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The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T17:07:33Z

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{{Banner1v7ApoWolfgang}}[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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{{Apocalypse lectures by Wolfgang Peter - description of meaning and purpose}}
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[[File:2.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c|thumb|Link to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c Video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/qcn7lpb30c8w127/2.apo.mp3?dl=0 Audio] ]]
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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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<big>[[#A|‘’‘A’‘’]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|H]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#A| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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

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

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

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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<big>[[#A|A]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|‘’‘H’‘’]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#H| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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

{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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

{{BS|J}}

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

{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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

{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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

{{BS|M}}

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

{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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

{{BS|O}}

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

{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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

{{BS|Q}}

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

{{BS|R}}

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

{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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

{{BS|T}}{{Anchor|T}}

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

{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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

{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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

{{BS|W}}

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

{{BS|X}}

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

{{BS|Y}}

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

{{BS|Z}}

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

{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
{{Apocalypse lectures as a table}}
[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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==Literature references==
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-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T14:35:23Z

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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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<big>[[#A|‘’‘A’‘’]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|H]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#A| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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

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

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

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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<big>[[#A|A]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|‘’‘H’‘’]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#H| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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

{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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

{{BS|J}}

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

{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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

{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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

{{BS|M}}

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

{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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

{{BS|O}}

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

{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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

{{BS|Q}}

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

{{BS|R}}

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

{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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

{{BS|T}}{{Anchor|T}}

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

{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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

{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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

{{BS|W}}

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

{{BS|X}}

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

{{BS|Y}}

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

{{BS|Z}}

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

{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
{{Apocalypse lectures as a table}}
[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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==Literature references==
{{Literature references lecture cycle Apocalypse}}

-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T11:15:57Z

Admin:

[[File:Yt 112th episode Apocalypse Lecture by Wolfgang Peter.JPG|thumb|[https://anthro.wiki/Wolfgang_Peter Dr. Wolfgang Peter]Founder of [https://anthro.wiki anthro.wiki]]

==Times and dial-in dates==
These exciting, educational and inspiring lectures on the Apocalypse of John are given by Wolfgang to a group of interested people, recorded and published as videos. Those who cannot watch them live on youtube on Tuesday evening have the opportunity to view the films here in the archive.

'''Time:''' Every Tuesday at 7pm CET for about 2 hours.

If you would like to join (free of charge) the video-conference meeting, please contact François via the [https://blog.anthro.world/impressum/kontakt-formular/ contact formular]. '''To avoid disturbances:''' Please mute the microphone '''before''' before entering. Our togetherness is personal- please log in with first name).

==Regular donations to Wolfgang==
All Apocalypse lectures by Wolfgang are free of charge. Nevertheless, there are internal costs. To maintain and enable future developments (covering own living costs, server rent, domain costs, electricity- heating- cooling costs, hard- and software costs, data backup costs, IT consulting costs, development costs of the current and future Wiki- just to name a few items...) your donations are welcome. In order to plan for the future, recurring payments are particularly helpful. [https://anthro.wiki/AnthroWiki:Spenden Info here]

== Available transcriptions==
As of August 2024 Wolfgang held 227 lectures. They are all available on the German anthro.world website. But just a vew are displayed here. Currently we share the following lectures here on the english site:

* [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter]]
* [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter]]
* [[The Apocalypse of John - 121. lecture by Wolfgang Peter]]
* [[The Apocalypse of John - 122. lecture by Wolfgang Peter]]

==Literature references==
Rudolf Steiner, Alexandra Riggins: The Seven Apocalyptic Seals, Triskel Verlag 2005, <nowiki>ISBN 978-3-905893-02-1</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, GA 8 (1989), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-0080-3</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: The Apocalypse of John, GA 104 (1985), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-1040-X</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: From the Pictorial Scripture of the Apocalypse of John, GA 104a (1991), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-1045-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: Lectures and Courses on Christian Religious Work, V: Apocalypse and Priestly Work, GA 346 (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T11:12:56Z

Admin:

[[File:Yt 112th episode Apocalypse Lecture by Wolfgang Peter.JPG|thumb|[https://anthro.wiki/Wolfgang_Peter Dr. Wolfgang Peter]Founder of [https://anthro.wiki anthro.wiki]]

==Times and dial-in dates==
These exciting, educational and inspiring lectures on the Apocalypse of John are given by Wolfgang to a group of interested people, recorded and published as videos. Those who cannot watch them live on youtube on Tuesday evening have the opportunity to view the films here in the archive.

'''Time:''' Every Tuesday at 7pm CET for about 2 hours.

If you would like to join (free of charge) the video-conference meeting, please contact François via the [https://blog.anthro.world/impressum/kontakt-formular/ contact formular]. '''To avoid disturbances:''' Please mute the microphone '''before''' before entering. Our togetherness is personal- please log in with first name).

==Regular donations to Wolfgang==
All Apocalypse lectures by Wolfgang are free of charge. Nevertheless, there are internal costs. To maintain and enable future developments (covering own living costs, server rent, domain costs, electricity- heating- cooling costs, hard- and software costs, data backup costs, IT consulting costs, development costs of the current and future Wiki- just to name a few items...) your donations are welcome. In order to plan for the future, recurring payments are particularly helpful. [https://anthro.wiki/AnthroWiki:Spenden Info here]

== Available transcriptions==
As of August 2024 Wolfgang held 227 lectures. They are all available on the German anthro.world website. But just a vew are displayed here. Currently we share the following lectures here on the english site:

* [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter]]
* [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter]]

==Literature references==
Rudolf Steiner, Alexandra Riggins: The Seven Apocalyptic Seals, Triskel Verlag 2005, <nowiki>ISBN 978-3-905893-02-1</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, GA 8 (1989), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-0080-3</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: The Apocalypse of John, GA 104 (1985), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-1040-X</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: From the Pictorial Scripture of the Apocalypse of John, GA 104a (1991), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-1045-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: Lectures and Courses on Christian Religious Work, V: Apocalypse and Priestly Work, GA 346 (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T11:11:36Z

Admin:

[[File:Yt 112th episode Apocalypse Lecture by Wolfgang Peter.JPG|thumb|[https://anthro.wiki/Wolfgang_Peter Dr. Wolfgang Peter]Founder of [https://anthro.wiki anthro.wiki]]

==Times and dial-in dates==
These exciting, educational and inspiring lectures on the Apocalypse of John are given by Wolfgang to a group of interested people, recorded and published as videos. Those who cannot watch them live on youtube on Tuesday evening have the opportunity to view the films here in the archive.

'''Time:''' Every Tuesday at 7pm CET for about 2 hours.

If you would like to join (free of charge) the video-conference meeting, please contact François via the [https://blog.anthro.world/impressum/kontakt-formular/ contact formular]. '''To avoid disturbances:''' Please mute the microphone '''before''' before entering. Our togetherness is personal- please log in with first name).

==Regular donations to Wolfgang==
All Apocalypse lectures by Wolfgang are free of charge. Nevertheless, there are internal costs. To maintain and enable future developments (covering own living costs, server rent, domain costs, electricity- heating- cooling costs, hard- and software costs, data backup costs, IT consulting costs, development costs of the current and future Wiki- just to name a few items...) your donations are welcome. In order to plan for the future, recurring payments are particularly helpful. [https://anthro.wiki/AnthroWiki:Spenden Info here]

== Available transcriptions==
As of August 2024 Wolfgang held 227 lectures. They are all available on the German anthro.world website. But just a vew are displayed here. Currently we share the following lectures here on the english site:

==Literature references==
Rudolf Steiner, Alexandra Riggins: The Seven Apocalyptic Seals, Triskel Verlag 2005, <nowiki>ISBN 978-3-905893-02-1</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, GA 8 (1989), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-0080-3</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: The Apocalypse of John, GA 104 (1985), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-1040-X</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: From the Pictorial Scripture of the Apocalypse of John, GA 104a (1991), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-1045-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: Lectures and Courses on Christian Religious Work, V: Apocalypse and Priestly Work, GA 346 (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T11:04:28Z

Admin:

[[File:Yt 112th episode Apocalypse Lecture by Wolfgang Peter.JPG|thumb|[https://anthro.wiki/Wolfgang_Peter Dr. Wolfgang Peter]Founder of [https://anthro.wiki anthro.wiki]]

==Times and dial-in dates==
These exciting, educational and inspiring lectures on the Apocalypse of John are given by Wolfgang to a group of interested people, recorded and published as videos. Those who cannot watch them live on youtube on Tuesday evening have the opportunity to view the films here in the archive.

'''Time:''' Every Tuesday at 7pm for about 2 hours.

'''Link:''' https://meet.jit.si/ag1913 (if you are "new", please contact Wolfgang or François at info@anthro.world in advance. '''To avoid disturbances:''' Please mute the microphone '''before''' before entering. Our togetherness is personal- please log in with first name).

'''Youtube live:'''' [http://www.youtube.com/c/FrancoisHagdorn www.youtube.com/c/FrancoisHagdorn]

==Regular donations to Wolfgang==
All Apocalypse lectures by Wolfgang are free of charge. Nevertheless, there are internal costs. To maintain and enable future developments (covering own living costs, server rent, domain costs, electricity- heating- cooling costs, hard- and software costs, data backup costs, IT consulting costs, development costs of the current and future Wiki- just to name a few items...) your donations are welcome. In order to plan for the future, recurring payments are particularly helpful. [https://anthro.wiki/AnthroWiki:Spenden Info here]

== Available transcriptions==
The red numbers are only available in German language. The blue numbers are available in English language.{{The Apocalypse of John overview of all lectures}}

==Literature references==
Rudolf Steiner, Alexandra Riggins: The Seven Apocalyptic Seals, Triskel Verlag 2005, <nowiki>ISBN 978-3-905893-02-1</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, GA 8 (1989), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-0080-3</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: The Apocalypse of John, GA 104 (1985), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-1040-X</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: From the Pictorial Scripture of the Apocalypse of John, GA 104a (1991), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-1045-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: Lectures and Courses on Christian Religious Work, V: Apocalypse and Priestly Work, GA 346 (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T11:03:17Z

Admin:

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{{Apocalypse lectures by Wolfgang Peter - description of purpose and meaning}}

[[File:1.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM|thumb|Link to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/jc3wz02vgbi6mq4/1.apo.mp3?dl=0 audio] ]]

{{Banner2v7ApoWolfgang}}
== MAIN TOPIC ==
This lecture focuses on insights into the ‘’‘vision of John’‘’, written on the island of Patmos, which he shared in a letter to the seven churches (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea). According to the [[A:Book of Revelation of John|Book of Revelation of John]], it was dictated to the evangelist John by the Christ in order to encourage and admonish the communities. According to Rudolf Steiner, the [[A:seven churches|seven churches]] represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era. [[A:Patmos|Patmos]] was closely connected with the mystery centre [[A:Ephesus|Ephesus]], where all the Christian centres were initially located. John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) translated his experienced imagination into sensual images. In a highly differentiated spiritual experience, it unfolded like a panorama in which he could wander around spiritually.

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== Transcription of the 1. lecture of the Apocalypse of John ==
by Ghislaine, Susanne, Elke (December 2022)

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=36s Introduction 0:00:36] ===
So, my dear friends, I think we'll just start. No one has missed anything. So even those who were not there last time have not missed much. Basically, we have only dealt with the beginning of the Apocalypse of John. Basically, we had the first sentence and have linked a lot to it.

So the question we had is: ‘’‘Who is this John who writes this Apocalypse of John and who also wrote the Gospel of John?’‘’ So the evangelist John - how did he become the person who was able to write these things? And we came to the conclusion, based on Rudolf Steiner's indications, that it was in fact ‘’‘the resurrected Lazarus’‘’. You may know that. It is described in the Bible in the New Testament, ‘’‘the raising of Lazarus’‘’ as a, in a certain sense, ‘’‘raising of the dead’‘’, as it is called, which in truth is ‘’‘an initiation process’‘’. An initiation process that in a certain sense is similar to what has been customary since Egyptian times. We then also spoke at length about the Egyptian initiation. In those days, the ‘’‘initiation students’‘’ had to undergo long and difficult ‘’‘examinations’‘’ before they were admitted to the ‘’‘central initiation experience’‘’. These examinations repeatedly led them into ‘’‘life-threatening’‘’ situations. That was such an important point. The ‘’‘willpower was trained’‘’, and it was also trained that he really walks at the ‘’‘edge of death’‘’ in a certain way during these tests - and when the initiate was found to be ready for the great test, then he was actually put in a ‘’‘dead-like state’‘’ for ‘’‘three days’‘’ or three and a half days. This was done through ‘’‘meditation’‘, and also through certain substances that were given to them, “”’drugs‘’‘ if you will, which could have induced a state of apparent death, one might say. Because the goal of the initiation was to be able to “”’report from the spiritual world‘’, to be able to experience something there and to be able to report from there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=194s Initiation in ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14] ===
The problem is: how do you get there, how do you experience something beyond the threshold? The way that was taken in Egyptian culture, but basically in all advanced civilisations at that time, was to actually put people into this state that is similar to death for three and a half days. For about three and a half days. If you are familiar with Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of what happens after death, then you know that ‘’‘about three and a half days’‘’ after death, you experience ‘’‘a review of your past life on earth’‘’.

This image of one's past life appears before one as if in a great ‘’‘panorama of life’‘’, and one realises what one has done in this life, one really gets to know oneself in a certain way. You see this image from a very interesting distance, like a ‘’‘beautiful panorama’‘’, you could say, so you can even see the ‘’‘negative events’‘’ in their ‘’‘meaning for life’‘’ and what you take away from them in a certain way. So it is a very ‘’‘sunny’‘’, a very ‘’‘joyful experience’‘’. As a side note, these are, for example, the descriptions that can be found in ‘’‘Islam’‘’, ‘’‘given by Mohammed’‘’, where he speaks of the ‘’‘joys of paradise’‘’, which refer primarily to the experience of this life panorama, that is, these very happy experiences in the three days after death. So there is nothing unpleasant for the person who has passed over. The only thing that one does not yet experience or receive is a direct insight into the real spiritual world. It is still a ‘’‘memory of earthly life’‘’. This is connected with the fact that the ‘’‘life forces’‘’ that have animated us during our entire earthly life, that have animated the body, remain in a certain ‘’‘closer connection’‘’ during these three days or three and a half days. So the etheric body of the human being - the life forces are this etheric body of the human being, the ‘’‘etheric body is also the bearer of memory’‘’, the actual bearer of memory - remains in a certain compact form during these three and a half days and then begins to dissolve. Dissolving means that it connects with the ‘’‘world ether’‘’ and then this panorama disappears in a certain way.

And only then, ‘’‘when this panorama disappears, does the actual view into the soul world’‘’ begin, initially not yet into higher spiritual worlds, but at least into the soul world. So only then have you really ‘’‘crossed the threshold’‘’ properly. And that means that if you ultimately put a person in a state similar to death for the purpose of initiation, you have to get through these three or three and a half days - or at least get to ‘’‘this border - so that you can get any insight into the spiritual world or, more precisely, into the soul world’‘, because before that you only experience the “”’review of earthly life‘’'. Looking back means that you can basically move freely in this panorama of life, so to speak, you can look at different events in life and observe them from a higher perspective, as it were. But that is not yet the actual spiritual. So you have to get over this boundary three/three and a half days, but you had to be very careful at the Egyptian initiation ‘’‘that the connection to the physical body’‘’, which now lies there like dead - often really put into a sarcophagus for the purpose of initiation - that the connection to this physical body ‘’‘does not break off completely’‘’. Because if it is completely severed, if the life is completely out, the soul is completely out, the spiritual is completely out and this connection is severed, then there is no way back. Then death really occurs. And the Egyptian initiation was set up in such a way that the ‘’‘priesthood,’‘’ which ‘’‘oversaw this initiation process’‘’ - there were usually twelve priests who were around the person being initiated and monitored this state - that they could observe exactly when the last possible moment was ‘’‘when they had to bring him back.’‘’ So he was brought back mainly by letting sunlight fall on him in the right way. So through the ‘’‘light’‘’ he was ‘’‘woken up,’‘’ but also, of course, through recitation and the like, through incense that was burnt, through awakening explanations. And then he had to be brought back very quickly - and the initiation student was ‘’‘trained’‘’ and practised ‘’‘to report quickly what he had seen over there.’‘’ It's a bit like waking up from a dream in the morning. If you don't immediately write down what happened in the dream, it's usually gone and you can't remember it anymore. Because you can't store dream experiences, or even less spiritual experiences, in our normal memory.

So you can't really hold on to an ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ a real imagination - and that is an imagination that a person has in the initiation at first - with your memory. At most, you can try to get back to such an experience. If you want to have it again, you actually have to go back there and see it again. What I can remember very well is when I wake up or come out of it, as it was in the Egyptian initiation, and put it into words and tell it. I can remember these words. And not only the initiate has to remember these words for a lifetime, but also the priesthood that surrounded him. They have kept these words in their memory after hearing them once. And it must be said that this initiate did not speak in everyday language, but rather ‘’‘in a ritual language,’‘’ that is, ‘’‘with certain rhythms,’‘’ which are inherent in it. It was the Egyptian language in terms of the words. But the way it was formulated, we would say today, ‘’‘it was poetic, it was ritualistic,’‘’ and that was immediately impressed on the memory. It is this ‘’‘elevated priestly way of speaking’‘’ and to a certain extent it has remained with us to this day. It is absorbed differently, it has a different effect. But nevertheless, it is a translation of the spiritual experience into an earthly language. One must bear in mind that even in the life after death, ‘’‘the language’‘’ that we have spoken here on earth ‘’‘disappears.’‘’ It disappears very quickly. Not immediately after the three and a half days, but very soon it is gone. It is, if you like, ‘’‘a spiritual language’‘’ that one then speaks, but that is then only an auxiliary term to call it ‘language’, it is a different experience. This means that the initiate had to ‘’‘get over these three and a half days’‘’, then he could have the experience of ‘over there’, that is, from the other side of the threshold - and at the moment of waking up he could bring this experience in. Bring it in for himself and ‘’‘for the priesthood,’‘’ which surrounded him.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=712s The Initiation of Lazarus 0:11:52] ===
And something similar also happened during the ‘’‘initiation of Lazarus.’‘’ Only the starting point was different. This Lazarus was not put into a death-like state by a priesthood or anyone else, but rather he - one could say - ‘’‘fell into this state on his own.’‘’ I say ‘on his own’, but I must also add that it was in a certain way the after-effect of the words of the priest with whom he had a lot of contact. I must also say that ‘’‘Lazarus was a very important man in Jerusalem, a very rich man’‘’ and very well known. He was known throughout Jerusalem, and he also made a name for himself as a follower of Christ. He experienced what Christ said so intensely that, as a result of this experience, he fell into this death-like state of his own accord. He fell into this state so deeply that the people around him thought he had died and laid him in the grave afterwards. And when the Christ then learns that Lazarus has died, he ‘’‘takes a very long time’‘’ and does not go to ‘’‘Lazarus in Bethany’‘’ to wake him up. He simply waits. He waits for two days, but nothing happens. And then he sets off - and only on the fourth day, at the very last possible moment, on the fourth day, which is really very late, does he wake Lazarus with the words ‘’‘«Lazarus, come out»’‘’. In a figurative sense, these were the words of awakening, as the Egyptians also spoke them, of course in Egyptian. And Lazarus now brought with him a great deal of experience, and ‘’‘the Gospel of John, for example, arose from the after-effects of these experiences,’‘’ and also, in a certain sense, ‘’‘the Apocalypse of John,’‘’, but that is a deeper level in a certain sense. Of course, you might ask why he is now called John and no longer Lazarus. He was not called John before. We also tried to find out where that came from last time. To do so, you have to know that relatively shortly before Lazarus was resurrected, John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod; you are sure to know the story. And the point is that after the death of John the Baptist - now - this ‘’‘John the Baptist’‘’ became something like ‘’‘a kind of protective spirit or community spirit of the twelve apostles.’‘’ The twelve apostles also included the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, so also a John, but ‘’‘John Zebedee.’‘’

So, among these twelve apostles, John the Evangelist is not to be counted initially, but now the following is the case: the spirit of this John the Baptist becomes in some way ‘’‘something like an inspiring community soul’‘’ and community spirit of this circle of twelve, these twelve apostles, and the whole thing then becomes even more condensed. There is then the transfiguration of Christ. This is also shortly before the resurrection of Lazarus, when ‘’‘this effect of John the Baptist's is concentrated’‘’ on the apostles, now on three very specific apostles, ‘’‘the two sons of Zebedee and Peter.’‘’ That means that he is now only the community spirit of these three, if you will. They thereby attain a higher level of knowledge. The other apostles would not have been able to experience the transfiguration, which is a spiritual experience, only the three of them could. And with the raising of Lazarus, the last condensation takes place, if you will. A very close bond is created between Lazarus, who is resurrected and goes through this initiation, and the spirit of John the Baptist.

It is important to know that ‘’‘at every initiation’‘’, when it happens, ‘’‘a person on earth’‘’ always works together ‘’‘with at least one spiritual being,’‘’ who is on the other side. It cannot be any other way. One has to come to a very concrete connection with a spiritual being from the other side. One does not simply enter the spiritual world. It is teeming with spiritual beings, one looks at that. But it is actually only possible if one gets a very, very intense relationship with a very specific spiritual being, with whom one is connected by fate or comes into contact with. And in this case, it is ‘’‘this connection between Lazarus here on earth and John the Baptist,’‘’ who is over there. And Lazarus gets his initiation name John after this John the Baptist. So this explains why we have a ‘’‘Gospel of John’‘’ and why this John is not John Zebedee, but someone else. But this resurrected ‘’‘Lazarus/John takes part in the Last Supper.’‘’ He is always referred to in the Gospel as ‘’‘the disciple whom the Lord loved.’‘’ That is, the one who rests in the Lord's bosom, who rests on his breast, who is not named, but who is, so to speak, one of the twelve apostles and at the same time the resurrected Lazarus, who is called John because he is connected with John the Baptist. And now, at this moment, he is also the apostle John, namely during the Last Supper. This is when the circle of the twelve is finally completed. That is to say, John Zebedee was, in a certain sense, the representative of the resurrected Lazarus, who has now become John. And this is, so to speak, the final form of the ‘’‘circle of the twelve, the twelve apostles.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1168s The Christ and the realm of death 0:19:28] ===
It is quite interesting because all of this event really condenses around the Christ, most of all condenses in this last moment ‘’‘beginning with Maundy Thursday’‘’. Yes, perhaps with the whole of Holy Week before that, but especially with Maundy Thursday, and then of course with the experience of ‘’‘Good Friday.’‘’ With the death, the ‘’‘crucifixion of Jesus Christ,’‘’ there is also the moment of the fullest incarnation. One has to think that the incarnation of Christ begins with the baptism of John, three years before, and is a gradual process. It did not happen in one fell swoop; you don't have to believe that Christ was fully incarnated at the time of his baptism in the Jordan, but it is a process that continues until the last minute, until the last minute it is completed. Then it is accomplished. So when the ‘’‘Christ's words on the cross are “It is finished”’‘’, that is exactly what is meant, namely, ‘’‘that the incarnation has now been completed’‘’ and Christ has become fully human. Immediately at the moment of death. It is very important that this incarnation takes place in its full fullness, in its entirety, basically ‘’‘in a single moment.’‘’ That is the moment when he passes through death, the Christ - and descends into the realm of death. We know that Holy Saturday is the descent into the underworld, the descent into hell, if you will, the descent into the realm of the dead, into the realm of death. Something that is not normally possible in the times. Before the angelic beings, archangels, original angels, etc., and even before Christ, human beings preceded all other spiritual beings in entering the realm of death, in entering this darkness, in entering hell, if you will, in entering the realm of the dead. We were the ones who had experience of it, at least to a certain extent. But ‘’‘all the other spiritual beings,’‘’ who are above us, up to the Christ, ‘’‘did not know the realm of death.’‘’ In the spiritual world, there is no death. It is a very special realm, and the fact that ‘’‘the Christ completed his humanity on Golgotha’‘’ also enables him to descend into this realm of death.

It is also very clearly stated in the text of the Apocalypse, which I will perhaps read out. I have to find the passage quickly... Yes, it is still in the first chapter, towards the end of the first chapter, and there ‘’‘John has a Christ encounter.’‘’ In truth, it is ‘’‘the trigger’‘’ for the whole writing of the Apocalypse of John. Because you have to think about what ‘Apocalypse of John’ means. These are the first words with which he begins: ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is what it actually says. The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ - and Apocalypse means as much as ‘’‘revelation, manifestation’‘’. So it is about the revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ. That is the content of the Apocalypse. And we also pointed out last time that the Christ is very closely connected with our human ego. We will have to work on this much more precisely in the next lecture or lectures. The Apocalypse has something to do with ‘’‘revealing the essence of our ego.’‘’ And what significance Christ has for this. So what John describes here is really an encounter with Christ, and he then says:<blockquote>‘’«When I saw him, I fell at his feet and was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Falling at his feet and being dead is another image for the fact that he is actually experiencing something that is beyond the threshold, on the other side of the threshold. So it is not a sensual event, but ‘’‘a spiritual experience,’‘’ that he has. And then it goes on:<blockquote>‘’«But he (that is, the Christ) laid his right hand on me and said: Fear not. I am the first and the last and the living. I was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Please note the «‘’I was dead»,‘’ says the Christ. No spiritual being could have said that about a human being until then. None of these beings had ever been dead. ‘’‘I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine.’‘’ So, the ‘’‘Christ has the key to the realm of death and the shadows’‘’. That is also something very important.

JOHN THE BAPTIST APOSTLE The spirit of John the Baptist became something like an inspiring community soul and community spirit of the circle of twelve apostles [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the Kingdom of Death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

CHRIST'S DEATH As the only higher spiritual being, the Christ knows death. Therefore he said: ‘’‘Mine is the key to the kingdom of death and the shadows’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the kingdom of death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1579s The Shadow Powers in the Realm of Death 0:26:19] ===
A little later in the Apocalypse, we will hear about the Key of David. ‘’‘The Key of David is the key to the spiritual world.’‘’ And we as human beings, if we strive spiritually, have access to both keys in a certain way. We can ‘’‘open or close the gate to the spiritual world.’‘’ We can open and close the gate to the world of death, to the world of shadows. This is connected to our ‘’‘human freedom’‘’ - or it is based on the fact that we can open these gates in a certain sense by our own power. That is the essential passage for us. This ‘’«I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine»‘’. And it was precisely into this realm of death that John himself went, that is, Lazarus/John‘’‘ in the course of his “”’initiation.‘’' This is the path that one has to go through. It should be said that this encounter with the ‘’‘realm of shadows’‘’ is particularly important in the initiation process. It is not usually the case that when one passes over the threshold in a normal way, that is to say, through death, one experiences too much of this realm of shadows immediately after death. If one passes through in the state of initiation, that is to say, in this sleep similar to death, then one is very much confronted with this realm. Very clearly. And also with all the shadowy sides that exist there and the temptations that are associated with them. These are experienced very strongly and it was precisely this that the Egyptian initiates had to prepare themselves for very intensively. This test, that is actually the Ahrimanic side that one encounters in order to get through it. So that means that these were often very gruesome experiences that this initiate had to go through again and again over the years - and they increased more and more. Only when they had endured this were they ‘’‘found ripe’‘’ to really go through the last great test, the three-day sleep of death.

Of course, all kinds of elements associated with this ‘’‘dark world of death’‘’ are now included in the ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’. This revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ also reveals the spiritual world that is above us. But it also reveals the world that lies below us, or works among us, or simmers among us, however you want to call it. This is the very special position we have as human beings, this spiritual being that we are as human beings, that we stand between the spiritual world above us and the world of death below us. Exactly on the border. If you want an image of it: ‘’‘The surface of the earth’‘’ on which we stand is exactly ‘’‘the border line.’‘’ It goes up there - and down there. We have to concern ourselves with both realms. In the Egyptian initiation, and in the initiation of the ancient Orient in general, the main aim was to gain ‘’‘knowledge of the light side,’‘’ that is, the side that lies above us, because the power to deal with the dark side was not yet very strong. So people had certain experiences that foreshadowed something that we basically have to experience to a much greater extent today if we want to enter the spiritual world. For the person who wants to have real spiritual experiences today or is mature enough to have them... Anyone who wants to have ‘’‘such insights’‘’ today and also wants to have them ‘’‘in a healthy way’‘’ must or ‘’‘should not be afraid of confronting the dark forces.’‘’

FREEDOM OF MAN As human beings, if we strive spiritually, we can open or close the door to the spiritual world. This is connected with our human freedom [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Shadow Forces in the Realm of Death 0:26:19|[1 | 0:26:19]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28] ===
This is one of the reasons why Dante ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’ in his ‘’‘Divine Comedy’‘’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’. Basically, what Dante describes there ‘’‘is also an initiation experience.’‘’ He shows very clearly how the path to the upper spiritual world, that is, what he also ‘’‘refers to as paradise,’‘’ leads through the underworld. That the right way is not a direct ascent to paradise, that one would fail there, that one would in fact come to a bright world, but it would be the Luciferic world. It would not be the real spiritual world, but it would be ‘’‘the world of Luciferic beings.’‘’ They are also spiritual beings, but spiritual beings that have ‘’‘in a sense remained behind,’‘’ that is, they have not developed their full spiritual powers. This means that if a person were to integrate themselves into this realm, they would ultimately also block or at least slow down their path to the future. In pre-Christian times, it was not yet so problematic. But in the post-Christian era, it becomes ‘’‘problematic’‘’. That means that ‘’‘we have to pass the test of going through the underworld’‘’, if you will. That is why ‘’‘Dante’‘’ describes it so clearly in his «Divine Comedy»: the path goes down to the centre of the earth. This is of course a metaphor. It is not about descending with crampons, drilling into the earth, but ‘’‘going down spiritually.’‘’ Descending ‘’‘into the dark depths of our own being’‘’ and the dark depths of the earthly world. So we have to think that our earth itself has this dual nature. On the one hand, a multitude of ‘’‘light-filled spiritual forces’‘’, high spiritual forces, but there are also ‘’‘dark forces’‘’ in it. Down there in the earth, that is the realm of Ahriman. That is the realm of the spirits of darkness, if you will. Lucifer hovers a little above it, but Ahriman and even stronger opposing forces live down there. And that is exactly where you have to go through.

