Afterword from “the twilight and resurrection of humanity”

Afterword from “the twilight and resurrection of humanity”

the history of the Michaelic Movement since the death of Rudolf Steiner

an esoteric study.

here Dutch translation.

The Resurrection of the Etheric Christ in the
Twenty-first Century

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Rudolf Steiner emphasized repeatedly that the foremost task of Anthro-
posophy is to take the way for a fully conscious experience of the etheric
Christ, who is the being heart of the school and movement of Michael. But
he could only pont a future event that would begin in the 1930s and 40s
and continue over the next 3000 years. As we showed in the third lecture
above, he couldn't continue his work on the earth to help his pupils to
develop the spiritual faculties needed to experience and perceive the etheric
Christ in the world consciously before 1933. Therefore, this was
the foremost task of our work at the end of the century, to unite spiritual
science with the new revelation of the etheric Christ, and the new etheric
Christ revelation with spiritual science.(295) I have investigated this impulse
since 1975, and this was and is the thread that guides me through all my
spiritual scientific research. This thread led me to discover that, since the
transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first centuries, and then espe-
cially from 2008-11, the appearance of the etheric Christ has changed in
a marked way, in comparison to His appearance in the course of the last
century. All evolutionary transformations are prepared in a gradual way.
Nevertheless, each revelation of a new stage of evolution, appears as a new
spiritual event, because its novelty is absolutely real. This applies also to
the evolution of the highest and most sublime being of our entire cosmic
evolution to the Christ being Himself.
From 1933 antil 1998, His whole etheric appearance revealed how
greatly He was burdered, indeed, profoundly wounded, by the fact
that He carries in His heart the weight of all the evil deeds that human-
ity unleashed on the earth since the end of the nineteenth century and
throughout the course of the whole twentieth century. This was described
in greater detail in the second lecture above. In my book, The Spiritual
Event of the 20th Century, I described how the etheric Christ descended
in the 30s and 40s into the care of human evil and took it into His heart
by uniting Himself with it. I also described the light-filled results of this
sacrifice that were revealed in the renewed etheric body of the earth. It
could be perceived in the etheric body of the earth, due to the spiritual
activity of the human and angelfic beings in the School of Michael, who
went before Him and supported this sacrifice. I called this new etheric
world, that came into being for the first time in human evolution, ‘the
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earthly-human sun', because it is the first fruit of the co-creation between human souls and the gods. In this new earthly-human, etheric sun world, an imagination appeared, that showed the reflection of the result of this sacrificial deed. It could be grasped because the etheric consequences of this sacrifice appeared in the etheric body of the earth. It was also possible to experience the results of this sacrifice, from the other side, in the appearance of His individual etheric body, where it became visible in His etheric human-like appearance. In this manner, I could closely follow the etheric results of His sacrifice from both the planetary and human sides. What one could perceive with imaginative perception is an external, etheric revelation of His spiritual being. With imaginative cognition alone, it is not possible to follow the spiritual being of the Christ on His way to this deepest evil place. To begin with, one could experience Him only through His planetary etheric body, on the one hand, as described in The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century, and, on the other hand, through His etheric human form, as described in The New Experience of the Supersensible.(296 )

In order to understand the meaning of the new revelation of the resurrected etheric Christ in the twenty-first century, we must understand the continuation between His sacrifice in the nineteenth century, that Rudolf Steiner could still describe, and the sacrifice during the twentieth century. The new revelation in the present is the result of the continuous stream of these deeds of sacrifice. For this we have to consider how Rudolf Steiner described the first stage of this sacrificial process, that he called 'the second mystery of Golgotha', that took place at the end of the nineteenth century:

This black sphere brought to the spiritual world with the dying souls of the

nineteenth century was taken by the Christ, in accordance with the Manichaean

principle, into his being, in order to transform it. It caused, for the angelic being in which the Christ has revealed Himself since the Mystery of Golgotha, 'the death by suffocation'. This sacrifice of Christ in the nineteenth century is comparable to the sacrifice on the physical plane in the Mystery of Golgotha and can be termed the second crucifixion of Christ on the etheric plane. This spiritual suffocation and death that caused the annihilation of consciousness of an angelic being, is a recapitulation of the Mystery of Golgotha in the worlds immediately above our own... the dying of Christ's consciousness in the angelic sphere in the nineteenth century, will lead to the resurrection of direct Christ consciousness in the earthly sphere.(297 )

