The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

Topical focus

In the 2nd lecture on the Apocalypse of John, the spiritual vision of John, written down on the island of Patmos, is further illuminated. According to Rudolf Steiner, the seven churches represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era. His epistles to the seven churches focus in particular on the church in Ephesus, with which John had a particularly close relationship. This place - a reflection of the ancient primeval Indian culture ‘’‘-’‘’' was also concerned, among other things, with the secrets of the formative forces of life, with the life-creating word through the Christ. The lecture clarifies the background to the Mystery of Golgotha, the betrayal of Judas and sayings of the Christ that are misinterpreted today.

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Transcription of the 2nd lecture

(by Bruno, Elke December 2022)

The seven letters to the seven churches 0:00:51

Let's jump in: The topic for today is ‘’‘the letters to the seven churches’‘’. We already dealt with this a little last time, also with the ‘’‘number seven’‘’‘, that the number seven always “”’stands for a temporal development process‘’', i.e. for a time sequence that takes place in seven steps. This applies on a large scale, i.e. for the very large development of the world. You will probably be familiar with this starting from Old Saturn, via the Old Sun, the Old Moon, now our earth development and then on to the future developments, New Jupiter or New Jerusalem, as it says here in the Apocalypse. Then on to Venus, up to the volcanic state, the New. That would be ‘’‘the very great world development’‘’. But the same can also be applied to ‘’‘smaller cycles’‘’. And why do I say that? I say that because the seven churches to which the epistles are addressed basically stand for such cycles of seven, for such cycles of development. You can apply them to different development cycles and read them from this perspective.

Rudolf Steiner used it, for example, in the lectures he gave in Nuremberg, I think in 1908 or 1909, where he related it in particular to the cultural epochs, that is, to our ‘’‘seven cultural epochs in the post-Atlantean period’‘’, that is: the ‘’‘primeval Indian’‘’ epoch, the ‘’‘primeval Persian’‘’ epoch, the ‘’‘Egyptian-Chaldean’‘’ period, then ‘’‘Greco-Roman’‘’, the earthly life of Jesus Christ falls into this period, that is, into the first third of this period. And now we are in the fifth time, in the so-called modern age or ‘’‘fifth post-Atlantean time’‘’, the ‘’‘age of the’‘’‘ “”’consciousness soul‘’‘’, that is where we are now. Then there will be two more, to which the Apocalypse also refers very strongly in principle, because ultimately at the ‘’‘end of the seventh cultural period’‘’, when it comes to an end, it will turn - as it says in the Apocalypse - into the ‘’‘’war of all against all‘’‘’. In other words, there will then be major clashes, although you don't necessarily have to imagine the war in the same way as wars take place today. But there will simply be ‘’‘a spiritual confrontation’‘’, where basically everyone is against everyone else. Or it will be overcome. But at least there is the problem that humanity, which is ‘’‘not sufficiently spiritually developed’‘’', will be split more and more into individual egos that can't get along with each other, let's put it mildly.

Worldwide control system of Ahriman. Humanity as an oiled machine 0:03:50

It has to be said that this is also something that ‘’‘Ahriman’‘’ sees. And what he ‘’‘actually wants to prevent’‘’ basically or at least wants to find a possible solution for it by simply ‘’‘creating a worldwide control system’‘’ or creating a worldwide organised machinery that should serve mankind for the good, for the happiness of all, so that these egoisms cannot become dangerous. However, ‘’‘at the sacrifice of one's own spiritual development’‘’. This means that this machinery only works, of course, if everyone is a good cog in the machine, i.e. if Ahriman finds a way to make people ‘’‘really run along’‘’ with this machinery that he sets in motion. We have just experienced or are experiencing a really small example of how quickly something like this can happen. ‘’‘How quickly control options’‘’, regulations, etc. can be established worldwide and, by and large, are followed. I don't want to talk about the meaningfulness or otherwise of the measures, that would be a very long chapter, but in any case it is also a ‘’‘typical test gallop of Ahriman’‘’ to see how quickly humanity can be ‘’‘synchronised’‘’‘ so that it submits to the Ahrimanic principle of being an “”’oiled machine‘’‘’. Humanity as an oiled machine, where everyone is a functioning cog that plays its part, but it only works if the machine ‘’runs in the right synchronised rhythm‘’. There is no room for an individual cog to say: I want to turn differently now, I want to turn in the other direction or I want to be smaller or bigger. Then the machine gets stuck. Figuratively speaking.

So that is very much behind these time phenomena, which we have experienced in stages. The first was with this ‘’‘terrorist attack in the United States, the famous 9/11’‘’ As a result, the control mechanisms were massively upgraded. The next story was the ‘’‘thing with the so-called financial crisis,’‘’ there was also a lot behind it. A lot of new regulations have been developed, especially with regard to ‘’‘finance and capital’‘’. Ultimately, this all serves the purpose of control. Now we have the next stage. So, of course, Ahriman uses every opportunity he can get his hands on. That's just the background.

In other words, Ahriman is someone who ultimately wants to try to organise this ‘’‘war of all against all’‘’ in such a way that it at least ‘’‘doesn't destroy humanity’‘’. Because he doesn't actually want that. He just wants to ‘’‘incorporate them into his empire’‘’ That's why he needs them, the people. He needs - how shall I put it - ‘’‘obedient people.’‘’ So the danger is not so much that humanity itself will be destroyed, but that its spiritual development will be halted and that its spiritual path will be destroyed. The outer path will continue, but the question is: how will it continue? Because we have to think that the time will come in the relatively near future - i.e. a little beyond the seventh cultural epoch - when people will no longer incarnate in such large numbers on earth and when the ‘’‘earthly’‘’ ‘’‘incarnations’‘’‘ in a physical body “”’will end‘’‘’. So this is much closer than you think. So outwardly it will look like humanity will die out as a physical being. Because it should then be ready to develop further in a more spiritual state. We are not there yet, but we do not have that much time left to reach this goal, that we can also develop further in a non-physical state - not even in an ethereal state at times.

The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22

What is the problem with this? What could prevent us from doing so? The obstacle is that today we need the physical body above all to acquire and retain our I-consciousness. So the moment ‘’‘we discard the physical body’‘’, ‘’‘our usual ego consciousness is gone’‘’, i.e. ‘’‘we are basically asleep’‘’. This does not mean that our ego is gone. Our ‘I’ is very much there. Our real I is there. But ‘’‘we can't grasp it with our consciousness,’‘’ that's the problem.

That is why in many cases our higher self, which is our real I, our spiritual I, is still ‘’‘very much in the hands of the angel’‘’ who guides us and ‘’‘who accompanies us’‘’. Because this angel must, for example, also have an awareness of all the incarnations we have already gone through and what we are carrying with us. The angel has the awareness of this, but we - unless we have developed spiritually - do not have this on earth. We only have this ‘’‘small sensual consciousness that is directed outwards’‘’ and the memories of course. Then there are external events, the moods we experience. But that has nothing at all to do with our real I. Even what comes in through thinking, we reach the threshold somewhere, but there is still a lot of what we have absorbed externally, most of the concepts etc. we have absorbed from outside, we have learnt somewhere. We are only really ‘’‘in living thinking’‘’ when we form the ‘’‘concepts from scratch’‘’ ourselves. In other words, we experience them by looking out into nature, for example, and I see plants, then I actually have to get as far as Goethe, for example, to experience the primordial plant. The primordial plant is roughly what ‘’‘the living concept of the plant’‘’ is. Only then do I know what real concepts are. Namely, real concepts are simply basically essential entities that exist in the etheric world as forming entities, ‘’'as formative forces. Then there is more behind that. But I have to get down to that level at least. And that's where we still find it very difficult today.

Getting into this kind of thinking, training it, is what Rudolf Steiner wanted to prepare us for with his philosophical works, especially with his ‘Philosophy of Freedom’. He doesn't speak much, at least in the original version, about the spiritual world and the perception of the spiritual world. But in truth, when you are inside living thinking, then a ‘’‘spiritual perception’‘’ begins there. A perception that is no longer dependent on the physical in truth. Whereas our normal everyday thinking with the concepts we have learnt is very much dependent on the physical brain, not only to become conscious, but nowadays also partly to form these concepts. What is actually an untruth is slowly becoming true, namely that it is not the brain that thinks, but that ‘’‘thinking’‘’ takes place ‘’‘primarily in the etheric’‘’. That is the lowest level at least to which it descends. And this is then reflected in the physical, which is how we first become aware of it. And ‘’‘what we experience as thoughts is only that which has died’‘’. In other words, the dead reflection in truth.

So the first step we would have to take would be to get so far in our thinking that we really get into this ‘’‘living realm’‘’, into the etheric realm. Then we would no longer need a physical body on this level and then we would also be able to experience ego consciousness on this level. In other words, ‘’‘in pure thinking’‘’ you can really also experience ‘’‘the pure concept of your own I.’‘’ So that's just an introduction. Because just as the ‘philosophy of freedom’ wants to and should pave the way for this in its own way, another way is the ‘Apocalypse of John’. In truth, it also leads to a way of thinking or experiencing the world and life, including one's own life, that is already grasped by the spiritual side. In other words, the content of everything in the Apocalypse is not yet the real thing, but it is a ‘’‘path of practice’‘’ that leads to at least perceiving ‘’‘the spiritual, the ethereal side’‘’ at the very beginning. And that's why only someone will start something with the apocalypse when it gets going a little. In other words, to get away from the cerebral thinking that is so prevalent today. And the whole event of Christ's life on earth, that Christ goes to the ‘place of the skull’ - ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means ‘’‘the place of the skull’‘’' - It's no coincidence that it's called that. Because that's where the problem lies. Because ‘’‘our spirituality’‘’ is threatening to ‘’‘die’‘’ at the brain up there today.