In Dante's version, the path leads ‘’‘through the centre of the earth.’‘’ Then the ascent begins. Interestingly, it happens very quickly, he scurries up a few levels and lands on the surface of the earth, emerging at the ‘’‘Mountain of Purification’‘’. And the Mountain of Purification is what leads him to the so-called ‘’‘Purgatory’‘’, ‘’‘to the Fiery Furnace’', if you will. So this is the first supernatural realm that leads beyond the earth. And this is precisely the realm in which the Luciferic beings essentially live. There we must then ‘’‘purify ourselves’‘’ from all these ‘’‘Luciferic forces’‘’ in order to be able to ascend into the real paradise and the real spiritual world. That is the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy. But this applies to all forms of Christian initiation in a certain way. These stages are somewhere inside, it is hardly where it is expressed as clearly as in Dante, so systematically. But it is just as much in the Apocalypse. There you also find the confrontation with the very, very dark forces. That is why there are also images that seem very frightening at first glance. But in reality they are only an expression of a purification process that we have to go through. If we did not go through it, we would not get an insight into the spiritual world.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2147s The New Jerusalem - a new earth 0:35:47] ===
In the Book of Revelation, the view is opened above all to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem.’‘’ The New Jerusalem is ‘’‘a kind of new planetary state,’‘’ which will one day become ‘’‘our earth’‘’. When we as humanity and the Earth as a whole have gone through a certain development, at some point in the future the Earth as the planet as we know it will die, perish, be destroyed. It must be destroyed, just as our physical body must ultimately be destroyed - and then the New Jerusalem will arise. ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often calls it’‘’ in his lectures... he calls it ‘’‘the New Jupiter’‘’, which will come. This is a kind of new planet that will of course be different from our Earth. It is still a long way off, we still have a little time to go, but there we will be ‘’‘transferred to a new, higher spiritual state’‘’. But we will be mature enough to enter this higher spiritual state. A state that is in some ways ‘’‘comparable’‘’ to what ‘’‘today's angelic beings’‘’ possess. It will be different from our present-day angelic beings, but in terms of spiritual potency it is comparable to them. And then, above all, we will not have a body like the one we have today - and above all under different conditions. An important moment in the Book of Revelation is also given where John speaks of the ‘’‘so-called first death and the so-called second death’‘’. It is quite late in the Apocalypse, so one wonders what the first and second death are. I don't want to go into detail about this today either. But it has to do with the fact that we will finally lay down our physical body there. We will lay it down in every conceivable form and will not get it back in this form, so we have to learn to live without it. So, ‘’‘the first death’‘’ has to do with ‘’‘finally laying down the physical body forever.’‘’ And ‘’‘the second death’‘’ means finally ‘’‘laying down the corresponding etheric body.’‘’ That does not mean that we will then no longer have anything etheric, but no longer in the form that we have now. We will discuss this in more detail in the next lecture, but for now, this is just a suggestion.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2334s The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54] ===
I have now repeated a lot of what we discussed last time. Now we should move on a little and look at what is described in the Apocalypse. I will just read a short passage and then explain it. So in the first chapter, before the passage I read to you, John now addresses his ‘’‘words to the seven churches in Asia’‘’. So seven Christian communities in Asia - there were certainly more communities - they are the seven, if you will, leading communities, at least in the spiritual sense, in the outward sense it was a different chapter. We will encounter the ‘’‘number seven’‘’ very often in the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of John works a lot with ‘’‘number rhythms’‘’, they play a very important role. Wherever the number seven occurs, we can always be aware that it has something to do with a temporal development, with an evolution, with a series of developments. The number seven is also the ‘’‘number of the etheric,’‘’ for example. ‘’‘The etheric forces,’‘’ the life forces, ‘’‘have something to do with time.’‘’ Life takes place in time and life becomes rigid when nothing changes any more. Then death has occurred. After death, decay always follows. But no longer a living development.

So when the number seven plays a role, it always refers to a living development. For example, the human body renews itself about every seven years. This is one of the reasons why ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often speaks clearly in his education’‘’ about these ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’ that people go through: that ‘’‘the child’‘’ enters school at the age of seven, with the change of teeth , that puberty begins at the age of fourteen, that new spiritual forces awaken, that the twenty-first year of life is very important, that the ego begins to emerge very clearly. And so it goes on - again and again in ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’, which are no longer so noticeable externally. But if you look a little more closely, they are there too. Externally, they are connected to the fact that ‘’‘the body physically renews itself every seven years’‘’ and that, over the course of about seven years, it has ‘’‘completely exchanged its material’‘’. Rudolf Steiner always pointed this out, but it was often dismissed as an old wives' tale. You know that scientists never believe anything at first, they are always sceptical - that is perhaps also their virtue. But if they are thorough, they are open to being taught otherwise. It is actually the case that in recent years, through systematic medical, biological and chemical research, it has been possible to prove that the substances in the human body renew themselves on average every seven years. Some take a little longer, some renew themselves more quickly, but if you take the average, it really is every seven years.

So, in terms of our material substance, nothing that was there seven years ago is still there. We have become something completely new in terms of our material substance, but we have retained our forms to a certain extent, at least to the extent that we are usually recognised again after seven years. We can get a little older, we change a little, but we are still clearly recognisable as human beings. So the form, that is to say the etheric forces that renew this form again and again, they go through this whole ‘’‘seven-year period’‘’, but ‘’‘the physical is renewed again and again.’‘’ Basically, physically speaking, we do not die only once at the end of our lives, but in every seven-year period we basically, materially speaking, discard a corpse. Scattered into the world. It happens quite inconspicuously, with every breath we take, with every piece of food we eat and then excrete again, with what we sweat out and so on. All of this is shed, with the scales on our skin, where something is constantly being shed, something is always being lost. So, materially speaking, we are completely new people after seven years. And ‘’‘behind it all is ultimately a rhythm of the etheric body. It is this that in truth,’‘’ causes these seven-year cycles. With many sub-rhythms that also play a role. Today, science is already investigating - there is a discipline that has developed in this way since the middle of the twentieth century and has become increasingly clear in recent years, and that is ‘’‘chronobiology’‘’. Chronobiology is concerned with the rhythms that operate in the human body, and also in animals. And many exciting things have been discovered - among other things, the daily rhythm plays a major role, but so do seven-day rhythms, for example the seven-day rhythm as a quarter of a month. The month is again connected with the ‘’‘moon rhythm’‘’, the daily rhythm, which is connected with the rotation of the earth, the moon rhythm is connected with the moon's orbit. It has its subdivisions and a quarter of it is about seven days. It is also not by chance that we have a ‘’‘seven-day week’‘’. It is very wise. The ‘’‘calendar’‘’ could be organised in a completely different way, but then it would no longer be ‘’‘in harmony with these natural rhythms.’‘’ These natural rhythms are actually based on the etheric body. It is behind them - or the etheric world in general. From a cosmic point of view, it is the etheric world; in us, it is the etheric body, the internalisation of these rhythms. There are x rhythms in the body, very, very fast ones that vibrate very ‘’‘nervously’‘, so to speak - I say nervously on purpose, because it is very strongly “”’connected to the nervous system‘’‘ - and there are much longer rhythms that go more leisurely and renew us right down to the “”’metabolic processes‘’' within seven years.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2778s Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18] ===
So John has a lot to do with these forces, and that is why he often speaks of the number seven and that is why he also speaks of the seven churches ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). That is the reason. That is the real reason, because these ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ are - one could say - ‘’‘representatives of certain stages of development’‘’. So they represent seven stages of development that together make up a whole. Yes, I'll read a bit of it out:<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be yours from him,‘’

‘’who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven spirits of creation before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>From him who is and who was and who is to come - well, he basically spanned ‘’‘the whole time’‘’, the past, the present and the future, ‘’‘drawing the bow.’‘’

In the spiritual self, time and temporal development no longer play the same role as they do here in our earthly lives. In a sense, we enter the ‘’‘realm of eternity, of timelessness’‘’ - and yet there is movement in it. That seems paradoxical: how can there be movement if there is no time? Basically, you can move freely, as I should say, in what we call time, here as time. This actually begins in the ‘’‘etheric world’‘’. The experience in the etheric world is such that we can ‘’‘move freely in time’‘’. This means that we can go back, not just look back, but really go back - in an etheric way. But we can also go into the future, take a look, so to speak, into the future at least. How this future, which we experience in the etheric, is then realised in the physical, is another chapter. The etheric world is much, much richer than the physical world - and ‘’‘the physical’‘’ is actually something that has died, something that has ‘’‘died out of the etheric world’‘’. And that means that the physical manifests itself when something etheric dies, but much other etheric continues. And the etheric encompasses the future, everything that continues in the etheric world. And one thing dies out again and again, so to speak, and manifests itself here as something physical. What we can see today in the etheric is this whole abundance, which, from our point of view, flows or goes into the future. What we cannot foresee is every single physical event that dies out. So we cannot see exactly what will die in the etheric. But we can see at least a certain line, a certain direction in which the whole thing is going. We also see that certain things ‘’‘have to happen,’‘’ namely ‘’‘as compensation for what happened in the past’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM& Repeated earthly lives and human freedom 0:50:06] ===
I now have to make a connection to another sub-topic, so to speak, namely the topic of ‘’‘reincarnation and karma’‘’. As you know, if you are already familiar with anthroposophy, we are talking about ‘’‘repeated earthly lives.’‘’ Human beings do not live on earth just once, but repeatedly. This means that when they die, they first pass through the ‘’‘soul world’‘, then through the “”’spiritual world‘’, and then descend again after a shorter or longer period of time to ‘’‘a new incarnation’‘’. Simply because this earthly existence offers us so many opportunities for development that we could not exhaust in a single incarnation. Or we are ‘’‘not spiritually advanced enough to be able to complete our earthly development in a single incarnation.’‘’ We need a little more time. We have to go through it a few times. We are pupils who may have to repeat a few years. Of course, we can distinguish ourselves during our earthly incarnation. In a certain sense, ‘’‘the spiritual beings above us’‘’ cannot ‘’‘make any mistakes.’‘’

You could say: ‘Well, I'd like to be like that too, that would be great.’ Yes, but then we would not have ‘’‘freedom’‘’. This is a big word, because it says that even the angelic beings that are above us - and also the higher angelic beings that are above them, right up to the highest angelic beings - do not have the freedom that human beings have. They ‘’‘fulfil’‘’ God's will as a matter of course, if you want to put it in our terms. That means that the higher spiritual beings that are above them flow into them, they absorb it and ‘’‘act on it. Without error.’‘’ That is wonderful. Basically, nothing can go wrong. But - they have no free decision-making ability as a result. They don't even get the idea. Actually, the highest spiritual source, that is, the divine self, had to create the possibility for freedom in the world, and this is connected with the ability not to follow the error that flows down from the spiritual world. ‘’‘What distinguishes us as human beings is,’‘’ that we ‘’‘can't follow’‘’ the spiritual world. You could say that this cannot be the ideal of a human being, that we should now rebel against the divine. Well, yes and no. It is the prerequisite for us to be able to turn to the spiritual again in freedom after we have rebelled against it. This gives it a completely different quality. We fulfil ourselves with the spiritual, not because we cannot do otherwise, but because we fulfil ourselves with it because we want to, ‘’‘out of our own free will’‘’. But that means that a spiritual element lives in us that is comparable to the highest spiritual world from which everything flows. That means that a source ‘’‘opens up in us, in our I,’‘’ that is truly, one has to say it like this, ‘’‘of the same essence’‘’ ‘’‘as the highest divine being.’‘’ Even if it is, so to speak, the small version of it, ‘’‘the miniature version,’‘’, and we only experience it in individual moments, perhaps once in an incarnation or perhaps not at all in five incarnations, but there is a moment when we are of the same essence as the highest divine. When we are the embodiment of the divine. When we are ‘’‘of the same essence as Christ’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3292s The mystery of the self 0:54:52] ===
There is a beautiful ‘’‘Pauline saying’‘’ that Rudolf Steiner often mentions and usually says in the form: ‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me’‘’. This word could easily be misunderstood if we were to say: ‘I give up my free will and let Christ do things for me or through me.’ But that is not what is meant. The ‘not I’ refers to my little ‘’‘everyday ego’‘’ - which is not our true self - and we must eliminate it. So whether we love a roast pork or are grumpy because of our personal circumstances has nothing to do with the spiritual world. That gets in our way. So this ‘’‘ego, this “I want, I want, I have to, I need”’, that's what we actually have to get rid of. But ‘’‘our real self,’‘’ we will not really experience in its concrete form in everyday life. We know that we have an ego, but that's all we know about it in our everyday consciousness. It has nothing to do with how we were born, what education we have, how much money we have, it doesn't matter at all. It really has nothing to do with our ego. You have to get to ‘’‘the conscious experience of your own ego’‘’. But it's a great moment to experience that we have one. Children usually experience it around the age of three. Then it hits them: ‘I am an I’. Many people can no longer remember this later in life. Sometimes it reappears later in life, in old age, just like ‘’‘memories of early childhood’‘’ tend to resurface in old age. But some people never forget this experience.

I can remember the experience incredibly well and in great detail. It was sometime in November, maybe even on my third birthday. If it wasn't on my third birthday, then it was on St Nicholas‘ Day. My parents were there, my maternal grandmother, uncles, aunts, behind me was a fireplace that was lit, it was already quite dark. Suddenly, I looked around me with wide, astonished eyes and realised, “”’I'm something different.‘’' I'll never forget it. It was like a shock, I can't say whether it was devastating - no, it certainly wasn't devastating - I didn't know that - but it was just so emphatic that it kept coming back to me. And I have to say, the older I get, the clearer it is.

There are also such moments later in life. Rudolf Steiner describes how he experienced this in his twenty-first year, when the I becomes even more awake. I'll have to read that out one day. It's quite interesting. He read about it in the works of the philosopher ‘’‘Schelling’', who also describes this experience. And then Steiner describes how he had this experience himself. He was also sure that he had had this experience. So, you can have this experience of the self at different levels. It is not to be compared with the everyday ego that we have. Having this experience of the self has something to do with the apocalypse. The ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is also the ‘Apocalypse of one's own self’, namely at the moment ‘when I and Christ are one in essence’. At the moment when one has such an experience, this ‘unity of essence’ is there. Only for a moment, then it disappears again - or at least it is not in our consciousness. In reality, it is somehow already there, but we cannot make ourselves aware of it again, perhaps not for years, not until the end of our lives. But in that one moment it is there. That is what Paul meant when he said: ‘It is not I, but Christ in me.’ You could also formulate it in the sense of: ‘It is not my little self, but my real I in me.’ It is actually exactly the same.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3618s Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and correction 1:00:18] ===
Let's go back to the seven churches in Asia. It was a bit of a detour. Yes, there was something I wanted to say, but I lost sight of it. It has to do with the ‘’‘repeated earthly lives,’‘’ that we have to go through. It is only through these many earthly lives that our ego develops further. We can only acquire an awareness of our own self through many lives on earth. But ‘’‘we also make mistakes on earth,’‘’ we are not like the angels above us, where the spiritual simply flows into us and we implement it, but we can err, we can make mistakes - and thus take on a task, namely by making these mistakes, we change the course of the world in a certain way. It is up to us to ‘’‘correct it again.’‘’ Above all, we ourselves suffer as a result. The Christ helps us to correct the mistakes that remain in the world in a certain way. But what we destroy in ourselves by making mistakes - because mistakes also mean that we ultimately put our ego in danger or scratch it - in the next incarnation or the one after that, when our strength has grown a little, we have to correct this mistake, you could say. That is what ‘’‘is connected with our karma,’‘’ with our ‘’‘destiny’‘’. Our karma is nothing other than our ego striving to repair the damage it has done to itself, to work on it. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that we ourselves are ultimately the ones who ‘’‘send our fate’‘’, our ‘’‘karma’‘’. Our real I. No one else. We don't need to complain to anyone. We can only be happy that the Christ, by working with and in our I, but in a very individual way, ‘’‘helps us to bear this karma’‘’, that he also gives us ‘’‘strength’‘’, gives our I strength. But always only to the extent that we ‘’‘really struggle for it,’‘’ it is never just something that is given, but always something ‘’‘that we have to do’‘’. That is very important. So, that is the karma that we carry with us, that is connected with our error, with our possibilities of error. But it is precisely ‘’‘on that that we mature.’‘’ That is why the path is given for many earthly lives, so that we can experience all this and thereby learn to become free beings.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3813s The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Humanity 1:03:33] ===
But let us now return to the seven churches.<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be with you,‘’

‘’from him who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven creator spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>The seven creator spirits: Well, who are the seven creator spirits? Essentially, they are those spiritual forces or those spiritual beings who created our ‘’‘bodily shells’‘’ and prepared them so that these spiritual shells, these bodily shells - yes, I have already used the word ‘spiritual shells’ - could one day be transformed into spiritual forces. So what are these bodies: the ‘’‘physical body’‘’, the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’, that is, the life forces, then the ‘’‘astral body’‘’, which makes us a sentient, conscious being. In the etheric body, we are actually still asleep, and in the astral body, we are at least dreaming. This is exactly what we have in common with animals. So, animals also have a certain consciousness, but it is still dream-like, this ‘’‘consciousness.’‘’ If we only had this consciousness, this astral consciousness, we would not be very awake. We would not recognise ourselves as an I. That means that the ‘’‘I’‘’ comes in a certain way as the fourth, or the ‘’‘I-bearer, as Rudolf Steiner often calls it,’‘’ which is, so to speak, the physical prerequisite for an I to be able to incarnate. Incarnation means that the I completely permeates the body shells and thus ‘’‘makes the body shells’‘’ into ‘’‘I-bearers,’‘’ but that is the fourth principle. The ‘’‘I’‘’ that is now incarnating, by unfolding its spiritual forces, ‘’‘shapes the astral body, the etheric body and finally the physical body’‘’ through its spiritual forces, through the individual spiritual forces that lie within each I. The astral body, which was initially given by the spiritual beings, is transformed into what Rudolf Steiner calls the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ or our higher self. Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. This is a power that our I has at its disposal, so to speak. In the East, it is also called ‘’‘manas.’‘’ Manas has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ also comes from it, by the way. There is another word that comes from it, which can be found in the Bible, namely ‘’‘manna.’‘’ When ‘’‘Moses and the Israelites journey through the desert’', they are given manna. This is nothing other than the powers of this spirit self, which in a certain sense descend upon the Israelites as a whole, not yet upon the individual at that time, but upon the community.

When we transform the etheric body through the power of the I, then the etheric body becomes the ‘’‘life spirit’‘’. This power of the life spirit then lives within our I. That is to say, just as the body sheaths - the physical body, etheric body, astral body - surround our I from the outside, so our I envelops the spirit self and life spirit within itself - figuratively speaking. They are part of ‘’‘this I.’‘’ In the highest form, for example, it means that if I take only the spirit self, that is, the transformed astral body, then it means that our I has become capable of ‘’‘creating an astral body out of nothing.’‘’ It is something different from when we wrap ourselves in an astral body during our normal incarnation on earth. For the most part, it is only lent to us by the spiritual world - and this will continue to happen as long as we are not able to create one for ourselves out of nothing. That is then actually our real astral body. But then we no longer call it an ‘’‘astral body, but a spirit self.’‘’ He is then completely ours.

The aim of all the initiation processes that have been taking place on earth since Egyptian times, or that lead into the future in some other way, is to form ‘’‘as much as possible’‘’ of this spirit self. So, in addition to the fact that we are developing our I here on earth, the people who are really making spiritual progress are those who have already developed a good part of the spirit self. It will then be the task of the so-called ‘’‘New Jupiter’‘’ - or what John calls the ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’, which I have discussed today - to fully develop this spirit self. But we should already have a certain part of it at the end of the earth's development, then we will at least be among the spiritually more developed people. Yes, the life spirit is the transformed etheric body. We will not be able to transform the etheric body into the life spirit on our own during the development of the Earth. We can work on it, we can work on it above all, or we can bring it a little further in the direction of ‘’‘the help of the Christ.’‘’ In this case it is really the help of the Christ. That means something that cannot be accomplished by our ego. For this, for example, the word ‘’‘grace’‘’ is very important. This is a gift that Christ gives us. As far as the spirit self is concerned, that is already our own responsibility. This is the ‘’‘endowment with the Holy Spirit’‘’, as one might call it. But this Holy Spirit is then our Holy Spirit. This is not something that remains above us or directs us from outside, but something that ultimately belongs to our I. Only then has it become a true spirit self, which we are now developing during the development of the earth, and we owe this solely to our I. But what we are already producing in terms of life spirit, at least in a preliminary form, is something for which we need the help of the Christ.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4327s The physical body and our consciousness of self 1:12:07] ===
And then we will even need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ to do this, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body. Sounds paradoxical. What is a spiritualised physical body? That sounds like a contradiction. We have to think about what the physical body, in which we are now normally embodied on earth, the physical and material body, is for. Physically and materially are not exactly the same thing. ‘’‘The material’‘’ is actually what fulfils the physical form. If, for example, the Luciferic temptation had not come, that is, if we had not come under the influence of the ‘’‘opposing forces’‘’, then we would not have had the kind of physical body that we have today. It would have been invisible to the senses.

There are a great many physical beings that are not visible to our eyes. For example, there are ‘’‘elemental beings’‘’ that definitely have a physical body and yet are ‘’‘not visible to us with our physical eyes’‘’. There are whole realms of physical worlds out there that are not visible to us because they are ‘’‘not material’‘’. So, our physical body becomes visible through the material. But what does this physical body give us, precisely through the fulfilment with the material and through the problems that are associated with it? It is precisely through the material that the whole physical body tends to decay. The material has this principle of decaying from within. When the etheric body is no longer present to constantly renew these substances, in these seven-year cycles that we have spoken of, then it simply decays, just as the corpse decays with death. So, our physical body cannot maintain its form by itself. This is because we have this ‘’‘Luciferic impact’‘’. By being filled with matter, our actually imperfect invisible physical body was actually damaged. ‘’‘This is how it became visible. This is how it became mortal.’‘’ But this is also how we have gained our consciousness of self - and we gain it precisely because we are mortal.

Our consciousness of self awakens in the processes - also in life - when they are processes of decay. For example, with every nerve impulse that passes through, something dies in the brain. It is then re-energised, but actually something dies until death, until a ‘’‘salt-like state’‘’ in the nerves. This is precisely why the ‘’‘brain’‘’ is an instrument with which we can acquire ‘’‘consciousness’‘’. To do this, we need the physical, material brain. Not for thinking, actually. ‘’‘Thinking is not a function of the physical brain.’‘’ We need the brain to become aware of these thoughts, which are actually etheric forces. As a rule, we are not yet at the stage where we can consciously experience the etheric, which is not visible to the senses but only leaves its trace in the senses - then in the growth forces - in order to experience these formative forces, these etheric forces, it has to be reflected in the physical brain and it is reflected when these ‘’‘decay processes’‘’ take place in the brain. Then, when it is regenerated again, or at least regenerated to a large extent, then the consciousness is already gone again. The dying process must take place there, that is when we become aware. We have ‘’‘death’‘’, the constant death that has in truth accompanied us since birth, ‘’‘to which we owe our consciousness’‘’ - that is a prerequisite for it - and in particular ‘’‘our I-consciousness’‘’ is especially to be owed.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4595s Imagination - Experiencing in the Spiritual 1:16:35] ===
Of course, an astral body and an etheric body are also part of it, but this ability to die through the material body is very important for our consciousness. That is why we have it and why we need it. We will need it until our consciousness has become able to do without the help of these dying processes. That means that when this consciousness can now seek out another counterpart, another mirror, when it no longer needs this physical ‘’‘mirror’‘’, when it can, for example, reflect itself in the etheric, that is, in the life forces. This mirroring in the life forces, when we enter this world of life, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we ‘’‘experience imaginations’', pictures. And now we put huge quotation marks around the word “pictures” - I will come back to this - pictures from the spiritual world. They are living pictures. ‘’‘These images cannot be described’‘’ like an oil painting, an old painting on the wall, because it is a moving image that changes continuously. You can't really capture it at all. There is movement in it - we have already discussed the paradox - a ‘’‘movement that takes place in timelessness’‘’. The movement arises from the fact that we can look at this image from different perspectives, go through it and, if I translate that into the sensual, then a temporal series of developments, a temporal event, emerges from it. But in the etheric I can go forward, backward, take detours, so I can move freely. In meditation, when you really get to a true imagination, where time no longer plays a role, a true imagination, that is experienced ‘’‘in complete timelessness.’‘’ I think, if I remember correctly, I briefly mentioned in the first lecture we had, we had two lectures, that you can experience that. Because when you do ‘’‘meditation’‘’ with today's consciousness, it's not that you're completely out of it and just floating in another world, but ‘’‘we still retain’‘’ ‘’‘consciousness here for the sensory world’‘’ even when you're not focusing on it, but it remains there. I remain aware that I am in the physical world with my body. I don't enter a dream-like state of consciousness where I am lifted out and simply float above everything, somewhere. You can really notice, under certain circumstances, if there is a clock on the table somewhere, that I have an incredibly ‘’‘intense imagination’‘’, that is, a moving picture, as we have discussed, ‘’‘an incredibly rich picture’‘’. You have the feeling that what I am experiencing is something that lasts for hours, that it is something very, very long that is unfolding and unrolling before me - and when I look at the second hand of the clock, it seems to be standing still. So what I experience internally as hours or days, externally no time passes. So it is ‘’‘experienced in an instant,’‘’ measured in terms of our external time. It can happen in dreams, too, in reality. It often happens when a dream is triggered by something, especially when you wake up and enter the sensory world. For example, the morning sun comes in through the window, even with your eyes closed, your senses somehow perceive it without us being aware of the sunlight. We are still in the dream and suddenly a huge fire breaks out in the dream, a huge fire, and there you experience a long story: the fire brigade arrives, there are dramatic scenes unfolding so that the residents in the house can be rescued and you think that it has been going on for two hours. You wake up and look at the sun, which has just come around the corner, which has just appeared, almost at the same moment. So actually, these dream images also unfold in timelessness, basically. This consciousness, this imaginative consciousness is connected to the fact that when we no longer need the physical body as a mirroring apparatus for consciousness, then we mirror in the living etheric body, then ‘’‘we go out of the time stream’‘’ and ‘’‘can move freely in time.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4946s The Soul World and Time 1:22:26] ===
In the astral world, in the ‘’‘soul world’', it is different, there is a very special paradox, time seems to come towards us. Future, it seems that ‘’‘time moves in reverse.’‘’ This is very important, because this is the way in which creative impulses enter the world. In order for something to manifest itself creatively in the physical world, there must be a physical time stream that goes from the past to the future, which is what we know in normal life. The etheric must be there, where timelessness, above all mobility, reigns in time - and something must come from the future, actually from the end of the development process - and ‘’‘where the stream from the past and the stream from the future collide,’‘’ it becomes our momentary ‘’‘present’‘’. Something happens there.

With every event that takes place in the world, it is never just a consequence of the past, as is often believed in the natural sciences, because they only have physical and sensory means at their disposal, which is why they only know this stream of time that comes from the past and goes into the future, and they can only deduce from what has happened in the past what might happen in the future. With simple things, you can even calculate it in advance: A physicist can easily predict how a stone will fall if nothing else interferes, such as a bird flying past or something like that. But otherwise, ‘’'most real events ,‘’‘ that happen in the world, “”’you can't predict,‘’' because they are not only determined by the past, but are also determined, half of them, at least half of them, by what is heading towards us from the future. These two things have to come together. This means that when we move on from imagination or ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ something comes in that goes beyond this pictorial consciousness and shows us something of the future. Something ‘’‘shows us where this development is going,’‘’ because this goal actually comes towards us, in a sense. We have to look at the beginning and the end in order to be able to understand the current moment of development at all. These two currents have to come together.

I'll now read you a few sentences from the Apocalypse, where this is also hinted at to a certain extent, very clearly. Again, where basically Christ speaks, or at least the angel speaks through Christ. It says:<blockquote>‘’‘I am the Alpha and the Omega.’‘’</blockquote>In Greek, this means the beginning and the end. The first and the last letter in the Greek alphabet, the Alpha and the Omega.<blockquote>‘’‘Thus says the Lord, our God, who is and who was and who is to come, the ruler of the universe’.‘’</blockquote>It's all there. ‘’‘He is, who was and who is to come.’‘’ The present, that's where it starts, ‘he who is’. So it's important to keep that in mind, the order is not random, because the experience always starts in the present moment. The moment is also, in which the whole eternity is also inside. From here, I look to both sides, to what was there, that is, back, and thus also to what determines my fate, because - as far as we humans are concerned - it also contains all the mistakes we have made and which we must correct in the future, that is, what we must work on. We also see something towards which we are heading, namely our self, our individual self. Every individual self has a special nuance. It is not the case that we all have exactly the same goal. We ‘’‘all contribute together’‘’ to perhaps ‘’‘a higher goal’', that's how you could perhaps outline it. You can also find that in the words in there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5302s The spiritualisation of the physical body - the goal of human development 1:28:22] ===
Now I'll come back to the seven creator spirits in connection with the human body. I have not yet told you ‘’‘what happens to the physical body when it is spiritualised’‘’. Now I hope that you have gained a little impression that the physical can also be spiritualised - and this is not to be equated simply with the material-physical, which we know as our body. That there is also ‘’‘an invisible physical’‘’, that it is ‘’‘in truth the actual physical.’‘’ If we succeed, with the help of the Christ and the help of the father forces, in restoring this originally spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which we can now achieve, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human being’‘’. This is the highest spiritual that we can develop, as far as we can see, and it is precisely in the spiritualisation of the physical. We must not underestimate the physical, but we must see that the greatest task of humanity lies in at least working towards the spiritualisation of this physical. This is also connected with the ‘’‘resurrection of Christ’‘’. The resurrection forces of Christ, which could not have come into effect without the Father's activity, are connected with the transformation of the physical body into a spiritual being. For it to be truly successful means that we are then able, out of our own strength, out of our own I, to bring forth such a high, such a spiritualised physical body. But this is certainly no longer a body that is material. We will then not walk around on a material ‘’‘globe’‘’ or any other sphere, however it may be formed, in a material body, but rather the highest spiritual will enter. To understand this, you have to ask yourself why it is actually the highest spiritual and how it is otherwise connected to the material.

I think that the physical is the most difficult to work with. In the soul, we can already work a little today, at least to some extent, to bring forth the spirit self, consciously or unconsciously. ‘’‘An artist,’‘’ when he is really creative, ‘’‘creates a new work in his soul’‘’ and then realises it, outwardly too, but to do that he has to ‘’‘experience it in his soul first’‘’, then he is creatively active in a spiritual way. Then he is active out of his spiritual self. That means, ‘’‘he transforms astral, soul into real spiritual self.’‘’ This spirit self or this spark of spirit self that he has within him, he has created from his own I. Out of nothing, basically. He has not taken it from anywhere else, from anywhere outside, ‘’‘but from within himself.’‘’

It is much more difficult to create etheric forces out of nothing, that is, to ‘’‘unfold the spirit of life.’‘’ That is much more difficult. On the whole, we are not yet able to do that, but we need the help of the Christ to be able to do it. We don't even need to talk about the physical, because we ourselves create almost nothing there, especially consciously. In order for it to become our own, we have to be able to do it consciously, that is, consciously transform the physical body into this high spiritual being. This is only beginning to happen.

Only the highest spiritual hierarchies can really work on the physical, namely ‘’‘the Christ and the Father-Godhead’‘’, which is behind it. But very high angelic beings work with them as executive organs. These include, for example, the ‘’‘thrones’‘’ in a leading position. They are in the upper group of three hierarchies. Above them are only the beings of the zodiac, the ‘’‘cherubim’‘’ and then the ‘’‘seraphim’‘’, who are basically connected to the whole cosmos, through the visible universe - and even beyond the visible, at least for our eyes beyond the visible. These are therefore very, very high spiritual beings who are behind the physical. ‘’‘In the soul, anyone can work today, so to speak’‘’. The angelic beings that are closely connected to us, the actual angels, they all cannot do that. But we are approaching a time when we will be able to ‘’‘create a complete physical body for ourselves’‘’. It will no longer be called a physical body, but a spiritual human being. It is this that will enable us to achieve our ‘’‘highest consciousness’‘’.

Today we have ‘’‘only a mirror image,’‘’ because we are most conscious of the physical, which is basically polluted by the material. We cannot yet become self-aware of the etheric body. We are not yet able to do that. If we only had the I and the astral body, then we would know nothing about ourselves, absolutely nothing. ‘’‘It is precisely in the physical that one can develop the highest consciousness.’‘’ This applies equally to the spiritual being. That is to say, the spiritual being is the highest spiritual element that we can acquire. What happens next is a different chapter, and is not our subject.

