those lower powers in time to come, an example being the power of reproduction.
John's very power of soul will have brought it about that those powers are then lifted up into the loving heart. Rivers of spiritual love will flow from it. When the Christ is in us, the heart is the organ which is most powerful in us. The lower power of soul will then have been raised from the lower abdomen to the heart. Every initiate experienced this as the mystery of the heart. It came to expression in the words `my God, my God, how you have raised me up high!
Commentary:
Note the special role of John in this context. The lecture goes on to talk about the baptism and John standing at the cross, that Christ-Jesus transferred his wisdom to John:
Quote: "The text should thus be read to say:`By the cross stood Sophia, the mother of Jesus.' He spoke to this mother, saying: `Woman, this is your son.' He had himself transferred the Sophia who had been in him to John. He made him the son of Sophia, saying: 'This is your mother.' From now on you must acknowledge divine wisdom to be your mother and dedicate yourself solely to her.' What John has written was this divine wisdom, Sophia, embodied in the gospel of John itself. He received the knowledge from Jesus himself, and was authorized by the Christ to transfer the wisdom to the earth."
Recall (a) the paintings with not two but three babies [Raphael's Terranuovo Madonna], and (b) the story in the Bible whereby Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, and the recognition of two souls in womb both mothers (ps Mary remains with Elizabeth until the birth of John). Then also (c) the fact that in Christian Rosenkreutz was incarnated the individuality of Lazarus-John being the writer of the John Gospel, that this individuality incarnes every century, and brings souls to this knowledge (
The excerpt
John's soul-power above all will raise those lower forces to the loving heart
or
John's very power of soul will have brought it about that those powers are then lifted up into the loving heart. Rivers of spiritual love will flow from it
may well point to what is written under purification of the blood on the page Mystery of the Blood, whereby Wagner is quoted saying it is the will (lower forces) are purified by knowledge, the wisdom that John brings.
1920-02-17-GA266/3
(p204 in 2011 edition)
If we do not unite with Christ in such a manner that we can say: "Not I, but Christ in me", then in the future we cannot even live on as human beings. The Godhead that we call Father God gave humanity the forces necessary for us to feel ourselves as an 'I', an I that continues on through the incarnations. But these forces are used up, and the gods have ordained that each of us human beings, out of our own self and out of our own free will, leads our 'I' frurther, so that we can feel ourselves an 'I' in our further incarnations.
Transubstantiation
1905-03-17-GAXXX
The third part in the Sacrifice of the Mass is the Transubstantiation.
All this represents that there is something in external nature which is an image of the Godhead. The Godhead is represented in the coarser as well as in the finer substances — in bread and wine, body and blood. The moment that consciousness is awake to the fact that we are here concerned with transmuted substances we actually have
- at the altar — in the Host — substance such as we have in our brain;
- and in the Wine, substance such as we have in our heart (blood).
The priest breaks the Host in a particular way into a particular number of pieces, nine pieces.
- Corporatio = Embodiment
- Natuitas = Birth
- Circumcisio = Circumcision
- Apparitio = Manifestation, Unveiling
- Mors = Death
- Passio = The Passion
- Ressurectio = The Resurrection
- Gloria = Glory
- Regnum = The Kingdom
These nine pieces represent the transmuted man who now shares in the Highest. They are the nine parts of Man. One to seven are the principles which man experiences within his personality, while eight and nine extend beyond it. That is why they are laid aside. Thus does man unite himself with his sevenfold nature in the Communion and strives for the Glory and the Kingdom.
This is accompanied by the Paternoster. First comes the reference to the living God in Heaven; then “Thy Name,” — the Name of God, of the Logos Who had become Flesh in Christ; and then “Thy Kingdom.” The whole is a symbol for the existing Cosmos. Man must understand his communion with this world. Only the Man who came forth from the Mysteries could understand the World that is expressed in the Paternoster.
At special festivals the Sanctissimus is added, the consecrated Monstrance which contains the Sacred Body. This is a sun-like circular vessel with rays, and rests in a crescent-shaped sheath.
Osiris and Isis are here represented; the union of Osiris and Isis stands as Sanctissimus above the Mass, a symbol for the condition when the Sun still enclosed the Moon.
1924-09-06-GA346
Note the lectures of 5 and 6 September discusses the act of consecretion of Man, sacred rituals of divine communion, in three periods:
- The first period of the ancient mysteries — the gods descend.
- Second period of the semi-ancient mysteries — the gods send their forces down.
- Third period of the half new mysteries — Man learns a magical language and begins to ascend to the forces of the divine world through the intonation of magical words.
The section below is for the first. For the third section, see also Greek mysteries#1924-09-05-GA346
This development of a certain religious feeling, which one can really only describe separately, always went parallel with a certain condition or a certain kind of transubstantiation which was the center of the holy act of consecration of Man. Priests are now being called upon to experience this transubstantiation and everything else that is connected with their activities in a new way. They will not be able to do this very well without an understanding of what transubstantiations and apocalypses were really like in each of these four successive periods of human evolution.
One thing we have already seen is that the act of consecration of man and its transubstantiation process involves a working together of human beings and the gods in the spiritual world. Priests cannot really work properly unless they're aware that men and the gods can work together.
