Chapter III: Part 3

Let us first consider Jesus of Nazareth: His conditions of existence were quite exceptional. At the beginning of our era _two_ boys were born and named Jesus. The one came through the Nathan line of the house of David, and the other through the Solomon line of the same house. These two children were not born quite at the same time, but nearly so. In the Jesus descended from Solomon, Who is described in the Gospel of St. Matthew, there was incarnated the same individuality who had formerly lived on the earth as Zarathustra, so that in this Child Jesus there appears the reincarnated Zarathustra or Zoroaster. The individuality of Zarathustra grew up in this Child until, as St. Matthew says, His twelfth year. In that year, Zarathustra left the body of this Child and passed over into that of the other Child Jesus Whom the Gospel of St. Luke describes. In consequence of this the latter child became suddenly quite different. The parents were astonished when they found Him in Jerusalem in the temple after the spirit of Zarathustra had entered into Him. This is intimated when it is said that the Child after having been lost and found again in the temple, so spake that his parents did not recognize Him. They only knew Him--the Child descended from Nathan as He had been before up to this time. But when He began to reason with the doctors in the temple, it was possible for Him to speak as He did because the spirit of Zarathustra had come into Him. Until the thirtieth year did the spirit of Zarathustra live in the Jesus who was descended from the Nathan line of the house of David. In this body He ripened to a still higher perfection. The remark must here be added that as regards this personality in which the spirit of Zarathustra _now_ lived, an extraordinary feature was, that from the spiritual worlds the Buddha rayed forth his impulses into its astral body.

The oriental tradition is correct which says that the Buddha was born as a “Bodhisatva,” and only during his time on earth, in his twenty-ninth year, rose to the dignity of a Buddha. When the Gautama Buddha was a little child, the Indian sage Asita came weeping into the royal palace of his father, Suddhodana. He wept because, as a seer, he knew that this King’s son would become the Buddha, and because as an old man, he felt that he would no longer be living to see that event take place. Now this sage was born again in the time of Jesus of Nazareth. It is he who is brought before us in the Gospel of St. Luke as the priest of the temple who saw the revelation of the Buddha in the Child Jesus descended from Nathan. And seeing this he was able to say: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace for I have seen my Master.” What he had not been able to see previously in India, he saw through the astral body of the Boy Jesus, Who comes before us in St. Luke’s Gospel, the Bodhisatva become a Buddha.

All this was necessary in order that that body might be produced which received the baptism of St. John in the Jordan. At that moment the individuality of Zarathustra left the threefold body, the physical, the etheric and the astral body of that Jesus Who had grown up in so complicated a manner, in order that the spirit of Zarathustra might be able to dwell in Him. Through two possibilities of development which were given in the two Jesus-Children, the reincarnated Zarathustra had to pass, and thus there stood before the Baptist the body of Jesus of Nazareth and in it from that time onwards there acted the cosmic individuality of the Christ. Now, as we have shown, in the case of any other human being, the cosmic spiritual laws work upon him only in so far that they give him a start in earth-life. Afterwards there appear in opposition to these laws, others which arise out of the conditions of the earth-evolution. In the case of the Christ Jesus, after the baptism of John the cosmic-spiritual forces alone remained effective without being influenced in any way through the laws of the earth evolution.