I have now made a huge ‘’‘interjection’‘’ just to explain a little bit about the significance of the number seven, and these stages of development. We have come across these seven stages of human development or these seven constituent parts of the human being, via the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the I, which stands in the centre, and up to the spiritual constituent parts, which we can acquire through our own efforts: ‘’‘the spirit self, the life spirit, the spiritual human being’‘’. This has to do with the ‘’‘number seven’‘’. And we have come to these, simply because it was of seven churches that John speaks, to which he turns and to which he now writes in a certain way, to the seven churches. In doing so, he mentions the seven creator spirits. I'll read the short passage again.<blockquote>‘’‘John to the seven churches in Asia:’‘

’‘Grace and peace be yours,’‘

’‘from him who is and who was and who is to come,’‘

’‘and from the seven spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘The seven spirits before his throne’‘’, these are the spiritual beings that ‘’‘help to create our seven members of the human being’‘’. Because, in general, the higher spiritual elements of our being, which we actually have to create ourselves - because only then are they ours - still have to be prepared. That is, so to speak, if you put it in earthly terms, ‘’‘a model for it’‘’. It has to be prepared once. These seven creator spirits work on it. It would be too much to go into which angelic beings they are. They are also high angelic beings, very high. You should not be surprised that, for example, ‘’‘the thrones have something to do with it,’‘’ yes, with the physical body and ‘’‘also with the preparation of the spiritual being,’‘’ that they have a hand in it, because they are able to work into the physical, for example. Just as a small hint.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5873s The Revelation of John on Patmos 1:37:53] ===
Now I want to read something else to you at the end of the lecture, namely also from the first chapter what John now writes in detail ‘’‘to these seven churches:’‘’<blockquote>‘’«I, John, your brother and companion in all trials, as well as in the inner kingdom and in the persevering strength that we possess as those who are united with Jesus, was on the island of Patmos. There I was to be made partaker of the divine word of the world and worthy of bearing witness to the suffering of Christ.‘</blockquote>

’The suffering of Jesus’ is what it says in the translation. The translation is by ‘’‘Emil Bock’‘, one of the “”’founding priests of the Christian Community‘’‘. So, “”’on the island of Patmos he had this spiritual vision.‘’‘ He describes very clearly an “”’imagination‘’‘ and how this imagination was “”’translated into sensual images‘’'. He cannot communicate the image in any other way than by translating it into sensual words. He describes it in a very typical way:<blockquote>‘’«On the day of the Lord, I was transported into the spiritual realm and heard a mighty voice behind me like the sound of a ‘’‘trombone’‘’».‘’</blockquote>It is often the case ‘’‘in spiritual experiences,’‘’ that you have the feeling «there is something behind me» and my first test is whether I turn around or not. Do I have the courage to turn around, because if I have the courage to turn around, then it means that I am in a sense crossing the ‘’‘threshold’‘’. And that is ‘’‘a kind of death experience’‘’. You have to be aware of that, it is a death experience. And it is also connected with, how shall I put it, with the unpleasant side of death, that is, to feel this loss in the physical world - without completely leaving the body. You really have the experience of ‘’‘going through death’‘’. Without that ‘’‘you cannot cross the threshold’‘’. That means that the first test is: do I dare to turn around or not. Of course, this has nothing to do with physically turning around, but rather in the spiritual world. That means that the ‘’‘turning around’‘’ is to ‘’‘let go of everything that is sensual in order to turn to the spiritual’‘’. This mighty voice like the sound of a trumpet. Incidentally, the word ‘trombone’ means - and since we are talking about sound - that ‘’‘inspiration’‘’ is already playing a part in the development of the imagination. In fact, every spiritual experience begins at an even higher level, with ‘’‘intuition’‘’. I have to become one with a spiritual being in order to enter the spiritual world at all. That is intuition. However, it does not become immediately conscious. It is, so to speak, the prerequisite and forms the unconscious background.

The next stage is ‘’‘inspiration.’‘’ When you have a real spiritual experience, then you have at least an echo of this inspirational experience, without being able to fully grasp its content, that you ‘’‘hear a voice like a trombone,’‘’ which is just loud and powerful and shattering, but you don't really understand it at that moment.

The third and last thing is actually ‘’‘the imaginative image,’‘’ that builds up - and this image is not a sensual one at first, but rather, you could say, ‘’‘a kind of highly differentiated mood of the soul’‘’ that one experiences. I will perhaps come back to this in more detail another time. There is no more time now. It is actually a ‘’‘highly differentiated spiritual experience’‘’ that one has, which one can now ‘’‘overlook like a panorama’‘’, which is in motion, which is changing, and in this experience one can, so to speak, wander around spiritually. That is the real imagination. But John has to describe it as a spiritual image. So he hears this voice and he continues to say or write:<blockquote>‘’« She said: Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches. To Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamon, to Thyatira, to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea ».‘’</blockquote>So these are the seven churches. ‘’‘Ephesus’‘’ ([[A:Ephesos|Ephesos]]), the first, with which John was, incidentally, ‘’‘very closely connected,’‘’ that is, in the period long after the events in Palestine, after the death of Christ on the cross. The island of Patmos, incidentally, is very close, on the coast of Asia Minor, and Ephesus and the mystery centre of Ephesus are relatively close on the mainland. That is also an advantage, that there was a mystery centre there, an important one. ‘’‘The important Christian centres’‘’ were all initially located where ancient mystery centres were also located - so this ‘’‘mystery centre’‘’ of Ephesus was closely connected to Patmos, or rather the other way round, Patmos was in a sense ‘’‘an offshoot of the mysteries of Ephesus.’‘’ So, there are seven churches and the voice speaks now and John continues to write:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>So the Christ appears in human form.<blockquote>’‘’Clothed with a long flowing robe,‘’

‘’girded at the breast with a golden girdle,‘’

‘’with a white head, the hair of which shone like white wool and like snow,‘’

‘’with eyes as if they were flames of fire,‘’

‘’with feet as if they were of gold ore that has been heated in the fire,‘’

‘’with a voice like the the sound of great waters,‘’

‘’in his right hand he held ‘’‘seven stars’‘’,‘’

‘’out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword,‘’

‘’and his countenance was like the sun in its strength."</blockquote>It is a very powerful experience. The sensual image is a pale shadow of what really lies behind it in the imagination. But it points the way. And how strong that was, comes out further:<blockquote>‘’‘and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said -’' we have already read this today “”- Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last and the Living. I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the ages. Mine is the key to the realms of death and the shadows. Write down what you see, the present and the future. The mystery of the seven stars that you see in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands,‘’ ‘’is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches themselves.‘</blockquote>With that, “”’the first chapter of the Apocalypse‘’' ends, and I would like to close for today.
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[[Index of terms Lecture series The Apocalypse of John by Wolfgang Peter#A|APOCALYPSE]]

* ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also called ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of the own self - namely in the moment when I and Christ are one [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The riddle of the self 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|‘’‘Apocalypse of John’‘’]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ASTRAL BODY

* We transform the ‘’‘astral body’‘’ into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

ETHER

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect itself ‘’‘in the etheric’', then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experiencing in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:16:35]]
The ‘’‘ether’‘’ world is much richer than the physical world: the physical is actually a dead thing, something that has died out of the ‘’‘ether’‘’ world [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:46:18]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with number rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the ‘’‘ethereal’‘’, because the ‘’‘etheric forces’‘’, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’ still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ‘’‘ether’‘’ and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
ATLANTIS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-‘’‘Atlantean’‘’ era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|B}}

CONSCIOUSNESS

* When our ‘’‘consciousness’‘’ no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different ‘’‘consciousness’‘’, with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the ‘’‘consciousness,’‘’ in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|C}}

CHRIST

* If we succeed, with the help of ‘’‘Christ’‘’ and with the help of the father forces, in restoring the original spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our I completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of ypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We need the fatherly forces that are conveyed through ‘’‘Christ’‘’ to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of the self - namely at the moment when I and ‘’‘Christ’‘’ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the self that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as ‘’‘Christ’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|D}}

DANTE ALIGHIERI

* Descent into the realm of shadows is described by ‘’‘Dante’‘’ ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]] ) in his ‘Divine Comedy’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]). The path leads through the centre of the earth to the ascent [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:31:28]]

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

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

{{BS|F}}

FREEDOM

* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. For this he has ‘’‘freedom’‘’. He can open himself to the spiritual out of free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|G}}

SPIRIT

* We need the father forces, which are mediated by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

SPIRITUAL HUMAN

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our I, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

SPIRIT SELF

* An artist who is truly creative from his I is active from the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’. This means that he transforms the astral into ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* The [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] is also called manas in the East. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

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

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

{{BS|I}}

I

* An artist who is truly creative from his ‘’‘I’‘’ is working from the spirit self. That is, he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of the Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our ‘’‘I’‘’, then we will create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* Karma is nothing more than our ‘’‘I’‘’ striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of one's own ‘’‘I’‘’ - namely at the moment when ‘’‘I’‘’ and Christ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the ‘’‘I’‘’ that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

IMAGINATION

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience ‘’‘imaginations’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the Spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|J}}

JOHN, THE EVANGELIST

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]), the writer of the Gospel of John ([[A:GA 103|GA 103]]) and the Apocalypse, is the [[A:Lazarus|Lazarus]] raised from the dead by Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Introduction 0:00:36|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:00:36]]

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

{{BS|K}}

KARMA

* ‘’‘[[A:Karma|Karma]]’‘’ is nothing more than our ego striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
CULTURAL EPOCHS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven ‘’‘cultural epochs’‘’ of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ART

* An ‘’‘artist’‘’ who is truly creative from his I is active from the spirit self. This means that he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

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

{{BS|L}}

LIFE PANORAMA

* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|‘’‘life panorama’‘’]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
* Like in a great [[A:panorama of life|‘’‘panorama of life’‘’]], this image of the past life appears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|[1 | 0:03:14]]

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

{{BS|M}}

MANAS

* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called [[A:manas|‘’‘manas’‘’]] in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called ‘’‘[[A:manas|manas]]’‘’ in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘man’ also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

MAN

* The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called manas in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘’man‘’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, ‘’‘man’‘’ can err. He has the freedom to do so. He can open himself to the spiritual world of his own free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same nature as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|N}}

NEW JERUSALEM

* In the [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] the view is opened to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’ ([[A:New Jerusalem|New Jerusalem]]). This is a kind of new planetary state that will one day become our Earth [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The New Jerusalem - a new Earth 0:35:47|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:35:47]]

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

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

{{BS|P}}

PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the Father forces, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even spiritualise something of our ‘’‘physical body’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #The physical body and our self-awareness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

{{BS|R}}

RUDOLF STEINER

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’‘’ so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Ap Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|S}}

CREATIVE SPIRITS

* The seven ‘’‘creative spirits’‘’ are essentially those spiritual forces or beings that created our physical bodies [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter# The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 1:03:33]]
SEVEN CHURCHES

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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{{BS|T}}

DEATH

* In the first three days after ‘’‘death’', the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]

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{{BS|U}}
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{{BS|V}}

FATHER FORCES

* We need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ that are imparted by the Christ in order to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our ego-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

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

{{BS|Z}}

NUMBERS

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with ‘’‘number’‘’ rhythms. The number seven‘’' indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with ‘’‘time’‘’. [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|0-9}}

SEVEN

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T11:02:42Z

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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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== Glossary==
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<big>[[#A|‘’‘A’‘’]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|H]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#A| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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{{BS|B}}BEGRIFF

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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{{BS|C}}CHRIST

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|D}}DAIMON

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|E}}

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{{BS|F}}

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{{BS|G}}GEISTSELBST

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|J}}

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{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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{{BS|M}}

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{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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{{BS|O}}

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{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|Q}}

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{{BS|R}}

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{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
{{Apocalypse lectures as a table}}
[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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==Literature references==
{{Literature references lecture cycle Apocalypse}}

-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T11:01:27Z

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[[File:1.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM|thumb|Link to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/jc3wz02vgbi6mq4/1.apo.mp3?dl=0 audio] ]]

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== MAIN TOPIC ==
This lecture focuses on insights into the ‘’‘vision of John’‘’, written on the island of Patmos, which he shared in a letter to the seven churches (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea). According to the [[A:Book of Revelation of John|Book of Revelation of John]], it was dictated to the evangelist John by the Christ in order to encourage and admonish the communities. According to Rudolf Steiner, the [[A:seven churches|seven churches]] represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era. [[A:Patmos|Patmos]] was closely connected with the mystery centre [[A:Ephesus|Ephesus]], where all the Christian centres were initially located. John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) translated his experienced imagination into sensual images. In a highly differentiated spiritual experience, it unfolded like a panorama in which he could wander around spiritually.

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== Transcription of the 1. lecture of the Apocalypse of John ==
by Ghislaine, Susanne, Elke (December 2022)

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=36s Introduction 0:00:36] ===
So, my dear friends, I think we'll just start. No one has missed anything. So even those who were not there last time have not missed much. Basically, we have only dealt with the beginning of the Apocalypse of John. Basically, we had the first sentence and have linked a lot to it.

So the question we had is: ‘’‘Who is this John who writes this Apocalypse of John and who also wrote the Gospel of John?’‘’ So the evangelist John - how did he become the person who was able to write these things? And we came to the conclusion, based on Rudolf Steiner's indications, that it was in fact ‘’‘the resurrected Lazarus’‘’. You may know that. It is described in the Bible in the New Testament, ‘’‘the raising of Lazarus’‘’ as a, in a certain sense, ‘’‘raising of the dead’‘’, as it is called, which in truth is ‘’‘an initiation process’‘’. An initiation process that in a certain sense is similar to what has been customary since Egyptian times. We then also spoke at length about the Egyptian initiation. In those days, the ‘’‘initiation students’‘’ had to undergo long and difficult ‘’‘examinations’‘’ before they were admitted to the ‘’‘central initiation experience’‘’. These examinations repeatedly led them into ‘’‘life-threatening’‘’ situations. That was such an important point. The ‘’‘willpower was trained’‘’, and it was also trained that he really walks at the ‘’‘edge of death’‘’ in a certain way during these tests - and when the initiate was found to be ready for the great test, then he was actually put in a ‘’‘dead-like state’‘’ for ‘’‘three days’‘’ or three and a half days. This was done through ‘’‘meditation’‘, and also through certain substances that were given to them, “”’drugs‘’‘ if you will, which could have induced a state of apparent death, one might say. Because the goal of the initiation was to be able to “”’report from the spiritual world‘’, to be able to experience something there and to be able to report from there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=194s Initiation in ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14] ===
The problem is: how do you get there, how do you experience something beyond the threshold? The way that was taken in Egyptian culture, but basically in all advanced civilisations at that time, was to actually put people into this state that is similar to death for three and a half days. For about three and a half days. If you are familiar with Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of what happens after death, then you know that ‘’‘about three and a half days’‘’ after death, you experience ‘’‘a review of your past life on earth’‘’.

This image of one's past life appears before one as if in a great ‘’‘panorama of life’‘’, and one realises what one has done in this life, one really gets to know oneself in a certain way. You see this image from a very interesting distance, like a ‘’‘beautiful panorama’‘’, you could say, so you can even see the ‘’‘negative events’‘’ in their ‘’‘meaning for life’‘’ and what you take away from them in a certain way. So it is a very ‘’‘sunny’‘’, a very ‘’‘joyful experience’‘’. As a side note, these are, for example, the descriptions that can be found in ‘’‘Islam’‘’, ‘’‘given by Mohammed’‘’, where he speaks of the ‘’‘joys of paradise’‘’, which refer primarily to the experience of this life panorama, that is, these very happy experiences in the three days after death. So there is nothing unpleasant for the person who has passed over. The only thing that one does not yet experience or receive is a direct insight into the real spiritual world. It is still a ‘’‘memory of earthly life’‘’. This is connected with the fact that the ‘’‘life forces’‘’ that have animated us during our entire earthly life, that have animated the body, remain in a certain ‘’‘closer connection’‘’ during these three days or three and a half days. So the etheric body of the human being - the life forces are this etheric body of the human being, the ‘’‘etheric body is also the bearer of memory’‘’, the actual bearer of memory - remains in a certain compact form during these three and a half days and then begins to dissolve. Dissolving means that it connects with the ‘’‘world ether’‘’ and then this panorama disappears in a certain way.

And only then, ‘’‘when this panorama disappears, does the actual view into the soul world’‘’ begin, initially not yet into higher spiritual worlds, but at least into the soul world. So only then have you really ‘’‘crossed the threshold’‘’ properly. And that means that if you ultimately put a person in a state similar to death for the purpose of initiation, you have to get through these three or three and a half days - or at least get to ‘’‘this border - so that you can get any insight into the spiritual world or, more precisely, into the soul world’‘, because before that you only experience the “”’review of earthly life‘’'. Looking back means that you can basically move freely in this panorama of life, so to speak, you can look at different events in life and observe them from a higher perspective, as it were. But that is not yet the actual spiritual. So you have to get over this boundary three/three and a half days, but you had to be very careful at the Egyptian initiation ‘’‘that the connection to the physical body’‘’, which now lies there like dead - often really put into a sarcophagus for the purpose of initiation - that the connection to this physical body ‘’‘does not break off completely’‘’. Because if it is completely severed, if the life is completely out, the soul is completely out, the spiritual is completely out and this connection is severed, then there is no way back. Then death really occurs. And the Egyptian initiation was set up in such a way that the ‘’‘priesthood,’‘’ which ‘’‘oversaw this initiation process’‘’ - there were usually twelve priests who were around the person being initiated and monitored this state - that they could observe exactly when the last possible moment was ‘’‘when they had to bring him back.’‘’ So he was brought back mainly by letting sunlight fall on him in the right way. So through the ‘’‘light’‘’ he was ‘’‘woken up,’‘’ but also, of course, through recitation and the like, through incense that was burnt, through awakening explanations. And then he had to be brought back very quickly - and the initiation student was ‘’‘trained’‘’ and practised ‘’‘to report quickly what he had seen over there.’‘’ It's a bit like waking up from a dream in the morning. If you don't immediately write down what happened in the dream, it's usually gone and you can't remember it anymore. Because you can't store dream experiences, or even less spiritual experiences, in our normal memory.

So you can't really hold on to an ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ a real imagination - and that is an imagination that a person has in the initiation at first - with your memory. At most, you can try to get back to such an experience. If you want to have it again, you actually have to go back there and see it again. What I can remember very well is when I wake up or come out of it, as it was in the Egyptian initiation, and put it into words and tell it. I can remember these words. And not only the initiate has to remember these words for a lifetime, but also the priesthood that surrounded him. They have kept these words in their memory after hearing them once. And it must be said that this initiate did not speak in everyday language, but rather ‘’‘in a ritual language,’‘’ that is, ‘’‘with certain rhythms,’‘’ which are inherent in it. It was the Egyptian language in terms of the words. But the way it was formulated, we would say today, ‘’‘it was poetic, it was ritualistic,’‘’ and that was immediately impressed on the memory. It is this ‘’‘elevated priestly way of speaking’‘’ and to a certain extent it has remained with us to this day. It is absorbed differently, it has a different effect. But nevertheless, it is a translation of the spiritual experience into an earthly language. One must bear in mind that even in the life after death, ‘’‘the language’‘’ that we have spoken here on earth ‘’‘disappears.’‘’ It disappears very quickly. Not immediately after the three and a half days, but very soon it is gone. It is, if you like, ‘’‘a spiritual language’‘’ that one then speaks, but that is then only an auxiliary term to call it ‘language’, it is a different experience. This means that the initiate had to ‘’‘get over these three and a half days’‘’, then he could have the experience of ‘over there’, that is, from the other side of the threshold - and at the moment of waking up he could bring this experience in. Bring it in for himself and ‘’‘for the priesthood,’‘’ which surrounded him.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=712s The Initiation of Lazarus 0:11:52] ===
And something similar also happened during the ‘’‘initiation of Lazarus.’‘’ Only the starting point was different. This Lazarus was not put into a death-like state by a priesthood or anyone else, but rather he - one could say - ‘’‘fell into this state on his own.’‘’ I say ‘on his own’, but I must also add that it was in a certain way the after-effect of the words of the priest with whom he had a lot of contact. I must also say that ‘’‘Lazarus was a very important man in Jerusalem, a very rich man’‘’ and very well known. He was known throughout Jerusalem, and he also made a name for himself as a follower of Christ. He experienced what Christ said so intensely that, as a result of this experience, he fell into this death-like state of his own accord. He fell into this state so deeply that the people around him thought he had died and laid him in the grave afterwards. And when the Christ then learns that Lazarus has died, he ‘’‘takes a very long time’‘’ and does not go to ‘’‘Lazarus in Bethany’‘’ to wake him up. He simply waits. He waits for two days, but nothing happens. And then he sets off - and only on the fourth day, at the very last possible moment, on the fourth day, which is really very late, does he wake Lazarus with the words ‘’‘«Lazarus, come out»’‘’. In a figurative sense, these were the words of awakening, as the Egyptians also spoke them, of course in Egyptian. And Lazarus now brought with him a great deal of experience, and ‘’‘the Gospel of John, for example, arose from the after-effects of these experiences,’‘’ and also, in a certain sense, ‘’‘the Apocalypse of John,’‘’, but that is a deeper level in a certain sense. Of course, you might ask why he is now called John and no longer Lazarus. He was not called John before. We also tried to find out where that came from last time. To do so, you have to know that relatively shortly before Lazarus was resurrected, John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod; you are sure to know the story. And the point is that after the death of John the Baptist - now - this ‘’‘John the Baptist’‘’ became something like ‘’‘a kind of protective spirit or community spirit of the twelve apostles.’‘’ The twelve apostles also included the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, so also a John, but ‘’‘John Zebedee.’‘’

So, among these twelve apostles, John the Evangelist is not to be counted initially, but now the following is the case: the spirit of this John the Baptist becomes in some way ‘’‘something like an inspiring community soul’‘’ and community spirit of this circle of twelve, these twelve apostles, and the whole thing then becomes even more condensed. There is then the transfiguration of Christ. This is also shortly before the resurrection of Lazarus, when ‘’‘this effect of John the Baptist's is concentrated’‘’ on the apostles, now on three very specific apostles, ‘’‘the two sons of Zebedee and Peter.’‘’ That means that he is now only the community spirit of these three, if you will. They thereby attain a higher level of knowledge. The other apostles would not have been able to experience the transfiguration, which is a spiritual experience, only the three of them could. And with the raising of Lazarus, the last condensation takes place, if you will. A very close bond is created between Lazarus, who is resurrected and goes through this initiation, and the spirit of John the Baptist.

It is important to know that ‘’‘at every initiation’‘’, when it happens, ‘’‘a person on earth’‘’ always works together ‘’‘with at least one spiritual being,’‘’ who is on the other side. It cannot be any other way. One has to come to a very concrete connection with a spiritual being from the other side. One does not simply enter the spiritual world. It is teeming with spiritual beings, one looks at that. But it is actually only possible if one gets a very, very intense relationship with a very specific spiritual being, with whom one is connected by fate or comes into contact with. And in this case, it is ‘’‘this connection between Lazarus here on earth and John the Baptist,’‘’ who is over there. And Lazarus gets his initiation name John after this John the Baptist. So this explains why we have a ‘’‘Gospel of John’‘’ and why this John is not John Zebedee, but someone else. But this resurrected ‘’‘Lazarus/John takes part in the Last Supper.’‘’ He is always referred to in the Gospel as ‘’‘the disciple whom the Lord loved.’‘’ That is, the one who rests in the Lord's bosom, who rests on his breast, who is not named, but who is, so to speak, one of the twelve apostles and at the same time the resurrected Lazarus, who is called John because he is connected with John the Baptist. And now, at this moment, he is also the apostle John, namely during the Last Supper. This is when the circle of the twelve is finally completed. That is to say, John Zebedee was, in a certain sense, the representative of the resurrected Lazarus, who has now become John. And this is, so to speak, the final form of the ‘’‘circle of the twelve, the twelve apostles.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1168s The Christ and the realm of death 0:19:28] ===
It is quite interesting because all of this event really condenses around the Christ, most of all condenses in this last moment ‘’‘beginning with Maundy Thursday’‘’. Yes, perhaps with the whole of Holy Week before that, but especially with Maundy Thursday, and then of course with the experience of ‘’‘Good Friday.’‘’ With the death, the ‘’‘crucifixion of Jesus Christ,’‘’ there is also the moment of the fullest incarnation. One has to think that the incarnation of Christ begins with the baptism of John, three years before, and is a gradual process. It did not happen in one fell swoop; you don't have to believe that Christ was fully incarnated at the time of his baptism in the Jordan, but it is a process that continues until the last minute, until the last minute it is completed. Then it is accomplished. So when the ‘’‘Christ's words on the cross are “It is finished”’‘’, that is exactly what is meant, namely, ‘’‘that the incarnation has now been completed’‘’ and Christ has become fully human. Immediately at the moment of death. It is very important that this incarnation takes place in its full fullness, in its entirety, basically ‘’‘in a single moment.’‘’ That is the moment when he passes through death, the Christ - and descends into the realm of death. We know that Holy Saturday is the descent into the underworld, the descent into hell, if you will, the descent into the realm of the dead, into the realm of death. Something that is not normally possible in the times. Before the angelic beings, archangels, original angels, etc., and even before Christ, human beings preceded all other spiritual beings in entering the realm of death, in entering this darkness, in entering hell, if you will, in entering the realm of the dead. We were the ones who had experience of it, at least to a certain extent. But ‘’‘all the other spiritual beings,’‘’ who are above us, up to the Christ, ‘’‘did not know the realm of death.’‘’ In the spiritual world, there is no death. It is a very special realm, and the fact that ‘’‘the Christ completed his humanity on Golgotha’‘’ also enables him to descend into this realm of death.

It is also very clearly stated in the text of the Apocalypse, which I will perhaps read out. I have to find the passage quickly... Yes, it is still in the first chapter, towards the end of the first chapter, and there ‘’‘John has a Christ encounter.’‘’ In truth, it is ‘’‘the trigger’‘’ for the whole writing of the Apocalypse of John. Because you have to think about what ‘Apocalypse of John’ means. These are the first words with which he begins: ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is what it actually says. The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ - and Apocalypse means as much as ‘’‘revelation, manifestation’‘’. So it is about the revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ. That is the content of the Apocalypse. And we also pointed out last time that the Christ is very closely connected with our human ego. We will have to work on this much more precisely in the next lecture or lectures. The Apocalypse has something to do with ‘’‘revealing the essence of our ego.’‘’ And what significance Christ has for this. So what John describes here is really an encounter with Christ, and he then says:<blockquote>‘’«When I saw him, I fell at his feet and was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Falling at his feet and being dead is another image for the fact that he is actually experiencing something that is beyond the threshold, on the other side of the threshold. So it is not a sensual event, but ‘’‘a spiritual experience,’‘’ that he has. And then it goes on:<blockquote>‘’«But he (that is, the Christ) laid his right hand on me and said: Fear not. I am the first and the last and the living. I was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Please note the «‘’I was dead»,‘’ says the Christ. No spiritual being could have said that about a human being until then. None of these beings had ever been dead. ‘’‘I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine.’‘’ So, the ‘’‘Christ has the key to the realm of death and the shadows’‘’. That is also something very important.

JOHN THE BAPTIST APOSTLE The spirit of John the Baptist became something like an inspiring community soul and community spirit of the circle of twelve apostles [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the Kingdom of Death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

CHRIST'S DEATH As the only higher spiritual being, the Christ knows death. Therefore he said: ‘’‘Mine is the key to the kingdom of death and the shadows’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the kingdom of death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1579s The Shadow Powers in the Realm of Death 0:26:19] ===
A little later in the Apocalypse, we will hear about the Key of David. ‘’‘The Key of David is the key to the spiritual world.’‘’ And we as human beings, if we strive spiritually, have access to both keys in a certain way. We can ‘’‘open or close the gate to the spiritual world.’‘’ We can open and close the gate to the world of death, to the world of shadows. This is connected to our ‘’‘human freedom’‘’ - or it is based on the fact that we can open these gates in a certain sense by our own power. That is the essential passage for us. This ‘’«I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine»‘’. And it was precisely into this realm of death that John himself went, that is, Lazarus/John‘’‘ in the course of his “”’initiation.‘’' This is the path that one has to go through. It should be said that this encounter with the ‘’‘realm of shadows’‘’ is particularly important in the initiation process. It is not usually the case that when one passes over the threshold in a normal way, that is to say, through death, one experiences too much of this realm of shadows immediately after death. If one passes through in the state of initiation, that is to say, in this sleep similar to death, then one is very much confronted with this realm. Very clearly. And also with all the shadowy sides that exist there and the temptations that are associated with them. These are experienced very strongly and it was precisely this that the Egyptian initiates had to prepare themselves for very intensively. This test, that is actually the Ahrimanic side that one encounters in order to get through it. So that means that these were often very gruesome experiences that this initiate had to go through again and again over the years - and they increased more and more. Only when they had endured this were they ‘’‘found ripe’‘’ to really go through the last great test, the three-day sleep of death.

Of course, all kinds of elements associated with this ‘’‘dark world of death’‘’ are now included in the ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’. This revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ also reveals the spiritual world that is above us. But it also reveals the world that lies below us, or works among us, or simmers among us, however you want to call it. This is the very special position we have as human beings, this spiritual being that we are as human beings, that we stand between the spiritual world above us and the world of death below us. Exactly on the border. If you want an image of it: ‘’‘The surface of the earth’‘’ on which we stand is exactly ‘’‘the border line.’‘’ It goes up there - and down there. We have to concern ourselves with both realms. In the Egyptian initiation, and in the initiation of the ancient Orient in general, the main aim was to gain ‘’‘knowledge of the light side,’‘’ that is, the side that lies above us, because the power to deal with the dark side was not yet very strong. So people had certain experiences that foreshadowed something that we basically have to experience to a much greater extent today if we want to enter the spiritual world. For the person who wants to have real spiritual experiences today or is mature enough to have them... Anyone who wants to have ‘’‘such insights’‘’ today and also wants to have them ‘’‘in a healthy way’‘’ must or ‘’‘should not be afraid of confronting the dark forces.’‘’

FREEDOM OF MAN As human beings, if we strive spiritually, we can open or close the door to the spiritual world. This is connected with our human freedom [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Shadow Forces in the Realm of Death 0:26:19|[1 | 0:26:19]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28] ===
This is one of the reasons why Dante ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’ in his ‘’‘Divine Comedy’‘’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’. Basically, what Dante describes there ‘’‘is also an initiation experience.’‘’ He shows very clearly how the path to the upper spiritual world, that is, what he also ‘’‘refers to as paradise,’‘’ leads through the underworld. That the right way is not a direct ascent to paradise, that one would fail there, that one would in fact come to a bright world, but it would be the Luciferic world. It would not be the real spiritual world, but it would be ‘’‘the world of Luciferic beings.’‘’ They are also spiritual beings, but spiritual beings that have ‘’‘in a sense remained behind,’‘’ that is, they have not developed their full spiritual powers. This means that if a person were to integrate themselves into this realm, they would ultimately also block or at least slow down their path to the future. In pre-Christian times, it was not yet so problematic. But in the post-Christian era, it becomes ‘’‘problematic’‘’. That means that ‘’‘we have to pass the test of going through the underworld’‘’, if you will. That is why ‘’‘Dante’‘’ describes it so clearly in his «Divine Comedy»: the path goes down to the centre of the earth. This is of course a metaphor. It is not about descending with crampons, drilling into the earth, but ‘’‘going down spiritually.’‘’ Descending ‘’‘into the dark depths of our own being’‘’ and the dark depths of the earthly world. So we have to think that our earth itself has this dual nature. On the one hand, a multitude of ‘’‘light-filled spiritual forces’‘’, high spiritual forces, but there are also ‘’‘dark forces’‘’ in it. Down there in the earth, that is the realm of Ahriman. That is the realm of the spirits of darkness, if you will. Lucifer hovers a little above it, but Ahriman and even stronger opposing forces live down there. And that is exactly where you have to go through.