The first three years of life - from son of God to son of man 0:14:20

And that is the side effect of the fact that we need it to become conscious, ‘’‘to become ego-conscious’‘’. But a very decisive step has happened, for example with children, when they grow up, around the first three years of life, so before you experience this moment: ‘’‘’‘I am an I’‘’‘’ - perhaps you don't put it like that as a child - but you realise: ‘’‘I am something different’‘’ from everything around me. Where this great moment lights up, however, is precisely the moment when we ‘’‘no longer consciously experience’‘’ our ‘’‘real I’‘’'. But only ‘’‘the mirror image’‘’' So this experience around ‘’‘the third year of life’‘’ is when our earthly ego consciousness awakens. And we actually recognise the real I that has been working very strongly within us up to now and has shaped our entire organism and given us our individual imprint. This happens in the first three years of life. So there are three things in particular: the ‘’‘power to stand upright’‘’, i.e. that we learn to stand, learn to walk, thereby ‘’‘getting our hands free’‘’. In other words, it also involves being able to grasp something with our hands, that's where it starts. Eye movement is also part of it, it's all part of the power to stand upright, because the gaze is actually touching the world with the eyes. It's true that if our eyes were completely fixed, we would basically see nothing, we wouldn't perceive any forms. We perceive all forms by actually ‘’tracing the forms with our eyes‘’. You can even investigate this scientifically, you can mount small mirrors on your eyes and record the movements of your eyes with a large light pointer, then you can see that you are scanning the objects. We scan everything we see. ‘’‘We actually draw that.’‘’ And ‘’‘what we can't draw’‘’ with our gaze, we don't ‘’‘see’‘’ either. Even if it's there in front of us. So certain shapes that we are not trained to draw, we simply don't see them. We don't perceive them. This is a very important active process, but one that basically needs to be trained throughout life - so it's not finished in the first three years of life - so it's precisely this straightening up with the gaze. It starts much earlier, before we can even stand, so it actually starts from the top. Then at some point we start to be able to reach with our hands and finally we sit up and maybe even crawl on all fours. But then at some point we manage, very shakily, to ‘’stand on our own two feet‘’. Then the path of uprightness has begun.

The next thing that develops along the way - for example, this movement with the eyes, touching with the eyes, grasping with the hands, hearing, but now also ‘’‘conscious hearing’‘’ - the ‘’‘language’‘’'. Next comes language. That is the next thing to develop. There are some psychological theories today that always want to turn it around, believing that thinking must come before language. But that's not true at all - instead ‘’‘language is there before’‘’. The pleasure now, the ‘’‘joy of creating forms in the breath’‘’. That is actually it. It's just living together with the people around me. The child has no clear awareness of this in the sense of an ego consciousness. It doesn't have that yet. This means that the child also ‘’‘can't remember it later’‘’ None of us can remember. We don't get past the age of three. Nobody can remember how they were born. We only know from stories. Not even an insider can get that far. So this is ‘’‘a very sacred time’‘’, these ‘’‘first three years’‘’' And it is only with language, with language that ‘’‘gestures’‘’', gestures in the sense that they become expressive movements, that thinking develops.

So ‘’‘thinking’‘’ is the last thing. It is now, so to speak, a kind of internalised movement, ‘’a mental movement‘’. And in the first three years, it has a very strong effect on the fine structure of the brain, giving it a very individualised shape. It receives a certain imprint at birth, which is already individual, but it is worked out in the first three years of life. And when this has been worked out enough, only then can the ‘’‘brain become an instrument of reflection’‘’ and at least mirror back to us what our real I is. This is then ‘’‘our earthly consciousness’‘’ that we have. And at the very moment when this happens, we have ‘’changed from a son of God to a son of man‘’. These are two terms that also appear in the Bible in the New Testament and are usually used to refer to Christ. But basically this applies to every human being. The Son of God works in the first three years of life. And this refers to nothing other than our higher self, i.e. ‘’‘our real I’‘’, but which is still conveyed to us in truth ‘’‘through the angel who accompanies us’‘’. Because he has the awareness for us. We don't have it ourselves yet. We are only learning to have it now, but only in our reflection - and there we see very little of it.

Christ's life on earth also means that the ‘’‘Son of God also becomes the Son of Man’‘’. And this process is really completed ‘’‘in the minute of death on Golgotha’‘’ That is when the Son of God became fully Son of Man. So these are the three years for the Christ, which correspond to the three years of childhood. It was only with the Christ that he only began to incarnate in the 30th year of Jesus of Nazareth's life and this incarnation process was completed with his death on Golgotha. With the death on Golgotha. We have already spoken last time about the fact that this is basically the first time that a spiritual being, a supreme spiritual being at that, ‘’passes through death‘’. With all the experiences that are associated with it and to the fullest extent possible. And I would like to say now, but let's think about this before we go on to the seven churches - but it already has a lot to do with the first church in truth - let's think about this: ‘’‘Why don't the spiritual beings know anything about death?’‘’

What happens to us after death? 0:22:30

Let's think about what happens to us when we go through death? ‘’‘The way Rudolf Steiner describes it to us,’‘’ how we can perhaps relive it a little. We also talked about this last time: When you die, in the three or three and a half days after death, you have ‘’‘this great panorama of life,’‘’ that is, an overview of your entire life in which you can move freely. But where you see this life from a higher point of view, where you simply - in earthly terms you would say - find it incredibly exciting and incredibly interesting how this life has gone and what meaning this life has had at all. You can see that and it's a very happy experience, so it's not painful at all. Quite the opposite. It is ‘’‘something very happy’‘’. I also told you last time that the ‘’‘tales of paradise’‘’ or the ‘’‘promises of paradise in Islam’‘’, which you find in the Koran, basically draw on this. They refer to this panorama of life. And then you have an experience that - how shall I put it - at least in your memory is linked to sensual life on earth. So it is an experience that still takes place in sensual images. From the moment this ‘’‘panorama of life’‘’ dissolves, the sensual images are finally ‘’‘gone’‘’. Even if you then go through the so-called ‘’‘Kamaloka, through purgatory’‘’ and ‘’‘experience your life backwards’‘’, basically back to birth, you must not imagine that you are looking at it from an external sensory perspective. Instead, we experience above all ‘’‘what all other beings have experienced deep inside’‘’ by ‘’‘encountering us’‘’'. In other words, the ‘’‘joy’‘’ we have given them. We experience the pain we have caused them. We no longer experience the external situation as it happened. But we strongly experience the pain, the mental anguish that we have caused someone, but also of course the joy that we have caused and often didn't even realise it, because it can often be the case that someone ‘’‘says a few words, perhaps in passing,’‘’ that simply come from the heart, and that can be deeply meaningful for someone else. You shouldn't underestimate that. Sometimes it's so casual. They were a few nice and sincere words, but they can be very decisive for the other person, deeply life-changing. That happens again and again in life. ‘’‘Great insiders’‘’ differ from ‘normal’ people only in that they can do it ‘’‘quite consciously’‘’. And for the others, it just happens through fate. Because they themselves are also guided in their destiny, namely by their own higher self, which they cannot yet encompass with their consciousness.

The first church - the primeval Indian cultural epoch 0:25:58

So ‘’‘these three first years of life,’‘’ in which the Son of God, ‘’‘the Son of God dwells in us’‘’', in other words really our higher self, are very decisive. And it is out of this power that the entire ‘’‘primeval Indian time’‘’ lives. This is now the first church we are talking about. Perhaps I will read this whole passage to you, where the Son of Man is also mentioned. We read this passage last time, but I think it's important enough to hear it again.

‘’Question from a listener: Doctor, didn't you say that Rudolf Steiner presented it differently? Once...and the other presentation would not be cultural epochs, but...‘’

W.: Well, he really does refer it in part to the great periods of world development, for example, there are such allusions in the Apocalypse lectures ‘’‘for the priests of the Christian community.’‘’ That was ‘’‘the last lecture cycle’‘’ that he gave before his illness. This did not quite last until Michaelmas Day, on Michaelmas Day there was then ‘’‘1924,’‘’ there was the very well-known last address, ‘’‘a last lecture that R. Steiner gave,’‘’ which he was unable to deliver to the end. Incidentally, it also contains something very important for our topic, because it throws a spotlight on the initiation in truth - if you read it correctly - on ‘’‘the initiation of Lazarus’‘’, who thus became ‘’‘John’‘’'. So it is about the connection between ‘’‘John the Baptist and Lazarus’‘’. We discussed this last time, that at the dedication, i.e. at this so-called ‘’‘raising of Lazarus from the dead’‘’, a connection was made between the beheaded ‘’‘John the Baptist’‘’ who had already crossed the threshold and Lazarus‘’' who remained below.

‘’The listener goes on to ask: I didn't want to interrupt, but I was interested to hear about the great cycles of development, by which you mean Saturn, the sun, the moon, etc.?

W.: Yes, the ‘’‘planetary development cycles’‘’. But basically you can apply it to a wide variety of development cycles, including sub-cycles and so on. So there are many things you can do where R. Steiner may not have said anything about it, but you are always right when you say that I can use what is written in the seven churches, in the letters to the seven churches, which shed light on such development cycles that take place in seven steps. You can always find inspiration there.