Furthermore, in the second lecture about this mystery, Rudolf Steiner added another aspect, that deepens its meaning and significance. Now he says that the Christ was actually 'banished' and 'driven out' of the etheric world into the physical world:

The exertions of these souls who had gone through the gate of death succeeded-one cannot express it otherwise-in driving the Christ out of the spiritual world... He had to undergo banishment from His existence in the spiritual world. And thus, there was fulfilled in Him the eternal law of the spiritual world, that what disappears for the higher spiritual world arises

anew in the lower world. If it is possible in the twentieth century for souls

to evolve to an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, then it is due to

this Event, that Christ, through a conspiracy of materialistic souls, has been

driven out of the spiritual worlds, and transferred into the sense world, into

the world of man, so that even in this world of the senses new understanding for the Christ can begin. Hence, too, Christ is still more nearly and inti

mately united with the destiny of men on Earth.(298)

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This banishment from the etheric world is the cause of what the Christ

had to experience on the earth from the 30s and 40s until the end of the

century, when the united power of the two apocalyptic Beasts began to

control humanity in 1933-1998. Today, in 2019, it is possible for the first

time because His recent resurrection from this 'grave of civilization'

makes it possible-to speak for the first time about what He experienced

in this grave. We can try to understand what actually took place, if we

understand fully what Rudolf Steiner said in 1913, that the Christ, after

he assimilated the materialistic thinking of the nineteenth century and

suffered a spiritual 'suffocation' and loss of consciousness in the etheric

world, was driven out of this world, into the physical world. We must

feel this with our whole human being, and we will be able to do so only

when our etheric hearts become robust organs of spiritual perception and

cognition. Then we will realize that after the Christ was banished from the

etheric world to the Earth, on the Earth, living now entirely among living,

incarnated human beings, he had to face a wholly new attack. Now, as

an etheric human being, living among physical human beings in the 30s

and 40s, he was confronted by the far greater evil forces, unleashed by

incarnated human souls, not after their death in the etheric world, but in

the physical world.

In the course of the first half of the twentieth century, he had to expe-

rience the full impact of the new forces of evil. Let us remember that

Rudolf Steiner said that the result of Christ's death by suffocation and

banishment in the second Mystery of Golgotha in etheric world at the

end of the nineteenth century, will be the 'resurrection of direct Christ

consciousness' in the earthly sphere in the course of the twentieth century.

He said that the angelic being in which the Christ has revealed Himself

since the Mystery of Golgotha, will become the bearer of this 'resurrection

of direct Christ consciousness' on the earth from the 30s and 40s. But what

actually took place on the earth in those years after the death of Rudolf

Steiner in 1925? What did the angelic being experience, when the time had

come for his previous sacrifice to cause this 'resurrection of direct Christ

consciousness' in the first human souls, that will enable them to perceive

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consciously His new etheric appearance? What did He really experience have taken place in human souls in the physical world in this way? in the very moment in which the resurrection of His consciousness could have taken place in human soulsin the physical world in this way?

What happened was, that in this very moment-it was in 1933-he was confronted by the fact that 'the Beast that was released from its captivity in the earth', already took over human hearts on the earth in such a way, that in the moment in which His consciousness could begin to be resurrected in human hearts-as the result of His second sacrifice in the second Mystery of Golgotha in the etheric world-He found that the heart of humanity was already possessed by the Beast. But His resurrection was due to take place in this human heart. Therefore, we must represent this experience in the most concrete and vivid way, and experience it in our etheric hearts now, because the time for this is ripe. We can do it, as we shall presently see, because this resurrection is taking place now, a century later, under totally different conditions.(299) This is what the Christ experienced in this crucial moment, when in the 'holy of holies' of the human soul-as Jesus prophesied-He was faced by the 'abomination of desolation': 'So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains'.(300) St Paul also describes this moment with great precision in his second epistle to the Thessalonians, when he speaks about the demonic 'lawless one' who will 'seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God'.(301 )

Rudolf Steiner also pointed out this time prophetically in 1910:

The years 1933, 1935 and 1937 will be especially significant. Faculties that now are quite unusual for human beings will then manifest themselves as natural abilities. At this time great changes will take place, and Biblical prophecies will be fulfilled. Everything will be transformed for the souls who are sojourning on Earth and also for those who are no longer within the physical body. Regardless of where they are, souls are encountering entirely new faculties. Everything is changing, but the most significant event of our time is a deep, decisive transformation in the soul faculties of man.(302 )

We can now use these new faculties to observe and describe what happened when in 'the years 1933, 1935 and 1937 great changes took place, and Biblical prophecies were fulfilled'. What happened was that the forces that the Christ took into His heart at this moment-again 'in accordance with the Manichaean principle'-were not only the materialistic thoughts that human souls carried with them to the etheric world after their death, which were bad enough at that time; but he took into His heart now the consequences of the evil deeds that human beings performed on the earth during their earthly lives. But on close inspection, what took place in the 1930s and 40s cannot be understood only as an infinitely powerful

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intensification and deepening of the death by suffocation of the angelic being that carries the forces of the resurrection of the new Christ conscious ness on the Earth itself. Something new was added, because now we are dealing with what the Christ experienced after this death of suffocation when He took into His heart the forces of evil actualized in human hearts and human deeds, in the moment that He was ready to let His forces of re urrection bring to their consciousness the new faculties, by means of which they could perceive, on the Earth, His etheric being and appearance. The new faculties about which Rudolf Steiner spoke, with the forces of etheric consciousness and cognition, by means of which the first incarnated human beings should have begun to experience and perceive the etheric Christ from 1933, were turned into their evil opposites. The Christ had to experience this reversal in His own being, as the force that reverses the resurrection of His consciousness into evil forces.(303 )

We can therefore begin to connect in a comprehensible way what Rudolf Steiner described at the beginning of last century about the second Mystery of Golgotha, with what happened to the Christ being after his death. In this way we can begin to understand it as one continuous process, that began in the etheric world at the end of the nineteenth century and continued on the earth during the 30s and 40s and in the second half of the last century. This great mystery will naturally demand continued investigations by spiritual science for long times to come, and in this afterword, I can only offer a first extract of what these investigations have accomplished thus far (304 )

The problem is that the concepts and representations of a 'second crucifixion' and 'death by suffocation' that Rudolf Steiner applies to the understanding of the second Mystery of Golgotha, no longer suffice when we continue to follow the Christ into the 30s and 40s. We need to find a way to describe how the expected resurrection of Christ's consciousness among humanity was suppressed and reversed to its very opposite. It's. not another crucifixion or death by suffocation, but something entirely new. We can help ourselves to shed some light on this mystery, if we compare it to the resurrection that followed the death in the physical Mystery of Golgotha.

Let us imagine that when the resurrected Christ appeared on Easter Sunday, the same beings and forces who crucified Him pushed Him back into the grave out of which He emerged, and sealed it most tightly, with the heaviest stones. But this is precisely what happened in the second resurrection that followed the second etheric Mystery of Golgotha. When we observe the events of 1933-45, we realize that the second, etheric crucifixion and death by suffocation, that was to be followed by the resurrec tion of the consciousness of Christ on the Earth, was answered in human hearts and deeds by a most powerful suppression and entombment of the

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being that carries the new resurrected consciousness of the etheric Christ. In this case, we shouldn't imagine that the already twice crucified and (303) resurrected Christ was crucified and killed again, but we must-for the lack of any better concepts-compare what His angel went through to being pushed into a far deeper, darker, and denser grave from the one out of which He just emerged after the second Mystery of Golgotha. The etheric crucifixion and death of suffocation of the second Mystery of Golgotha took place in the etheric world; out of this etheric death the new resurrected direct Christ consciousness should have emerged from 1933 onward. But instead of this, the etherically resurrected Christ took into His heart the evil deeds inspired by the Beast that was individualized in those human souls who created the Gulags, the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These tremendous apocalyptic events created a new 'grave' that, in contradistinction to the two first graves, was located in the lower, sub-earthly world. The grave of the first Mystery of Golgotha was located in the physical world, and the grave of the second Mystery of Golgotha was in the etheric world. But this grave into which the newly resurrected etheric Christ consciousness was pushed, lies below the earth-in the 'evil' etheric, astral and spiritual worlds below. (305 )