In Dante's version, the path leads ‘’‘through the centre of the earth.’‘’ Then the ascent begins. Interestingly, it happens very quickly, he scurries up a few levels and lands on the surface of the earth, emerging at the ‘’‘Mountain of Purification’‘’. And the Mountain of Purification is what leads him to the so-called ‘’‘Purgatory’‘’, ‘’‘to the Fiery Furnace’', if you will. So this is the first supernatural realm that leads beyond the earth. And this is precisely the realm in which the Luciferic beings essentially live. There we must then ‘’‘purify ourselves’‘’ from all these ‘’‘Luciferic forces’‘’ in order to be able to ascend into the real paradise and the real spiritual world. That is the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy. But this applies to all forms of Christian initiation in a certain way. These stages are somewhere inside, it is hardly where it is expressed as clearly as in Dante, so systematically. But it is just as much in the Apocalypse. There you also find the confrontation with the very, very dark forces. That is why there are also images that seem very frightening at first glance. But in reality they are only an expression of a purification process that we have to go through. If we did not go through it, we would not get an insight into the spiritual world.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2147s The New Jerusalem - a new earth 0:35:47] ===
In the Book of Revelation, the view is opened above all to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem.’‘’ The New Jerusalem is ‘’‘a kind of new planetary state,’‘’ which will one day become ‘’‘our earth’‘’. When we as humanity and the Earth as a whole have gone through a certain development, at some point in the future the Earth as the planet as we know it will die, perish, be destroyed. It must be destroyed, just as our physical body must ultimately be destroyed - and then the New Jerusalem will arise. ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often calls it’‘’ in his lectures... he calls it ‘’‘the New Jupiter’‘’, which will come. This is a kind of new planet that will of course be different from our Earth. It is still a long way off, we still have a little time to go, but there we will be ‘’‘transferred to a new, higher spiritual state’‘’. But we will be mature enough to enter this higher spiritual state. A state that is in some ways ‘’‘comparable’‘’ to what ‘’‘today's angelic beings’‘’ possess. It will be different from our present-day angelic beings, but in terms of spiritual potency it is comparable to them. And then, above all, we will not have a body like the one we have today - and above all under different conditions. An important moment in the Book of Revelation is also given where John speaks of the ‘’‘so-called first death and the so-called second death’‘’. It is quite late in the Apocalypse, so one wonders what the first and second death are. I don't want to go into detail about this today either. But it has to do with the fact that we will finally lay down our physical body there. We will lay it down in every conceivable form and will not get it back in this form, so we have to learn to live without it. So, ‘’‘the first death’‘’ has to do with ‘’‘finally laying down the physical body forever.’‘’ And ‘’‘the second death’‘’ means finally ‘’‘laying down the corresponding etheric body.’‘’ That does not mean that we will then no longer have anything etheric, but no longer in the form that we have now. We will discuss this in more detail in the next lecture, but for now, this is just a suggestion.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2334s The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54] ===
I have now repeated a lot of what we discussed last time. Now we should move on a little and look at what is described in the Apocalypse. I will just read a short passage and then explain it. So in the first chapter, before the passage I read to you, John now addresses his ‘’‘words to the seven churches in Asia’‘’. So seven Christian communities in Asia - there were certainly more communities - they are the seven, if you will, leading communities, at least in the spiritual sense, in the outward sense it was a different chapter. We will encounter the ‘’‘number seven’‘’ very often in the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of John works a lot with ‘’‘number rhythms’‘’, they play a very important role. Wherever the number seven occurs, we can always be aware that it has something to do with a temporal development, with an evolution, with a series of developments. The number seven is also the ‘’‘number of the etheric,’‘’ for example. ‘’‘The etheric forces,’‘’ the life forces, ‘’‘have something to do with time.’‘’ Life takes place in time and life becomes rigid when nothing changes any more. Then death has occurred. After death, decay always follows. But no longer a living development.

So when the number seven plays a role, it always refers to a living development. For example, the human body renews itself about every seven years. This is one of the reasons why ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often speaks clearly in his education’‘’ about these ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’ that people go through: that ‘’‘the child’‘’ enters school at the age of seven, with the change of teeth , that puberty begins at the age of fourteen, that new spiritual forces awaken, that the twenty-first year of life is very important, that the ego begins to emerge very clearly. And so it goes on - again and again in ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’, which are no longer so noticeable externally. But if you look a little more closely, they are there too. Externally, they are connected to the fact that ‘’‘the body physically renews itself every seven years’‘’ and that, over the course of about seven years, it has ‘’‘completely exchanged its material’‘’. Rudolf Steiner always pointed this out, but it was often dismissed as an old wives' tale. You know that scientists never believe anything at first, they are always sceptical - that is perhaps also their virtue. But if they are thorough, they are open to being taught otherwise. It is actually the case that in recent years, through systematic medical, biological and chemical research, it has been possible to prove that the substances in the human body renew themselves on average every seven years. Some take a little longer, some renew themselves more quickly, but if you take the average, it really is every seven years.

So, in terms of our material substance, nothing that was there seven years ago is still there. We have become something completely new in terms of our material substance, but we have retained our forms to a certain extent, at least to the extent that we are usually recognised again after seven years. We can get a little older, we change a little, but we are still clearly recognisable as human beings. So the form, that is to say the etheric forces that renew this form again and again, they go through this whole ‘’‘seven-year period’‘’, but ‘’‘the physical is renewed again and again.’‘’ Basically, physically speaking, we do not die only once at the end of our lives, but in every seven-year period we basically, materially speaking, discard a corpse. Scattered into the world. It happens quite inconspicuously, with every breath we take, with every piece of food we eat and then excrete again, with what we sweat out and so on. All of this is shed, with the scales on our skin, where something is constantly being shed, something is always being lost. So, materially speaking, we are completely new people after seven years. And ‘’‘behind it all is ultimately a rhythm of the etheric body. It is this that in truth,’‘’ causes these seven-year cycles. With many sub-rhythms that also play a role. Today, science is already investigating - there is a discipline that has developed in this way since the middle of the twentieth century and has become increasingly clear in recent years, and that is ‘’‘chronobiology’‘’. Chronobiology is concerned with the rhythms that operate in the human body, and also in animals. And many exciting things have been discovered - among other things, the daily rhythm plays a major role, but so do seven-day rhythms, for example the seven-day rhythm as a quarter of a month. The month is again connected with the ‘’‘moon rhythm’‘’, the daily rhythm, which is connected with the rotation of the earth, the moon rhythm is connected with the moon's orbit. It has its subdivisions and a quarter of it is about seven days. It is also not by chance that we have a ‘’‘seven-day week’‘’. It is very wise. The ‘’‘calendar’‘’ could be organised in a completely different way, but then it would no longer be ‘’‘in harmony with these natural rhythms.’‘’ These natural rhythms are actually based on the etheric body. It is behind them - or the etheric world in general. From a cosmic point of view, it is the etheric world; in us, it is the etheric body, the internalisation of these rhythms. There are x rhythms in the body, very, very fast ones that vibrate very ‘’‘nervously’‘, so to speak - I say nervously on purpose, because it is very strongly “”’connected to the nervous system‘’‘ - and there are much longer rhythms that go more leisurely and renew us right down to the “”’metabolic processes‘’' within seven years.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2778s Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18] ===
So John has a lot to do with these forces, and that is why he often speaks of the number seven and that is why he also speaks of the seven churches ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). That is the reason. That is the real reason, because these ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ are - one could say - ‘’‘representatives of certain stages of development’‘’. So they represent seven stages of development that together make up a whole. Yes, I'll read a bit of it out:<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be yours from him,‘’

‘’who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven spirits of creation before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>From him who is and who was and who is to come - well, he basically spanned ‘’‘the whole time’‘’, the past, the present and the future, ‘’‘drawing the bow.’‘’

In the spiritual self, time and temporal development no longer play the same role as they do here in our earthly lives. In a sense, we enter the ‘’‘realm of eternity, of timelessness’‘’ - and yet there is movement in it. That seems paradoxical: how can there be movement if there is no time? Basically, you can move freely, as I should say, in what we call time, here as time. This actually begins in the ‘’‘etheric world’‘’. The experience in the etheric world is such that we can ‘’‘move freely in time’‘’. This means that we can go back, not just look back, but really go back - in an etheric way. But we can also go into the future, take a look, so to speak, into the future at least. How this future, which we experience in the etheric, is then realised in the physical, is another chapter. The etheric world is much, much richer than the physical world - and ‘’‘the physical’‘’ is actually something that has died, something that has ‘’‘died out of the etheric world’‘’. And that means that the physical manifests itself when something etheric dies, but much other etheric continues. And the etheric encompasses the future, everything that continues in the etheric world. And one thing dies out again and again, so to speak, and manifests itself here as something physical. What we can see today in the etheric is this whole abundance, which, from our point of view, flows or goes into the future. What we cannot foresee is every single physical event that dies out. So we cannot see exactly what will die in the etheric. But we can see at least a certain line, a certain direction in which the whole thing is going. We also see that certain things ‘’‘have to happen,’‘’ namely ‘’‘as compensation for what happened in the past’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM& Repeated earthly lives and human freedom 0:50:06] ===
I now have to make a connection to another sub-topic, so to speak, namely the topic of ‘’‘reincarnation and karma’‘’. As you know, if you are already familiar with anthroposophy, we are talking about ‘’‘repeated earthly lives.’‘’ Human beings do not live on earth just once, but repeatedly. This means that when they die, they first pass through the ‘’‘soul world’‘, then through the “”’spiritual world‘’, and then descend again after a shorter or longer period of time to ‘’‘a new incarnation’‘’. Simply because this earthly existence offers us so many opportunities for development that we could not exhaust in a single incarnation. Or we are ‘’‘not spiritually advanced enough to be able to complete our earthly development in a single incarnation.’‘’ We need a little more time. We have to go through it a few times. We are pupils who may have to repeat a few years. Of course, we can distinguish ourselves during our earthly incarnation. In a certain sense, ‘’‘the spiritual beings above us’‘’ cannot ‘’‘make any mistakes.’‘’

You could say: ‘Well, I'd like to be like that too, that would be great.’ Yes, but then we would not have ‘’‘freedom’‘’. This is a big word, because it says that even the angelic beings that are above us - and also the higher angelic beings that are above them, right up to the highest angelic beings - do not have the freedom that human beings have. They ‘’‘fulfil’‘’ God's will as a matter of course, if you want to put it in our terms. That means that the higher spiritual beings that are above them flow into them, they absorb it and ‘’‘act on it. Without error.’‘’ That is wonderful. Basically, nothing can go wrong. But - they have no free decision-making ability as a result. They don't even get the idea. Actually, the highest spiritual source, that is, the divine self, had to create the possibility for freedom in the world, and this is connected with the ability not to follow the error that flows down from the spiritual world. ‘’‘What distinguishes us as human beings is,’‘’ that we ‘’‘can't follow’‘’ the spiritual world. You could say that this cannot be the ideal of a human being, that we should now rebel against the divine. Well, yes and no. It is the prerequisite for us to be able to turn to the spiritual again in freedom after we have rebelled against it. This gives it a completely different quality. We fulfil ourselves with the spiritual, not because we cannot do otherwise, but because we fulfil ourselves with it because we want to, ‘’‘out of our own free will’‘’. But that means that a spiritual element lives in us that is comparable to the highest spiritual world from which everything flows. That means that a source ‘’‘opens up in us, in our I,’‘’ that is truly, one has to say it like this, ‘’‘of the same essence’‘’ ‘’‘as the highest divine being.’‘’ Even if it is, so to speak, the small version of it, ‘’‘the miniature version,’‘’, and we only experience it in individual moments, perhaps once in an incarnation or perhaps not at all in five incarnations, but there is a moment when we are of the same essence as the highest divine. When we are the embodiment of the divine. When we are ‘’‘of the same essence as Christ’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3292s The mystery of the self 0:54:52] ===
There is a beautiful ‘’‘Pauline saying’‘’ that Rudolf Steiner often mentions and usually says in the form: ‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me’‘’. This word could easily be misunderstood if we were to say: ‘I give up my free will and let Christ do things for me or through me.’ But that is not what is meant. The ‘not I’ refers to my little ‘’‘everyday ego’‘’ - which is not our true self - and we must eliminate it. So whether we love a roast pork or are grumpy because of our personal circumstances has nothing to do with the spiritual world. That gets in our way. So this ‘’‘ego, this “I want, I want, I have to, I need”’, that's what we actually have to get rid of. But ‘’‘our real self,’‘’ we will not really experience in its concrete form in everyday life. We know that we have an ego, but that's all we know about it in our everyday consciousness. It has nothing to do with how we were born, what education we have, how much money we have, it doesn't matter at all. It really has nothing to do with our ego. You have to get to ‘’‘the conscious experience of your own ego’‘’. But it's a great moment to experience that we have one. Children usually experience it around the age of three. Then it hits them: ‘I am an I’. Many people can no longer remember this later in life. Sometimes it reappears later in life, in old age, just like ‘’‘memories of early childhood’‘’ tend to resurface in old age. But some people never forget this experience.

I can remember the experience incredibly well and in great detail. It was sometime in November, maybe even on my third birthday. If it wasn't on my third birthday, then it was on St Nicholas‘ Day. My parents were there, my maternal grandmother, uncles, aunts, behind me was a fireplace that was lit, it was already quite dark. Suddenly, I looked around me with wide, astonished eyes and realised, “”’I'm something different.‘’' I'll never forget it. It was like a shock, I can't say whether it was devastating - no, it certainly wasn't devastating - I didn't know that - but it was just so emphatic that it kept coming back to me. And I have to say, the older I get, the clearer it is.

There are also such moments later in life. Rudolf Steiner describes how he experienced this in his twenty-first year, when the I becomes even more awake. I'll have to read that out one day. It's quite interesting. He read about it in the works of the philosopher ‘’‘Schelling’', who also describes this experience. And then Steiner describes how he had this experience himself. He was also sure that he had had this experience. So, you can have this experience of the self at different levels. It is not to be compared with the everyday ego that we have. Having this experience of the self has something to do with the apocalypse. The ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is also the ‘Apocalypse of one's own self’, namely at the moment ‘when I and Christ are one in essence’. At the moment when one has such an experience, this ‘unity of essence’ is there. Only for a moment, then it disappears again - or at least it is not in our consciousness. In reality, it is somehow already there, but we cannot make ourselves aware of it again, perhaps not for years, not until the end of our lives. But in that one moment it is there. That is what Paul meant when he said: ‘It is not I, but Christ in me.’ You could also formulate it in the sense of: ‘It is not my little self, but my real I in me.’ It is actually exactly the same.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3618s Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and correction 1:00:18] ===
Let's go back to the seven churches in Asia. It was a bit of a detour. Yes, there was something I wanted to say, but I lost sight of it. It has to do with the ‘’‘repeated earthly lives,’‘’ that we have to go through. It is only through these many earthly lives that our ego develops further. We can only acquire an awareness of our own self through many lives on earth. But ‘’‘we also make mistakes on earth,’‘’ we are not like the angels above us, where the spiritual simply flows into us and we implement it, but we can err, we can make mistakes - and thus take on a task, namely by making these mistakes, we change the course of the world in a certain way. It is up to us to ‘’‘correct it again.’‘’ Above all, we ourselves suffer as a result. The Christ helps us to correct the mistakes that remain in the world in a certain way. But what we destroy in ourselves by making mistakes - because mistakes also mean that we ultimately put our ego in danger or scratch it - in the next incarnation or the one after that, when our strength has grown a little, we have to correct this mistake, you could say. That is what ‘’‘is connected with our karma,’‘’ with our ‘’‘destiny’‘’. Our karma is nothing other than our ego striving to repair the damage it has done to itself, to work on it. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that we ourselves are ultimately the ones who ‘’‘send our fate’‘’, our ‘’‘karma’‘’. Our real I. No one else. We don't need to complain to anyone. We can only be happy that the Christ, by working with and in our I, but in a very individual way, ‘’‘helps us to bear this karma’‘’, that he also gives us ‘’‘strength’‘’, gives our I strength. But always only to the extent that we ‘’‘really struggle for it,’‘’ it is never just something that is given, but always something ‘’‘that we have to do’‘’. That is very important. So, that is the karma that we carry with us, that is connected with our error, with our possibilities of error. But it is precisely ‘’‘on that that we mature.’‘’ That is why the path is given for many earthly lives, so that we can experience all this and thereby learn to become free beings.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3813s The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Humanity 1:03:33] ===
But let us now return to the seven churches.<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be with you,‘’

‘’from him who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven creator spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>The seven creator spirits: Well, who are the seven creator spirits? Essentially, they are those spiritual forces or those spiritual beings who created our ‘’‘bodily shells’‘’ and prepared them so that these spiritual shells, these bodily shells - yes, I have already used the word ‘spiritual shells’ - could one day be transformed into spiritual forces. So what are these bodies: the ‘’‘physical body’‘’, the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’, that is, the life forces, then the ‘’‘astral body’‘’, which makes us a sentient, conscious being. In the etheric body, we are actually still asleep, and in the astral body, we are at least dreaming. This is exactly what we have in common with animals. So, animals also have a certain consciousness, but it is still dream-like, this ‘’‘consciousness.’‘’ If we only had this consciousness, this astral consciousness, we would not be very awake. We would not recognise ourselves as an I. That means that the ‘’‘I’‘’ comes in a certain way as the fourth, or the ‘’‘I-bearer, as Rudolf Steiner often calls it,’‘’ which is, so to speak, the physical prerequisite for an I to be able to incarnate. Incarnation means that the I completely permeates the body shells and thus ‘’‘makes the body shells’‘’ into ‘’‘I-bearers,’‘’ but that is the fourth principle. The ‘’‘I’‘’ that is now incarnating, by unfolding its spiritual forces, ‘’‘shapes the astral body, the etheric body and finally the physical body’‘’ through its spiritual forces, through the individual spiritual forces that lie within each I. The astral body, which was initially given by the spiritual beings, is transformed into what Rudolf Steiner calls the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ or our higher self. Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. This is a power that our I has at its disposal, so to speak. In the East, it is also called ‘’‘manas.’‘’ Manas has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ also comes from it, by the way. There is another word that comes from it, which can be found in the Bible, namely ‘’‘manna.’‘’ When ‘’‘Moses and the Israelites journey through the desert’', they are given manna. This is nothing other than the powers of this spirit self, which in a certain sense descend upon the Israelites as a whole, not yet upon the individual at that time, but upon the community.

When we transform the etheric body through the power of the I, then the etheric body becomes the ‘’‘life spirit’‘’. This power of the life spirit then lives within our I. That is to say, just as the body sheaths - the physical body, etheric body, astral body - surround our I from the outside, so our I envelops the spirit self and life spirit within itself - figuratively speaking. They are part of ‘’‘this I.’‘’ In the highest form, for example, it means that if I take only the spirit self, that is, the transformed astral body, then it means that our I has become capable of ‘’‘creating an astral body out of nothing.’‘’ It is something different from when we wrap ourselves in an astral body during our normal incarnation on earth. For the most part, it is only lent to us by the spiritual world - and this will continue to happen as long as we are not able to create one for ourselves out of nothing. That is then actually our real astral body. But then we no longer call it an ‘’‘astral body, but a spirit self.’‘’ He is then completely ours.

The aim of all the initiation processes that have been taking place on earth since Egyptian times, or that lead into the future in some other way, is to form ‘’‘as much as possible’‘’ of this spirit self. So, in addition to the fact that we are developing our I here on earth, the people who are really making spiritual progress are those who have already developed a good part of the spirit self. It will then be the task of the so-called ‘’‘New Jupiter’‘’ - or what John calls the ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’, which I have discussed today - to fully develop this spirit self. But we should already have a certain part of it at the end of the earth's development, then we will at least be among the spiritually more developed people. Yes, the life spirit is the transformed etheric body. We will not be able to transform the etheric body into the life spirit on our own during the development of the Earth. We can work on it, we can work on it above all, or we can bring it a little further in the direction of ‘’‘the help of the Christ.’‘’ In this case it is really the help of the Christ. That means something that cannot be accomplished by our ego. For this, for example, the word ‘’‘grace’‘’ is very important. This is a gift that Christ gives us. As far as the spirit self is concerned, that is already our own responsibility. This is the ‘’‘endowment with the Holy Spirit’‘’, as one might call it. But this Holy Spirit is then our Holy Spirit. This is not something that remains above us or directs us from outside, but something that ultimately belongs to our I. Only then has it become a true spirit self, which we are now developing during the development of the earth, and we owe this solely to our I. But what we are already producing in terms of life spirit, at least in a preliminary form, is something for which we need the help of the Christ.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4327s The physical body and our consciousness of self 1:12:07] ===
And then we will even need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ to do this, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body. Sounds paradoxical. What is a spiritualised physical body? That sounds like a contradiction. We have to think about what the physical body, in which we are now normally embodied on earth, the physical and material body, is for. Physically and materially are not exactly the same thing. ‘’‘The material’‘’ is actually what fulfils the physical form. If, for example, the Luciferic temptation had not come, that is, if we had not come under the influence of the ‘’‘opposing forces’‘’, then we would not have had the kind of physical body that we have today. It would have been invisible to the senses.

There are a great many physical beings that are not visible to our eyes. For example, there are ‘’‘elemental beings’‘’ that definitely have a physical body and yet are ‘’‘not visible to us with our physical eyes’‘’. There are whole realms of physical worlds out there that are not visible to us because they are ‘’‘not material’‘’. So, our physical body becomes visible through the material. But what does this physical body give us, precisely through the fulfilment with the material and through the problems that are associated with it? It is precisely through the material that the whole physical body tends to decay. The material has this principle of decaying from within. When the etheric body is no longer present to constantly renew these substances, in these seven-year cycles that we have spoken of, then it simply decays, just as the corpse decays with death. So, our physical body cannot maintain its form by itself. This is because we have this ‘’‘Luciferic impact’‘’. By being filled with matter, our actually imperfect invisible physical body was actually damaged. ‘’‘This is how it became visible. This is how it became mortal.’‘’ But this is also how we have gained our consciousness of self - and we gain it precisely because we are mortal.

Our consciousness of self awakens in the processes - also in life - when they are processes of decay. For example, with every nerve impulse that passes through, something dies in the brain. It is then re-energised, but actually something dies until death, until a ‘’‘salt-like state’‘’ in the nerves. This is precisely why the ‘’‘brain’‘’ is an instrument with which we can acquire ‘’‘consciousness’‘’. To do this, we need the physical, material brain. Not for thinking, actually. ‘’‘Thinking is not a function of the physical brain.’‘’ We need the brain to become aware of these thoughts, which are actually etheric forces. As a rule, we are not yet at the stage where we can consciously experience the etheric, which is not visible to the senses but only leaves its trace in the senses - then in the growth forces - in order to experience these formative forces, these etheric forces, it has to be reflected in the physical brain and it is reflected when these ‘’‘decay processes’‘’ take place in the brain. Then, when it is regenerated again, or at least regenerated to a large extent, then the consciousness is already gone again. The dying process must take place there, that is when we become aware. We have ‘’‘death’‘’, the constant death that has in truth accompanied us since birth, ‘’‘to which we owe our consciousness’‘’ - that is a prerequisite for it - and in particular ‘’‘our I-consciousness’‘’ is especially to be owed.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4595s Imagination - Experiencing in the Spiritual 1:16:35] ===
Of course, an astral body and an etheric body are also part of it, but this ability to die through the material body is very important for our consciousness. That is why we have it and why we need it. We will need it until our consciousness has become able to do without the help of these dying processes. That means that when this consciousness can now seek out another counterpart, another mirror, when it no longer needs this physical ‘’‘mirror’‘’, when it can, for example, reflect itself in the etheric, that is, in the life forces. This mirroring in the life forces, when we enter this world of life, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we ‘’‘experience imaginations’', pictures. And now we put huge quotation marks around the word “pictures” - I will come back to this - pictures from the spiritual world. They are living pictures. ‘’‘These images cannot be described’‘’ like an oil painting, an old painting on the wall, because it is a moving image that changes continuously. You can't really capture it at all. There is movement in it - we have already discussed the paradox - a ‘’‘movement that takes place in timelessness’‘’. The movement arises from the fact that we can look at this image from different perspectives, go through it and, if I translate that into the sensual, then a temporal series of developments, a temporal event, emerges from it. But in the etheric I can go forward, backward, take detours, so I can move freely. In meditation, when you really get to a true imagination, where time no longer plays a role, a true imagination, that is experienced ‘’‘in complete timelessness.’‘’ I think, if I remember correctly, I briefly mentioned in the first lecture we had, we had two lectures, that you can experience that. Because when you do ‘’‘meditation’‘’ with today's consciousness, it's not that you're completely out of it and just floating in another world, but ‘’‘we still retain’‘’ ‘’‘consciousness here for the sensory world’‘’ even when you're not focusing on it, but it remains there. I remain aware that I am in the physical world with my body. I don't enter a dream-like state of consciousness where I am lifted out and simply float above everything, somewhere. You can really notice, under certain circumstances, if there is a clock on the table somewhere, that I have an incredibly ‘’‘intense imagination’‘’, that is, a moving picture, as we have discussed, ‘’‘an incredibly rich picture’‘’. You have the feeling that what I am experiencing is something that lasts for hours, that it is something very, very long that is unfolding and unrolling before me - and when I look at the second hand of the clock, it seems to be standing still. So what I experience internally as hours or days, externally no time passes. So it is ‘’‘experienced in an instant,’‘’ measured in terms of our external time. It can happen in dreams, too, in reality. It often happens when a dream is triggered by something, especially when you wake up and enter the sensory world. For example, the morning sun comes in through the window, even with your eyes closed, your senses somehow perceive it without us being aware of the sunlight. We are still in the dream and suddenly a huge fire breaks out in the dream, a huge fire, and there you experience a long story: the fire brigade arrives, there are dramatic scenes unfolding so that the residents in the house can be rescued and you think that it has been going on for two hours. You wake up and look at the sun, which has just come around the corner, which has just appeared, almost at the same moment. So actually, these dream images also unfold in timelessness, basically. This consciousness, this imaginative consciousness is connected to the fact that when we no longer need the physical body as a mirroring apparatus for consciousness, then we mirror in the living etheric body, then ‘’‘we go out of the time stream’‘’ and ‘’‘can move freely in time.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4946s The Soul World and Time 1:22:26] ===
In the astral world, in the ‘’‘soul world’', it is different, there is a very special paradox, time seems to come towards us. Future, it seems that ‘’‘time moves in reverse.’‘’ This is very important, because this is the way in which creative impulses enter the world. In order for something to manifest itself creatively in the physical world, there must be a physical time stream that goes from the past to the future, which is what we know in normal life. The etheric must be there, where timelessness, above all mobility, reigns in time - and something must come from the future, actually from the end of the development process - and ‘’‘where the stream from the past and the stream from the future collide,’‘’ it becomes our momentary ‘’‘present’‘’. Something happens there.

With every event that takes place in the world, it is never just a consequence of the past, as is often believed in the natural sciences, because they only have physical and sensory means at their disposal, which is why they only know this stream of time that comes from the past and goes into the future, and they can only deduce from what has happened in the past what might happen in the future. With simple things, you can even calculate it in advance: A physicist can easily predict how a stone will fall if nothing else interferes, such as a bird flying past or something like that. But otherwise, ‘’'most real events ,‘’‘ that happen in the world, “”’you can't predict,‘’' because they are not only determined by the past, but are also determined, half of them, at least half of them, by what is heading towards us from the future. These two things have to come together. This means that when we move on from imagination or ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ something comes in that goes beyond this pictorial consciousness and shows us something of the future. Something ‘’‘shows us where this development is going,’‘’ because this goal actually comes towards us, in a sense. We have to look at the beginning and the end in order to be able to understand the current moment of development at all. These two currents have to come together.

I'll now read you a few sentences from the Apocalypse, where this is also hinted at to a certain extent, very clearly. Again, where basically Christ speaks, or at least the angel speaks through Christ. It says:<blockquote>‘’‘I am the Alpha and the Omega.’‘’</blockquote>In Greek, this means the beginning and the end. The first and the last letter in the Greek alphabet, the Alpha and the Omega.<blockquote>‘’‘Thus says the Lord, our God, who is and who was and who is to come, the ruler of the universe’.‘’</blockquote>It's all there. ‘’‘He is, who was and who is to come.’‘’ The present, that's where it starts, ‘he who is’. So it's important to keep that in mind, the order is not random, because the experience always starts in the present moment. The moment is also, in which the whole eternity is also inside. From here, I look to both sides, to what was there, that is, back, and thus also to what determines my fate, because - as far as we humans are concerned - it also contains all the mistakes we have made and which we must correct in the future, that is, what we must work on. We also see something towards which we are heading, namely our self, our individual self. Every individual self has a special nuance. It is not the case that we all have exactly the same goal. We ‘’‘all contribute together’‘’ to perhaps ‘’‘a higher goal’', that's how you could perhaps outline it. You can also find that in the words in there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5302s The spiritualisation of the physical body - the goal of human development 1:28:22] ===
Now I'll come back to the seven creator spirits in connection with the human body. I have not yet told you ‘’‘what happens to the physical body when it is spiritualised’‘’. Now I hope that you have gained a little impression that the physical can also be spiritualised - and this is not to be equated simply with the material-physical, which we know as our body. That there is also ‘’‘an invisible physical’‘’, that it is ‘’‘in truth the actual physical.’‘’ If we succeed, with the help of the Christ and the help of the father forces, in restoring this originally spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which we can now achieve, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human being’‘’. This is the highest spiritual that we can develop, as far as we can see, and it is precisely in the spiritualisation of the physical. We must not underestimate the physical, but we must see that the greatest task of humanity lies in at least working towards the spiritualisation of this physical. This is also connected with the ‘’‘resurrection of Christ’‘’. The resurrection forces of Christ, which could not have come into effect without the Father's activity, are connected with the transformation of the physical body into a spiritual being. For it to be truly successful means that we are then able, out of our own strength, out of our own I, to bring forth such a high, such a spiritualised physical body. But this is certainly no longer a body that is material. We will then not walk around on a material ‘’‘globe’‘’ or any other sphere, however it may be formed, in a material body, but rather the highest spiritual will enter. To understand this, you have to ask yourself why it is actually the highest spiritual and how it is otherwise connected to the material.

I think that the physical is the most difficult to work with. In the soul, we can already work a little today, at least to some extent, to bring forth the spirit self, consciously or unconsciously. ‘’‘An artist,’‘’ when he is really creative, ‘’‘creates a new work in his soul’‘’ and then realises it, outwardly too, but to do that he has to ‘’‘experience it in his soul first’‘’, then he is creatively active in a spiritual way. Then he is active out of his spiritual self. That means, ‘’‘he transforms astral, soul into real spiritual self.’‘’ This spirit self or this spark of spirit self that he has within him, he has created from his own I. Out of nothing, basically. He has not taken it from anywhere else, from anywhere outside, ‘’‘but from within himself.’‘’

It is much more difficult to create etheric forces out of nothing, that is, to ‘’‘unfold the spirit of life.’‘’ That is much more difficult. On the whole, we are not yet able to do that, but we need the help of the Christ to be able to do it. We don't even need to talk about the physical, because we ourselves create almost nothing there, especially consciously. In order for it to become our own, we have to be able to do it consciously, that is, consciously transform the physical body into this high spiritual being. This is only beginning to happen.

Only the highest spiritual hierarchies can really work on the physical, namely ‘’‘the Christ and the Father-Godhead’‘’, which is behind it. But very high angelic beings work with them as executive organs. These include, for example, the ‘’‘thrones’‘’ in a leading position. They are in the upper group of three hierarchies. Above them are only the beings of the zodiac, the ‘’‘cherubim’‘’ and then the ‘’‘seraphim’‘’, who are basically connected to the whole cosmos, through the visible universe - and even beyond the visible, at least for our eyes beyond the visible. These are therefore very, very high spiritual beings who are behind the physical. ‘’‘In the soul, anyone can work today, so to speak’‘’. The angelic beings that are closely connected to us, the actual angels, they all cannot do that. But we are approaching a time when we will be able to ‘’‘create a complete physical body for ourselves’‘’. It will no longer be called a physical body, but a spiritual human being. It is this that will enable us to achieve our ‘’‘highest consciousness’‘’.