‘’Listener: Thank you!‘’

Connection between Lazarus and John the Baptist 0:29:18

Yes, but anyway, to come back briefly to this last speech - there he first describes something that was very well known. He talks about the ‘’‘reincarnations of Elijah’‘’, who was later reborn as ‘’‘Raphael and’‘’ then as ‘’‘Novalis’‘’. And in between it is usually called ‘’‘John the Baptist’‘’. And in this speech he says: ‘’Yes, Elijah, who was reborn as and then worked at the turn of time as John the Evangelist and was then reborn as Raphael and as Novalis‘’. Now the people who were listening were somehow very confused and thought to themselves that perhaps Rudolf Steiner had made a mistake, because he didn't explain it in any more detail, it just came in one sentence. And of course they asked him later what that meant. And then he said that it had to do with the fact that ‘’‘this strong connection came about’‘’ between ‘’‘Lazarus and John the Baptist’‘’ at the turn of time. Lazarus was a man of his time, a man of the fourth cultural period (747 BC - 1413 AD), in the fourth cultural period the intellectual and emotional soul was formed, which is why philosophy and all these things, logic, came into being at that time. Basically, he could not yet fully develop the higher elements of his being at that time, but ‘’‘John the Baptist - from over there’‘’' - had in a certain way ‘’‘developed’‘’ all these higher elements of being,‘’' i.e. consciousness soul, but also spirit self, life spirit and even spirit man. This is also due to the special individuality of John the Baptist.

The raising of Lazarus - a process of initiation 0:31:36

That is, ‘’‘at the moment of initiation’‘’ at the raising of Lazarus, when the ‘’‘Christ speaks: “”’Lazarus, come out! ‘’‘,’‘’‘ basically stands before him through the connection with John, who is over there, a man who - because they actually stand before him like a man now - who reaches from the physical body up to the spiritual man - i.e. a man who at this moment basically represents “”’the goal towards which humanity is heading.‘’‘’ This is already anticipated in this moment for a moment, for a period of time, precisely for this period of revival, i.e. where Christ says: ‘’‘Lazarus, come out!’‘’' The typical word of the initiate should now also be used, but it is not so clearly stated in the passage. But it is hinted at a little earlier in the Gospel of John, where it says:

‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’

‘’‘For the glorification of God,’‘’ if you like, basically this refers to ‘’‘the old word of initiation’‘’'. The initiation disciple, when he awoke from the initiation sleep in which he had these spiritual experiences, the first thing he basically said was:

‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’

That is, how has the whole spiritual fullness come down to me? The ‘’‘whole spiritual divine fullness’‘’ has ‘’‘come down’‘’ on me. You will surely know that this is also a word of Christ. ‘’‘A word of Christ on the cross’‘’ or at least a variant in which it is handed down. Interestingly, it is handed down in two variants:

‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’

Or the other variant:

‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’

These are now again ‘’'the two aspects, Son of God and Son of Man. The Son of Man is the one who is abandoned at the moment when the earthly ego consciousness fully awakens. And these two moments, this - how shall I put it - ‘’‘truly full incarnation of the Christ’‘’ really happens in that one moment on Golgotha. Everything is together there. Together as the Son of Man and the Son of God. And this initiation of Lazarus can certainly be seen as a preparation for this in a certain way, because now a man also unites the Son of Man and the Son of God in himself. The Son of God is really the one who is connected with the upper members of the being, namely with the spirit man, the spirit of life and the spirit self - and the spiritual side of the consciousness soul.

Directing the consciousness soul towards the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05

Not true, ‘’‘the consciousness soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has ‘’‘two sides,’‘’ of which only one is strongly developed at the moment, namely the consciousness that we direct towards the external, the sensual world. So we now feel like an individual being facing the world. We have not yet developed an awareness of the spiritual world, at least not in the masses. But that is the next step that is coming. So that is the first task - even if we are anthroposophists or if we are interested in anthroposophy and work with it - what we have to develop: an awareness of the spiritual at the most elementary level. ‘’'That happens precisely in thinking. So, where we move from - how shall I put it - ‘’‘brain thinking to living thinking’‘’' In other words, when we become conscious in the realm of the etheric forces, we manage to direct our consciousness soul towards the spiritual. To a ‘’‘lowest spiritual,’‘’ if you like, ‘’‘but still’‘’ to a spiritual. So at the moment when we experience this living thinking, we no longer need the physical brain in order to have an awareness of it. We then need it in order to translate it into earthly words, earthly language and pass it on. But that is no longer a problem. Because the actual experience is already in a state that is free from the physical. That is important.

In other words, the Son of God begins with us in the midst of the soul of consciousness, which means that we ‘’‘as human beings today’‘’, if we are ‘’‘spiritually striving’‘’', spiritually striving in a forward-looking direction, we are already on the verge of bringing something of this sonship of God into our consciousness. That is the decisive step. That we find the transition from our everyday I-consciousness, which is only a reflection and even a distorted reflection of the real I, to ‘’‘becoming aware of this real I’‘’. That is the crucial step and ‘’that will change our entire culture‘’. That this is not yet the case - ‘’‘anthroposophy is basically the harbinger’‘’ of this, some people have already grasped this and have already developed this way of thinking, but there are not yet very many in the world as a whole. But once this leap takes place on a broader basis, everything will change. The ‘’‘whole way of thinking will change’‘’ Of course, this will also lead to a certain polarisation in humanity, which will ultimately end after a long time with the spiritual war of all against all. Because there will be people who can do this and there will be people who cannot. People who have made it can very well help others to find their way there after all. But even so, there will most likely still be some who don't make it. And that is the part that will ultimately be ‘’in great danger‘’ of ‘’getting lost in the realm of Ahriman‘’ in order to continue on its path there. There are still many ways to turn back, but the first step is taken to ensure that instead of belonging to the human realm, one is actually integrated into Ahriman's realm in the broadest sense. That is ‘’‘the actual realm of death’‘’. So that is the realm of Ahriman.

The spiritual hierarchies do not know death 0:39:28

And with that I return to the question: Yes, what about death and why do the spiritual entities not know death? ‘’‘Except for the Christ,’‘’ who ‘’‘passed through death as a man.’‘’ As a man and as God. As both at the same time. The spiritual beings who are above us cannot and could not see into this dark realm - not even the Christ before he passed through Golgotha. It is ‘’‘completely inaccessible’‘’. It is inaccessible to the highest pinnacle, because it lies - how shall I put it - ‘’‘in the plan of creation’‘’, not only of our earth, but of these entire planetary stages of development from Old Saturn to Vulcan, that ‘’‘the highest divine source’‘’ has ‘’‘created a counter-realm’‘’' for itself, which completely eludes its insight and access. In other words, it is a task of fullness of power that the divine accomplishes. ‘’‘This is the only way to create the possibility of freedom for man - for the spiritual being that we are or are to become.’‘’ There is no other possibility. Man must have the possibility of finding a realm in which the highest divine source simply does not exist. And of which it also knows nothing.

And that is the real realm of death that is at stake. And that is ‘’‘the realm to which the Christ has found access.’‘’ We will see this again clearly in the words I am about to read. Because there it is said that ‘’‘it is he who has the keys to the kingdom of death and the shadows’‘’. He doesn't say at all at this point: it is I who have the keys to the kingdom of heaven. That is not the important thing at that moment. All spiritual beings have the key to the kingdom of heaven, so to speak. But what is not at all self-evident, ‘’‘what is completely new’‘’ and important, ‘’‘what characterises the Christ’‘’ is that ‘’‘for the first time he also receives the key to the kingdom down there’‘’, but combined with - how should I put it, as a human being one would say with the firm promise or vow - ‘’‘not to intervene in this kingdom in a changing way’‘’'. So that means that ‘’‘the Christ’‘’ himself ‘’‘will not take Ahriman away from us.’‘’

‘’‘He will help us’‘’ if we wrestle with Ahriman and try to ‘’‘take him in a different direction’‘’. And perhaps at some point, if we succeed, even give Ahriman the opportunity to reconnect to the full spiritual world. Because the truth is that ‘’‘he also suffers’‘’ in the realm below. He has, if you like, ‘’‘on divine commission’‘’ taken on this basically painful task of going into this dark realm of his own. Dark precisely because, conversely, ‘’‘Ahriman’‘’ is cut off from the rest of the ‘’‘spiritual world’‘’. So just as the spiritual world knows nothing of this realm down there, Ahriman knows nothing of the spiritual world that is above it. And he suffers from this. Because his realm is very powerful and has a lot of powers in it, he has taken a lot with him, he has been given a huge package, so to speak, which he was allowed to take with him in order to be able to fulfil his task at all. But nevertheless, ‘’‘he is denied access to the source of creation’‘’, which otherwise all spiritual beings have. And the point is, he can only find ‘’‘access through the human being’‘’ Only through humans. Through the human being, ‘’‘in whom the human ego works’‘’, but in whom the Christ also works in a certain way, of course. But it is still us, our individual ego, that can open the way for Ahriman, i.e. that can contribute to Ahriman's redemption or not.