Our honest self-knowledge leads us to experience this evil grave, in which the resurrected etheric Christ was entombed, in our own lower being, when we enter these dark realms in search for the Christ in the last century and investigate what He experienced there. We had to struggle with these forces in our humanity in the 1980s and 90s, to kindle the Michaelic flames of our cognitive forces and steel them to such an extent, to produce the necessary forces of spiritual resilience and endurance. The whole 'knowledge drama of the Second Coming' described in Chapter 5 of The New Experience of the Supersensible, is a description of this path. It starts by an individualized recapitulation of the second, etheric Mystery of Golgotha, through the assimilation and transformation of the death forces of the Ahrimanic intellect, and their resurrection in the form of the new etheric Christ consciousness. But then we had to proceed further, because our task was to investigate also what the Christ experienced in the 30s and 40s. For this purpose, we had to experience how our 'resurrection of direct Christ consciousness', is suppressed by a stronger power than the Ahrimanic force of death; this much greater power doesn't only kill the etheric consciousness of the angel being who embodies the Christ, not only banishes Him from the etheric world into the physical world, as happened in the nineteenth century; it pushes Him lower still, into the darkest regions below the earth, or, which is the same, into the depths of the new forces of human evil. This process must be first of all recapitulated and individualized, to develop the necessary spiritual cognitive forces and put them in the service of Michael, without which one

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cannot investigate the etheric appearance and fate of the Christ in our time. But after creating this foundation of spiritual scientific knowledge, the destiny of humanity in the whole twentieth century must be experienced as well. As we participate, through the knowledge drama of the Second Coming, in the destiny of the Christ in the nineteenth century and in His death and suffocation in Ahrimanic human thinking, we may continue and experience His ordeals in the course of the whole twentieth century, because the Christ is the bearer of the entire karms of humanity because He is the being of humanity. (306)

The two apocalyptic Beasts that took over the control of humanity on the earth from the hands of Ahriman in 1933-1994, possess a much stronger power. Their united power, described in Chapter 13 of the Revelation of St John, is the direct adversary of the Christ, and works through humanity's reversed and evil spiritual 'I' forces, and gain tremendous power and weight through them. Let us be reminded again in this context of Rudol Steiner's words, quoted above, that 'At the end of this century [1998] time will come when Sorat will once again raise his head most strong out of the waves of evolution to become the adversary of that appearance of Christ, which those who have been prepared for it will already experience during the first half of the twentieth century when the Etheric Chris becomes visible.’’ This is the very essence of what we must reveal today, and as Rudolf Steiner said, in order to become 'human beings who under stand these things and know how to interpret the signs of the times, let us arrange our lives in accordance with these three mysteries of our time the mystery of Michael, the mystery of Christ, and the mystery of Sorat (307)

Therefore, as we said above, when we try to understand this aspect of the etheric Christ mystery today, we must imagine that the resurrected Christ consciousness, were suppressed and compressed down into the heaviest sealed and dense tomb and grave, that tries to hold it there forever. This is of course only an imaginative picture, that hardly expresses what actually took place in Christ's living heart at that time. This event is the first event that belongs to the mystery and mission of evil in the present age, because, as Rudolf Steiner pointed out in 1918, 'mankind is thus led to a renewed experience of the Mystery of Golgotha in the fifth epoch through the forces of evil. Through the experience of evil, it will be possible for the Christ to appear again, just as He appeared in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch through the experience of death (308)

But this means, concretely speaking, that the infinite weight of all evil human deeds, taken together, that had no precedent before, was taken into His living heart. He took into his heart all the enormous amounts of evil thoughts and deeds accomplished by humanity since the age of materialism began in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which reached such an intensity at the end of the nineteenth century; but the

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theoretical materialism in the nineteenth century-whose spiritual effects the earth in the twentieth century, that increased a billion times after 1933, and caused the being of the etheric Christ what can only be described, for in the etheric world were evil enough-became horrendous evil deeds on lack of any adequate terminology, to suffer a nearly fatal 'heart attack