Today we have ‘’‘only a mirror image,’‘’ because we are most conscious of the physical, which is basically polluted by the material. We cannot yet become self-aware of the etheric body. We are not yet able to do that. If we only had the I and the astral body, then we would know nothing about ourselves, absolutely nothing. ‘’‘It is precisely in the physical that one can develop the highest consciousness.’‘’ This applies equally to the spiritual being. That is to say, the spiritual being is the highest spiritual element that we can acquire. What happens next is a different chapter, and is not our subject.

I have now made a huge ‘’‘interjection’‘’ just to explain a little bit about the significance of the number seven, and these stages of development. We have come across these seven stages of human development or these seven constituent parts of the human being, via the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the I, which stands in the centre, and up to the spiritual constituent parts, which we can acquire through our own efforts: ‘’‘the spirit self, the life spirit, the spiritual human being’‘’. This has to do with the ‘’‘number seven’‘’. And we have come to these, simply because it was of seven churches that John speaks, to which he turns and to which he now writes in a certain way, to the seven churches. In doing so, he mentions the seven creator spirits. I'll read the short passage again.<blockquote>‘’‘John to the seven churches in Asia:’‘

’‘Grace and peace be yours,’‘

’‘from him who is and who was and who is to come,’‘

’‘and from the seven spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘The seven spirits before his throne’‘’, these are the spiritual beings that ‘’‘help to create our seven members of the human being’‘’. Because, in general, the higher spiritual elements of our being, which we actually have to create ourselves - because only then are they ours - still have to be prepared. That is, so to speak, if you put it in earthly terms, ‘’‘a model for it’‘’. It has to be prepared once. These seven creator spirits work on it. It would be too much to go into which angelic beings they are. They are also high angelic beings, very high. You should not be surprised that, for example, ‘’‘the thrones have something to do with it,’‘’ yes, with the physical body and ‘’‘also with the preparation of the spiritual being,’‘’ that they have a hand in it, because they are able to work into the physical, for example. Just as a small hint.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5873s The Revelation of John on Patmos 1:37:53] ===
Now I want to read something else to you at the end of the lecture, namely also from the first chapter what John now writes in detail ‘’‘to these seven churches:’‘’<blockquote>‘’«I, John, your brother and companion in all trials, as well as in the inner kingdom and in the persevering strength that we possess as those who are united with Jesus, was on the island of Patmos. There I was to be made partaker of the divine word of the world and worthy of bearing witness to the suffering of Christ.‘</blockquote>

’The suffering of Jesus’ is what it says in the translation. The translation is by ‘’‘Emil Bock’‘, one of the “”’founding priests of the Christian Community‘’‘. So, “”’on the island of Patmos he had this spiritual vision.‘’‘ He describes very clearly an “”’imagination‘’‘ and how this imagination was “”’translated into sensual images‘’'. He cannot communicate the image in any other way than by translating it into sensual words. He describes it in a very typical way:<blockquote>‘’«On the day of the Lord, I was transported into the spiritual realm and heard a mighty voice behind me like the sound of a ‘’‘trombone’‘’».‘’</blockquote>It is often the case ‘’‘in spiritual experiences,’‘’ that you have the feeling «there is something behind me» and my first test is whether I turn around or not. Do I have the courage to turn around, because if I have the courage to turn around, then it means that I am in a sense crossing the ‘’‘threshold’‘’. And that is ‘’‘a kind of death experience’‘’. You have to be aware of that, it is a death experience. And it is also connected with, how shall I put it, with the unpleasant side of death, that is, to feel this loss in the physical world - without completely leaving the body. You really have the experience of ‘’‘going through death’‘’. Without that ‘’‘you cannot cross the threshold’‘’. That means that the first test is: do I dare to turn around or not. Of course, this has nothing to do with physically turning around, but rather in the spiritual world. That means that the ‘’‘turning around’‘’ is to ‘’‘let go of everything that is sensual in order to turn to the spiritual’‘’. This mighty voice like the sound of a trumpet. Incidentally, the word ‘trombone’ means - and since we are talking about sound - that ‘’‘inspiration’‘’ is already playing a part in the development of the imagination. In fact, every spiritual experience begins at an even higher level, with ‘’‘intuition’‘’. I have to become one with a spiritual being in order to enter the spiritual world at all. That is intuition. However, it does not become immediately conscious. It is, so to speak, the prerequisite and forms the unconscious background.

The next stage is ‘’‘inspiration.’‘’ When you have a real spiritual experience, then you have at least an echo of this inspirational experience, without being able to fully grasp its content, that you ‘’‘hear a voice like a trombone,’‘’ which is just loud and powerful and shattering, but you don't really understand it at that moment.

The third and last thing is actually ‘’‘the imaginative image,’‘’ that builds up - and this image is not a sensual one at first, but rather, you could say, ‘’‘a kind of highly differentiated mood of the soul’‘’ that one experiences. I will perhaps come back to this in more detail another time. There is no more time now. It is actually a ‘’‘highly differentiated spiritual experience’‘’ that one has, which one can now ‘’‘overlook like a panorama’‘’, which is in motion, which is changing, and in this experience one can, so to speak, wander around spiritually. That is the real imagination. But John has to describe it as a spiritual image. So he hears this voice and he continues to say or write:<blockquote>‘’« She said: Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches. To Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamon, to Thyatira, to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea ».‘’</blockquote>So these are the seven churches. ‘’‘Ephesus’‘’ ([[A:Ephesos|Ephesos]]), the first, with which John was, incidentally, ‘’‘very closely connected,’‘’ that is, in the period long after the events in Palestine, after the death of Christ on the cross. The island of Patmos, incidentally, is very close, on the coast of Asia Minor, and Ephesus and the mystery centre of Ephesus are relatively close on the mainland. That is also an advantage, that there was a mystery centre there, an important one. ‘’‘The important Christian centres’‘’ were all initially located where ancient mystery centres were also located - so this ‘’‘mystery centre’‘’ of Ephesus was closely connected to Patmos, or rather the other way round, Patmos was in a sense ‘’‘an offshoot of the mysteries of Ephesus.’‘’ So, there are seven churches and the voice speaks now and John continues to write:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>So the Christ appears in human form.<blockquote>’‘’Clothed with a long flowing robe,‘’

‘’girded at the breast with a golden girdle,‘’

‘’with a white head, the hair of which shone like white wool and like snow,‘’

‘’with eyes as if they were flames of fire,‘’

‘’with feet as if they were of gold ore that has been heated in the fire,‘’

‘’with a voice like the the sound of great waters,‘’

‘’in his right hand he held ‘’‘seven stars’‘’,‘’

‘’out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword,‘’

‘’and his countenance was like the sun in its strength."</blockquote>It is a very powerful experience. The sensual image is a pale shadow of what really lies behind it in the imagination. But it points the way. And how strong that was, comes out further:<blockquote>‘’‘and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said -’' we have already read this today “”- Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last and the Living. I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the ages. Mine is the key to the realms of death and the shadows. Write down what you see, the present and the future. The mystery of the seven stars that you see in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands,‘’ ‘’is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches themselves.‘</blockquote>With that, “”’the first chapter of the Apocalypse‘’' ends, and I would like to close for today.
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[[Index of terms Lecture series The Apocalypse of John by Wolfgang Peter#A|APOCALYPSE]]

* ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also called ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of the own self - namely in the moment when I and Christ are one [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The riddle of the self 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|‘’‘Apocalypse of John’‘’]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ASTRAL BODY

* We transform the ‘’‘astral body’‘’ into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

ETHER

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect itself ‘’‘in the etheric’', then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experiencing in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:16:35]]
The ‘’‘ether’‘’ world is much richer than the physical world: the physical is actually a dead thing, something that has died out of the ‘’‘ether’‘’ world [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:46:18]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with number rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the ‘’‘ethereal’‘’, because the ‘’‘etheric forces’‘’, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’ still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ‘’‘ether’‘’ and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
ATLANTIS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-‘’‘Atlantean’‘’ era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|B}}

CONSCIOUSNESS

* When our ‘’‘consciousness’‘’ no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different ‘’‘consciousness’‘’, with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the ‘’‘consciousness,’‘’ in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|C}}

CHRIST

* If we succeed, with the help of ‘’‘Christ’‘’ and with the help of the father forces, in restoring the original spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our I completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of ypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We need the fatherly forces that are conveyed through ‘’‘Christ’‘’ to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of the self - namely at the moment when I and ‘’‘Christ’‘’ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the self that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as ‘’‘Christ’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|D}}

DANTE ALIGHIERI

* Descent into the realm of shadows is described by ‘’‘Dante’‘’ ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]] ) in his ‘Divine Comedy’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]). The path leads through the centre of the earth to the ascent [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:31:28]]

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

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

{{BS|F}}

FREEDOM

* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. For this he has ‘’‘freedom’‘’. He can open himself to the spiritual out of free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|G}}

SPIRIT

* We need the father forces, which are mediated by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

SPIRITUAL HUMAN

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our I, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

SPIRIT SELF

* An artist who is truly creative from his I is active from the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’. This means that he transforms the astral into ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* The [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] is also called manas in the East. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

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

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

{{BS|I}}

I

* An artist who is truly creative from his ‘’‘I’‘’ is working from the spirit self. That is, he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of the Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our ‘’‘I’‘’, then we will create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* Karma is nothing more than our ‘’‘I’‘’ striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of one's own ‘’‘I’‘’ - namely at the moment when ‘’‘I’‘’ and Christ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the ‘’‘I’‘’ that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

IMAGINATION

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience ‘’‘imaginations’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the Spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|J}}

JOHN, THE EVANGELIST

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]), the writer of the Gospel of John ([[A:GA 103|GA 103]]) and the Apocalypse, is the [[A:Lazarus|Lazarus]] raised from the dead by Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Introduction 0:00:36|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:00:36]]

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

{{BS|K}}

KARMA

* ‘’‘[[A:Karma|Karma]]’‘’ is nothing more than our ego striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
CULTURAL EPOCHS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven ‘’‘cultural epochs’‘’ of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ART

* An ‘’‘artist’‘’ who is truly creative from his I is active from the spirit self. This means that he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

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

{{BS|L}}

LIFE PANORAMA

* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|‘’‘life panorama’‘’]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
* Like in a great [[A:panorama of life|‘’‘panorama of life’‘’]], this image of the past life appears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|[1 | 0:03:14]]

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

{{BS|M}}

MANAS

* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called [[A:manas|‘’‘manas’‘’]] in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called ‘’‘[[A:manas|manas]]’‘’ in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘man’ also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

MAN

* The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called manas in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘’man‘’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, ‘’‘man’‘’ can err. He has the freedom to do so. He can open himself to the spiritual world of his own free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same nature as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|N}}

NEW JERUSALEM

* In the [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] the view is opened to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’ ([[A:New Jerusalem|New Jerusalem]]). This is a kind of new planetary state that will one day become our Earth [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The New Jerusalem - a new Earth 0:35:47|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:35:47]]

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

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

{{BS|P}}

PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the Father forces, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even spiritualise something of our ‘’‘physical body’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #The physical body and our self-awareness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

{{BS|R}}

RUDOLF STEINER

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’‘’ so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Ap Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|S}}

CREATIVE SPIRITS

* The seven ‘’‘creative spirits’‘’ are essentially those spiritual forces or beings that created our physical bodies [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter# The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 1:03:33]]
SEVEN CHURCHES

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|T}}

DEATH

* In the first three days after ‘’‘death’', the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]

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

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

{{BS|V}}

FATHER FORCES

* We need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ that are imparted by the Christ in order to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our ego-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

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

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

{{BS|Z}}

NUMBERS

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with ‘’‘number’‘’ rhythms. The number seven‘’' indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with ‘’‘time’‘’. [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|0-9}}

SEVEN

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T11:00:27Z

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[[File:1.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM|thumb|Link to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/jc3wz02vgbi6mq4/1.apo.mp3?dl=0 audio] ]]

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== MAIN TOPIC ==
This lecture focuses on insights into the ‘’‘vision of John’‘’, written on the island of Patmos, which he shared in a letter to the seven churches (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea). According to the [[A:Book of Revelation of John|Book of Revelation of John]], it was dictated to the evangelist John by the Christ in order to encourage and admonish the communities. According to Rudolf Steiner, the [[A:seven churches|seven churches]] represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era. [[A:Patmos|Patmos]] was closely connected with the mystery centre [[A:Ephesus|Ephesus]], where all the Christian centres were initially located. John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) translated his experienced imagination into sensual images. In a highly differentiated spiritual experience, it unfolded like a panorama in which he could wander around spiritually.

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== Transcription of the 1. lecture of the Apocalypse of John ==
by Ghislaine, Susanne, Elke (December 2022)

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=36s Introduction 0:00:36] ===
So, my dear friends, I think we'll just start. No one has missed anything. So even those who were not there last time have not missed much. Basically, we have only dealt with the beginning of the Apocalypse of John. Basically, we had the first sentence and have linked a lot to it.

So the question we had is: ‘’‘Who is this John who writes this Apocalypse of John and who also wrote the Gospel of John?’‘’ So the evangelist John - how did he become the person who was able to write these things? And we came to the conclusion, based on Rudolf Steiner's indications, that it was in fact ‘’‘the resurrected Lazarus’‘’. You may know that. It is described in the Bible in the New Testament, ‘’‘the raising of Lazarus’‘’ as a, in a certain sense, ‘’‘raising of the dead’‘’, as it is called, which in truth is ‘’‘an initiation process’‘’. An initiation process that in a certain sense is similar to what has been customary since Egyptian times. We then also spoke at length about the Egyptian initiation. In those days, the ‘’‘initiation students’‘’ had to undergo long and difficult ‘’‘examinations’‘’ before they were admitted to the ‘’‘central initiation experience’‘’. These examinations repeatedly led them into ‘’‘life-threatening’‘’ situations. That was such an important point. The ‘’‘willpower was trained’‘’, and it was also trained that he really walks at the ‘’‘edge of death’‘’ in a certain way during these tests - and when the initiate was found to be ready for the great test, then he was actually put in a ‘’‘dead-like state’‘’ for ‘’‘three days’‘’ or three and a half days. This was done through ‘’‘meditation’‘, and also through certain substances that were given to them, “”’drugs‘’‘ if you will, which could have induced a state of apparent death, one might say. Because the goal of the initiation was to be able to “”’report from the spiritual world‘’, to be able to experience something there and to be able to report from there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=194s Initiation in ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14] ===
The problem is: how do you get there, how do you experience something beyond the threshold? The way that was taken in Egyptian culture, but basically in all advanced civilisations at that time, was to actually put people into this state that is similar to death for three and a half days. For about three and a half days. If you are familiar with Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of what happens after death, then you know that ‘’‘about three and a half days’‘’ after death, you experience ‘’‘a review of your past life on earth’‘’.

This image of one's past life appears before one as if in a great ‘’‘panorama of life’‘’, and one realises what one has done in this life, one really gets to know oneself in a certain way. You see this image from a very interesting distance, like a ‘’‘beautiful panorama’‘’, you could say, so you can even see the ‘’‘negative events’‘’ in their ‘’‘meaning for life’‘’ and what you take away from them in a certain way. So it is a very ‘’‘sunny’‘’, a very ‘’‘joyful experience’‘’. As a side note, these are, for example, the descriptions that can be found in ‘’‘Islam’‘’, ‘’‘given by Mohammed’‘’, where he speaks of the ‘’‘joys of paradise’‘’, which refer primarily to the experience of this life panorama, that is, these very happy experiences in the three days after death. So there is nothing unpleasant for the person who has passed over. The only thing that one does not yet experience or receive is a direct insight into the real spiritual world. It is still a ‘’‘memory of earthly life’‘’. This is connected with the fact that the ‘’‘life forces’‘’ that have animated us during our entire earthly life, that have animated the body, remain in a certain ‘’‘closer connection’‘’ during these three days or three and a half days. So the etheric body of the human being - the life forces are this etheric body of the human being, the ‘’‘etheric body is also the bearer of memory’‘’, the actual bearer of memory - remains in a certain compact form during these three and a half days and then begins to dissolve. Dissolving means that it connects with the ‘’‘world ether’‘’ and then this panorama disappears in a certain way.

And only then, ‘’‘when this panorama disappears, does the actual view into the soul world’‘’ begin, initially not yet into higher spiritual worlds, but at least into the soul world. So only then have you really ‘’‘crossed the threshold’‘’ properly. And that means that if you ultimately put a person in a state similar to death for the purpose of initiation, you have to get through these three or three and a half days - or at least get to ‘’‘this border - so that you can get any insight into the spiritual world or, more precisely, into the soul world’‘, because before that you only experience the “”’review of earthly life‘’'. Looking back means that you can basically move freely in this panorama of life, so to speak, you can look at different events in life and observe them from a higher perspective, as it were. But that is not yet the actual spiritual. So you have to get over this boundary three/three and a half days, but you had to be very careful at the Egyptian initiation ‘’‘that the connection to the physical body’‘’, which now lies there like dead - often really put into a sarcophagus for the purpose of initiation - that the connection to this physical body ‘’‘does not break off completely’‘’. Because if it is completely severed, if the life is completely out, the soul is completely out, the spiritual is completely out and this connection is severed, then there is no way back. Then death really occurs. And the Egyptian initiation was set up in such a way that the ‘’‘priesthood,’‘’ which ‘’‘oversaw this initiation process’‘’ - there were usually twelve priests who were around the person being initiated and monitored this state - that they could observe exactly when the last possible moment was ‘’‘when they had to bring him back.’‘’ So he was brought back mainly by letting sunlight fall on him in the right way. So through the ‘’‘light’‘’ he was ‘’‘woken up,’‘’ but also, of course, through recitation and the like, through incense that was burnt, through awakening explanations. And then he had to be brought back very quickly - and the initiation student was ‘’‘trained’‘’ and practised ‘’‘to report quickly what he had seen over there.’‘’ It's a bit like waking up from a dream in the morning. If you don't immediately write down what happened in the dream, it's usually gone and you can't remember it anymore. Because you can't store dream experiences, or even less spiritual experiences, in our normal memory.

So you can't really hold on to an ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ a real imagination - and that is an imagination that a person has in the initiation at first - with your memory. At most, you can try to get back to such an experience. If you want to have it again, you actually have to go back there and see it again. What I can remember very well is when I wake up or come out of it, as it was in the Egyptian initiation, and put it into words and tell it. I can remember these words. And not only the initiate has to remember these words for a lifetime, but also the priesthood that surrounded him. They have kept these words in their memory after hearing them once. And it must be said that this initiate did not speak in everyday language, but rather ‘’‘in a ritual language,’‘’ that is, ‘’‘with certain rhythms,’‘’ which are inherent in it. It was the Egyptian language in terms of the words. But the way it was formulated, we would say today, ‘’‘it was poetic, it was ritualistic,’‘’ and that was immediately impressed on the memory. It is this ‘’‘elevated priestly way of speaking’‘’ and to a certain extent it has remained with us to this day. It is absorbed differently, it has a different effect. But nevertheless, it is a translation of the spiritual experience into an earthly language. One must bear in mind that even in the life after death, ‘’‘the language’‘’ that we have spoken here on earth ‘’‘disappears.’‘’ It disappears very quickly. Not immediately after the three and a half days, but very soon it is gone. It is, if you like, ‘’‘a spiritual language’‘’ that one then speaks, but that is then only an auxiliary term to call it ‘language’, it is a different experience. This means that the initiate had to ‘’‘get over these three and a half days’‘’, then he could have the experience of ‘over there’, that is, from the other side of the threshold - and at the moment of waking up he could bring this experience in. Bring it in for himself and ‘’‘for the priesthood,’‘’ which surrounded him.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=712s The Initiation of Lazarus 0:11:52] ===
And something similar also happened during the ‘’‘initiation of Lazarus.’‘’ Only the starting point was different. This Lazarus was not put into a death-like state by a priesthood or anyone else, but rather he - one could say - ‘’‘fell into this state on his own.’‘’ I say ‘on his own’, but I must also add that it was in a certain way the after-effect of the words of the priest with whom he had a lot of contact. I must also say that ‘’‘Lazarus was a very important man in Jerusalem, a very rich man’‘’ and very well known. He was known throughout Jerusalem, and he also made a name for himself as a follower of Christ. He experienced what Christ said so intensely that, as a result of this experience, he fell into this death-like state of his own accord. He fell into this state so deeply that the people around him thought he had died and laid him in the grave afterwards. And when the Christ then learns that Lazarus has died, he ‘’‘takes a very long time’‘’ and does not go to ‘’‘Lazarus in Bethany’‘’ to wake him up. He simply waits. He waits for two days, but nothing happens. And then he sets off - and only on the fourth day, at the very last possible moment, on the fourth day, which is really very late, does he wake Lazarus with the words ‘’‘«Lazarus, come out»’‘’. In a figurative sense, these were the words of awakening, as the Egyptians also spoke them, of course in Egyptian. And Lazarus now brought with him a great deal of experience, and ‘’‘the Gospel of John, for example, arose from the after-effects of these experiences,’‘’ and also, in a certain sense, ‘’‘the Apocalypse of John,’‘’, but that is a deeper level in a certain sense. Of course, you might ask why he is now called John and no longer Lazarus. He was not called John before. We also tried to find out where that came from last time. To do so, you have to know that relatively shortly before Lazarus was resurrected, John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod; you are sure to know the story. And the point is that after the death of John the Baptist - now - this ‘’‘John the Baptist’‘’ became something like ‘’‘a kind of protective spirit or community spirit of the twelve apostles.’‘’ The twelve apostles also included the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, so also a John, but ‘’‘John Zebedee.’‘’

So, among these twelve apostles, John the Evangelist is not to be counted initially, but now the following is the case: the spirit of this John the Baptist becomes in some way ‘’‘something like an inspiring community soul’‘’ and community spirit of this circle of twelve, these twelve apostles, and the whole thing then becomes even more condensed. There is then the transfiguration of Christ. This is also shortly before the resurrection of Lazarus, when ‘’‘this effect of John the Baptist's is concentrated’‘’ on the apostles, now on three very specific apostles, ‘’‘the two sons of Zebedee and Peter.’‘’ That means that he is now only the community spirit of these three, if you will. They thereby attain a higher level of knowledge. The other apostles would not have been able to experience the transfiguration, which is a spiritual experience, only the three of them could. And with the raising of Lazarus, the last condensation takes place, if you will. A very close bond is created between Lazarus, who is resurrected and goes through this initiation, and the spirit of John the Baptist.

It is important to know that ‘’‘at every initiation’‘’, when it happens, ‘’‘a person on earth’‘’ always works together ‘’‘with at least one spiritual being,’‘’ who is on the other side. It cannot be any other way. One has to come to a very concrete connection with a spiritual being from the other side. One does not simply enter the spiritual world. It is teeming with spiritual beings, one looks at that. But it is actually only possible if one gets a very, very intense relationship with a very specific spiritual being, with whom one is connected by fate or comes into contact with. And in this case, it is ‘’‘this connection between Lazarus here on earth and John the Baptist,’‘’ who is over there. And Lazarus gets his initiation name John after this John the Baptist. So this explains why we have a ‘’‘Gospel of John’‘’ and why this John is not John Zebedee, but someone else. But this resurrected ‘’‘Lazarus/John takes part in the Last Supper.’‘’ He is always referred to in the Gospel as ‘’‘the disciple whom the Lord loved.’‘’ That is, the one who rests in the Lord's bosom, who rests on his breast, who is not named, but who is, so to speak, one of the twelve apostles and at the same time the resurrected Lazarus, who is called John because he is connected with John the Baptist. And now, at this moment, he is also the apostle John, namely during the Last Supper. This is when the circle of the twelve is finally completed. That is to say, John Zebedee was, in a certain sense, the representative of the resurrected Lazarus, who has now become John. And this is, so to speak, the final form of the ‘’‘circle of the twelve, the twelve apostles.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1168s The Christ and the realm of death 0:19:28] ===
It is quite interesting because all of this event really condenses around the Christ, most of all condenses in this last moment ‘’‘beginning with Maundy Thursday’‘’. Yes, perhaps with the whole of Holy Week before that, but especially with Maundy Thursday, and then of course with the experience of ‘’‘Good Friday.’‘’ With the death, the ‘’‘crucifixion of Jesus Christ,’‘’ there is also the moment of the fullest incarnation. One has to think that the incarnation of Christ begins with the baptism of John, three years before, and is a gradual process. It did not happen in one fell swoop; you don't have to believe that Christ was fully incarnated at the time of his baptism in the Jordan, but it is a process that continues until the last minute, until the last minute it is completed. Then it is accomplished. So when the ‘’‘Christ's words on the cross are “It is finished”’‘’, that is exactly what is meant, namely, ‘’‘that the incarnation has now been completed’‘’ and Christ has become fully human. Immediately at the moment of death. It is very important that this incarnation takes place in its full fullness, in its entirety, basically ‘’‘in a single moment.’‘’ That is the moment when he passes through death, the Christ - and descends into the realm of death. We know that Holy Saturday is the descent into the underworld, the descent into hell, if you will, the descent into the realm of the dead, into the realm of death. Something that is not normally possible in the times. Before the angelic beings, archangels, original angels, etc., and even before Christ, human beings preceded all other spiritual beings in entering the realm of death, in entering this darkness, in entering hell, if you will, in entering the realm of the dead. We were the ones who had experience of it, at least to a certain extent. But ‘’‘all the other spiritual beings,’‘’ who are above us, up to the Christ, ‘’‘did not know the realm of death.’‘’ In the spiritual world, there is no death. It is a very special realm, and the fact that ‘’‘the Christ completed his humanity on Golgotha’‘’ also enables him to descend into this realm of death.

It is also very clearly stated in the text of the Apocalypse, which I will perhaps read out. I have to find the passage quickly... Yes, it is still in the first chapter, towards the end of the first chapter, and there ‘’‘John has a Christ encounter.’‘’ In truth, it is ‘’‘the trigger’‘’ for the whole writing of the Apocalypse of John. Because you have to think about what ‘Apocalypse of John’ means. These are the first words with which he begins: ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is what it actually says. The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ - and Apocalypse means as much as ‘’‘revelation, manifestation’‘’. So it is about the revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ. That is the content of the Apocalypse. And we also pointed out last time that the Christ is very closely connected with our human ego. We will have to work on this much more precisely in the next lecture or lectures. The Apocalypse has something to do with ‘’‘revealing the essence of our ego.’‘’ And what significance Christ has for this. So what John describes here is really an encounter with Christ, and he then says:<blockquote>‘’«When I saw him, I fell at his feet and was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Falling at his feet and being dead is another image for the fact that he is actually experiencing something that is beyond the threshold, on the other side of the threshold. So it is not a sensual event, but ‘’‘a spiritual experience,’‘’ that he has. And then it goes on:<blockquote>‘’«But he (that is, the Christ) laid his right hand on me and said: Fear not. I am the first and the last and the living. I was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Please note the «‘’I was dead»,‘’ says the Christ. No spiritual being could have said that about a human being until then. None of these beings had ever been dead. ‘’‘I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine.’‘’ So, the ‘’‘Christ has the key to the realm of death and the shadows’‘’. That is also something very important.

JOHN THE BAPTIST APOSTLE The spirit of John the Baptist became something like an inspiring community soul and community spirit of the circle of twelve apostles [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the Kingdom of Death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

CHRIST'S DEATH As the only higher spiritual being, the Christ knows death. Therefore he said: ‘’‘Mine is the key to the kingdom of death and the shadows’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the kingdom of death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1579s The Shadow Powers in the Realm of Death 0:26:19] ===
A little later in the Apocalypse, we will hear about the Key of David. ‘’‘The Key of David is the key to the spiritual world.’‘’ And we as human beings, if we strive spiritually, have access to both keys in a certain way. We can ‘’‘open or close the gate to the spiritual world.’‘’ We can open and close the gate to the world of death, to the world of shadows. This is connected to our ‘’‘human freedom’‘’ - or it is based on the fact that we can open these gates in a certain sense by our own power. That is the essential passage for us. This ‘’«I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine»‘’. And it was precisely into this realm of death that John himself went, that is, Lazarus/John‘’‘ in the course of his “”’initiation.‘’' This is the path that one has to go through. It should be said that this encounter with the ‘’‘realm of shadows’‘’ is particularly important in the initiation process. It is not usually the case that when one passes over the threshold in a normal way, that is to say, through death, one experiences too much of this realm of shadows immediately after death. If one passes through in the state of initiation, that is to say, in this sleep similar to death, then one is very much confronted with this realm. Very clearly. And also with all the shadowy sides that exist there and the temptations that are associated with them. These are experienced very strongly and it was precisely this that the Egyptian initiates had to prepare themselves for very intensively. This test, that is actually the Ahrimanic side that one encounters in order to get through it. So that means that these were often very gruesome experiences that this initiate had to go through again and again over the years - and they increased more and more. Only when they had endured this were they ‘’‘found ripe’‘’ to really go through the last great test, the three-day sleep of death.

Of course, all kinds of elements associated with this ‘’‘dark world of death’‘’ are now included in the ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’. This revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ also reveals the spiritual world that is above us. But it also reveals the world that lies below us, or works among us, or simmers among us, however you want to call it. This is the very special position we have as human beings, this spiritual being that we are as human beings, that we stand between the spiritual world above us and the world of death below us. Exactly on the border. If you want an image of it: ‘’‘The surface of the earth’‘’ on which we stand is exactly ‘’‘the border line.’‘’ It goes up there - and down there. We have to concern ourselves with both realms. In the Egyptian initiation, and in the initiation of the ancient Orient in general, the main aim was to gain ‘’‘knowledge of the light side,’‘’ that is, the side that lies above us, because the power to deal with the dark side was not yet very strong. So people had certain experiences that foreshadowed something that we basically have to experience to a much greater extent today if we want to enter the spiritual world. For the person who wants to have real spiritual experiences today or is mature enough to have them... Anyone who wants to have ‘’‘such insights’‘’ today and also wants to have them ‘’‘in a healthy way’‘’ must or ‘’‘should not be afraid of confronting the dark forces.’‘’

FREEDOM OF MAN As human beings, if we strive spiritually, we can open or close the door to the spiritual world. This is connected with our human freedom [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Shadow Forces in the Realm of Death 0:26:19|[1 | 0:26:19]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28] ===
This is one of the reasons why Dante ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’ in his ‘’‘Divine Comedy’‘’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’. Basically, what Dante describes there ‘’‘is also an initiation experience.’‘’ He shows very clearly how the path to the upper spiritual world, that is, what he also ‘’‘refers to as paradise,’‘’ leads through the underworld. That the right way is not a direct ascent to paradise, that one would fail there, that one would in fact come to a bright world, but it would be the Luciferic world. It would not be the real spiritual world, but it would be ‘’‘the world of Luciferic beings.’‘’ They are also spiritual beings, but spiritual beings that have ‘’‘in a sense remained behind,’‘’ that is, they have not developed their full spiritual powers. This means that if a person were to integrate themselves into this realm, they would ultimately also block or at least slow down their path to the future. In pre-Christian times, it was not yet so problematic. But in the post-Christian era, it becomes ‘’‘problematic’‘’. That means that ‘’‘we have to pass the test of going through the underworld’‘’, if you will. That is why ‘’‘Dante’‘’ describes it so clearly in his «Divine Comedy»: the path goes down to the centre of the earth. This is of course a metaphor. It is not about descending with crampons, drilling into the earth, but ‘’‘going down spiritually.’‘’ Descending ‘’‘into the dark depths of our own being’‘’ and the dark depths of the earthly world. So we have to think that our earth itself has this dual nature. On the one hand, a multitude of ‘’‘light-filled spiritual forces’‘’, high spiritual forces, but there are also ‘’‘dark forces’‘’ in it. Down there in the earth, that is the realm of Ahriman. That is the realm of the spirits of darkness, if you will. Lucifer hovers a little above it, but Ahriman and even stronger opposing forces live down there. And that is exactly where you have to go through.