If we don't succeed, then ‘’‘everyone will suffer’‘’. This means that people will suffer, Ahriman will suffer and the regular spiritual world will of course also suffer because ‘’‘an Ahrimanic separate world will remain,’‘’ which will basically ‘’‘separate itself from the regular development’‘’ for eternity. Which is basically lost. And which becomes something else. So there's so much in there, but now I'll read this piece that we had last time. John writes:

‘’"On the day of the Lord I was taken into the spirit realm and I heard a mighty voice behind me like the sound of a trumpet. It said, ‘Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and Thyatira, to Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea. And I turned to see the one whose voice was speaking to me. And when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands a figure like that of the Son of Man ...‘’‘

like “”’that of the Son of Man‘’‘’, that is important, so there is this aspect, that ‘’‘refers in truth to the Christ,’‘’ that is precisely why this aspect is particularly important, that he also became the Son of Man through his incarnation. And it is now described what he looks like -

’... ‘’clothed in a long flowing robe, his chest girded with a golden belt, with a white head, his hair shining like white wool and like snow, with eyes as if they were flames of fire, with feet as if they were of gold ore glowing in the fire, with a voice like the sound of great rivers of water, in his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth it came forth like a sharp two-edged sword, and his face shone like the sun in all its power. ‘‘’

So that is this encounter with the Son of Man. Then comes a passage that we have already described last time, that is the end of the first chapter, which we do not need to repeat now because it has basically already been said. But it begins now: ‘’‘What does he write to the individual churches?’‘’

John's relationship to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40

The first church he writes to is ‘’‘Ephesus’‘’. John himself had a very close relationship with the church of Ephesus, a very close relationship. ‘’‘Ephesus is an ancient place of mystery,’‘’ a ‘’‘sanctuary of Artemis’‘’ is there. So this Artemis sanctuary has something to do with the life forces, in other words with the ‘’‘life-giving forces’‘’'. Of course, they have a lot to do with ‘’‘the Christ in truth’‘’. You probably know the picture of this statue of Artemis, with the many ‘’‘many breasts’‘’ on it, so I don't know how many there are. A whole lot in any case. So ‘’‘as an image of this exuberant life force’‘’. In other words, it actually refers to the life-giving powers of the Christ in truth, that's what they are, life-giving powers. In a certain way, they are also motherly life-giving powers. You know - most of you will probably know - that women have stronger life-giving powers than men. Men use them for other things, they become more hardened and can no longer utilise them as well. But today this is beginning to even out. That's why today, compared to the past, ‘’the genders are often no longer so clearly defined. So you often think to yourself, now I don't know, is that a male or a female? This is perhaps also related to how they dress, to make it even more unclear. But it's already starting to converge. So a lot will change there too.

It will ultimately come to the point that in the 6th - 7th millennium - i.e. we will reach the time of the 7th cultural epoch (5733 - 7893 AD) and perhaps a little beyond - ‘’‘procreation in the normal way’‘’ will no longer be possible. In other words, natural reproduction will no longer work. In reality, it will decline even earlier. So there will be problems even earlier. We can see it even now ‘’‘already in our time’‘’‘, namely “”’in the so-called Western cultures‘’‘’ The ‘’‘new generation rate is much lower there than in the Orient’‘’ or something like that. Islam therefore relies very heavily on this diverse reproduction because it hopes to bring this element into the world so that ultimately there are only more people who come from the stream. This has to do with the fact that this intellectual thinking that we have developed today - and which has also helped us to have our little ego consciousness - is connected with the fact that without this abstract, dead thinking, our ego consciousness that we have here is not possible. So we have to make everything living spiritual in us dead, otherwise we won't see it in the mirror, otherwise we won't get an image. So we have to go to the place of the skull. Basically, with every thought we realise, it's a miniature death on Golgotha. ‘’‘Something spiritual dies and passes through.’‘’ The question is: will that which passes through ‘’come back to resurrection? That is the first thing we have to learn in our thinking. So this is a difficult process that we are facing.

So now this ‘’‘John went to Ephesus’‘’, to these ‘’‘Mysteries of Ephesus,’‘’ where there is also this ‘’‘Artemis sanctuary’‘’, where these life forces are not only worshipped, but where people try to catch them, to develop them, these ‘’‘Christ-life forces’‘’'. I also described this last time, that we can develop both our consciousness soul and our ‘’spirit self‘’ to a certain degree by our own efforts. This is only up to us, ‘’‘basically nobody helps us anymore today.’‘’ We have to do it ourselves. So that's ‘’‘something completely new’‘’. Incidentally, this is also the new thing that came with the Mystery of Golgotha - and even the approach to it with the raising of Lazarus - that no one helps us to develop our spiritual self. ‘’‘We have to do this through our ego.’‘’ And really through our ego. Not even the angel helps us with this, because he would interfere with our freedom. So he ‘’‘helps us to find good conditions’‘’ for it. But the opportunity, so to speak, that he offers us through our destiny, we have to seize it ourselves. Or we fail to seize it. So that's something we have to do ourselves.

But what we ‘’‘cannot do’‘’ is to fill ourselves completely with these life forces, namely those that lead to the ‘’‘life spirit’‘’ at the highest level, and ultimately lead to ‘’‘we ourselves being able to create life forces out of nothing’‘’. And from this we can then later create an ‘’‘etheric body’‘’ for our incarnation - whereby incarnation is then no longer the right word, but that doesn't matter - and we can then basically create an ‘’‘etheric body’‘’ out of nothing. Regardless of which etheric forces are in the environment. This means that we are then no longer dependent on whether there are good or less good, less useful etheric forces in our environment, but we can create it out of nothing. Yes, we can do even more, ‘’‘we can co-operate in the redemption of the world’‘’ and ‘’‘remove bad, corrupt etheric forces’‘’ from the world‘’‘, for example, especially those - and this will become an urgent task at some point - those life forces “”’that we ourselves have corrupted‘’‘’. Because only we can get rid of them. We may have ‘’‘unconsciously corrupted’‘’ them, but we must ‘’‘consciously’‘’' remove them from the world at some point. Otherwise they will poison the world, you could say, in a way.

But in order for us to somehow ‘’‘get this spirit of life’‘’ into our earthly development,‘’‘ we “”’need the help of Christ‘’'. And incidentally, the initiation name ‘’‘John’‘’' also points to this - after all, it was very rightly noted that John is actually a general initiation name, namely for Christian initiates, in precisely this sense. ‘’‘Christian initiates’‘’ in the sense that they ‘’‘develop their spirit self by their own power’‘’ and ‘’‘by grace through Christ’‘’ receive the ‘’‘spirit of life’‘’'. And thus already have these powers at their disposal to a certain degree, at least now, even to a certain degree ‘’‘consciously at their disposal,’‘’ although they cannot yet consciously develop it themselves. But they can already draw on these powers to a certain extent through ‘’‘the grace of Christ’‘’. So you can see inside that ‘’‘the principle of grace’‘’ - because we anthroposophists are often accused of this: yes, you are only practising self-redemption and Christianity is so important because of the principle of grace. The church representatives in particular often accuse us of this, but it is very much there. You have to take a very differentiated look. ‘’‘Where is grace’‘’ and where is ‘’‘what we have to do ourselves’‘’? Incidentally, the one is also the prerequisite for the other. Because if our spiritual self is not sufficiently developed, then this spirit of life cannot be fully absorbed. In other words, it is precisely by developing the spirit self that we prepare ourselves to receive more and more ‘’of the life force of Christ‘’. If we don't do this, then the Christ cannot give it to us because we would not be able to bear it. That is the problem. Because if this life force works purely into our organism, it ultimately destroys it, as paradoxical as that sounds. It is simply ‘’‘this overabundance of life forces’‘’ Template:Banner4v7ApoWolfgang

The death of Christ on Golgotha 0:57:15

Basically, it was also this ‘’‘superabundance of life forces’‘’ that had ‘’‘in truth already exhausted the life forces’‘’ of the body of Jesus Christ at the time of his death on Golgotha. Exhausted in the sense that the physical body was in danger of breaking. This is the ‘’‘shattering experience in the Garden of Gethsemane’‘’ after the Last Supper, where these famous words are spoken: ‘’‘’‘’My God, let this cup pass from me!‘’‘’‘’ What is often ‘’‘misinterpreted’‘’ so outwardly, as if Christ were still hesitating whether or not he wanted to take on this difficult fate of going through death on Golgotha. And that he might still want to ask that it not happen. ‘’‘That's not the point!’‘’' That's not the real reason. The real reason is: ‘’'Please let me make it through this night. Let me ‘’‘not die before this death on Golgotha takes place.’‘’ Because only when this ignominious death takes place out there, ‘’‘then my work is finished.’‘’ Then it will be finished. To simply die now on Maundy Thursday or on the night from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, ‘’‘it would have been too early’‘’. And then ‘’‘the full incarnation’‘’ would not have happened. But the fact is that this physical body vessel was, paradoxically, so strongly influenced by the strong power of Christ and especially by the strong etheric forces that were inside it - because ‘’‘etheric forces are life forces,’‘’ but they were so strong that this physical body vessel could no longer withstand it. This is why the Christ is described as sweating blood. This ‘’‘sweating blood’‘’, doctors know this very clearly, if blood really leaks through the skin, then this is a ‘’‘sign of approaching death’‘’. Because it basically means nothing other than that the blood vessels are beginning to break down. Otherwise you don't sweat blood. You can bleed, then a vein is destroyed. But if blood seeps through the skin, begins to seep through the vessels, then it's high alert. Yes, basically nothing can be done then. Because then the blood is no longer able to move through the organism. This means that the most important thing we have inside us, this vascular system, breaks at that point, becomes permeable, porous. This is a typical sign of the death throes that are already occurring at that moment. And it requires ‘’‘an immense concentration of the Christ to hold this body together’‘’ and then to go through it. The arrest then takes place ‘’‘through Judas’‘’'. Incidentally, this is also something that will come up in a moment, and there is something interesting about it. Why does Judas have to say who Jesus is? He's been preaching all over the country for three years now, so almost everyone has seen him there. Why don't people recognise him at first sight? Isn't that a riddle? Why does someone have to give him a ‘’‘brotherly kiss’‘’ to show that it's him? So that's something interesting. But we'll get to that in a moment.