Because we must speak about this mystery today, we have no other thinking and language. But we must be aware of the fact, that all our choice except to use concepts, images and words taken from our ordinary thinking and language, But we must be aware of the fact, that all our images and words, concepts and representations, are totally inadquate to describe such mysteries and can hardly give more than a feeble indication of this profound reality (309) Our spiritual investigations reveal that many decades were necessary for the first real signs of healing and recovery to appear in His etheric body. To begin with, the signs of healing appeared around His wounded heart and gradually spread to His whole etheric body. One could follow this closely since 1975, because the invisible, but strongly felt, inner wounds of His innermost spiritual heart were visibly marked in His external etheric body. The recovery was very gradual, and when one inquired about the cause of this healing, one received an image that showed how this has been accomplished step by step by all the deeds of true human love on the earth. To explain this healing process, the healing deeds of love are compared, imaginatively speaking, to so many tiny 'acupuncture needles' that each deed of love contributes to His gradual recovery. Yet, despite this gradual healing process, it must be said that the more the end of the century drew near, and especially in 1998-9, until the beginning of the new century and millennium, one couldn't yet tell for sure if the healing of the Christ, in His role as humanity's Higher Self, would in fact be completed. (310) Nevertheless, when one stood on the cusp and threshold of the two millennia, during the Christmas days and nights of 1999-2000, one could grasp the first glimpse of hope shining through the darkness of the twentieth century; one could see for the first time, on the still far horizon of the twenty-first century, the first earthly-human sun ray of the dawn of a new spiritual revelation (311)

This ray was gathering strength with each year and intensified gradually towards the middle of the first decade of the present century, to assume an entirely new etheric form in 2008, 2009 and 2010. By then, the light streaming from His recovery was becoming stronger and clearer and He began to appear and to speak in a new way, pointing towards His new revelation. This was experienced and perceived, to begin with, only in the etheric world through direct etheric intercourse. But since 2017-2019 it has begun to be active also externally and showed itself as the source of the present new Michaelic revelation. Christ's etheric resurrection out of the grave of humanity in the twentieth century, is the source of the abundant stream of new spiritual revelations, that flows in 2019 from the School of

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ichael. It became the substance of these lectures and gave them their title:[in the twenty-first Century]. However, it must also be noted that this protitle: The Twilight of Humanity [in the twentieth Century] However, it must also be noted that thisprocess is in progressive development.

A full recovery and a fullest revelation of His new power of resurrection would be possible only after the first full 3x33 cycle since 1933-45 is completed. This will take place in 2033-2045. Yet, in 2017-2019, it began to reveal itself also externally, flowing to the earth from the etheric world closest to our physical world, in which the true School of Michael is active, and this revelation is gathering strength by the day. It is aiming to reach its completeness in the 30s and 40s of the present century, in order to become fully active in the resurrection of humanity and the Earth in the most decisive time around the middle of this century.

This means that if we find the courage needed to activate and open our etheric minds, hearts and will forces today, as shown in our lectures here, we can experience a wholly new Michaelic revelation of the etheric Christ, and with it a wholly new revelation of the real School of Michael. This was not possible from 1933 until 1998 and indeed, in this form, not until 2010-2017. But since then, it is increasing every day, and it becomes a source of the greatest hope for the future of humanity.

Let us face this truth with courage and fiery determination, and know with unswerving self-knowledge, that this new hope depends on the weakest member in the history of the Christ impulse since He started His etheric appearance in 1933: Humanity as a whole, and each one of us. However, we are also infinitely strengthened by the fact that in our etheric hearts, mightily confronting all the feelings of helplessness and despair, caused by the dire situation of humanity in the grave of civilization, appears the presently active etheric revelation of the newly resurrected Christ. He is the most powerful living protest against the decline of humanity and the Earth. His cosmic-human power of infinite, unconquerable, faith, hope and love, works, creates, heals, and transforms all evil into highest good. He demonstrates this protest, with all the forces of His newly healed and resurrected being. And if we translate into our feeble human words what we can see, hear and experience today through His new resurrected appearance in the etheric world, we would express the message revealed by His being, life and actions, in the following way:

I AM the Sun being living inside the Earth and Humanity. I am alive inside your etheric hearts. I left my glorious cosmic abode in the sun and exchanged it for the Earth to make the Earth into my new Sun. I took on human form to live together with you, my human brothers and sisters, on this Sun becoming Earth, to grow with you and fulfil with you our cosmic destination. I have established my heavenly Sun kingdom on this Earth. I AM the body, life, soul, spirit and 'I' of the Earth and Humanity; and no power or being exists in the entire universe that can take this Earth from me; there is no power in the Heavens and above the Heavens, on the Earth and below the Earth, that can rob the Earth from me and from you, when you unite with me. The offer of all my love, life and light is constantly streaming into your etheric hearts. Take my offer into your whole being actively, encourage and empower yourself and your fellow humans! Unite with my cosmic deeds of healing and redemption, and join my angelic hosts, to build together the new Earthly-Human Sun!