In Dante's version, the path leads ‘’‘through the centre of the earth.’‘’ Then the ascent begins. Interestingly, it happens very quickly, he scurries up a few levels and lands on the surface of the earth, emerging at the ‘’‘Mountain of Purification’‘’. And the Mountain of Purification is what leads him to the so-called ‘’‘Purgatory’‘’, ‘’‘to the Fiery Furnace’', if you will. So this is the first supernatural realm that leads beyond the earth. And this is precisely the realm in which the Luciferic beings essentially live. There we must then ‘’‘purify ourselves’‘’ from all these ‘’‘Luciferic forces’‘’ in order to be able to ascend into the real paradise and the real spiritual world. That is the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy. But this applies to all forms of Christian initiation in a certain way. These stages are somewhere inside, it is hardly where it is expressed as clearly as in Dante, so systematically. But it is just as much in the Apocalypse. There you also find the confrontation with the very, very dark forces. That is why there are also images that seem very frightening at first glance. But in reality they are only an expression of a purification process that we have to go through. If we did not go through it, we would not get an insight into the spiritual world.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2147s The New Jerusalem - a new earth 0:35:47] ===
In the Book of Revelation, the view is opened above all to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem.’‘’ The New Jerusalem is ‘’‘a kind of new planetary state,’‘’ which will one day become ‘’‘our earth’‘’. When we as humanity and the Earth as a whole have gone through a certain development, at some point in the future the Earth as the planet as we know it will die, perish, be destroyed. It must be destroyed, just as our physical body must ultimately be destroyed - and then the New Jerusalem will arise. ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often calls it’‘’ in his lectures... he calls it ‘’‘the New Jupiter’‘’, which will come. This is a kind of new planet that will of course be different from our Earth. It is still a long way off, we still have a little time to go, but there we will be ‘’‘transferred to a new, higher spiritual state’‘’. But we will be mature enough to enter this higher spiritual state. A state that is in some ways ‘’‘comparable’‘’ to what ‘’‘today's angelic beings’‘’ possess. It will be different from our present-day angelic beings, but in terms of spiritual potency it is comparable to them. And then, above all, we will not have a body like the one we have today - and above all under different conditions. An important moment in the Book of Revelation is also given where John speaks of the ‘’‘so-called first death and the so-called second death’‘’. It is quite late in the Apocalypse, so one wonders what the first and second death are. I don't want to go into detail about this today either. But it has to do with the fact that we will finally lay down our physical body there. We will lay it down in every conceivable form and will not get it back in this form, so we have to learn to live without it. So, ‘’‘the first death’‘’ has to do with ‘’‘finally laying down the physical body forever.’‘’ And ‘’‘the second death’‘’ means finally ‘’‘laying down the corresponding etheric body.’‘’ That does not mean that we will then no longer have anything etheric, but no longer in the form that we have now. We will discuss this in more detail in the next lecture, but for now, this is just a suggestion.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2334s The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54] ===
I have now repeated a lot of what we discussed last time. Now we should move on a little and look at what is described in the Apocalypse. I will just read a short passage and then explain it. So in the first chapter, before the passage I read to you, John now addresses his ‘’‘words to the seven churches in Asia’‘’. So seven Christian communities in Asia - there were certainly more communities - they are the seven, if you will, leading communities, at least in the spiritual sense, in the outward sense it was a different chapter. We will encounter the ‘’‘number seven’‘’ very often in the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of John works a lot with ‘’‘number rhythms’‘’, they play a very important role. Wherever the number seven occurs, we can always be aware that it has something to do with a temporal development, with an evolution, with a series of developments. The number seven is also the ‘’‘number of the etheric,’‘’ for example. ‘’‘The etheric forces,’‘’ the life forces, ‘’‘have something to do with time.’‘’ Life takes place in time and life becomes rigid when nothing changes any more. Then death has occurred. After death, decay always follows. But no longer a living development.

So when the number seven plays a role, it always refers to a living development. For example, the human body renews itself about every seven years. This is one of the reasons why ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often speaks clearly in his education’‘’ about these ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’ that people go through: that ‘’‘the child’‘’ enters school at the age of seven, with the change of teeth , that puberty begins at the age of fourteen, that new spiritual forces awaken, that the twenty-first year of life is very important, that the ego begins to emerge very clearly. And so it goes on - again and again in ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’, which are no longer so noticeable externally. But if you look a little more closely, they are there too. Externally, they are connected to the fact that ‘’‘the body physically renews itself every seven years’‘’ and that, over the course of about seven years, it has ‘’‘completely exchanged its material’‘’. Rudolf Steiner always pointed this out, but it was often dismissed as an old wives' tale. You know that scientists never believe anything at first, they are always sceptical - that is perhaps also their virtue. But if they are thorough, they are open to being taught otherwise. It is actually the case that in recent years, through systematic medical, biological and chemical research, it has been possible to prove that the substances in the human body renew themselves on average every seven years. Some take a little longer, some renew themselves more quickly, but if you take the average, it really is every seven years.

So, in terms of our material substance, nothing that was there seven years ago is still there. We have become something completely new in terms of our material substance, but we have retained our forms to a certain extent, at least to the extent that we are usually recognised again after seven years. We can get a little older, we change a little, but we are still clearly recognisable as human beings. So the form, that is to say the etheric forces that renew this form again and again, they go through this whole ‘’‘seven-year period’‘’, but ‘’‘the physical is renewed again and again.’‘’ Basically, physically speaking, we do not die only once at the end of our lives, but in every seven-year period we basically, materially speaking, discard a corpse. Scattered into the world. It happens quite inconspicuously, with every breath we take, with every piece of food we eat and then excrete again, with what we sweat out and so on. All of this is shed, with the scales on our skin, where something is constantly being shed, something is always being lost. So, materially speaking, we are completely new people after seven years. And ‘’‘behind it all is ultimately a rhythm of the etheric body. It is this that in truth,’‘’ causes these seven-year cycles. With many sub-rhythms that also play a role. Today, science is already investigating - there is a discipline that has developed in this way since the middle of the twentieth century and has become increasingly clear in recent years, and that is ‘’‘chronobiology’‘’. Chronobiology is concerned with the rhythms that operate in the human body, and also in animals. And many exciting things have been discovered - among other things, the daily rhythm plays a major role, but so do seven-day rhythms, for example the seven-day rhythm as a quarter of a month. The month is again connected with the ‘’‘moon rhythm’‘’, the daily rhythm, which is connected with the rotation of the earth, the moon rhythm is connected with the moon's orbit. It has its subdivisions and a quarter of it is about seven days. It is also not by chance that we have a ‘’‘seven-day week’‘’. It is very wise. The ‘’‘calendar’‘’ could be organised in a completely different way, but then it would no longer be ‘’‘in harmony with these natural rhythms.’‘’ These natural rhythms are actually based on the etheric body. It is behind them - or the etheric world in general. From a cosmic point of view, it is the etheric world; in us, it is the etheric body, the internalisation of these rhythms. There are x rhythms in the body, very, very fast ones that vibrate very ‘’‘nervously’‘, so to speak - I say nervously on purpose, because it is very strongly “”’connected to the nervous system‘’‘ - and there are much longer rhythms that go more leisurely and renew us right down to the “”’metabolic processes‘’' within seven years.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2778s Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18] ===
So John has a lot to do with these forces, and that is why he often speaks of the number seven and that is why he also speaks of the seven churches ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). That is the reason. That is the real reason, because these ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ are - one could say - ‘’‘representatives of certain stages of development’‘’. So they represent seven stages of development that together make up a whole. Yes, I'll read a bit of it out:<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be yours from him,‘’

‘’who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven spirits of creation before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>From him who is and who was and who is to come - well, he basically spanned ‘’‘the whole time’‘’, the past, the present and the future, ‘’‘drawing the bow.’‘’

In the spiritual self, time and temporal development no longer play the same role as they do here in our earthly lives. In a sense, we enter the ‘’‘realm of eternity, of timelessness’‘’ - and yet there is movement in it. That seems paradoxical: how can there be movement if there is no time? Basically, you can move freely, as I should say, in what we call time, here as time. This actually begins in the ‘’‘etheric world’‘’. The experience in the etheric world is such that we can ‘’‘move freely in time’‘’. This means that we can go back, not just look back, but really go back - in an etheric way. But we can also go into the future, take a look, so to speak, into the future at least. How this future, which we experience in the etheric, is then realised in the physical, is another chapter. The etheric world is much, much richer than the physical world - and ‘’‘the physical’‘’ is actually something that has died, something that has ‘’‘died out of the etheric world’‘’. And that means that the physical manifests itself when something etheric dies, but much other etheric continues. And the etheric encompasses the future, everything that continues in the etheric world. And one thing dies out again and again, so to speak, and manifests itself here as something physical. What we can see today in the etheric is this whole abundance, which, from our point of view, flows or goes into the future. What we cannot foresee is every single physical event that dies out. So we cannot see exactly what will die in the etheric. But we can see at least a certain line, a certain direction in which the whole thing is going. We also see that certain things ‘’‘have to happen,’‘’ namely ‘’‘as compensation for what happened in the past’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM& Repeated earthly lives and human freedom 0:50:06] ===
I now have to make a connection to another sub-topic, so to speak, namely the topic of ‘’‘reincarnation and karma’‘’. As you know, if you are already familiar with anthroposophy, we are talking about ‘’‘repeated earthly lives.’‘’ Human beings do not live on earth just once, but repeatedly. This means that when they die, they first pass through the ‘’‘soul world’‘, then through the “”’spiritual world‘’, and then descend again after a shorter or longer period of time to ‘’‘a new incarnation’‘’. Simply because this earthly existence offers us so many opportunities for development that we could not exhaust in a single incarnation. Or we are ‘’‘not spiritually advanced enough to be able to complete our earthly development in a single incarnation.’‘’ We need a little more time. We have to go through it a few times. We are pupils who may have to repeat a few years. Of course, we can distinguish ourselves during our earthly incarnation. In a certain sense, ‘’‘the spiritual beings above us’‘’ cannot ‘’‘make any mistakes.’‘’

You could say: ‘Well, I'd like to be like that too, that would be great.’ Yes, but then we would not have ‘’‘freedom’‘’. This is a big word, because it says that even the angelic beings that are above us - and also the higher angelic beings that are above them, right up to the highest angelic beings - do not have the freedom that human beings have. They ‘’‘fulfil’‘’ God's will as a matter of course, if you want to put it in our terms. That means that the higher spiritual beings that are above them flow into them, they absorb it and ‘’‘act on it. Without error.’‘’ That is wonderful. Basically, nothing can go wrong. But - they have no free decision-making ability as a result. They don't even get the idea. Actually, the highest spiritual source, that is, the divine self, had to create the possibility for freedom in the world, and this is connected with the ability not to follow the error that flows down from the spiritual world. ‘’‘What distinguishes us as human beings is,’‘’ that we ‘’‘can't follow’‘’ the spiritual world. You could say that this cannot be the ideal of a human being, that we should now rebel against the divine. Well, yes and no. It is the prerequisite for us to be able to turn to the spiritual again in freedom after we have rebelled against it. This gives it a completely different quality. We fulfil ourselves with the spiritual, not because we cannot do otherwise, but because we fulfil ourselves with it because we want to, ‘’‘out of our own free will’‘’. But that means that a spiritual element lives in us that is comparable to the highest spiritual world from which everything flows. That means that a source ‘’‘opens up in us, in our I,’‘’ that is truly, one has to say it like this, ‘’‘of the same essence’‘’ ‘’‘as the highest divine being.’‘’ Even if it is, so to speak, the small version of it, ‘’‘the miniature version,’‘’, and we only experience it in individual moments, perhaps once in an incarnation or perhaps not at all in five incarnations, but there is a moment when we are of the same essence as the highest divine. When we are the embodiment of the divine. When we are ‘’‘of the same essence as Christ’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3292s The mystery of the self 0:54:52] ===
There is a beautiful ‘’‘Pauline saying’‘’ that Rudolf Steiner often mentions and usually says in the form: ‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me’‘’. This word could easily be misunderstood if we were to say: ‘I give up my free will and let Christ do things for me or through me.’ But that is not what is meant. The ‘not I’ refers to my little ‘’‘everyday ego’‘’ - which is not our true self - and we must eliminate it. So whether we love a roast pork or are grumpy because of our personal circumstances has nothing to do with the spiritual world. That gets in our way. So this ‘’‘ego, this “I want, I want, I have to, I need”’, that's what we actually have to get rid of. But ‘’‘our real self,’‘’ we will not really experience in its concrete form in everyday life. We know that we have an ego, but that's all we know about it in our everyday consciousness. It has nothing to do with how we were born, what education we have, how much money we have, it doesn't matter at all. It really has nothing to do with our ego. You have to get to ‘’‘the conscious experience of your own ego’‘’. But it's a great moment to experience that we have one. Children usually experience it around the age of three. Then it hits them: ‘I am an I’. Many people can no longer remember this later in life. Sometimes it reappears later in life, in old age, just like ‘’‘memories of early childhood’‘’ tend to resurface in old age. But some people never forget this experience.

I can remember the experience incredibly well and in great detail. It was sometime in November, maybe even on my third birthday. If it wasn't on my third birthday, then it was on St Nicholas‘ Day. My parents were there, my maternal grandmother, uncles, aunts, behind me was a fireplace that was lit, it was already quite dark. Suddenly, I looked around me with wide, astonished eyes and realised, “”’I'm something different.‘’' I'll never forget it. It was like a shock, I can't say whether it was devastating - no, it certainly wasn't devastating - I didn't know that - but it was just so emphatic that it kept coming back to me. And I have to say, the older I get, the clearer it is.

There are also such moments later in life. Rudolf Steiner describes how he experienced this in his twenty-first year, when the I becomes even more awake. I'll have to read that out one day. It's quite interesting. He read about it in the works of the philosopher ‘’‘Schelling’', who also describes this experience. And then Steiner describes how he had this experience himself. He was also sure that he had had this experience. So, you can have this experience of the self at different levels. It is not to be compared with the everyday ego that we have. Having this experience of the self has something to do with the apocalypse. The ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is also the ‘Apocalypse of one's own self’, namely at the moment ‘when I and Christ are one in essence’. At the moment when one has such an experience, this ‘unity of essence’ is there. Only for a moment, then it disappears again - or at least it is not in our consciousness. In reality, it is somehow already there, but we cannot make ourselves aware of it again, perhaps not for years, not until the end of our lives. But in that one moment it is there. That is what Paul meant when he said: ‘It is not I, but Christ in me.’ You could also formulate it in the sense of: ‘It is not my little self, but my real I in me.’ It is actually exactly the same.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3618s Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and correction 1:00:18] ===
Let's go back to the seven churches in Asia. It was a bit of a detour. Yes, there was something I wanted to say, but I lost sight of it. It has to do with the ‘’‘repeated earthly lives,’‘’ that we have to go through. It is only through these many earthly lives that our ego develops further. We can only acquire an awareness of our own self through many lives on earth. But ‘’‘we also make mistakes on earth,’‘’ we are not like the angels above us, where the spiritual simply flows into us and we implement it, but we can err, we can make mistakes - and thus take on a task, namely by making these mistakes, we change the course of the world in a certain way. It is up to us to ‘’‘correct it again.’‘’ Above all, we ourselves suffer as a result. The Christ helps us to correct the mistakes that remain in the world in a certain way. But what we destroy in ourselves by making mistakes - because mistakes also mean that we ultimately put our ego in danger or scratch it - in the next incarnation or the one after that, when our strength has grown a little, we have to correct this mistake, you could say. That is what ‘’‘is connected with our karma,’‘’ with our ‘’‘destiny’‘’. Our karma is nothing other than our ego striving to repair the damage it has done to itself, to work on it. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that we ourselves are ultimately the ones who ‘’‘send our fate’‘’, our ‘’‘karma’‘’. Our real I. No one else. We don't need to complain to anyone. We can only be happy that the Christ, by working with and in our I, but in a very individual way, ‘’‘helps us to bear this karma’‘’, that he also gives us ‘’‘strength’‘’, gives our I strength. But always only to the extent that we ‘’‘really struggle for it,’‘’ it is never just something that is given, but always something ‘’‘that we have to do’‘’. That is very important. So, that is the karma that we carry with us, that is connected with our error, with our possibilities of error. But it is precisely ‘’‘on that that we mature.’‘’ That is why the path is given for many earthly lives, so that we can experience all this and thereby learn to become free beings.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3813s The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Humanity 1:03:33] ===
But let us now return to the seven churches.<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be with you,‘’

‘’from him who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven creator spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>The seven creator spirits: Well, who are the seven creator spirits? Essentially, they are those spiritual forces or those spiritual beings who created our ‘’‘bodily shells’‘’ and prepared them so that these spiritual shells, these bodily shells - yes, I have already used the word ‘spiritual shells’ - could one day be transformed into spiritual forces. So what are these bodies: the ‘’‘physical body’‘’, the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’, that is, the life forces, then the ‘’‘astral body’‘’, which makes us a sentient, conscious being. In the etheric body, we are actually still asleep, and in the astral body, we are at least dreaming. This is exactly what we have in common with animals. So, animals also have a certain consciousness, but it is still dream-like, this ‘’‘consciousness.’‘’ If we only had this consciousness, this astral consciousness, we would not be very awake. We would not recognise ourselves as an I. That means that the ‘’‘I’‘’ comes in a certain way as the fourth, or the ‘’‘I-bearer, as Rudolf Steiner often calls it,’‘’ which is, so to speak, the physical prerequisite for an I to be able to incarnate. Incarnation means that the I completely permeates the body shells and thus ‘’‘makes the body shells’‘’ into ‘’‘I-bearers,’‘’ but that is the fourth principle. The ‘’‘I’‘’ that is now incarnating, by unfolding its spiritual forces, ‘’‘shapes the astral body, the etheric body and finally the physical body’‘’ through its spiritual forces, through the individual spiritual forces that lie within each I. The astral body, which was initially given by the spiritual beings, is transformed into what Rudolf Steiner calls the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ or our higher self. Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. This is a power that our I has at its disposal, so to speak. In the East, it is also called ‘’‘manas.’‘’ Manas has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ also comes from it, by the way. There is another word that comes from it, which can be found in the Bible, namely ‘’‘manna.’‘’ When ‘’‘Moses and the Israelites journey through the desert’', they are given manna. This is nothing other than the powers of this spirit self, which in a certain sense descend upon the Israelites as a whole, not yet upon the individual at that time, but upon the community.

When we transform the etheric body through the power of the I, then the etheric body becomes the ‘’‘life spirit’‘’. This power of the life spirit then lives within our I. That is to say, just as the body sheaths - the physical body, etheric body, astral body - surround our I from the outside, so our I envelops the spirit self and life spirit within itself - figuratively speaking. They are part of ‘’‘this I.’‘’ In the highest form, for example, it means that if I take only the spirit self, that is, the transformed astral body, then it means that our I has become capable of ‘’‘creating an astral body out of nothing.’‘’ It is something different from when we wrap ourselves in an astral body during our normal incarnation on earth. For the most part, it is only lent to us by the spiritual world - and this will continue to happen as long as we are not able to create one for ourselves out of nothing. That is then actually our real astral body. But then we no longer call it an ‘’‘astral body, but a spirit self.’‘’ He is then completely ours.

The aim of all the initiation processes that have been taking place on earth since Egyptian times, or that lead into the future in some other way, is to form ‘’‘as much as possible’‘’ of this spirit self. So, in addition to the fact that we are developing our I here on earth, the people who are really making spiritual progress are those who have already developed a good part of the spirit self. It will then be the task of the so-called ‘’‘New Jupiter’‘’ - or what John calls the ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’, which I have discussed today - to fully develop this spirit self. But we should already have a certain part of it at the end of the earth's development, then we will at least be among the spiritually more developed people. Yes, the life spirit is the transformed etheric body. We will not be able to transform the etheric body into the life spirit on our own during the development of the Earth. We can work on it, we can work on it above all, or we can bring it a little further in the direction of ‘’‘the help of the Christ.’‘’ In this case it is really the help of the Christ. That means something that cannot be accomplished by our ego. For this, for example, the word ‘’‘grace’‘’ is very important. This is a gift that Christ gives us. As far as the spirit self is concerned, that is already our own responsibility. This is the ‘’‘endowment with the Holy Spirit’‘’, as one might call it. But this Holy Spirit is then our Holy Spirit. This is not something that remains above us or directs us from outside, but something that ultimately belongs to our I. Only then has it become a true spirit self, which we are now developing during the development of the earth, and we owe this solely to our I. But what we are already producing in terms of life spirit, at least in a preliminary form, is something for which we need the help of the Christ.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4327s The physical body and our consciousness of self 1:12:07] ===
And then we will even need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ to do this, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body. Sounds paradoxical. What is a spiritualised physical body? That sounds like a contradiction. We have to think about what the physical body, in which we are now normally embodied on earth, the physical and material body, is for. Physically and materially are not exactly the same thing. ‘’‘The material’‘’ is actually what fulfils the physical form. If, for example, the Luciferic temptation had not come, that is, if we had not come under the influence of the ‘’‘opposing forces’‘’, then we would not have had the kind of physical body that we have today. It would have been invisible to the senses.

There are a great many physical beings that are not visible to our eyes. For example, there are ‘’‘elemental beings’‘’ that definitely have a physical body and yet are ‘’‘not visible to us with our physical eyes’‘’. There are whole realms of physical worlds out there that are not visible to us because they are ‘’‘not material’‘’. So, our physical body becomes visible through the material. But what does this physical body give us, precisely through the fulfilment with the material and through the problems that are associated with it? It is precisely through the material that the whole physical body tends to decay. The material has this principle of decaying from within. When the etheric body is no longer present to constantly renew these substances, in these seven-year cycles that we have spoken of, then it simply decays, just as the corpse decays with death. So, our physical body cannot maintain its form by itself. This is because we have this ‘’‘Luciferic impact’‘’. By being filled with matter, our actually imperfect invisible physical body was actually damaged. ‘’‘This is how it became visible. This is how it became mortal.’‘’ But this is also how we have gained our consciousness of self - and we gain it precisely because we are mortal.

Our consciousness of self awakens in the processes - also in life - when they are processes of decay. For example, with every nerve impulse that passes through, something dies in the brain. It is then re-energised, but actually something dies until death, until a ‘’‘salt-like state’‘’ in the nerves. This is precisely why the ‘’‘brain’‘’ is an instrument with which we can acquire ‘’‘consciousness’‘’. To do this, we need the physical, material brain. Not for thinking, actually. ‘’‘Thinking is not a function of the physical brain.’‘’ We need the brain to become aware of these thoughts, which are actually etheric forces. As a rule, we are not yet at the stage where we can consciously experience the etheric, which is not visible to the senses but only leaves its trace in the senses - then in the growth forces - in order to experience these formative forces, these etheric forces, it has to be reflected in the physical brain and it is reflected when these ‘’‘decay processes’‘’ take place in the brain. Then, when it is regenerated again, or at least regenerated to a large extent, then the consciousness is already gone again. The dying process must take place there, that is when we become aware. We have ‘’‘death’‘’, the constant death that has in truth accompanied us since birth, ‘’‘to which we owe our consciousness’‘’ - that is a prerequisite for it - and in particular ‘’‘our I-consciousness’‘’ is especially to be owed.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4595s Imagination - Experiencing in the Spiritual 1:16:35] ===
Of course, an astral body and an etheric body are also part of it, but this ability to die through the material body is very important for our consciousness. That is why we have it and why we need it. We will need it until our consciousness has become able to do without the help of these dying processes. That means that when this consciousness can now seek out another counterpart, another mirror, when it no longer needs this physical ‘’‘mirror’‘’, when it can, for example, reflect itself in the etheric, that is, in the life forces. This mirroring in the life forces, when we enter this world of life, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we ‘’‘experience imaginations’', pictures. And now we put huge quotation marks around the word “pictures” - I will come back to this - pictures from the spiritual world. They are living pictures. ‘’‘These images cannot be described’‘’ like an oil painting, an old painting on the wall, because it is a moving image that changes continuously. You can't really capture it at all. There is movement in it - we have already discussed the paradox - a ‘’‘movement that takes place in timelessness’‘’. The movement arises from the fact that we can look at this image from different perspectives, go through it and, if I translate that into the sensual, then a temporal series of developments, a temporal event, emerges from it. But in the etheric I can go forward, backward, take detours, so I can move freely. In meditation, when you really get to a true imagination, where time no longer plays a role, a true imagination, that is experienced ‘’‘in complete timelessness.’‘’ I think, if I remember correctly, I briefly mentioned in the first lecture we had, we had two lectures, that you can experience that. Because when you do ‘’‘meditation’‘’ with today's consciousness, it's not that you're completely out of it and just floating in another world, but ‘’‘we still retain’‘’ ‘’‘consciousness here for the sensory world’‘’ even when you're not focusing on it, but it remains there. I remain aware that I am in the physical world with my body. I don't enter a dream-like state of consciousness where I am lifted out and simply float above everything, somewhere. You can really notice, under certain circumstances, if there is a clock on the table somewhere, that I have an incredibly ‘’‘intense imagination’‘’, that is, a moving picture, as we have discussed, ‘’‘an incredibly rich picture’‘’. You have the feeling that what I am experiencing is something that lasts for hours, that it is something very, very long that is unfolding and unrolling before me - and when I look at the second hand of the clock, it seems to be standing still. So what I experience internally as hours or days, externally no time passes. So it is ‘’‘experienced in an instant,’‘’ measured in terms of our external time. It can happen in dreams, too, in reality. It often happens when a dream is triggered by something, especially when you wake up and enter the sensory world. For example, the morning sun comes in through the window, even with your eyes closed, your senses somehow perceive it without us being aware of the sunlight. We are still in the dream and suddenly a huge fire breaks out in the dream, a huge fire, and there you experience a long story: the fire brigade arrives, there are dramatic scenes unfolding so that the residents in the house can be rescued and you think that it has been going on for two hours. You wake up and look at the sun, which has just come around the corner, which has just appeared, almost at the same moment. So actually, these dream images also unfold in timelessness, basically. This consciousness, this imaginative consciousness is connected to the fact that when we no longer need the physical body as a mirroring apparatus for consciousness, then we mirror in the living etheric body, then ‘’‘we go out of the time stream’‘’ and ‘’‘can move freely in time.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4946s The Soul World and Time 1:22:26] ===
In the astral world, in the ‘’‘soul world’', it is different, there is a very special paradox, time seems to come towards us. Future, it seems that ‘’‘time moves in reverse.’‘’ This is very important, because this is the way in which creative impulses enter the world. In order for something to manifest itself creatively in the physical world, there must be a physical time stream that goes from the past to the future, which is what we know in normal life. The etheric must be there, where timelessness, above all mobility, reigns in time - and something must come from the future, actually from the end of the development process - and ‘’‘where the stream from the past and the stream from the future collide,’‘’ it becomes our momentary ‘’‘present’‘’. Something happens there.

With every event that takes place in the world, it is never just a consequence of the past, as is often believed in the natural sciences, because they only have physical and sensory means at their disposal, which is why they only know this stream of time that comes from the past and goes into the future, and they can only deduce from what has happened in the past what might happen in the future. With simple things, you can even calculate it in advance: A physicist can easily predict how a stone will fall if nothing else interferes, such as a bird flying past or something like that. But otherwise, ‘’'most real events ,‘’‘ that happen in the world, “”’you can't predict,‘’' because they are not only determined by the past, but are also determined, half of them, at least half of them, by what is heading towards us from the future. These two things have to come together. This means that when we move on from imagination or ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ something comes in that goes beyond this pictorial consciousness and shows us something of the future. Something ‘’‘shows us where this development is going,’‘’ because this goal actually comes towards us, in a sense. We have to look at the beginning and the end in order to be able to understand the current moment of development at all. These two currents have to come together.

I'll now read you a few sentences from the Apocalypse, where this is also hinted at to a certain extent, very clearly. Again, where basically Christ speaks, or at least the angel speaks through Christ. It says:<blockquote>‘’‘I am the Alpha and the Omega.’‘’</blockquote>In Greek, this means the beginning and the end. The first and the last letter in the Greek alphabet, the Alpha and the Omega.<blockquote>‘’‘Thus says the Lord, our God, who is and who was and who is to come, the ruler of the universe’.‘’</blockquote>It's all there. ‘’‘He is, who was and who is to come.’‘’ The present, that's where it starts, ‘he who is’. So it's important to keep that in mind, the order is not random, because the experience always starts in the present moment. The moment is also, in which the whole eternity is also inside. From here, I look to both sides, to what was there, that is, back, and thus also to what determines my fate, because - as far as we humans are concerned - it also contains all the mistakes we have made and which we must correct in the future, that is, what we must work on. We also see something towards which we are heading, namely our self, our individual self. Every individual self has a special nuance. It is not the case that we all have exactly the same goal. We ‘’‘all contribute together’‘’ to perhaps ‘’‘a higher goal’', that's how you could perhaps outline it. You can also find that in the words in there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5302s The spiritualisation of the physical body - the goal of human development 1:28:22] ===
Now I'll come back to the seven creator spirits in connection with the human body. I have not yet told you ‘’‘what happens to the physical body when it is spiritualised’‘’. Now I hope that you have gained a little impression that the physical can also be spiritualised - and this is not to be equated simply with the material-physical, which we know as our body. That there is also ‘’‘an invisible physical’‘’, that it is ‘’‘in truth the actual physical.’‘’ If we succeed, with the help of the Christ and the help of the father forces, in restoring this originally spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which we can now achieve, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human being’‘’. This is the highest spiritual that we can develop, as far as we can see, and it is precisely in the spiritualisation of the physical. We must not underestimate the physical, but we must see that the greatest task of humanity lies in at least working towards the spiritualisation of this physical. This is also connected with the ‘’‘resurrection of Christ’‘’. The resurrection forces of Christ, which could not have come into effect without the Father's activity, are connected with the transformation of the physical body into a spiritual being. For it to be truly successful means that we are then able, out of our own strength, out of our own I, to bring forth such a high, such a spiritualised physical body. But this is certainly no longer a body that is material. We will then not walk around on a material ‘’‘globe’‘’ or any other sphere, however it may be formed, in a material body, but rather the highest spiritual will enter. To understand this, you have to ask yourself why it is actually the highest spiritual and how it is otherwise connected to the material.

I think that the physical is the most difficult to work with. In the soul, we can already work a little today, at least to some extent, to bring forth the spirit self, consciously or unconsciously. ‘’‘An artist,’‘’ when he is really creative, ‘’‘creates a new work in his soul’‘’ and then realises it, outwardly too, but to do that he has to ‘’‘experience it in his soul first’‘’, then he is creatively active in a spiritual way. Then he is active out of his spiritual self. That means, ‘’‘he transforms astral, soul into real spiritual self.’‘’ This spirit self or this spark of spirit self that he has within him, he has created from his own I. Out of nothing, basically. He has not taken it from anywhere else, from anywhere outside, ‘’‘but from within himself.’‘’

It is much more difficult to create etheric forces out of nothing, that is, to ‘’‘unfold the spirit of life.’‘’ That is much more difficult. On the whole, we are not yet able to do that, but we need the help of the Christ to be able to do it. We don't even need to talk about the physical, because we ourselves create almost nothing there, especially consciously. In order for it to become our own, we have to be able to do it consciously, that is, consciously transform the physical body into this high spiritual being. This is only beginning to happen.