If we take another look at the oldest form of transubstantiation and acts of consecration of Man we find that the gods found the way to men at certain times that are really differences between what one can calculate in the course of time and what the cosmos does. The gods descended during such blank or holy times when men must add something to the times they calculated because their calculations are incorrect. In these times men had to expose themselves to cosmic influences directly in order to carry our transubstantiations, and they saved what had occurred in the substances during such times in order to carry out transubstantiations with the preserved things that had been transformed by forces from the cosmos.
The right place for priests and lay brothers to be in for these transubstantiations at that time was a cave or a grotto. And in fact, wherever people were fully aware of the presence of the gods and of the significance of transubstantiations in the ancient mysteries, we see that they tried to carry out the sacred rites in subterranean rock temples or caves.
The fact that they tried to do this is connected with the experiences which priests had during the transubstantiations. A transubstantiation consists of a transformation of the given earthly materials. If one wants to understand the process completely one should add the communion or the ingestion of the transformed substances by the human being to it, so that actually the two last parts of the act of consecration of man, transubstantiation and communion, constitute a unity, whereas the gospel reading and the offering are a preparation for them.
Taking transubstantiation and communion as a unified priestly or cultic act, let's look at a view which the initiates we call fathers had in the oldest mysteries.
...
[important contextual section - read lecture see link]
...
When a father carried out a transubstantiation he had a current in him which flowed upwards and another one which flowed downwards. Then when he took communion he knew that he was connected with the cosmos, because he had become aware of his physical body by means of these streams. He had become united with the earth and he united what he had prepared at the altar with his body, with currents that belong to both the earth and his body, and with divine things on the earth which are a reflection of the universe.
He knew that he was united with the outside universe. He knew that the meal which he had taken in in this way was a meal which his cosmic Man had completed. He felt that his divine man arose through what streamed into the current which went upwards and the one which went downwards, and that it could be a companion of the gods who had descended. He felt that the gods had transformed him into a divine human being in his physical body, that is, he felt that he had been transubstantiated. And at this moment he could say from the depths of his heart:
Now I am not the one who walks around in the physical world;
I am he in whom the descended god lives;
I am he whose name includes all sounds and who was at the beginning, is in the middle and will be at the end.
I am alpha and omega.
The extent to which he could really participate in the secrets of the cosmos, in the divine working and creating in the cosmos, and in the manifestation of forces, substances and beings there while divine, spiritual work was being done, depended on the way his inner life was shaped by this feeling. This is the way priests worked in the ancient mysteries.
Discussion
Note 1 - On Schema FMC00.468
This note provides an additional commentary on Schema FMC00.468 and variant FMC00.468A.
1/ If one looks at Man's bodily principles and sevenfold or ninefold structure (see Schema FMC00.086 on that page), one can group these as follows:
- the lowest two bodies are the physical and etheric .. they relate to the mineral and plant kingdoms, the higher and lower spirit worlds. In other words they are truly spiritual. The symbol for these kingdoms are bread (the earth principle) and wine (the water principle).
- corresponding to these two lowest principles are the two highest principles spirit-man (atma) and life-spirit (budhi). They are the seeds for the spiritualization of Man's lowest two bodies.
- in between are:
- the astral body and the corresponding spirit-self (manas)
- and Man's I-principle is penetrating and 'using' the three lower bodies, hence the threefold soul, see Human character - the I and threefold soul
2/ Now study Christ Module 11 - A new physics and the aspect of the change that the Mystery of Golgotha brought about (re the higher ethers). The fact that Christ became the spirit of the Earth, implies that the higher life and chemical ethers are now working on Earth and humanity. The Christ Impulse is therefore an infusion (see illustration Schema FMC00.190) and a fructification (see illustration Schema FMC00.468 and variant on this page).
3/ See also the pages Spectrum of elements and ethers and Formative forces where Schema FMC00.142A illustrates how these two higher ethers (the corresponding formative forces) relate to the mineral and plant kingdoms.
4/ Now the 'consciousness soul' is the working of the I-substance (sacrificed by the SoF) in and taking hold of the mineral physical body, its reflection corresponding to a certain quality or state of I-consciousness, which is why Rudolf Steiner also called it the 'spiritual soul'.
One can see that the spiritual (the I) which has taken hold of physical mineral and etheric substance of Man (the consciousness and intellectual soul) will be affected by the Christ Impulse (and the Christ Impulse thus affects human consciousness).
To connect the above points, study Schema FMC00.428A and the corresponding lectures on Human character - the I and threefold soul. See the text in the upper right text box on this schema, taken literally from these lectures, which further explains what Schema FMC00.468 merely illustrates.
Related pages
- Christ - base study modules 1 to 7
- Mystery of the Heart
- Christ Module 4 - Mystery of the Blood
- Mysteries of the Spirit, the Son and the Father
- Raising of Lazarus
- Initiation
Draft notes
- PS check Lazarus - https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA008/English/RPC1961/GA008_c08.html
- meaning Pentecost/Whitsuntide lectures GA093 1904-5 .. spirit wrestling free ………….<-> Prometheus legend, link mid Lemuria & Lucifer