Yes, this body vessel was in danger of breaking. The utmost concentration was necessary for him to drag himself through this night from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, which was still connected with the torture, with the crown of thorns and the scourging, which also put a heavy strain on the organism. Then to carry the heavy cross,‘’' where he really was already collapsing under the cross. So it required supreme divine willpower to hold this vessel. To hold on for a few hours, so to speak, until ‘’‘the event on Golgotha’‘’. But this now also explains why we naturally have to prepare ourselves ‘’‘tremendously spiritually’‘’ in order to be able to endure ‘’‘such strong life forces of Christ’‘’' at all. And the fact that they can really enter us in their fullness also means that we can no longer have a body vessel like the one we have now. Because that would break even faster than the ‘’‘highly refined body vessel’‘’ that Christ had at his disposal for his incarnation. Not true, you have to think that the Christ came to earth at that time, among other things, because only at that time could a body vessel be made available that was basically the best, the most durable, I would say, that could possibly exist. So to the earthly life of the Christ and especially in this one body vessel, which is actually ‘’‘the body vessel of the Nathanian Jesus’‘’, who was embodied on earth for the first time and who therefore ‘’‘carried no karmic consequences’‘’ into this body vessel. Only through this could this highest body vessel come into being. This was only possible at this single point in time, not earlier and not later. This means that if we really can receive this fullness or at least a part of this fullness of the spirit of life through Christ, then our physicality must already look different. This is just a hint.

Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52

Now a brief explanation: Why is it with the Christ that ‘’‘Judas must betray him’‘’? So that the guards know it is him. The point is that ‘’‘the incarnation of Christ’‘’ is a step-by-step process. It ‘’‘begins with the baptism in the Jordan and is only completed’‘’ ‘’‘on the cross at the hour of death’‘’. On Maundy Thursday, it is still the case that the Christ in truth still reaches far beyond this bodily vessel, and in truth could also work through other bodily vessels. For example, it was often the case that, in truth, it was ‘’one of the apostles‘’ who ‘’accomplished the deeds of Christ‘’ in physical form. ‘’'Because he was able to work through each of them, especially those from the twelve. R. Steiner describes this very clearly in several places. In other words, you never knew who from this circle of disciples was actually the Christ. One time it is the one who speaks and also performs the miracles and now it is someone else. And one time it really is the one with the bodily vessel of Christ. So it was not perceptible to people on the outside in terms of the physical form, which one is now really the Christ? Because in truth he ‘’‘worked in all twelve’‘’ and also in this 13th body vessel. If that had not been the case, if he had only been in this one body vessel, then he would not have been able to hold out at all. So it had to be that way. And so, you see, if even on the ‘’‘evening of Maundy Thursday’‘’ it is still so wide that there is still the circle of twelve and you don't know which one it is, that ‘’‘the Christ still has quite an expanse,’‘’ and that only at the last moment does it become quite narrow and he withdraws completely to this one body vessel, precisely ‘’‘the body vessel of the nathanic Jesus’‘’. ‘’‘Incarnated.’‘’ So this really happens at the very last minute. And this secret of these life forces that come in, which basically can only work in the human body for a maximum of three years, and normally not in full strength, but reduced, but these are above all the forces that work in us in childhood. These are the forces.

Not true, because behind our etheric body, i.e. behind our life body that does this, ‘’‘is actually already the life spirit behind it’‘’. If it wasn't behind it, then these etheric forces wouldn't be adapted to our individuality at all, we just wouldn't be aware of it yet. But it flows in. That's what's there in the very first years of childhood. So in the first three years in particular. And the mysteries of Ephesus have a lot to do with these forces. I‘’‘’n these vital forces, which shape life, but which on the other hand can also be described as ‘’‘the living word of Christ’‘’'. This is the living word of Christ. This formative power that lies within, that also expresses itself externally with us in language, but this formative power. ‘’‘The Christ is in truth’‘’' - indeed, one could say ‘’‘the great world builder’‘’. He is the one who moulded the world. ‘’'The Father God is actually the substance in the background. But the moulding power that now really puts creation into practice is the Christ behind it. That's who it is.

‘’‘The ancient Indians’‘’ knew this very well, because they were also ‘’‘waiting for the Christ’‘’' And they called him ‘’Vishva Karman‘’, which R. Steiner often talks about. ‘’‘’‘Vishva Karman:’‘’ Vishva‘’ means as much as everything, all-encompassing and ‘’Karman‘’, karma, the word karma also comes from it, karma means nothing other than doing, being active. So ‘’Vishva Karman‘’ means as much as ‘’‘the all-embracing doer’‘’, the all-doer, the ‘’‘all-doer’‘’. This is what it is all about, who basically ‘’‘determined the whole of creation’‘’ ‘’‘in its ultimate form’‘’'. So everything that comes forth creatively, especially now with our earthly development, ‘’comes from Christ‘’. You may well say: Yes, isn't there something in the Bible at the beginning about ‘’‘the Elohim’‘’ who created everything? And there is no mention of Christ at the beginning? Oh yes, there is! Not at the very beginning. A few introductory sentences are needed: ‘’'In the beginning the Elohim created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep‘’... and so on. In the direction. ‘’And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.‘’ The Spirit of God still means the Spirit of Elohim. In Hebrew it is called ‘’Ruach Elohim‘’. This is clearly the spirit of the Elohim, one could even say ‘’‘the mighty cosmic mind-soul of the Elohim’‘’ is even more accurate. That is, according to which they begin to organise the world. But according to what comes from the past. They don't bring anything new into the world, they only retrieve what comes from earlier developments, from the earlier planetary stages of development.

And then it gets exciting. And the Elohim spoke:

‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’

That is the first time the word appears. And from then on they speak. Every time before a creation process begins, it is always this or that. So the Elohim said: Let there be this or that! ‘’‘And that means Christ.’‘’' The ‘’‘word of creation’‘’ that works through the community of the Elohim. So he is already there at the very beginning, even if ‘’‘he is not mentioned by name as Christ’‘’. The designation only comes later. And these ‘’‘mysteries of the formative life forces’‘’, which are also connected with the ‘’‘living word’‘’‘, were “”’quite typically the mysteries of Ephesus‘’‘’, they dealt with them. In other words, with these very high spiritual things that flowed in. They were less interested in the more earthly things. But what came in from above through Christ as the living Word. ‘’‘As a life-creating word.’‘’

Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10

This was ‘’‘the secret of the mysteries of Ephesus’‘’‘ to which, for example, “”’the philosopher Heraclitus was also initiated.‘’' This is why he is also called ‘’‘’Heraclitus, the Dark One‘’‘’, because his statements are often so difficult to comprehend or understand. In other words, they still give the impression that there is much more to it. Yes, what does he actually mean? He's talking about ‘’‘the origin of the world,’‘’ actually ‘’‘the fire of the world,’‘’ because everything came from fire. In other words, he knows very well that there was once an ‘’‘Old Saturn, which was a pure world of fire’‘’, he knows very well about the ‘’‘mystery of the Word, the Logos’‘’, he is ‘’‘one of the first to speak of the Logos’‘’ in concrete terms as a spiritual creative force. And he also already knows that ‘’‘the human ego’‘’ is connected to this. So he already suspects this, because he also knows in truth through these mysteries, you can't prove it so directly from the scriptures, of course there are only fragments. But he knows what power lies within.

There is a very interesting sentence from him, if you don't know the background or don't see through it, you think to yourself: Aha! It says:

‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’

Today we would translate it as: ‘’‘Man's daimon is his ego’‘’. And that would put you on the wrong track again, because by demon you naturally mean the devil. Because today the word is only used for negative spiritual entities. Which it wasn't ‘’‘in the time of the Greeks’‘’. Because ‘’‘daimon’‘’ or ‘’‘daimonion’‘’ at that time meant nothing other than ‘’‘one's own higher self’‘’' However, at that time, ‘’‘where there were still individual clairvoyant remnants’‘’, which one could at least ‘’‘work out in the mysteries’‘’, one knew that this own self was hovering above me as a spiritual entity, but was not yet inside. But that this is ‘’‘what determines my fate’‘’' Well, quite clearly, because this real I, which has gone through the incarnations, brings a certain fate with it. ‘’‘It is this ego’‘’ that leads to ‘’‘the fulfilment of destiny’‘’' Because it needs the ego for its development. In other words, it is ‘’‘always our own higher self that leads us to the situations of destiny.’‘’ Never anything else. It is ‘’‘quite wrong’‘’ to ‘’‘regard fate as God's punishment’‘’. Incidentally, as an aside, when some religious sects today say that the corona crisis is God's punishment, they don't need to tell themselves anything other than that it is ‘’'what my own higher self is leading me to. What I need ‘’‘to get rid of my mistakes.’‘’ That's what it's all about. God does not punish in this way. That is a ‘’‘very outdated view.’‘’ It's a view that was actually only contemporary in pre-Christian times, because then these rules of karma really had to come from above. But today we have to do it more and more consciously and ultimately from our own ego. But it is already behind it, only now we need ‘’‘the help of the angel’‘’ to do it, or rather ‘’‘the help of Christ’‘’' He is also behind it in the end. That is why it is also rightly said that ‘’‘the Christ has now become the Lord of Karma’‘’. So that is behind it, but ultimately it means nothing other than that our higher self is behind it. In the sense that where ‘’‘the real higher I’‘’ is and is acted upon, it is ‘’‘identical with the Christ’‘’ at that moment. There is no difference at that moment. It is this:

‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’

This does not mean eliminating the higher ego, it means ‘’‘eliminating the lesser ego down there.’‘’ Because the little me naturally doesn't want to run towards fate, especially not when it's unpleasant. Sometimes there is a positive fate, where you are led into situations that help you move forward and are perhaps pleasant. But ‘’‘many tests of fate’‘’ are just ‘’‘not pleasant’‘’' If I slip on the banana peel and break my foot, hardly anyone is going to voluntarily say, well kids, you know it anyway, tomorrow I have to break my foot. I need it now because I'm jumping around too much in the world, I'm so restless, I need to give it a rest for once. No one will do that. But the higher self does it very well. It takes care of it. With the help of the angel, it is awake enough to discover the famous banana skin lying somewhere on the side of the path and to direct our steps so that we don't step on it. So with the help of the angel, our higher self realises much more than we do - even from the sensual world in a way - than we realise with our little self down there. So the words of Heraclitus are very wise: ‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny.’‘’' So he knows very well that the time is coming ‘’‘when this daimonion leads destiny.’‘’ This saying would have been unthinkable in ancient Greek times. Back then, it was higher beings who guided us blindly and helped us to find our way. But now it's becoming more and more our own self. The only thing is still with the help of the angel. And ‘’‘the Christ’‘’ is ‘’‘ready when we are ready’‘’, so to speak.

The church of Ephesus as a reflection of the primeval Indian epoch 1:12:42

So that means, ‘’‘these mysteries were what Ephesus was really about’‘’. And that is basically the same thing that ‘’‘the ancient Indians’‘’ were also concerned with. So in a way, the community of Ephesus is also a reflection of this ancient primeval Indian culture and that is why it is one of these communities, because it actually represents this spirituality that was probably present in a certain sense ‘’in an even higher form in ancient India,‘’ although not as consciously as it could have been in Ephesus, because of course the consciousness had already developed further. In ancient India it is ‘’‘still very dreamy’‘’' It was still the case that you ‘’‘barely woke up’‘’ to the outside world, even though you could move around safely. But you didn't experience the outside world the way we do. It's incredibly difficult to imagine. You have to think that this object consciousness that we have so strongly today, which we develop in our conscious soul time, is practically gone. Because ‘’‘for us it is normal’‘’ to say, I am there and from there I look at the world. It wasn't really that long ago, even in the mind-soul era it wasn't as clear as it is today. You still felt ‘’‘much more dependent and connected’‘’ with what was around you. So ‘’‘you didn't feel like an individual being yet’‘’. But at least that was possible. But if I go back to the Egyptian period, to the Ur-Persian period and finally to the Ur-Indian period, in other words to the very beginning, people still felt ‘’‘almost seamlessly connected’‘’ with the people around them, and to some extent also with nature. And it is an experience where the soul-spiritual and the sensual begin to interweave.

In other words, you don't yet see the world in a completely objective way, but contours and shadows are already emerging, and the spiritual is still there, but it is slowly disappearing. And so they have the feeling that ‘’‘the veil of Maya,’‘’ the veil of deception, the deceptive veil is being drawn over the spiritual, which they still clearly felt was the actual reality. ‘’'But what comes over it now and makes it dark for me? Dark in the spiritual sense. Dark is, of course, another word from our language that we associate with our visible light. ‘’‘But the Indians’‘’ still mean ‘’‘the spiritual light,’‘’ Light again under inverted commas, but we have no other word for it. But it is ‘’‘a spiritual brightness,’‘’ meaning a strong spiritual experience, a spiritual fullness that we experience. And ‘’‘but it is now being darkened’‘’ In a way, this is the tragic experience of the primeval Indian era. And we are actually still ‘’‘looking for the way back’‘’ how do I get through - through this veil, how do I wipe it away? So you don't yet realise ‘’‘that there is also a task associated with it’‘’, but you only see the loss that arises as a result. The disorientation to a certain extent. Because before, when we still had a completely spiritual consciousness, we didn't see the outside world the way we do. Rather, we didn't see sensory images, but ‘’‘we had a spiritual experience’‘’, which now showed us very clearly, yes, well, you have to be careful there, you can't go any further, there's an abyss, there's a dangerous animal, there's something else. But we would not have seen this animal on the outside, even though we reacted to it in a very focussed way with our steps and our actions, moving our eyes, which were certainly already there. But what we experience in the process is something else, that is, you can kind of ‘’‘imagine it like a sleepwalker’‘’ There is sometimes the phenomenon of sleepwalkers. They get up in the night, walk through the whole house, maybe go to the fridge or something else, and then they lie down again and don't know anything about it in the morning. And they don't know anything about it, especially while they're doing it. Because he is in a deep state of sleep. Not even in a dream state in this case, but in a sleep state. And yet he has no problem orientating himself in space. But he doesn't orientate himself, rather ‘’‘his entire sensory organism orientates itself’‘’ ‘’‘independently’‘’, so to speak. But the ego is not involved. ‘’'The ego plays no role in this. It's completely withdrawn, so to speak.‘’'

And if you imagine this now, the Atlantean period in particular and then also at the beginning of the Urindian period, it was still the case that people were ‘’‘almost in this sleep consciousness’‘’, but still walked safely through the world, but what they experienced was no longer unconsciousness, but ‘’‘dreams, dream-like’‘’ that came in. But these dreamlike experiences were not memories of sensual things, but ‘’‘spiritual experiences, experiences of the soul’‘’. They were there. And they complained that it was threatening to disappear, that a veil was coming over it, which once made this ‘’‘spiritual perception dark,’‘’ meaning I no longer felt any of it. And only when this is the case, interestingly enough, do the sensual things emerge more and more clearly, especially the ‘’‘sensual qualities, the colours’‘’, for example. In other words, if you had asked an ancient Indian at the beginning of the primeval Indian period or even an Atlantean: You have a spiritual experience, you see the aura of this person, describe the colour to me, then he wouldn't have been able to do anything with it. Because what is colour? I have a spiritual experience, I can describe that to you. But colour, I don't know what that is. Because now ‘’‘only the sensory qualities,’‘’ as we experience them today, ‘’‘arise’‘’' at all. Namely ‘’'precisely through this darkening. So our sensory qualities today, colours, the way we experience sounds, high tones, low tones, there are soul-spiritual experiences living inside, ‘’‘but they are shadowed, very strongly darkened by our sensory system.’‘’ Practically through our physical body. Because ‘’‘the physical body is the carrier of the sense organs.’‘’ The sense organs as such are really ‘’‘almost physical apparatuses.’‘’ Not true, in their essential function. The eye functions almost like a camera. The ears are like a stringed instrument that vibrates, but it is a physical instrument. But what is reflected in it or what comes through, but comes through completely shadowed, ‘’‘are soul-spiritual experiences.’‘’ Not true, ‘’'sound is nevertheless actually something spiritual. But what we experience ‘’‘is not’‘’ the ‘’‘original spiritual-mental, but the shadowing of it’‘’, insofar as we experience it through our ears. When we hear it in inspiration, it no longer has anything to do with sensory hearing. But nothing at all. So it's completely different. But the sensory experience is the shadow of it.

Change of consciousness - descent into the sensual 1:27:48

That is, you must see that it is precisely in this primeval Indian time that ‘’‘a very radical change of consciousness’‘’ basically takes place. You are ‘’‘simply thrust now into the sensual world,’‘’ quite clearly. Namely, the whole thing that has to do with the ‘’‘Fall of Man’‘’ is only now really coming out or ‘’‘is only now’‘’ really ‘’‘beginning to come out’‘’'. So you mustn't think: Aha! That was already in the ‘’‘Lemurian times’‘’, a long time ago, when they opened their eyes and would have seen the world as we do. Not at all! So ‘’‘as we see it today,’‘’ that actually began ‘’‘towards the end of the Atlantean period.’‘’ And the others are precursors. But that has nothing to do with our sensory experience today. Of course, there was already a path that led downhill, so to speak. But the experiences were still very different to what we have now. That's what the original Indians experienced. This is also what ‘’‘the mysteries of Ephesus’‘’ dealt with. I will now read you a bit of what was actually written to the church of Ephesus. I wonder if we can find a bit of it again.