Only the highest spiritual hierarchies can really work on the physical, namely ‘’‘the Christ and the Father-Godhead’‘’, which is behind it. But very high angelic beings work with them as executive organs. These include, for example, the ‘’‘thrones’‘’ in a leading position. They are in the upper group of three hierarchies. Above them are only the beings of the zodiac, the ‘’‘cherubim’‘’ and then the ‘’‘seraphim’‘’, who are basically connected to the whole cosmos, through the visible universe - and even beyond the visible, at least for our eyes beyond the visible. These are therefore very, very high spiritual beings who are behind the physical. ‘’‘In the soul, anyone can work today, so to speak’‘’. The angelic beings that are closely connected to us, the actual angels, they all cannot do that. But we are approaching a time when we will be able to ‘’‘create a complete physical body for ourselves’‘’. It will no longer be called a physical body, but a spiritual human being. It is this that will enable us to achieve our ‘’‘highest consciousness’‘’.

Today we have ‘’‘only a mirror image,’‘’ because we are most conscious of the physical, which is basically polluted by the material. We cannot yet become self-aware of the etheric body. We are not yet able to do that. If we only had the I and the astral body, then we would know nothing about ourselves, absolutely nothing. ‘’‘It is precisely in the physical that one can develop the highest consciousness.’‘’ This applies equally to the spiritual being. That is to say, the spiritual being is the highest spiritual element that we can acquire. What happens next is a different chapter, and is not our subject.

I have now made a huge ‘’‘interjection’‘’ just to explain a little bit about the significance of the number seven, and these stages of development. We have come across these seven stages of human development or these seven constituent parts of the human being, via the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the I, which stands in the centre, and up to the spiritual constituent parts, which we can acquire through our own efforts: ‘’‘the spirit self, the life spirit, the spiritual human being’‘’. This has to do with the ‘’‘number seven’‘’. And we have come to these, simply because it was of seven churches that John speaks, to which he turns and to which he now writes in a certain way, to the seven churches. In doing so, he mentions the seven creator spirits. I'll read the short passage again.<blockquote>‘’‘John to the seven churches in Asia:’‘

’‘Grace and peace be yours,’‘

’‘from him who is and who was and who is to come,’‘

’‘and from the seven spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘The seven spirits before his throne’‘’, these are the spiritual beings that ‘’‘help to create our seven members of the human being’‘’. Because, in general, the higher spiritual elements of our being, which we actually have to create ourselves - because only then are they ours - still have to be prepared. That is, so to speak, if you put it in earthly terms, ‘’‘a model for it’‘’. It has to be prepared once. These seven creator spirits work on it. It would be too much to go into which angelic beings they are. They are also high angelic beings, very high. You should not be surprised that, for example, ‘’‘the thrones have something to do with it,’‘’ yes, with the physical body and ‘’‘also with the preparation of the spiritual being,’‘’ that they have a hand in it, because they are able to work into the physical, for example. Just as a small hint.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5873s The Revelation of John on Patmos 1:37:53] ===
Now I want to read something else to you at the end of the lecture, namely also from the first chapter what John now writes in detail ‘’‘to these seven churches:’‘’<blockquote>‘’«I, John, your brother and companion in all trials, as well as in the inner kingdom and in the persevering strength that we possess as those who are united with Jesus, was on the island of Patmos. There I was to be made partaker of the divine word of the world and worthy of bearing witness to the suffering of Christ.‘</blockquote>

’The suffering of Jesus’ is what it says in the translation. The translation is by ‘’‘Emil Bock’‘, one of the “”’founding priests of the Christian Community‘’‘. So, “”’on the island of Patmos he had this spiritual vision.‘’‘ He describes very clearly an “”’imagination‘’‘ and how this imagination was “”’translated into sensual images‘’'. He cannot communicate the image in any other way than by translating it into sensual words. He describes it in a very typical way:<blockquote>‘’«On the day of the Lord, I was transported into the spiritual realm and heard a mighty voice behind me like the sound of a ‘’‘trombone’‘’».‘’</blockquote>It is often the case ‘’‘in spiritual experiences,’‘’ that you have the feeling «there is something behind me» and my first test is whether I turn around or not. Do I have the courage to turn around, because if I have the courage to turn around, then it means that I am in a sense crossing the ‘’‘threshold’‘’. And that is ‘’‘a kind of death experience’‘’. You have to be aware of that, it is a death experience. And it is also connected with, how shall I put it, with the unpleasant side of death, that is, to feel this loss in the physical world - without completely leaving the body. You really have the experience of ‘’‘going through death’‘’. Without that ‘’‘you cannot cross the threshold’‘’. That means that the first test is: do I dare to turn around or not. Of course, this has nothing to do with physically turning around, but rather in the spiritual world. That means that the ‘’‘turning around’‘’ is to ‘’‘let go of everything that is sensual in order to turn to the spiritual’‘’. This mighty voice like the sound of a trumpet. Incidentally, the word ‘trombone’ means - and since we are talking about sound - that ‘’‘inspiration’‘’ is already playing a part in the development of the imagination. In fact, every spiritual experience begins at an even higher level, with ‘’‘intuition’‘’. I have to become one with a spiritual being in order to enter the spiritual world at all. That is intuition. However, it does not become immediately conscious. It is, so to speak, the prerequisite and forms the unconscious background.

The next stage is ‘’‘inspiration.’‘’ When you have a real spiritual experience, then you have at least an echo of this inspirational experience, without being able to fully grasp its content, that you ‘’‘hear a voice like a trombone,’‘’ which is just loud and powerful and shattering, but you don't really understand it at that moment.

The third and last thing is actually ‘’‘the imaginative image,’‘’ that builds up - and this image is not a sensual one at first, but rather, you could say, ‘’‘a kind of highly differentiated mood of the soul’‘’ that one experiences. I will perhaps come back to this in more detail another time. There is no more time now. It is actually a ‘’‘highly differentiated spiritual experience’‘’ that one has, which one can now ‘’‘overlook like a panorama’‘’, which is in motion, which is changing, and in this experience one can, so to speak, wander around spiritually. That is the real imagination. But John has to describe it as a spiritual image. So he hears this voice and he continues to say or write:<blockquote>‘’« She said: Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches. To Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamon, to Thyatira, to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea ».‘’</blockquote>So these are the seven churches. ‘’‘Ephesus’‘’ ([[A:Ephesos|Ephesos]]), the first, with which John was, incidentally, ‘’‘very closely connected,’‘’ that is, in the period long after the events in Palestine, after the death of Christ on the cross. The island of Patmos, incidentally, is very close, on the coast of Asia Minor, and Ephesus and the mystery centre of Ephesus are relatively close on the mainland. That is also an advantage, that there was a mystery centre there, an important one. ‘’‘The important Christian centres’‘’ were all initially located where ancient mystery centres were also located - so this ‘’‘mystery centre’‘’ of Ephesus was closely connected to Patmos, or rather the other way round, Patmos was in a sense ‘’‘an offshoot of the mysteries of Ephesus.’‘’ So, there are seven churches and the voice speaks now and John continues to write:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>So the Christ appears in human form.<blockquote>’‘’Clothed with a long flowing robe,‘’

‘’girded at the breast with a golden girdle,‘’

‘’with a white head, the hair of which shone like white wool and like snow,‘’

‘’with eyes as if they were flames of fire,‘’

‘’with feet as if they were of gold ore that has been heated in the fire,‘’

‘’with a voice like the the sound of great waters,‘’

‘’in his right hand he held ‘’‘seven stars’‘’,‘’

‘’out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword,‘’

‘’and his countenance was like the sun in its strength."</blockquote>It is a very powerful experience. The sensual image is a pale shadow of what really lies behind it in the imagination. But it points the way. And how strong that was, comes out further:<blockquote>‘’‘and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said -’' we have already read this today “”- Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last and the Living. I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the ages. Mine is the key to the realms of death and the shadows. Write down what you see, the present and the future. The mystery of the seven stars that you see in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands,‘’ ‘’is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches themselves.‘</blockquote>With that, “”’the first chapter of the Apocalypse‘’' ends, and I would like to close for today.
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[[Index of terms Lecture series The Apocalypse of John by Wolfgang Peter#A|APOCALYPSE]]

* ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also called ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of the own self - namely in the moment when I and Christ are one [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The riddle of the self 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|‘’‘Apocalypse of John’‘’]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ASTRAL BODY

* We transform the ‘’‘astral body’‘’ into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

ETHER

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect itself ‘’‘in the etheric’', then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experiencing in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:16:35]]
The ‘’‘ether’‘’ world is much richer than the physical world: the physical is actually a dead thing, something that has died out of the ‘’‘ether’‘’ world [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:46:18]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with number rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the ‘’‘ethereal’‘’, because the ‘’‘etheric forces’‘’, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’ still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ‘’‘ether’‘’ and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
ATLANTIS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-‘’‘Atlantean’‘’ era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|B}}

CONSCIOUSNESS

* When our ‘’‘consciousness’‘’ no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different ‘’‘consciousness’‘’, with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the ‘’‘consciousness,’‘’ in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|C}}

CHRIST

* If we succeed, with the help of ‘’‘Christ’‘’ and with the help of the father forces, in restoring the original spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our I completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of ypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We need the fatherly forces that are conveyed through ‘’‘Christ’‘’ to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of the self - namely at the moment when I and ‘’‘Christ’‘’ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the self that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as ‘’‘Christ’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|D}}

DANTE ALIGHIERI

* Descent into the realm of shadows is described by ‘’‘Dante’‘’ ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]] ) in his ‘Divine Comedy’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]). The path leads through the centre of the earth to the ascent [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:31:28]]

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

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

{{BS|F}}

FREEDOM

* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. For this he has ‘’‘freedom’‘’. He can open himself to the spiritual out of free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|G}}

SPIRIT

* We need the father forces, which are mediated by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

SPIRITUAL HUMAN

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our I, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

SPIRIT SELF

* An artist who is truly creative from his I is active from the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’. This means that he transforms the astral into ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* The [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] is also called manas in the East. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

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

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

{{BS|I}}

I

* An artist who is truly creative from his ‘’‘I’‘’ is working from the spirit self. That is, he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of the Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our ‘’‘I’‘’, then we will create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* Karma is nothing more than our ‘’‘I’‘’ striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of one's own ‘’‘I’‘’ - namely at the moment when ‘’‘I’‘’ and Christ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the ‘’‘I’‘’ that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

IMAGINATION

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience ‘’‘imaginations’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the Spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|J}}

JOHN, THE EVANGELIST

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]), the writer of the Gospel of John ([[A:GA 103|GA 103]]) and the Apocalypse, is the [[A:Lazarus|Lazarus]] raised from the dead by Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Introduction 0:00:36|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:00:36]]

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

{{BS|K}}

KARMA

* ‘’‘[[A:Karma|Karma]]’‘’ is nothing more than our ego striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
CULTURAL EPOCHS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven ‘’‘cultural epochs’‘’ of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ART

* An ‘’‘artist’‘’ who is truly creative from his I is active from the spirit self. This means that he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

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

{{BS|L}}

LIFE PANORAMA

* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|‘’‘life panorama’‘’]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
* Like in a great [[A:panorama of life|‘’‘panorama of life’‘’]], this image of the past life appears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|[1 | 0:03:14]]

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

{{BS|M}}

MANAS

* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called [[A:manas|‘’‘manas’‘’]] in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called ‘’‘[[A:manas|manas]]’‘’ in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘man’ also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

MAN

* The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called manas in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘’man‘’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, ‘’‘man’‘’ can err. He has the freedom to do so. He can open himself to the spiritual world of his own free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same nature as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|N}}

NEW JERUSALEM

* In the [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] the view is opened to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’ ([[A:New Jerusalem|New Jerusalem]]). This is a kind of new planetary state that will one day become our Earth [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The New Jerusalem - a new Earth 0:35:47|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:35:47]]

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

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

{{BS|P}}

PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the Father forces, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even spiritualise something of our ‘’‘physical body’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #The physical body and our self-awareness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

{{BS|R}}

RUDOLF STEINER

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’‘’ so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Ap Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|S}}

CREATIVE SPIRITS

* The seven ‘’‘creative spirits’‘’ are essentially those spiritual forces or beings that created our physical bodies [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter# The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 1:03:33]]
SEVEN CHURCHES

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|T}}

DEATH

* In the first three days after ‘’‘death’', the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]

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

{{BS|V}}

FATHER FORCES

* We need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ that are imparted by the Christ in order to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our ego-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

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

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

{{BS|Z}}

NUMBERS

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with ‘’‘number’‘’ rhythms. The number seven‘’' indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with ‘’‘time’‘’. [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|0-9}}

SEVEN

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T09:52:53Z

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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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== Glossary==
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<big>[[#A|‘’‘A’‘’]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|H]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#A| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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{{BS|B}}BEGRIFF

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|D}}DAIMON

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|E}}

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{{BS|F}}

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{{BS|G}}GEISTSELBST

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|J}}

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{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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{{BS|M}}

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{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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{{BS|O}}

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{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|Q}}

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{{BS|R}}

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{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
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==Literature references==
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-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T09:51:50Z

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[[File:2.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c|thumb|Link to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c Video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/qcn7lpb30c8w127/2.apo.mp3?dl=0 Audio] ]]
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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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== Glossary==
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<big>[[#A|‘’‘A’‘’]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|H]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#A| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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{{BS|B}}BEGRIFF

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|D}}DAIMON

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|E}}

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{{BS|F}}

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{{BS|G}}GEISTSELBST

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|J}}

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{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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{{BS|M}}

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{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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{{BS|O}}

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{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|Q}}

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{{BS|R}}

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{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
{{Apocalypse lectures as a table}}[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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==Literature references==
{{Literature references lecture cycle Apocalypse}}

-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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File:2.apo.jpg

2024-08-26T01:11:58Z

Admin:

The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T01:08:48Z

Admin: /* Glossary */

{{Banner1v7ApoWolfgang}}[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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{{Apocalypse lectures by Wolfgang Peter - description of meaning and purpose}}
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[[File:2.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c|thumb|Link to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c Video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/qcn7lpb30c8w127/2.apo.mp3?dl=0 Audio] ]]
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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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== Glossary==
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<big>[[#A|‘’‘A’‘’]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|H]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#A| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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{{BS|B}}BEGRIFF

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|D}}DAIMON

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|E}}

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{{BS|F}}

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{{BS|G}}GEISTSELBST

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|J}}

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{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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{{BS|M}}

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{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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{{BS|O}}

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{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|Q}}

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{{BS|R}}

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{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
{{Apocalypse lectures as a table}}[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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|[[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter|previous episode ◁]] [[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|  ■  ]] [[The Apocalypse of John - 3rd lecture by Wolfgang Peter|▷ next episode]]
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==Literature references==
{{Literature references lecture cycle Apocalypse}}

-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T01:03:41Z

Admin: /* Glossary */

{{Banner1v7ApoWolfgang}}[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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[[File:2.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c|thumb|Link to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c Video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/qcn7lpb30c8w127/2.apo.mp3?dl=0 Audio] ]]
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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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== Glossary==
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<big>[[#A|‘’‘A’‘’]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|H]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#A| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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{{BS|B}}BEGRIFF

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|D}}DAIMON

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|E}}

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{{BS|F}}

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{{BS|G}}GEISTSELBST

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 2. Folge, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|J}}

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{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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{{BS|M}}

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{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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{{BS|O}}

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{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|Q}}

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{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
{{Apocalypse lectures as a table}}[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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==Literature references==
{{Literature references lecture cycle Apocalypse}}

-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T01:01:35Z

Admin: /* Glossary */

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[[File:2.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c|thumb|Link to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c Video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/qcn7lpb30c8w127/2.apo.mp3?dl=0 Audio] ]]
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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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== Glossary==
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<big>[[#A|‘’‘A’‘’]] [[#B|B]] [[#C|C]] [[#D|D]] [[#E|E]] [[#F|F]] [[#G|G]] [[#H|H]] [[#I|I]] [[#J|J]] [[#K|K]] [[#L|L]] [[#M|M]] [[#N|N]] [[#O|O]] [[#P|P]] [[#Q|Q]] [[#R|R]] [[#S|S]] [[#T|T]] [[#U|U]] [[#V|V]] [[#W|W]] [[#X|X]] [[#Y|Y]] [[#Z|Z]] | [[#0-9|0-9]] |[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter#A| Complete Glossary]]</big>

{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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{{BS|B}}BEGRIFF

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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{{BS|C}}CHRIST

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|D}}DAIMON

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|E}}

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{{BS|F}}

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{{BS|G}}GEISTSELBST

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 2. Folge, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|J}}

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{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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{{BS|M}}

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{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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{{BS|O}}

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{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|Q}}

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{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 - 2nd 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 - 2nd 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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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
{{Apocalypse lectures as a table}}[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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|[[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter|previous episode ◁]] [[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|  ■  ]] [[The Apocalypse of John - 3rd lecture by Wolfgang Peter|▷ next episode]]
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==Literature references==
{{Literature references lecture cycle Apocalypse}}

-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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The Apocalypse of John - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T01:00:42Z

Admin: /* Glossary */

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[[File:2.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c|thumb|Link to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c Video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/qcn7lpb30c8w127/2.apo.mp3?dl=0 Audio] ]]
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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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== Glossary==
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{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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{{BS|B}}BEGRIFF

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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{{BS|C}}CHRIST

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|D}}DAIMON

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd instalment, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|E}}

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{{BS|F}}

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{{BS|G}}GEISTSELBST

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd instalment, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 2. Folge, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd instalment, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|J}}

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{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd instalment, 2020, 0:47:40]]
* The powers of the ‘’‘Spirit of Life’‘’ are the powers that were taken from us by the Fall [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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{{BS|M}}

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{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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{{BS|O}}

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{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|Q}}

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{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 - 2nd 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2. lecture, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 - 2nd 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, 2nd instalment, 2020, 0:00:51]]
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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
{{Apocalypse lectures as a table}}[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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==Literature references==
{{Literature references lecture cycle Apocalypse}}

-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T00:58:26Z

Admin: /* Glossary */

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{{Apocalypse lectures by Wolfgang Peter - description of purpose and meaning}}

[[File:1.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM|thumb|Link to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/jc3wz02vgbi6mq4/1.apo.mp3?dl=0 audio] ]]

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== MAIN TOPIC ==
This lecture focuses on insights into the ‘’‘vision of John’‘’, written on the island of Patmos, which he shared in a letter to the seven churches (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea). According to the [[A:Book of Revelation of John|Book of Revelation of John]], it was dictated to the evangelist John by the Christ in order to encourage and admonish the communities. According to Rudolf Steiner, the [[A:seven churches|seven churches]] represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era. [[A:Patmos|Patmos]] was closely connected with the mystery centre [[A:Ephesus|Ephesus]], where all the Christian centres were initially located. John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) translated his experienced imagination into sensual images. In a highly differentiated spiritual experience, it unfolded like a panorama in which he could wander around spiritually.

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== Transcription of the 1. lecture of the Apocalypse of John ==
by Ghislaine, Susanne, Elke (December 2022)

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=36s Introduction 0:00:36] ===
So, my dear friends, I think we'll just start. No one has missed anything. So even those who were not there last time have not missed much. Basically, we have only dealt with the beginning of the Apocalypse of John. Basically, we had the first sentence and have linked a lot to it.

So the question we had is: ‘’‘Who is this John who writes this Apocalypse of John and who also wrote the Gospel of John?’‘’ So the evangelist John - how did he become the person who was able to write these things? And we came to the conclusion, based on Rudolf Steiner's indications, that it was in fact ‘’‘the resurrected Lazarus’‘’. You may know that. It is described in the Bible in the New Testament, ‘’‘the raising of Lazarus’‘’ as a, in a certain sense, ‘’‘raising of the dead’‘’, as it is called, which in truth is ‘’‘an initiation process’‘’. An initiation process that in a certain sense is similar to what has been customary since Egyptian times. We then also spoke at length about the Egyptian initiation. In those days, the ‘’‘initiation students’‘’ had to undergo long and difficult ‘’‘examinations’‘’ before they were admitted to the ‘’‘central initiation experience’‘’. These examinations repeatedly led them into ‘’‘life-threatening’‘’ situations. That was such an important point. The ‘’‘willpower was trained’‘’, and it was also trained that he really walks at the ‘’‘edge of death’‘’ in a certain way during these tests - and when the initiate was found to be ready for the great test, then he was actually put in a ‘’‘dead-like state’‘’ for ‘’‘three days’‘’ or three and a half days. This was done through ‘’‘meditation’‘, and also through certain substances that were given to them, “”’drugs‘’‘ if you will, which could have induced a state of apparent death, one might say. Because the goal of the initiation was to be able to “”’report from the spiritual world‘’, to be able to experience something there and to be able to report from there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=194s Initiation in ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14] ===
The problem is: how do you get there, how do you experience something beyond the threshold? The way that was taken in Egyptian culture, but basically in all advanced civilisations at that time, was to actually put people into this state that is similar to death for three and a half days. For about three and a half days. If you are familiar with Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of what happens after death, then you know that ‘’‘about three and a half days’‘’ after death, you experience ‘’‘a review of your past life on earth’‘’.

This image of one's past life appears before one as if in a great ‘’‘panorama of life’‘’, and one realises what one has done in this life, one really gets to know oneself in a certain way. You see this image from a very interesting distance, like a ‘’‘beautiful panorama’‘’, you could say, so you can even see the ‘’‘negative events’‘’ in their ‘’‘meaning for life’‘’ and what you take away from them in a certain way. So it is a very ‘’‘sunny’‘’, a very ‘’‘joyful experience’‘’. As a side note, these are, for example, the descriptions that can be found in ‘’‘Islam’‘’, ‘’‘given by Mohammed’‘’, where he speaks of the ‘’‘joys of paradise’‘’, which refer primarily to the experience of this life panorama, that is, these very happy experiences in the three days after death. So there is nothing unpleasant for the person who has passed over. The only thing that one does not yet experience or receive is a direct insight into the real spiritual world. It is still a ‘’‘memory of earthly life’‘’. This is connected with the fact that the ‘’‘life forces’‘’ that have animated us during our entire earthly life, that have animated the body, remain in a certain ‘’‘closer connection’‘’ during these three days or three and a half days. So the etheric body of the human being - the life forces are this etheric body of the human being, the ‘’‘etheric body is also the bearer of memory’‘’, the actual bearer of memory - remains in a certain compact form during these three and a half days and then begins to dissolve. Dissolving means that it connects with the ‘’‘world ether’‘’ and then this panorama disappears in a certain way.

And only then, ‘’‘when this panorama disappears, does the actual view into the soul world’‘’ begin, initially not yet into higher spiritual worlds, but at least into the soul world. So only then have you really ‘’‘crossed the threshold’‘’ properly. And that means that if you ultimately put a person in a state similar to death for the purpose of initiation, you have to get through these three or three and a half days - or at least get to ‘’‘this border - so that you can get any insight into the spiritual world or, more precisely, into the soul world’‘, because before that you only experience the “”’review of earthly life‘’'. Looking back means that you can basically move freely in this panorama of life, so to speak, you can look at different events in life and observe them from a higher perspective, as it were. But that is not yet the actual spiritual. So you have to get over this boundary three/three and a half days, but you had to be very careful at the Egyptian initiation ‘’‘that the connection to the physical body’‘’, which now lies there like dead - often really put into a sarcophagus for the purpose of initiation - that the connection to this physical body ‘’‘does not break off completely’‘’. Because if it is completely severed, if the life is completely out, the soul is completely out, the spiritual is completely out and this connection is severed, then there is no way back. Then death really occurs. And the Egyptian initiation was set up in such a way that the ‘’‘priesthood,’‘’ which ‘’‘oversaw this initiation process’‘’ - there were usually twelve priests who were around the person being initiated and monitored this state - that they could observe exactly when the last possible moment was ‘’‘when they had to bring him back.’‘’ So he was brought back mainly by letting sunlight fall on him in the right way. So through the ‘’‘light’‘’ he was ‘’‘woken up,’‘’ but also, of course, through recitation and the like, through incense that was burnt, through awakening explanations. And then he had to be brought back very quickly - and the initiation student was ‘’‘trained’‘’ and practised ‘’‘to report quickly what he had seen over there.’‘’ It's a bit like waking up from a dream in the morning. If you don't immediately write down what happened in the dream, it's usually gone and you can't remember it anymore. Because you can't store dream experiences, or even less spiritual experiences, in our normal memory.

So you can't really hold on to an ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ a real imagination - and that is an imagination that a person has in the initiation at first - with your memory. At most, you can try to get back to such an experience. If you want to have it again, you actually have to go back there and see it again. What I can remember very well is when I wake up or come out of it, as it was in the Egyptian initiation, and put it into words and tell it. I can remember these words. And not only the initiate has to remember these words for a lifetime, but also the priesthood that surrounded him. They have kept these words in their memory after hearing them once. And it must be said that this initiate did not speak in everyday language, but rather ‘’‘in a ritual language,’‘’ that is, ‘’‘with certain rhythms,’‘’ which are inherent in it. It was the Egyptian language in terms of the words. But the way it was formulated, we would say today, ‘’‘it was poetic, it was ritualistic,’‘’ and that was immediately impressed on the memory. It is this ‘’‘elevated priestly way of speaking’‘’ and to a certain extent it has remained with us to this day. It is absorbed differently, it has a different effect. But nevertheless, it is a translation of the spiritual experience into an earthly language. One must bear in mind that even in the life after death, ‘’‘the language’‘’ that we have spoken here on earth ‘’‘disappears.’‘’ It disappears very quickly. Not immediately after the three and a half days, but very soon it is gone. It is, if you like, ‘’‘a spiritual language’‘’ that one then speaks, but that is then only an auxiliary term to call it ‘language’, it is a different experience. This means that the initiate had to ‘’‘get over these three and a half days’‘’, then he could have the experience of ‘over there’, that is, from the other side of the threshold - and at the moment of waking up he could bring this experience in. Bring it in for himself and ‘’‘for the priesthood,’‘’ which surrounded him.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=712s The Initiation of Lazarus 0:11:52] ===
And something similar also happened during the ‘’‘initiation of Lazarus.’‘’ Only the starting point was different. This Lazarus was not put into a death-like state by a priesthood or anyone else, but rather he - one could say - ‘’‘fell into this state on his own.’‘’ I say ‘on his own’, but I must also add that it was in a certain way the after-effect of the words of the priest with whom he had a lot of contact. I must also say that ‘’‘Lazarus was a very important man in Jerusalem, a very rich man’‘’ and very well known. He was known throughout Jerusalem, and he also made a name for himself as a follower of Christ. He experienced what Christ said so intensely that, as a result of this experience, he fell into this death-like state of his own accord. He fell into this state so deeply that the people around him thought he had died and laid him in the grave afterwards. And when the Christ then learns that Lazarus has died, he ‘’‘takes a very long time’‘’ and does not go to ‘’‘Lazarus in Bethany’‘’ to wake him up. He simply waits. He waits for two days, but nothing happens. And then he sets off - and only on the fourth day, at the very last possible moment, on the fourth day, which is really very late, does he wake Lazarus with the words ‘’‘«Lazarus, come out»’‘’. In a figurative sense, these were the words of awakening, as the Egyptians also spoke them, of course in Egyptian. And Lazarus now brought with him a great deal of experience, and ‘’‘the Gospel of John, for example, arose from the after-effects of these experiences,’‘’ and also, in a certain sense, ‘’‘the Apocalypse of John,’‘’, but that is a deeper level in a certain sense. Of course, you might ask why he is now called John and no longer Lazarus. He was not called John before. We also tried to find out where that came from last time. To do so, you have to know that relatively shortly before Lazarus was resurrected, John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod; you are sure to know the story. And the point is that after the death of John the Baptist - now - this ‘’‘John the Baptist’‘’ became something like ‘’‘a kind of protective spirit or community spirit of the twelve apostles.’‘’ The twelve apostles also included the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, so also a John, but ‘’‘John Zebedee.’‘’

So, among these twelve apostles, John the Evangelist is not to be counted initially, but now the following is the case: the spirit of this John the Baptist becomes in some way ‘’‘something like an inspiring community soul’‘’ and community spirit of this circle of twelve, these twelve apostles, and the whole thing then becomes even more condensed. There is then the transfiguration of Christ. This is also shortly before the resurrection of Lazarus, when ‘’‘this effect of John the Baptist's is concentrated’‘’ on the apostles, now on three very specific apostles, ‘’‘the two sons of Zebedee and Peter.’‘’ That means that he is now only the community spirit of these three, if you will. They thereby attain a higher level of knowledge. The other apostles would not have been able to experience the transfiguration, which is a spiritual experience, only the three of them could. And with the raising of Lazarus, the last condensation takes place, if you will. A very close bond is created between Lazarus, who is resurrected and goes through this initiation, and the spirit of John the Baptist.

It is important to know that ‘’‘at every initiation’‘’, when it happens, ‘’‘a person on earth’‘’ always works together ‘’‘with at least one spiritual being,’‘’ who is on the other side. It cannot be any other way. One has to come to a very concrete connection with a spiritual being from the other side. One does not simply enter the spiritual world. It is teeming with spiritual beings, one looks at that. But it is actually only possible if one gets a very, very intense relationship with a very specific spiritual being, with whom one is connected by fate or comes into contact with. And in this case, it is ‘’‘this connection between Lazarus here on earth and John the Baptist,’‘’ who is over there. And Lazarus gets his initiation name John after this John the Baptist. So this explains why we have a ‘’‘Gospel of John’‘’ and why this John is not John Zebedee, but someone else. But this resurrected ‘’‘Lazarus/John takes part in the Last Supper.’‘’ He is always referred to in the Gospel as ‘’‘the disciple whom the Lord loved.’‘’ That is, the one who rests in the Lord's bosom, who rests on his breast, who is not named, but who is, so to speak, one of the twelve apostles and at the same time the resurrected Lazarus, who is called John because he is connected with John the Baptist. And now, at this moment, he is also the apostle John, namely during the Last Supper. This is when the circle of the twelve is finally completed. That is to say, John Zebedee was, in a certain sense, the representative of the resurrected Lazarus, who has now become John. And this is, so to speak, the final form of the ‘’‘circle of the twelve, the twelve apostles.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1168s The Christ and the realm of death 0:19:28] ===
It is quite interesting because all of this event really condenses around the Christ, most of all condenses in this last moment ‘’‘beginning with Maundy Thursday’‘’. Yes, perhaps with the whole of Holy Week before that, but especially with Maundy Thursday, and then of course with the experience of ‘’‘Good Friday.’‘’ With the death, the ‘’‘crucifixion of Jesus Christ,’‘’ there is also the moment of the fullest incarnation. One has to think that the incarnation of Christ begins with the baptism of John, three years before, and is a gradual process. It did not happen in one fell swoop; you don't have to believe that Christ was fully incarnated at the time of his baptism in the Jordan, but it is a process that continues until the last minute, until the last minute it is completed. Then it is accomplished. So when the ‘’‘Christ's words on the cross are “It is finished”’‘’, that is exactly what is meant, namely, ‘’‘that the incarnation has now been completed’‘’ and Christ has become fully human. Immediately at the moment of death. It is very important that this incarnation takes place in its full fullness, in its entirety, basically ‘’‘in a single moment.’‘’ That is the moment when he passes through death, the Christ - and descends into the realm of death. We know that Holy Saturday is the descent into the underworld, the descent into hell, if you will, the descent into the realm of the dead, into the realm of death. Something that is not normally possible in the times. Before the angelic beings, archangels, original angels, etc., and even before Christ, human beings preceded all other spiritual beings in entering the realm of death, in entering this darkness, in entering hell, if you will, in entering the realm of the dead. We were the ones who had experience of it, at least to a certain extent. But ‘’‘all the other spiritual beings,’‘’ who are above us, up to the Christ, ‘’‘did not know the realm of death.’‘’ In the spiritual world, there is no death. It is a very special realm, and the fact that ‘’‘the Christ completed his humanity on Golgotha’‘’ also enables him to descend into this realm of death.