Thus in Palestine during the time that Jesus of Nazareth walked on earth as Christ-Jesus,--during the three last years of his life, from his thirtieth to his thirty-third year, the entire Being of the cosmic Christ was acting uninterruptedly upon Him, and was working into Him. The Christ stood always under the influence of the entire cosmos--He made no step without this working of the cosmic forces into and in Him. That which here took place in Jesus of Nazareth was a continual realization of the horoscope, for at every moment there occurred that which otherwise happens only at a person’s birth. This could be so only because the whole body of Jesus descended from Nathan had remained open to the influence of the sum total of the forces of the cosmic spiritual hierarchies which direct our earth. If thus the whole spirit of the cosmos worked into the Christ Jesus, who was it that went, for example, to Capernaum or anywhere else? He who went about as a being upon the earth appeared quite like any other man. The forces active within Him, however, were the cosmic forces, coming from the sun and stars; and these directed His body. And it was always in accordance with the collective Being of the whole Universe with whom the earth is in harmony, that all which the Christ Jesus did took place. It is because of this that in the case of the acts of the Christ Jesus there is so often some slight hint given in the Gospels, about the relative grouping of the stars at the time. We read in St. John’s Gospel how the Christ finds His first disciples. There we are told: “It was about the tenth hour,” because in this fact the spirit of the whole cosmos found expression in conformity with the appointed moment of time. Such intimations are less clear in the other Gospel passages, but he who can truly read the Gospel finds them everywhere. From this point of view also the miracles are to be judged. Let us take one passage,--The one that runs thus: “When the sun was set, they brought the sick unto Him, and He healed them.” What does that mean? The evangelist is drawing attention to the fact that this healing was connected with the whole position of the constellations, and that at the time in question, the constellations throughout the heavens stood in such a way as could only have happened when the sun had set. The meaning of that, at the time, the requisite healing forces could make themselves felt after sun-set, and the Christ Jesus is represented as the intermediary Who brought the sick into connection with the forces of the cosmos which, just at that time could work curatively. These forces were the same as those which worked as Christ in Jesus. It was through the presence of Christ that the healing took place, because in consequence of the same, the sick person was exposed to the healing forces of the Cosmos which could only work as they did when they were in the right relationship to time and space. Thus these forces worked on the sick person through their representative the Christ. But it was only just during the time of Christ on earth that they could so work. It was only then that such a connection existed between the cosmic constellations and the powers of the human organism, that for certain illnesses, healing could intervene when through the instrumentality of the Christ Jesus, the cosmic grouping of the same forces was able to work on men. A repetition of this relationship in the evolution of the cosmos and the earth is as little possible as is a second incarnation of the Christ in a human body. Regarded in this way, the life of the Christ Jesus appears as the earthly expression of a definite connection between the cosmos and the forces of man. The tarrying of a sick person by the side of Christ means that through the proximity of Christ, this sick person found himself in such a relation with the macrocosm that the latter could work upon him curatively.

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Therewith the points of view have been specified which enable us to discern how the guidance of humanity has come under the influence of the Christ. The other forces, however, which had remained behind in the Egypto-Chaldæic times worked further side by side with those that are permeated by the Christ. This is evident even in the attitude frequently adopted to-day towards the Gospels. Literary works appear in which great pains are taken to show that the Gospels can be understood through an astrological interpretation. The greatest opponents of the Gospels employ this astrological interpretation in such a manner that, the way, for example, taken by the Archangel Gabriel from Elizabeth to Mary is supposed to signify nothing more than the progress of the sun from the constellation of Virgo to another. This, in a certain sense, is correct, except that these thoughts were poured in this manner into our age by the beings who had remained behind during the Egypto-Chaldæic Period. Under such an influence people are induced to a make-belief that the Gospels present only allegories in the place of definite cosmic relations. The truth really is, that in the Christ the whole cosmos finds expression and therefore one can express the life of the Christ by connecting its separate events with the cosmic relations which work into Earth existence unceasingly _through the Christ_. A right understanding of this matter will thus lead to a full recognition of the Christ, as having lived on earth, whereas the above mentioned error, if it were true, would mean that the Christ life in the Gospels is expressed by cosmic constellation and shows that it was only a matter of constellations being treated allegorically, and that there was no real earthly Christ at all.

If a comparison were to be used, we might think of each human being as represented by a spherical mirror--which, if it were set up, would give pictures of all its surroundings. Let us suppose we were to trace with a pencil the outline of all that is shown from the surroundings. We could then take the mirror and carry the picture about with us wherever we went. Let this be a symbol for the fact that when a person is born, he brings with him a copy of the cosmos in himself, and afterwards carries about with him all through his life the effect of this one picture. The mirror might, however, be left untouched by the pencil, so that wherever the person carried it, it would depict the immediate surroundings. It then would always be giving a picture of the collective environment. This would be a symbol of the Christ from the baptism by St. John up to the mystery of Golgotha. That which, in the case of any other person, passes into his earthly existence at birth only flowed into the Christ-Jesus at every moment. And when the mystery of Golgotha was consummated, that which had been radiating from out the cosmos passed over into the spiritual substance of the earth, and has from that time forward been united with the spirit of the earth.

When St. Paul became clairvoyant before Damascus, he could recognize that That which had formerly been in the cosmos has passed over into the spirit of the earth. Of this every one can be convinced who can bring his soul into such a condition that he can have the same experience as had St. Paul. It is in the twentieth century that those people will first appear who will have St. Paul’s experience of the Christ event in a spiritual way.

Whereas up to our times this event would be experienced only by such persons as had gained clairvoyant powers by means of an esoteric training, hereafter to look upon the Christ in the spiritual sphere surrounding the earth will be possible for the advanced powers of the soul in the course of the natural evolution of humanity. This--as a repeated experience of the event before Damascus--will be possible for some people from a certain point of time in the twentieth century. The number of such people will afterwards increase, until in the distant future, it will be a natural faculty of the human soul.