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When we listen today to this call-which is becoming stronger with each day we feel infinitely empowered and filled with the strongest forces of hope, love and faith. And this call of the resurrected etheric Christ must become in us the living source of the new Michaelic movement in the etheric world and on the earth in the twenty-first century. This message embodies the essence of Christ's esoteric etheric 'teaching', held regularly in the School of Michael since 1933, which is not 'teaching' in any conventional human sense, but a living demonstration of His being in living action. This demonstration became the source of the new task of the School of Michael in the etheric world during the apocalyptic events of 1933-45 and this must be accomplished in the new School of Michael on the earth in the first half of this century.

As I showed in my books and also in these lectures, the new etheric revelation of the resurrected Christ is not only a revelation of one single being, sublime as He is; it is even greater than this, because it is a revelation of a new Earth and a new Heaven. It has a profound planetary and cosmic dimension. His sublime etheric being is revealed as the heart centre of an entirely new etheric kingdom. We gave this new etheric kingdom of the etheric Christ an appropriate name and called it the 'Earthly-Human Sun'. It grows as a new fountain of eternal life inside the rapidly vanishing life stream of the old and dying Earth mother. In the heart of this dying mother Earth, He planted a seed of eternal life and formed the radiant heart centre of His new Sun. This Sun-becoming process of the Earth is also the resurrection of old Mother Earth and her spiritual rebirth. It is taking place in our etheric hearts, in the newly born, etheric sun life of the Earth and Humanity. We can experience this as reality in our whole etheric hearts and bodies. In the light of this experience, we can conclude our lectures with the prophetic words of Rudolf Steiner, that were spoken more than hundred years ago. Let us do it for the sake of the living continuation of the Michaelic stream from the twentieth to the twenty-first centuries, and the future becoming of the new being of Anthroposophia:

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The time will come when men will again see into the spiritual world and there behold the land whence flow the streams of true spiritual nourishment for everything that happens in the physical world.... This land was indeed once accessible to men and will be so again now that Kali Yuga, the Dark Age, is over... Deeply moving are the writings which tell of this ancient land, from where the Initiates ever and again bring the new streams and impulses for everything that is to be imparted to mankind from century to century. Those who are connected with the spiritual world in this way resort again and again to Shamballa [The Earthly-Human Sun]-the name of this mysterious land. It is the deep fount into which clairvoyant vision once reached; it withdrew during Kali Yuga and is spoken of as an ancient fairyland that will come again into the realm of man. The Earthly-Human Sun will be there again when Kali Yuga has run its course. Mankind will rise through normal human faculties into the land of the Earthly-Human Sun..... the Earthly-Human Sun is a reality, was a reality, will be a reality again for humanity. And when it reveals itself again, one of the first visions to come to men will be that of Christ in His etheric form... It is Christ who will lead men to His etheric Earthly-Human Sun. A spiritual life must begin, then, at first for a few and in the course of two thousand five hundred years for a greater and greater number of human beings; there will arise the experience of the land of the etheric Earthly-Human Sun, woven of light, shone through with light, teeming with wisdom. Such is the event which for those who have the will to understand, for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, must be described as denoting the most momentous turning-point in the evolution of humanity, through which men's understanding of the Christ Impulse will be enhanced and intensified... The more insight men achieve, the greater and mightier will Christ appear to them to be! When once their penetrate into the etheric Earthly-Human Sun... they will... grow into the realm where He will first be encountered: the mysterious land of the etheric

can gaze Earthly-Human Sun.(312 )

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Notes Aharon 337 v

295.This is the reason why I dedicated the first part of my anthroposophical research, from the age of 21 to 36, to the investigation of the etheric a ance of the Christ, and published it in my main book, The New Experience of the Supersensible, in 1995.