‘’‘’To the angel of the church at Ephesus write: ‘He who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks among the seven golden lampstands speaks to you:’‘’ - that is, the Son of Man of whom we spoke earlier - ‘’'I see through your actions and see in them your endeavours and your persevering strength. But I also see that you cannot bear those who are weak in the face of evil.‘’‘

Yes, weak in the face of evil - that is, “”’with this darkening that comes about‘’' when we look into the sensual world. With it comes the effect of evil. Seduction comes more and more. So it is precisely ‘’‘sensual seduction’‘’ that is of course also ‘’‘getting stronger and stronger now’‘’ It's getting stronger and stronger, so ‘’‘the seduction by evil’‘’' And those who are ahead, who are already more in the sensual, i.e. who have already darkened the soul-spiritual, are of course the most susceptible to it. And he now sees here in the community: yes, you have good aspirations, but there are already many who can no longer keep up, who are already ‘’‘living too much in the sensual’‘’ - This applies both to the primeval Indian period and, in a slightly different form, to Ephesus. Even more so there, of course, because it was a long time later - but that means that even those who strive spiritually, who still have certain insights into the spiritual, are actually unable to take the others with them, to carry them along. Their strength is too weak. ‘’'So that is also the tragedy of these mysteries of Ephesus. So that there is no misunderstanding: in this early Christian period in particular, there was no problem at all in connecting to the mysteries that were right there. ‘’‘Nobody would have said it was pagan.’‘’' Because people were aware that in these mysteries ‘’‘the Christian’‘’ lives just as it did in pre-Christian times and ‘’‘we are continuing this now’‘’. So that is a very consistent path. All these ‘’‘disputes then only begin in the 2nd century,’‘’ that's when this separation starts to become stronger and stronger, when people say: the mysteries, that's something old, something pre-Christian, something pagan, that has nothing to do with us. At the time here where John is writing, and of course especially in his view, the mysteries have become Christian. They have become Christian because the people who are initiated into them have already ‘’‘sought the Christ impulse’‘’ and can now basically ‘’‘easily connect’‘’ with it. And he even confirms that many people here are able to join in, but they just don't have enough strength to take the others around them with them. They don't have that. So it continues:

‘’"You have tested those who claim to be apostles and have found that they have no right to do so and that they are of a lying spirit. You have persevering power.‘’‘

So “”’they‘’‘ do indeed also recognise “”’false prophets‘’‘, so to speak, who are more fundamentally already connected to the “”’forces of evil‘’'. They can recognise it, and recognise that they are of a ‘lying spirit’, which is ‘’‘an indication of the ahrimanic forces’‘’ by the way - and ‘’‘this dark veil’‘’‘ is connected to the “”’ahrimanic forces‘’' by name. So that's another important point when you say: it was actually Lucifer who gave the impetus for the senses to open up. Yes, but nevertheless, for us to see the world as we see it today and as we began to see it back then in the primeval Indian era, ‘’‘Ahriman is needed for this’‘’. With the ‘’‘darkening’‘’ simply. So ‘’‘the purely Luciferic’‘’ is a completely different experience, which in its origin is actually ‘’‘a very low spiritual experience’‘’ or a lower spiritual experience. And that means that when the senses are opened for the first time in the Lemurian period, it means that for the first time one looks into lower soul realms that one could not look into before. In other words, areas that were at least cloudy or not visible at all to the spiritual beings above. That's where we begin to look in. So we as humans are precisely those who - as we said at the beginning - need this dark realm in order to develop our freedom. So we are the first beings, even before the Christ, to at least ‘’‘risk an eye into it,’‘’ step by step. And also in the realm of Lucifer, which is also already a darkened one, in which Ahriman actually helps to darken it in a certain way. And ‘’‘that’‘’ also prevents ‘’‘the higher spiritual beings’‘’ from being able to ‘’‘see into it’‘’' so clearly. Into the realm of Lucifer a little, but into the realm of Ahriman and perhaps even stronger adversaries, not at all. Although they have allowed it by nature, but on the condition that we rid ourselves of the power to see into it. Because otherwise we would have no choice but to change what is going wrong there, so to speak. Then we would have to do it. ‘’‘Because that's how it works in the spiritual realm:’‘’ I can only take action from the spiritual, and then I can only do it right from the spiritual. ‘’'There is no error in the spiritual realm. And with this dark realm, I have allowed a realm in which there is such a thing as error, lies and deception and the like. So ‘’‘these forces’‘’ are ‘’‘connected with the adversaries’‘’ who have taken their place there. Precisely because ‘’‘they no longer have access to the full spiritual source’‘’, but only have to operate with the treasures they have taken with them, they themselves are also subject to deception. So the ‘’‘Lucifer’‘’ doesn't believe it himself and the ‘’‘Ahriman’‘’ perhaps doesn't believe it either. But that's why they sometimes do things that, if you look at them from a slightly higher perspective, they can never succeed at, but they don't see through it themselves. So ‘’‘they have also become blind to many things themselves’‘’. Although they are of course far superior to humans in terms of ‘’‘intelligence’‘’' Still. But they are still limited beings. Limited precisely by the fact that their living space, their field in which they can be active, is ‘’‘limited’‘’ and they have ‘’‘lost access to the source’‘’. That is the point. So that means that there are already people in this church of Ephesus who have this lying spirit, who are already seized by these Ahrimanic forces by name. But at least the Christians who live there in the church, ‘’‘the real Christians,’‘’ at least still see through it. They recognise it. ‘’‘And they persevere’‘’ in the face of it. It continues:

‘’‘’For my name's sake you have borne hard things and have not grown weary. But I have a reproach against you, that you have departed from your first love.‘’'

Hmm. From your first love? But if they still have the greatest possible connection to the spiritual, then the question is: Does this mean that they have lost their love? Or does it mean a different love? You have to realise that ‘’‘man still has the task of connecting with the earth’‘’ without completely succumbing to these forces down there. In other words, the primeval Indian period or the mysteries of Ephesus could be accused of ‘’‘not caring enough about the earth itself’‘’ and ‘’‘not wanting to deal with the darkness’‘’ that is there. And actually, we ‘’‘became human in order to deal with the earth’‘’ And of course to come into conflict with our adversaries. But in pre-Indo-European times (7227 - 5067 BC), people didn't want that. So they withdrew from it completely. And ‘’‘in the primeval Indian period’‘’ it really was like this: there were ‘’‘the seven holy rishis’‘’ They were actually ‘’‘very simple people’‘’. You have to think, primeval Indian times, there wasn't much culture in the external sense, that's long before the time that the Indian scriptures speak of. Because ‘’‘writing’‘’ did not exist at that time ‘’‘yet’‘’' This is the time before there were cities or anything like that. It's a time when some people ‘’‘still lived somewhere in caves or simple tents’‘’. So that's how you have to imagine the primeval Indian period. This need to even go into caves and live there persisted for a long time, right up to the time of the cultures of ‘’‘Mohenjo Daro’‘’, the ‘’‘Harappa cultures’‘’ - i.e. ‘’‘the Indus civilisations’‘’. But please, these Indus cultures fall roughly into the 2nd to 3rd millennium BC. That is the ancient Egyptian period. That is ‘’‘no longer the primeval Indus period’‘’ So you shouldn't think that these Indus civilisations were primeval Indian. That is several thousand years earlier. In other words, there was almost no external culture. They weren't interested in that either. Why do I need this? ‘’‘I'm looking for the spiritual world up there,’‘’ which is darkening. But maybe I'm forgetting that my path is actually going in the other direction. And that I have to turn my gaze there in any case. Yes, it goes on to say:

‘’"You have persevering strength. For my name's sake, you have taken on difficult things and have not grown weary. But I have to reproach you for having strayed from your first love. Cultivate the remembrance of the heights from which you have descended. Change your mind and act again in the spirit of your original nature.‘’‘

In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.

‘’‘If you do not do this, I will come and knock down your lampstand, for if you do not carry out the change of mind.’‘’

‘’‘Change of mind’‘’' - is now in the translation by Emil Bock. But this expression fits very well, transformation of mind. It also means the transformation towards sensual perception. You have to ‘’‘get there, to really be able to see the sensory world with your spiritual being’‘’ ‘’'That's what's completely new. Angels can't do that. Certainly not primal angels, archangels etc. We may be tiny little spiritual beings, but we can do that. And at that point in time, the ‘’‘whole spiritual world is waiting to see what we see down there.’‘’ So, because we said earlier that the spiritual beings above us can't see into this dark world, into this dark world - yes, then they are dependent on us, who can perhaps take a first look. It is still quite some time before the Christ can incarnate. So that means ‘’‘we are the harbingers’‘’. And we can look in and ‘’‘we can give something to the gods’‘’ - that is, the angelic beings, the higher hierarchies right up to the top - ‘’‘report something from this dark realm that they themselves cannot see’‘’. And this gives us an essential task. And that means that if the original Indians or the initiates of Ephesus do a little too little to look into the dark, ‘’‘then they are failing in their task’‘’. So that means change your mind, make a change of mind, a ‘’‘change to the sensual’‘’. And the whole path, basically, from primeval Indian times right up to the present day, is about getting to know the sensual world more and more. Without this it is not possible.

A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51

This means that spiritual currents ‘’‘that want to get away from this’‘’ or want to go back, ‘’‘are misguided’‘’. And these problems also existed at that time. Because with the earthly life of Christ - with the awakening of Lazarus, ‘’‘the awakening of Lazarus’‘’ who became John - ‘’‘was the transition from the old initiation to the new’‘’. Half of it is basically like the old Egyptian initiation, which no longer worked anywhere, which has now happened as if by a natural event, in that this Lazarus has lapsed into this death-like state through the after-effects of the words of Christ. And then he was resurrected by the Christ. Through the Christ. Through the Christ, which ultimately also means ‘’‘through the Christ’‘’, who ‘’‘works through his own higher self’‘’, which actually means through the higher self of Lazarus himself in a certain way at that moment. So this is also important to always have in the background. Sure, outwardly the Christ is there now, if you like. But basically, it is the ego-power inside John, in which the Christ-power is present, that wakes him up. That is actually it.

You have to take all these external or ‘’‘seemingly external descriptions’‘’ that are ‘’‘in the Gospels’‘’ or ‘’‘in the Apocalypse’‘’' much more inwardly. They are basically ‘’‘purely spiritual experiences of the soul’‘’ That doesn't mean that something doesn't happen externally, that it also has a certain external historical accuracy. But that is not the decisive factor. ‘’'The decisive factor is the inner mental and spiritual process. And here the process is that this Lazarus falls into this deathlike state and is awakened from it by the power of the ego and is now ‘’‘the first to be able to grasp something of it in the ego consciousness’‘’. In the case of the ancient Egyptian initiate, the ego was switched off. It basically did not take part in the initiation process at all, but was deliberately kept out. And only when the initiate was initiated and now came out of his sleep state and reported - as I tried to describe to you last time - when he had finished and was released from the priesthood, only then did his little earthly ego consciousness rejoin him. Only from that moment on was it allowed again. Not before.