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With the entrance of Christ into the evolution of the earth an entirely new impulse or direction was given to evolution. External facts of history also express this. In the early times of post-Atlantean evolution men knew very well that above them there was not merely a physical Mars, but that what they saw as Mars, Jupiter or Saturn was the expression for a spiritual being. In later times this perception was completely forgotten. The heavenly bodies became, according to human ideas, mere bodies to be estimated according to their physical condition. And in the Middle Ages people saw in connection with the stars only what the eyes can see--the sphere of Venus, the sphere of the Sun, the sphere of Mars, etc., up to the sphere of the fixed stars; and then came the eighth sphere like a solid blue wall behind. Then Copernicus appeared and broke down the idea that only that which is perceptible to the senses can be authoritative. The modern physical scientists may indeed say: “It is madness to declare that the world is Maya, or illusion, and that you must look into a spiritual world in order to see the truth, for in spite of all you say true science is that which relies on the senses and notifies what these senses tell.” But when did astronomers rely only on the senses? Surely at the very time when that astronomical science was dominant which is attacked by the science of to-day! It was at that time when Copernicus began to think out what exists in the cosmic space beyond the evidence of the senses, that our modern astronomy as a science began. And so it is in every domain of science. Everywhere that science, in the most modern sense of the word, has arisen, it has done so in opposition to what had been apparent to the senses. When Copernicus declared “what you see is Maya--or deception, rely on what you cannot see,” then the science came into being which is recognized as such to-day. It might thus be said to the representative of modern science “your science itself only became ‘science’ when it was no longer willing to depend upon the senses only.”

Giordano Bruno came as philosophical interpreter of the teachings of Copernicus. He led the gaze of man out into cosmic space, and announced that what people had called the limitations of space, what they had placed there as the eighth sphere limiting everything in space--was in reality _no_ limitation; it was Maya, or illusion; for an infinite number of worlds had been poured forth into cosmic space. That which was formerly considered to be the boundary of space was shown to be only the boundary of the sense-world of man, and if we direct our gaze _beyond_ the sense-world, we shall no longer see the world only as known to the senses, but we shall also recognize Infinity.

From this it is apparent how the course of human evolution has been such that man started from an originally spiritual view of the cosmos and in the course of time lost it. In its place there came a mere sense-perception of the world. Then there came into evolution the Christ Impulse. Through this, mankind was led to stamp the spiritual view once more upon the materialistic. At that moment when Giordano Bruno burst the fetters of the sense illusion, the Christ evolution was so far advanced, that the soul power, which had been kindled by the Christ Impulse, could then be active within him. Therewith an indication is given of the whole significance of how the life of Christ penetrates all human evolution, an evolution only at the beginning of which humanity stands to-day.

To what then does spiritual science now aspire? It completes the work begun for external science by Giordano Bruno and others in that it says: that which external science is able to perceive is Maya, or illusion. Just as formerly one looked to the “eighth sphere” and thought that space was thereby bounded, so contemporary human thought believes that man is shut in or enclosed between birth and death. Spiritual science, however, expands man’s vision by directing his attention out and beyond the limits of birth and death.

There is a continuous chain in human evolution which such ideas as these make us recognize. And in the true sense of the words, that which resulted in the conquest of sense illusion through Copernicus and Giordano Bruno, already proceeded from the inspiration due to that spiritual current which is now working in the modern spiritual science of theosophy. What one might call the newer esotericism worked in a mysterious manner on Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler and others. Those therefore who now stand, base their thought on foundations laid by Giordano Bruno and Copernicus and do not wish to accept theosophy, are unfaithful to their own traditions in desiring to hold fast by sense illusion. But spiritual science demonstrates that, as Giordano Bruno forced a way through the blue firmament of heaven, even so does this science break down the barriers of birth and death for man by showing how he originates from out of the macrocosm, lives in a physical existence, passes through death, and re-enters macrocosmic life. And what we see in a limited degree in each individual meets us unrestrictedly and in a larger sense in the representative of the spirit of the cosmos--in the Christ-Jesus. Once and once only could that impulse be given which the Christ gave. Once only could the whole cosmos be thus reflected, for the conjunction of the stars which then took place can never be repeated. In order to give an impulse to the earth, this conjunction was obliged to work through a human body. As it is true that this same grouping cannot occur a second time, so it is equally true that the Christ was only once incarnated. Only if one did not know that the Christ is the representative of the whole universe and only if it were impossible to win one’s way to this Christ-Idea, the elements for which are given through spiritual science--only then would it be possible to maintain that Christ could appear more than once upon the earth.