296.The external etheric imaginative perception can be transformed and deepened further in the course of spiritual development. This takes place the more we experience our own eternal spiritual individuality as a fully embodied, whole human, personal experience, as I showed also in Cognitive Yoga. Then one will be increasingly able to understand the personal experiences of the Christ Who appeared in a personal form'. (GA 231, 16.11.1923)

297. GA 152, 2.5.1913. This is the reason why the spiritual scientific investigation of the etheric Christ impulse, must start with the confronting and overcoming of the Ahrimanic forces of death active in ordinary cognition, and lead to their spiritualization into the new imaginative forces of the Consciousness Soul, as demonstrated also in Cognitive Yoga.

298.GA 152, 20.5.1913.

299. Let us be reminded again what was said in the second and fourth lectures, that we could perceive the etheric Christ since the end of the last century, because we could accomplish this 'resurrection of direct Christ consciousness' in fully awakened earthly consciousness. In this way we could accomplish in our earthly consciousness and lives a recapitulation and re-actualization of what we experienced in the etheric world in this decisive moment of human evolution. This moment was experienced in full spiritual consciousness in the etheric world in 1933 and through the twelve years, 193345, as described in The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century.

300. Matthew 24:15-16. Jesus refers to Daniel 11-31: 'Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress and shall take away the continual burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate'.

301. 2nd Thessalonians, 2:3,4,7.

302. GA 118, 25.1.1910.

303. In the second lecture above, we spoke in some detail about what took place in the etheric world in the 12 years, 1933-45. See especially these sections: 'Anthroposophy must be re-established on totally new foundations', 'The untold history of the Michaelic movement after the death of Rudolf Steiner', and 'The Resurrection of the esoteric youth impulse'.

304.The foundations for this research are laid out in my book, The New Experience of the Supersensible. This research method and cognitive praxis was developed, by means of the new Aristotelian-Platonic synthesis, described in the the last century and its continuation in the present century. second lecture, in order to investigate the appearance of the etheric Christ in the last century and in contoinuation in the present century.

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305 Concerning the evil etheric, astral and spiritual worlds below the physical earth, and their connection to the etheric Christ event, see the lecture, The Etherization of the Blood, GA 130, 1.10.1911.

306. This is the reason why The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century was intended as the eighth chapter of The New Experience of the Supersensible, because it is built on the foundation of the knowledge drama of the Second Coming. Both books taken together describe the whole process that the etheric Christ went through from the second Mystery of Golgotha at the end of the nineteenth century, through the 12 years 1933-45, until the end of the 20th century.

307. GA 346, 20 and 23.9.1924, respectively.

308. GA 185, 25.10.1918. And further, 'All this, of course, gives no occasion for lamentation but for a strengthening of human energy and aspiration towards the spiritual. For if men achieve what can be achieved in this epoch by taking hold of the forces of evil and turning them to good ends, then they will at the same time achieve something tremendous: this fifth post-Atlantean epoch will gain for human evolution grander conceptions than those of any other post-Atlantean epoch, or indeed of any previous epoch. For example, the Christ appeared and passed through the Mystery of Golgotha during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, but only in our fifth epoch will it be possible for human reason to encompass the meaning of this event In the fourth epoch men could comprehend that in the Christ Impulse they had something which would carry their souls beyond death... The fifth epoch, will bring an even more important development: men will come to recognize the Christ as their helper in the task of transforming the forces of evil into good'. (GA 178, 19.11.1917)

309. It must be emphasized that the communication of this mystery would have not been attempted, if it had not been in accordance with the will of the new revelation of the Christ being Himself.

310. In the second lecture above, I described some of the more external aspects of the dire situation of the Anthroposophical Society and movement at the end of the century. But to describe the deeper esoteric cause of this situation is something about which-even today-one cannot yet find the right words.

311. This took place, significantly, also in Sweden, during our 'Millennium conference'. I could perceive that despite all the dark storm clouds, gathering, condensing and hardening together from the whole twentieth century, a new ray of light was piercing through. Yet I didn't possess at this time the necessary cognitive forces, to take hold of this perception and bring it down to the earth, nor could I find the words to express it in the lectures I gave in the conference. As I show here, this changed gradually until 2008-10 in the esoteric world, and has become an exoteric impulse since 2017.

312 GA 118, 6.3.1910.

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