And now it is the case with Lazarus ‘’‘that he consciously at that moment’‘’ so ‘’‘from his own higher self’‘’ - but to which the Christ is simply connected or is identical at that moment - ‘’‘leads him out of the initiation sleep.’‘’ ‘’‘That is the great transition.’‘’' This is ‘’‘a complete change in the initiations.’‘’ And therefore today is basically ‘’‘the modern initiation,’‘’ if you like. ‘’‘That's where the anthroposophical path is going’‘’, that's where the ‘’‘Rosicrucian path’‘’‘ is going, and ultimately it goes like this: “”’The awakening must happen through one's own higher self.‘’‘’ And it must ‘’‘take the place of the circle of priests’‘’ who otherwise performed the initiation, it must ‘’‘take the place of the guru’‘’, who has been around for a very long time in India, the spiritual guide. And even in Rudolf Steiner's early lectures, he describes how it was still the case in the Theosophical Society that you simply needed a spiritual guide to lead you. However, he also made this very clear in his ‘’‘How to gain knowledge of the higher worlds’‘’ - especially in the later editions - that it can only be about ‘’‘having a person who can give you advice’‘’. But ‘’‘it must be completely liberal’‘’. Of course, even where Rudolf Steiner himself met his master, which he briefly hints at somewhere, rather than describing it, it is something completely free. In other words, ‘’‘the actual awakening does not happen through the master’‘’ whom you meet, but through your own self, ‘’‘your own individual self,’‘’ in which the Christ power is nevertheless present at the moment of awakening. But ‘’‘in an individual way’‘’. So that's inside here. To conclude:

‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’

Well, ‘’‘the Nicolaitans’‘’, they were the other extreme again, so not this one-sidedness to remain in the spiritual and not to bring it down. They were more known for wanting to get more into the sensual than is good, in other words ‘’‘debauchery’‘’ and the like, ‘’‘enjoying sensual pleasures’‘’ and increasing them. In other words, something that has been on the horizon for some time in the development of mankind, something that the Romans also cultivated on a large scale. So the ‘’‘sensual pleasures’‘’ simply in the most diverse directions. And that's how it is said to have been with these Nicolaitans. So there was something spiritual behind it, but - well, you can't just believe that they simply lived it up. There was also a spiritual striving behind it and they knew or sensed somewhere that I had to enter the sensual world - but they overdid it a bit and then of course fell into the trap of the adversaries, namely the Luciferian forces in this case. And that, of course, is the other extreme. So that doesn't fit here either. But it is recognised that the truly striving ones in Ephesus did not fall into this error.

Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13

‘’"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.‘’‘

This means that it is also indicated in this first church: But you receive these powers of the spirit of life through Christ, “”’through the grace of Christ.‘’' You receive them in a very special way. These are basically ‘’‘the powers that were taken from us with the fall into sin’‘’. That's what it's ultimately about. The ones that brought us into the embodiments we have now in the first place. But we need them in order to develop our ego consciousness. But here the path is already announced, precisely how we can ‘’‘find our way back to these life forces that are bestowed by the Christ’‘’. He bestows the ‘’‘powers of the tree of life’‘’ again. And that is today. And with that I would like to conclude for today. These are the powers that we have developed first and foremost ‘’‘above all in thinking today’‘’'. And that is where the great ‘’‘revolution’‘’ will have to take place one day ‘’‘in thinking’‘’'. Because everything that we have today, be it in the natural sciences, but also for the most part in philosophical thinking, with few exceptions, ‘’‘is external intellectual thinking,’‘’ is basically cerebral thinking. So at best it is thinking that is reflected in the brain, at worst ‘’‘today it is already something that was automatically created by the brain itself.’‘’ We are well on the way to achieving this. ‘’‘This thinking must be completely overcome.’‘’' So completely - I'll be careful, we'll need it for a while yet. But ‘’‘the actual source’‘’ of thinking, ‘’‘living thinking’‘’', must be grasped more and more consciously. It has to do with these ‘’‘powers of the tree of life’‘’. It has to do with the ‘’‘grace of Christ’‘’.

This means that we can only access these powers if he gives them to us. And to do this, we have to slowly ‘’‘work out’‘’ our spiritual self. So the first thing is to ‘’‘direct the consciousness soul into the spiritual’‘’, so that it is already practically identical with the spirit self or is a part of the spirit self. You must think these terms now: mind soul, consciousness soul, spirit self, etc. These are our terms and our demarcations. I don't mean that there is a barrier somewhere in the spiritual world where I say that the consciousness soul goes up to here and that is where the boundary bar is, and now the spirit self begins. In truth, these are ‘’‘spiritual activities’‘’, ‘’‘in which the ego is more or less involved’‘’ - consciously or less consciously involved. In the case of the conscious soul, which is directed outwards, it is much weaker, we do not yet know our spiritual ego. When we turn it to the spiritual side, we do. Because there the first thing we actually experience is that ‘’‘the real I’‘’ is something completely different‘’‘than our little earthly I’‘’. With the ‘’‘help of Christ’‘’, who gives us the life forces we need.

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A B C D E F G H I J K ‘’‘L’‘’ M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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At the time of Christ's life on earth, a new initiation process begins with the awakening of ‘’‘Lazarus’‘’' by the Christ - Lazarus thus became John the Evangelist. Since then, initiation has meant that the I initiates the initiation process, no longer the priests or a spiritual leader, a guru, as in ancient Egypt. A spiritual guide can support and accompany the initiation, but today the impulse for initiation must come from one's own awake self | Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51

SPIRIT OF LIFE

‘’‘Spirit of life’‘’ we receive through the grace of Christ. We cannot do this in our own strength. However, the spirit of life can only flow into us if we have previously developed the spirit self to a certain degree through our own strength | Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40
The powers of the ‘’‘Spirit of Life’‘’ are the powers that were taken from us by the Fall | Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13

A B C D E F G H I J K L ‘’‘M’‘’ N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M ‘’‘N’‘’ O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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The ‘’‘Nicolaitans’‘’ stand for a movement of people in early Christianity who aspired spiritually, but who went too far in immersing themselves in the sensual, who promoted sensual pleasures and sexual debauchery too much and were thus in great danger of falling prey to the forces of the adversary, in particular Lucifer | Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N ‘’‘O’‘’ P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O ‘’‘P’‘’ Q R S T U V W X Y Z | 0-9 |The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#P| Complete glossary]]

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We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness | Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P ‘’‘Q’‘’ R S T U V W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q ‘’‘R’‘’ S T U V W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R ‘’‘S’‘’' T U V W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ always stands for a temporal development process, i.e. a course of time that takes place in seven steps The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Seven Sevens. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Seven Epistles to the Seven Churches 0:00:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:00:51]]

LANGUAGE

There are psychological theories that believe that thought comes before ‘’‘language’‘’'. But that is not true at all. Before thinking there is ‘’‘speech’‘’', the pleasure of moulding the air with the breath. Then comes gesture and only then does thought develop | Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S ‘’‘T’‘’ U V W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T ‘’‘U’‘’ V W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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Goethe's ‘’‘Urpflanze’‘’ is what the living concept of the plant is. Concepts are essential entities that exist in the etheric world as formative forces | Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U ‘’‘V’‘’ W X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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‘’‘Vishva Karman’‘’' means: The Everyday One. The one who has determined creation in its entire form. ‘’‘Vishva Karman’‘’ is a designation for the Christ. The ancient Indians knew this | Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V ‘’‘W’‘’ X Y Z | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W ‘’‘X’‘’ Y Z | 0-9 |The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#X| Complete Glossary]]

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X ‘’‘Y’‘’ Z | 0-9 |The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#Y| Complete glossary]]

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ‘’‘Z’‘’ | 0-9 | Complete Glossary

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | ‘’‘0-9’‘’ Complete Glossary

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The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ always stands for a temporal development process, i.e. a time course that takes place in seven steps The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Seven Sevens. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven letters to the seven churches 0:00:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:00:51]]

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Literature references

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-Der in diesem Vortrag angesprochene letzte Vortrag von Rudolf Steiner am 22.9.1924, in Dornach, 18. Vortrag: Rudolf Steiner: Vorträge und Kurse über christlich-religiöses Wirken, V: Apokalypse und Priesterwirken, GA 346 (2001), ISBN 3-7274-3460-0;

Rudolf Steiner: Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,. GA 10, 1904-1905 Template:Banner7v7ApoWolfgang

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Transcription of the 2nd lecture

The seven letters to the seven churches 0:00:51

Worldwide control system of Ahriman. Humanity as an oiled machine 0:03:50

The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22

The first three years of life - from son of God to son of man 0:14:20

What happens to us after death? 0:22:30

The first church - the primeval Indian cultural epoch 0:25:58

Connection between Lazarus and John the Baptist 0:29:18

The raising of Lazarus - a process of initiation 0:31:36

Directing the consciousness soul towards the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05

The spiritual hierarchies do not know death 0:39:28

John's relationship to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40

The death of Christ on Golgotha 0:57:15

Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52

Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10

The church of Ephesus as a reflection of the primeval Indian epoch 1:12:42

Change of consciousness - descent into the sensual 1:27:48

A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51

Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13

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