Thus we see how an idea of Christ arises out of the new spiritual science or theosophy, which reveals to man in a new form his connection with the whole macrocosm. Certainly, in order to gain a true knowledge of the Christ, those inspiring forces are absolutely necessary which are now being bestowed by those same superhuman beings who formerly guided the Egypto-Chaldæic epoch and who have now put themselves under the Christ. There is need of a new inspiration of this kind, of an inspiration which the great esoteric teachers of the middle ages had prepared from the thirteenth century onwards, and which from this time forth must ever come more and more into publicity. When man, according to the meaning of this science, prepares his soul aright for the knowledge of the spirit-world, he can then hear clairaudiently and he can see clairvoyantly what is revealed by the old Chaldæic and Egyptian angel beings who are now again acting as spiritual leaders under the guidance of the Christ. That which humanity will some time later actually gain thereby could only be _prepared_ in the first centuries of Christianity and up to our times.

Consequently we may say that in the future there will live in the hearts of men an idea of the Christ incomparable in greatness with anything which humanity has so far recognized. That which arose as a first impulse through the Christ, and has lived as an idea of Him up to the present time--even in the case of the best representatives of the Christ-principle--is only a preparation for the true understanding of the Christ. It would be strange indeed if, against those who in the West gave expression in such a way as this to the Christ-idea, it were brought as a reproach that they do not stand on the foundation of western Christian tradition, but it is quite possible, for this western tradition does not by any means suffice to help us to comprehend the Christ of the near future.

From the hypothesis of eastern esotericism we can see the spiritual direction of humanity gradually flowing into what may be in a real, true sense called the guidance, which comes from the Christ-impulse. That which is appearing as the new esotericism will flow slowly into the hearts of men, and the spiritual guidance of men and of humanity will ever more and more be consciously seen in such a light. We realize to ourselves how at first the Christ-principle flowed into the hearts of men because the Christ had gone about Palestine in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. Later men gradually surrendered themselves entirely to a reliance on the world of sense, and could only receive the impulse which corresponded to their perception. Afterwards that same impulse so worked through the inspiration of the new esotericism that such spirits as Nicholas Cusamus, Copernicus and Galileo were able to be inspired and Copernicus, for instance, was enabled to make this assertion: “That which is evident to the senses cannot teach the truth about the solar system; if we want to find the truth we must investigate behind sense appearances.” At that time men, even spirits like Giordano Bruno, were not yet ripe enough to join _consciously_ to the new esoteric stream. The spirit of the movement had to work in them _un_consciously. Yet powerful and magnificent was the announcement of Giordano Bruno: “When a human being enters into existence by means of birth, then it is something macrocosmic that concentrates itself as a monad; and when a human being passes through death the monad spreads itself out again; that which was enclosed within the body spreads itself out in the cosmos in order to draw itself together again in other stages of existence, and again to spread itself out.” There Bruno gave expression to mighty conceptions which, even if expressed in stammering tongue, were yet in entire accord with the sense of the new esotericism.

The spiritual influences which lead humanity need not work in such a way that man is always conscious of them. For example, they put Galileo in the cathedral of Pisa. Thousands had seen the old church lamp there, but they have not seen it as did Galileo. He saw the church lamp swinging; compared the time of its oscillation with the beat of his own pulse; found that the church lamp swung in a regular rhythm resembling his pulse-beat; and from this discovered the laws of the pendulum in the sense of modern physics. Anyone acquainted with contemporary physics knows that these would not be possible without Galileo’s principle. In this way the force was then working which is now appearing as spiritual science; Galileo was placed in the cathedral of Pisa before the oscillating church lamp, and modern physics gained its principles. In such a mysterious way do the guiding spiritual forces of humanity perform their work.

We are now approaching the time when people are to become conscious of these guiding powers. We shall always come to a better and better understanding of what has to happen in the future if we rightly understand what is working inspirationally as the new esotericism, and which shows that the same spiritual beings, indicated by the ancient Egyptians when the Greeks asked them about their teachers, who then ruled as gods, are now again assuming control, through having placed themselves under the leadership of the Christ. Ever more and more will men feel how they can cause to reappear in a brighter lustre, in a nobler style and on a higher level, that which was pre-Christian. The consciousness necessary for the present time, which must be an intensified consciousness, ought to give us a feeling of our high duty and great responsibility in reference to the recognition of the spiritual world, and this can only penetrate into our soul when we have recognized in the sense indicated, what is the task of spiritual science.

[2] By “Ancient Persian” is not meant “Persian” in the usual historic sense, but a pre-historic Asiatic (Iranian) civilization which developed in that land over which, later on, the Persian Kingdom extended.

THE END.