It is also very clearly stated in the text of the Apocalypse, which I will perhaps read out. I have to find the passage quickly... Yes, it is still in the first chapter, towards the end of the first chapter, and there ‘’‘John has a Christ encounter.’‘’ In truth, it is ‘’‘the trigger’‘’ for the whole writing of the Apocalypse of John. Because you have to think about what ‘Apocalypse of John’ means. These are the first words with which he begins: ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is what it actually says. The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ - and Apocalypse means as much as ‘’‘revelation, manifestation’‘’. So it is about the revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ. That is the content of the Apocalypse. And we also pointed out last time that the Christ is very closely connected with our human ego. We will have to work on this much more precisely in the next lecture or lectures. The Apocalypse has something to do with ‘’‘revealing the essence of our ego.’‘’ And what significance Christ has for this. So what John describes here is really an encounter with Christ, and he then says:<blockquote>‘’«When I saw him, I fell at his feet and was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Falling at his feet and being dead is another image for the fact that he is actually experiencing something that is beyond the threshold, on the other side of the threshold. So it is not a sensual event, but ‘’‘a spiritual experience,’‘’ that he has. And then it goes on:<blockquote>‘’«But he (that is, the Christ) laid his right hand on me and said: Fear not. I am the first and the last and the living. I was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Please note the «‘’I was dead»,‘’ says the Christ. No spiritual being could have said that about a human being until then. None of these beings had ever been dead. ‘’‘I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine.’‘’ So, the ‘’‘Christ has the key to the realm of death and the shadows’‘’. That is also something very important.

JOHN THE BAPTIST APOSTLE The spirit of John the Baptist became something like an inspiring community soul and community spirit of the circle of twelve apostles [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the Kingdom of Death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

CHRIST'S DEATH As the only higher spiritual being, the Christ knows death. Therefore he said: ‘’‘Mine is the key to the kingdom of death and the shadows’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the kingdom of death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1579s The Shadow Powers in the Realm of Death 0:26:19] ===
A little later in the Apocalypse, we will hear about the Key of David. ‘’‘The Key of David is the key to the spiritual world.’‘’ And we as human beings, if we strive spiritually, have access to both keys in a certain way. We can ‘’‘open or close the gate to the spiritual world.’‘’ We can open and close the gate to the world of death, to the world of shadows. This is connected to our ‘’‘human freedom’‘’ - or it is based on the fact that we can open these gates in a certain sense by our own power. That is the essential passage for us. This ‘’«I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine»‘’. And it was precisely into this realm of death that John himself went, that is, Lazarus/John‘’‘ in the course of his “”’initiation.‘’' This is the path that one has to go through. It should be said that this encounter with the ‘’‘realm of shadows’‘’ is particularly important in the initiation process. It is not usually the case that when one passes over the threshold in a normal way, that is to say, through death, one experiences too much of this realm of shadows immediately after death. If one passes through in the state of initiation, that is to say, in this sleep similar to death, then one is very much confronted with this realm. Very clearly. And also with all the shadowy sides that exist there and the temptations that are associated with them. These are experienced very strongly and it was precisely this that the Egyptian initiates had to prepare themselves for very intensively. This test, that is actually the Ahrimanic side that one encounters in order to get through it. So that means that these were often very gruesome experiences that this initiate had to go through again and again over the years - and they increased more and more. Only when they had endured this were they ‘’‘found ripe’‘’ to really go through the last great test, the three-day sleep of death.

Of course, all kinds of elements associated with this ‘’‘dark world of death’‘’ are now included in the ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’. This revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ also reveals the spiritual world that is above us. But it also reveals the world that lies below us, or works among us, or simmers among us, however you want to call it. This is the very special position we have as human beings, this spiritual being that we are as human beings, that we stand between the spiritual world above us and the world of death below us. Exactly on the border. If you want an image of it: ‘’‘The surface of the earth’‘’ on which we stand is exactly ‘’‘the border line.’‘’ It goes up there - and down there. We have to concern ourselves with both realms. In the Egyptian initiation, and in the initiation of the ancient Orient in general, the main aim was to gain ‘’‘knowledge of the light side,’‘’ that is, the side that lies above us, because the power to deal with the dark side was not yet very strong. So people had certain experiences that foreshadowed something that we basically have to experience to a much greater extent today if we want to enter the spiritual world. For the person who wants to have real spiritual experiences today or is mature enough to have them... Anyone who wants to have ‘’‘such insights’‘’ today and also wants to have them ‘’‘in a healthy way’‘’ must or ‘’‘should not be afraid of confronting the dark forces.’‘’

FREEDOM OF MAN As human beings, if we strive spiritually, we can open or close the door to the spiritual world. This is connected with our human freedom [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Shadow Forces in the Realm of Death 0:26:19|[1 | 0:26:19]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28] ===
This is one of the reasons why Dante ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’ in his ‘’‘Divine Comedy’‘’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’. Basically, what Dante describes there ‘’‘is also an initiation experience.’‘’ He shows very clearly how the path to the upper spiritual world, that is, what he also ‘’‘refers to as paradise,’‘’ leads through the underworld. That the right way is not a direct ascent to paradise, that one would fail there, that one would in fact come to a bright world, but it would be the Luciferic world. It would not be the real spiritual world, but it would be ‘’‘the world of Luciferic beings.’‘’ They are also spiritual beings, but spiritual beings that have ‘’‘in a sense remained behind,’‘’ that is, they have not developed their full spiritual powers. This means that if a person were to integrate themselves into this realm, they would ultimately also block or at least slow down their path to the future. In pre-Christian times, it was not yet so problematic. But in the post-Christian era, it becomes ‘’‘problematic’‘’. That means that ‘’‘we have to pass the test of going through the underworld’‘’, if you will. That is why ‘’‘Dante’‘’ describes it so clearly in his «Divine Comedy»: the path goes down to the centre of the earth. This is of course a metaphor. It is not about descending with crampons, drilling into the earth, but ‘’‘going down spiritually.’‘’ Descending ‘’‘into the dark depths of our own being’‘’ and the dark depths of the earthly world. So we have to think that our earth itself has this dual nature. On the one hand, a multitude of ‘’‘light-filled spiritual forces’‘’, high spiritual forces, but there are also ‘’‘dark forces’‘’ in it. Down there in the earth, that is the realm of Ahriman. That is the realm of the spirits of darkness, if you will. Lucifer hovers a little above it, but Ahriman and even stronger opposing forces live down there. And that is exactly where you have to go through.

In Dante's version, the path leads ‘’‘through the centre of the earth.’‘’ Then the ascent begins. Interestingly, it happens very quickly, he scurries up a few levels and lands on the surface of the earth, emerging at the ‘’‘Mountain of Purification’‘’. And the Mountain of Purification is what leads him to the so-called ‘’‘Purgatory’‘’, ‘’‘to the Fiery Furnace’', if you will. So this is the first supernatural realm that leads beyond the earth. And this is precisely the realm in which the Luciferic beings essentially live. There we must then ‘’‘purify ourselves’‘’ from all these ‘’‘Luciferic forces’‘’ in order to be able to ascend into the real paradise and the real spiritual world. That is the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy. But this applies to all forms of Christian initiation in a certain way. These stages are somewhere inside, it is hardly where it is expressed as clearly as in Dante, so systematically. But it is just as much in the Apocalypse. There you also find the confrontation with the very, very dark forces. That is why there are also images that seem very frightening at first glance. But in reality they are only an expression of a purification process that we have to go through. If we did not go through it, we would not get an insight into the spiritual world.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2147s The New Jerusalem - a new earth 0:35:47] ===
In the Book of Revelation, the view is opened above all to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem.’‘’ The New Jerusalem is ‘’‘a kind of new planetary state,’‘’ which will one day become ‘’‘our earth’‘’. When we as humanity and the Earth as a whole have gone through a certain development, at some point in the future the Earth as the planet as we know it will die, perish, be destroyed. It must be destroyed, just as our physical body must ultimately be destroyed - and then the New Jerusalem will arise. ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often calls it’‘’ in his lectures... he calls it ‘’‘the New Jupiter’‘’, which will come. This is a kind of new planet that will of course be different from our Earth. It is still a long way off, we still have a little time to go, but there we will be ‘’‘transferred to a new, higher spiritual state’‘’. But we will be mature enough to enter this higher spiritual state. A state that is in some ways ‘’‘comparable’‘’ to what ‘’‘today's angelic beings’‘’ possess. It will be different from our present-day angelic beings, but in terms of spiritual potency it is comparable to them. And then, above all, we will not have a body like the one we have today - and above all under different conditions. An important moment in the Book of Revelation is also given where John speaks of the ‘’‘so-called first death and the so-called second death’‘’. It is quite late in the Apocalypse, so one wonders what the first and second death are. I don't want to go into detail about this today either. But it has to do with the fact that we will finally lay down our physical body there. We will lay it down in every conceivable form and will not get it back in this form, so we have to learn to live without it. So, ‘’‘the first death’‘’ has to do with ‘’‘finally laying down the physical body forever.’‘’ And ‘’‘the second death’‘’ means finally ‘’‘laying down the corresponding etheric body.’‘’ That does not mean that we will then no longer have anything etheric, but no longer in the form that we have now. We will discuss this in more detail in the next lecture, but for now, this is just a suggestion.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2334s The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54] ===
I have now repeated a lot of what we discussed last time. Now we should move on a little and look at what is described in the Apocalypse. I will just read a short passage and then explain it. So in the first chapter, before the passage I read to you, John now addresses his ‘’‘words to the seven churches in Asia’‘’. So seven Christian communities in Asia - there were certainly more communities - they are the seven, if you will, leading communities, at least in the spiritual sense, in the outward sense it was a different chapter. We will encounter the ‘’‘number seven’‘’ very often in the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of John works a lot with ‘’‘number rhythms’‘’, they play a very important role. Wherever the number seven occurs, we can always be aware that it has something to do with a temporal development, with an evolution, with a series of developments. The number seven is also the ‘’‘number of the etheric,’‘’ for example. ‘’‘The etheric forces,’‘’ the life forces, ‘’‘have something to do with time.’‘’ Life takes place in time and life becomes rigid when nothing changes any more. Then death has occurred. After death, decay always follows. But no longer a living development.

So when the number seven plays a role, it always refers to a living development. For example, the human body renews itself about every seven years. This is one of the reasons why ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often speaks clearly in his education’‘’ about these ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’ that people go through: that ‘’‘the child’‘’ enters school at the age of seven, with the change of teeth , that puberty begins at the age of fourteen, that new spiritual forces awaken, that the twenty-first year of life is very important, that the ego begins to emerge very clearly. And so it goes on - again and again in ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’, which are no longer so noticeable externally. But if you look a little more closely, they are there too. Externally, they are connected to the fact that ‘’‘the body physically renews itself every seven years’‘’ and that, over the course of about seven years, it has ‘’‘completely exchanged its material’‘’. Rudolf Steiner always pointed this out, but it was often dismissed as an old wives' tale. You know that scientists never believe anything at first, they are always sceptical - that is perhaps also their virtue. But if they are thorough, they are open to being taught otherwise. It is actually the case that in recent years, through systematic medical, biological and chemical research, it has been possible to prove that the substances in the human body renew themselves on average every seven years. Some take a little longer, some renew themselves more quickly, but if you take the average, it really is every seven years.

So, in terms of our material substance, nothing that was there seven years ago is still there. We have become something completely new in terms of our material substance, but we have retained our forms to a certain extent, at least to the extent that we are usually recognised again after seven years. We can get a little older, we change a little, but we are still clearly recognisable as human beings. So the form, that is to say the etheric forces that renew this form again and again, they go through this whole ‘’‘seven-year period’‘’, but ‘’‘the physical is renewed again and again.’‘’ Basically, physically speaking, we do not die only once at the end of our lives, but in every seven-year period we basically, materially speaking, discard a corpse. Scattered into the world. It happens quite inconspicuously, with every breath we take, with every piece of food we eat and then excrete again, with what we sweat out and so on. All of this is shed, with the scales on our skin, where something is constantly being shed, something is always being lost. So, materially speaking, we are completely new people after seven years. And ‘’‘behind it all is ultimately a rhythm of the etheric body. It is this that in truth,’‘’ causes these seven-year cycles. With many sub-rhythms that also play a role. Today, science is already investigating - there is a discipline that has developed in this way since the middle of the twentieth century and has become increasingly clear in recent years, and that is ‘’‘chronobiology’‘’. Chronobiology is concerned with the rhythms that operate in the human body, and also in animals. And many exciting things have been discovered - among other things, the daily rhythm plays a major role, but so do seven-day rhythms, for example the seven-day rhythm as a quarter of a month. The month is again connected with the ‘’‘moon rhythm’‘’, the daily rhythm, which is connected with the rotation of the earth, the moon rhythm is connected with the moon's orbit. It has its subdivisions and a quarter of it is about seven days. It is also not by chance that we have a ‘’‘seven-day week’‘’. It is very wise. The ‘’‘calendar’‘’ could be organised in a completely different way, but then it would no longer be ‘’‘in harmony with these natural rhythms.’‘’ These natural rhythms are actually based on the etheric body. It is behind them - or the etheric world in general. From a cosmic point of view, it is the etheric world; in us, it is the etheric body, the internalisation of these rhythms. There are x rhythms in the body, very, very fast ones that vibrate very ‘’‘nervously’‘, so to speak - I say nervously on purpose, because it is very strongly “”’connected to the nervous system‘’‘ - and there are much longer rhythms that go more leisurely and renew us right down to the “”’metabolic processes‘’' within seven years.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2778s Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18] ===
So John has a lot to do with these forces, and that is why he often speaks of the number seven and that is why he also speaks of the seven churches ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). That is the reason. That is the real reason, because these ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ are - one could say - ‘’‘representatives of certain stages of development’‘’. So they represent seven stages of development that together make up a whole. Yes, I'll read a bit of it out:<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be yours from him,‘’

‘’who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven spirits of creation before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>From him who is and who was and who is to come - well, he basically spanned ‘’‘the whole time’‘’, the past, the present and the future, ‘’‘drawing the bow.’‘’

In the spiritual self, time and temporal development no longer play the same role as they do here in our earthly lives. In a sense, we enter the ‘’‘realm of eternity, of timelessness’‘’ - and yet there is movement in it. That seems paradoxical: how can there be movement if there is no time? Basically, you can move freely, as I should say, in what we call time, here as time. This actually begins in the ‘’‘etheric world’‘’. The experience in the etheric world is such that we can ‘’‘move freely in time’‘’. This means that we can go back, not just look back, but really go back - in an etheric way. But we can also go into the future, take a look, so to speak, into the future at least. How this future, which we experience in the etheric, is then realised in the physical, is another chapter. The etheric world is much, much richer than the physical world - and ‘’‘the physical’‘’ is actually something that has died, something that has ‘’‘died out of the etheric world’‘’. And that means that the physical manifests itself when something etheric dies, but much other etheric continues. And the etheric encompasses the future, everything that continues in the etheric world. And one thing dies out again and again, so to speak, and manifests itself here as something physical. What we can see today in the etheric is this whole abundance, which, from our point of view, flows or goes into the future. What we cannot foresee is every single physical event that dies out. So we cannot see exactly what will die in the etheric. But we can see at least a certain line, a certain direction in which the whole thing is going. We also see that certain things ‘’‘have to happen,’‘’ namely ‘’‘as compensation for what happened in the past’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM& Repeated earthly lives and human freedom 0:50:06] ===
I now have to make a connection to another sub-topic, so to speak, namely the topic of ‘’‘reincarnation and karma’‘’. As you know, if you are already familiar with anthroposophy, we are talking about ‘’‘repeated earthly lives.’‘’ Human beings do not live on earth just once, but repeatedly. This means that when they die, they first pass through the ‘’‘soul world’‘, then through the “”’spiritual world‘’, and then descend again after a shorter or longer period of time to ‘’‘a new incarnation’‘’. Simply because this earthly existence offers us so many opportunities for development that we could not exhaust in a single incarnation. Or we are ‘’‘not spiritually advanced enough to be able to complete our earthly development in a single incarnation.’‘’ We need a little more time. We have to go through it a few times. We are pupils who may have to repeat a few years. Of course, we can distinguish ourselves during our earthly incarnation. In a certain sense, ‘’‘the spiritual beings above us’‘’ cannot ‘’‘make any mistakes.’‘’

You could say: ‘Well, I'd like to be like that too, that would be great.’ Yes, but then we would not have ‘’‘freedom’‘’. This is a big word, because it says that even the angelic beings that are above us - and also the higher angelic beings that are above them, right up to the highest angelic beings - do not have the freedom that human beings have. They ‘’‘fulfil’‘’ God's will as a matter of course, if you want to put it in our terms. That means that the higher spiritual beings that are above them flow into them, they absorb it and ‘’‘act on it. Without error.’‘’ That is wonderful. Basically, nothing can go wrong. But - they have no free decision-making ability as a result. They don't even get the idea. Actually, the highest spiritual source, that is, the divine self, had to create the possibility for freedom in the world, and this is connected with the ability not to follow the error that flows down from the spiritual world. ‘’‘What distinguishes us as human beings is,’‘’ that we ‘’‘can't follow’‘’ the spiritual world. You could say that this cannot be the ideal of a human being, that we should now rebel against the divine. Well, yes and no. It is the prerequisite for us to be able to turn to the spiritual again in freedom after we have rebelled against it. This gives it a completely different quality. We fulfil ourselves with the spiritual, not because we cannot do otherwise, but because we fulfil ourselves with it because we want to, ‘’‘out of our own free will’‘’. But that means that a spiritual element lives in us that is comparable to the highest spiritual world from which everything flows. That means that a source ‘’‘opens up in us, in our I,’‘’ that is truly, one has to say it like this, ‘’‘of the same essence’‘’ ‘’‘as the highest divine being.’‘’ Even if it is, so to speak, the small version of it, ‘’‘the miniature version,’‘’, and we only experience it in individual moments, perhaps once in an incarnation or perhaps not at all in five incarnations, but there is a moment when we are of the same essence as the highest divine. When we are the embodiment of the divine. When we are ‘’‘of the same essence as Christ’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3292s The mystery of the self 0:54:52] ===
There is a beautiful ‘’‘Pauline saying’‘’ that Rudolf Steiner often mentions and usually says in the form: ‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me’‘’. This word could easily be misunderstood if we were to say: ‘I give up my free will and let Christ do things for me or through me.’ But that is not what is meant. The ‘not I’ refers to my little ‘’‘everyday ego’‘’ - which is not our true self - and we must eliminate it. So whether we love a roast pork or are grumpy because of our personal circumstances has nothing to do with the spiritual world. That gets in our way. So this ‘’‘ego, this “I want, I want, I have to, I need”’, that's what we actually have to get rid of. But ‘’‘our real self,’‘’ we will not really experience in its concrete form in everyday life. We know that we have an ego, but that's all we know about it in our everyday consciousness. It has nothing to do with how we were born, what education we have, how much money we have, it doesn't matter at all. It really has nothing to do with our ego. You have to get to ‘’‘the conscious experience of your own ego’‘’. But it's a great moment to experience that we have one. Children usually experience it around the age of three. Then it hits them: ‘I am an I’. Many people can no longer remember this later in life. Sometimes it reappears later in life, in old age, just like ‘’‘memories of early childhood’‘’ tend to resurface in old age. But some people never forget this experience.

I can remember the experience incredibly well and in great detail. It was sometime in November, maybe even on my third birthday. If it wasn't on my third birthday, then it was on St Nicholas‘ Day. My parents were there, my maternal grandmother, uncles, aunts, behind me was a fireplace that was lit, it was already quite dark. Suddenly, I looked around me with wide, astonished eyes and realised, “”’I'm something different.‘’' I'll never forget it. It was like a shock, I can't say whether it was devastating - no, it certainly wasn't devastating - I didn't know that - but it was just so emphatic that it kept coming back to me. And I have to say, the older I get, the clearer it is.

There are also such moments later in life. Rudolf Steiner describes how he experienced this in his twenty-first year, when the I becomes even more awake. I'll have to read that out one day. It's quite interesting. He read about it in the works of the philosopher ‘’‘Schelling’', who also describes this experience. And then Steiner describes how he had this experience himself. He was also sure that he had had this experience. So, you can have this experience of the self at different levels. It is not to be compared with the everyday ego that we have. Having this experience of the self has something to do with the apocalypse. The ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is also the ‘Apocalypse of one's own self’, namely at the moment ‘when I and Christ are one in essence’. At the moment when one has such an experience, this ‘unity of essence’ is there. Only for a moment, then it disappears again - or at least it is not in our consciousness. In reality, it is somehow already there, but we cannot make ourselves aware of it again, perhaps not for years, not until the end of our lives. But in that one moment it is there. That is what Paul meant when he said: ‘It is not I, but Christ in me.’ You could also formulate it in the sense of: ‘It is not my little self, but my real I in me.’ It is actually exactly the same.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3618s Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and correction 1:00:18] ===
Let's go back to the seven churches in Asia. It was a bit of a detour. Yes, there was something I wanted to say, but I lost sight of it. It has to do with the ‘’‘repeated earthly lives,’‘’ that we have to go through. It is only through these many earthly lives that our ego develops further. We can only acquire an awareness of our own self through many lives on earth. But ‘’‘we also make mistakes on earth,’‘’ we are not like the angels above us, where the spiritual simply flows into us and we implement it, but we can err, we can make mistakes - and thus take on a task, namely by making these mistakes, we change the course of the world in a certain way. It is up to us to ‘’‘correct it again.’‘’ Above all, we ourselves suffer as a result. The Christ helps us to correct the mistakes that remain in the world in a certain way. But what we destroy in ourselves by making mistakes - because mistakes also mean that we ultimately put our ego in danger or scratch it - in the next incarnation or the one after that, when our strength has grown a little, we have to correct this mistake, you could say. That is what ‘’‘is connected with our karma,’‘’ with our ‘’‘destiny’‘’. Our karma is nothing other than our ego striving to repair the damage it has done to itself, to work on it. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that we ourselves are ultimately the ones who ‘’‘send our fate’‘’, our ‘’‘karma’‘’. Our real I. No one else. We don't need to complain to anyone. We can only be happy that the Christ, by working with and in our I, but in a very individual way, ‘’‘helps us to bear this karma’‘’, that he also gives us ‘’‘strength’‘’, gives our I strength. But always only to the extent that we ‘’‘really struggle for it,’‘’ it is never just something that is given, but always something ‘’‘that we have to do’‘’. That is very important. So, that is the karma that we carry with us, that is connected with our error, with our possibilities of error. But it is precisely ‘’‘on that that we mature.’‘’ That is why the path is given for many earthly lives, so that we can experience all this and thereby learn to become free beings.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3813s The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Humanity 1:03:33] ===
But let us now return to the seven churches.<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be with you,‘’

‘’from him who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven creator spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>The seven creator spirits: Well, who are the seven creator spirits? Essentially, they are those spiritual forces or those spiritual beings who created our ‘’‘bodily shells’‘’ and prepared them so that these spiritual shells, these bodily shells - yes, I have already used the word ‘spiritual shells’ - could one day be transformed into spiritual forces. So what are these bodies: the ‘’‘physical body’‘’, the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’, that is, the life forces, then the ‘’‘astral body’‘’, which makes us a sentient, conscious being. In the etheric body, we are actually still asleep, and in the astral body, we are at least dreaming. This is exactly what we have in common with animals. So, animals also have a certain consciousness, but it is still dream-like, this ‘’‘consciousness.’‘’ If we only had this consciousness, this astral consciousness, we would not be very awake. We would not recognise ourselves as an I. That means that the ‘’‘I’‘’ comes in a certain way as the fourth, or the ‘’‘I-bearer, as Rudolf Steiner often calls it,’‘’ which is, so to speak, the physical prerequisite for an I to be able to incarnate. Incarnation means that the I completely permeates the body shells and thus ‘’‘makes the body shells’‘’ into ‘’‘I-bearers,’‘’ but that is the fourth principle. The ‘’‘I’‘’ that is now incarnating, by unfolding its spiritual forces, ‘’‘shapes the astral body, the etheric body and finally the physical body’‘’ through its spiritual forces, through the individual spiritual forces that lie within each I. The astral body, which was initially given by the spiritual beings, is transformed into what Rudolf Steiner calls the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ or our higher self. Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. This is a power that our I has at its disposal, so to speak. In the East, it is also called ‘’‘manas.’‘’ Manas has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ also comes from it, by the way. There is another word that comes from it, which can be found in the Bible, namely ‘’‘manna.’‘’ When ‘’‘Moses and the Israelites journey through the desert’', they are given manna. This is nothing other than the powers of this spirit self, which in a certain sense descend upon the Israelites as a whole, not yet upon the individual at that time, but upon the community.

When we transform the etheric body through the power of the I, then the etheric body becomes the ‘’‘life spirit’‘’. This power of the life spirit then lives within our I. That is to say, just as the body sheaths - the physical body, etheric body, astral body - surround our I from the outside, so our I envelops the spirit self and life spirit within itself - figuratively speaking. They are part of ‘’‘this I.’‘’ In the highest form, for example, it means that if I take only the spirit self, that is, the transformed astral body, then it means that our I has become capable of ‘’‘creating an astral body out of nothing.’‘’ It is something different from when we wrap ourselves in an astral body during our normal incarnation on earth. For the most part, it is only lent to us by the spiritual world - and this will continue to happen as long as we are not able to create one for ourselves out of nothing. That is then actually our real astral body. But then we no longer call it an ‘’‘astral body, but a spirit self.’‘’ He is then completely ours.

The aim of all the initiation processes that have been taking place on earth since Egyptian times, or that lead into the future in some other way, is to form ‘’‘as much as possible’‘’ of this spirit self. So, in addition to the fact that we are developing our I here on earth, the people who are really making spiritual progress are those who have already developed a good part of the spirit self. It will then be the task of the so-called ‘’‘New Jupiter’‘’ - or what John calls the ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’, which I have discussed today - to fully develop this spirit self. But we should already have a certain part of it at the end of the earth's development, then we will at least be among the spiritually more developed people. Yes, the life spirit is the transformed etheric body. We will not be able to transform the etheric body into the life spirit on our own during the development of the Earth. We can work on it, we can work on it above all, or we can bring it a little further in the direction of ‘’‘the help of the Christ.’‘’ In this case it is really the help of the Christ. That means something that cannot be accomplished by our ego. For this, for example, the word ‘’‘grace’‘’ is very important. This is a gift that Christ gives us. As far as the spirit self is concerned, that is already our own responsibility. This is the ‘’‘endowment with the Holy Spirit’‘’, as one might call it. But this Holy Spirit is then our Holy Spirit. This is not something that remains above us or directs us from outside, but something that ultimately belongs to our I. Only then has it become a true spirit self, which we are now developing during the development of the earth, and we owe this solely to our I. But what we are already producing in terms of life spirit, at least in a preliminary form, is something for which we need the help of the Christ.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4327s The physical body and our consciousness of self 1:12:07] ===
And then we will even need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ to do this, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body. Sounds paradoxical. What is a spiritualised physical body? That sounds like a contradiction. We have to think about what the physical body, in which we are now normally embodied on earth, the physical and material body, is for. Physically and materially are not exactly the same thing. ‘’‘The material’‘’ is actually what fulfils the physical form. If, for example, the Luciferic temptation had not come, that is, if we had not come under the influence of the ‘’‘opposing forces’‘’, then we would not have had the kind of physical body that we have today. It would have been invisible to the senses.

There are a great many physical beings that are not visible to our eyes. For example, there are ‘’‘elemental beings’‘’ that definitely have a physical body and yet are ‘’‘not visible to us with our physical eyes’‘’. There are whole realms of physical worlds out there that are not visible to us because they are ‘’‘not material’‘’. So, our physical body becomes visible through the material. But what does this physical body give us, precisely through the fulfilment with the material and through the problems that are associated with it? It is precisely through the material that the whole physical body tends to decay. The material has this principle of decaying from within. When the etheric body is no longer present to constantly renew these substances, in these seven-year cycles that we have spoken of, then it simply decays, just as the corpse decays with death. So, our physical body cannot maintain its form by itself. This is because we have this ‘’‘Luciferic impact’‘’. By being filled with matter, our actually imperfect invisible physical body was actually damaged. ‘’‘This is how it became visible. This is how it became mortal.’‘’ But this is also how we have gained our consciousness of self - and we gain it precisely because we are mortal.

Our consciousness of self awakens in the processes - also in life - when they are processes of decay. For example, with every nerve impulse that passes through, something dies in the brain. It is then re-energised, but actually something dies until death, until a ‘’‘salt-like state’‘’ in the nerves. This is precisely why the ‘’‘brain’‘’ is an instrument with which we can acquire ‘’‘consciousness’‘’. To do this, we need the physical, material brain. Not for thinking, actually. ‘’‘Thinking is not a function of the physical brain.’‘’ We need the brain to become aware of these thoughts, which are actually etheric forces. As a rule, we are not yet at the stage where we can consciously experience the etheric, which is not visible to the senses but only leaves its trace in the senses - then in the growth forces - in order to experience these formative forces, these etheric forces, it has to be reflected in the physical brain and it is reflected when these ‘’‘decay processes’‘’ take place in the brain. Then, when it is regenerated again, or at least regenerated to a large extent, then the consciousness is already gone again. The dying process must take place there, that is when we become aware. We have ‘’‘death’‘’, the constant death that has in truth accompanied us since birth, ‘’‘to which we owe our consciousness’‘’ - that is a prerequisite for it - and in particular ‘’‘our I-consciousness’‘’ is especially to be owed.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4595s Imagination - Experiencing in the Spiritual 1:16:35] ===
Of course, an astral body and an etheric body are also part of it, but this ability to die through the material body is very important for our consciousness. That is why we have it and why we need it. We will need it until our consciousness has become able to do without the help of these dying processes. That means that when this consciousness can now seek out another counterpart, another mirror, when it no longer needs this physical ‘’‘mirror’‘’, when it can, for example, reflect itself in the etheric, that is, in the life forces. This mirroring in the life forces, when we enter this world of life, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we ‘’‘experience imaginations’', pictures. And now we put huge quotation marks around the word “pictures” - I will come back to this - pictures from the spiritual world. They are living pictures. ‘’‘These images cannot be described’‘’ like an oil painting, an old painting on the wall, because it is a moving image that changes continuously. You can't really capture it at all. There is movement in it - we have already discussed the paradox - a ‘’‘movement that takes place in timelessness’‘’. The movement arises from the fact that we can look at this image from different perspectives, go through it and, if I translate that into the sensual, then a temporal series of developments, a temporal event, emerges from it. But in the etheric I can go forward, backward, take detours, so I can move freely. In meditation, when you really get to a true imagination, where time no longer plays a role, a true imagination, that is experienced ‘’‘in complete timelessness.’‘’ I think, if I remember correctly, I briefly mentioned in the first lecture we had, we had two lectures, that you can experience that. Because when you do ‘’‘meditation’‘’ with today's consciousness, it's not that you're completely out of it and just floating in another world, but ‘’‘we still retain’‘’ ‘’‘consciousness here for the sensory world’‘’ even when you're not focusing on it, but it remains there. I remain aware that I am in the physical world with my body. I don't enter a dream-like state of consciousness where I am lifted out and simply float above everything, somewhere. You can really notice, under certain circumstances, if there is a clock on the table somewhere, that I have an incredibly ‘’‘intense imagination’‘’, that is, a moving picture, as we have discussed, ‘’‘an incredibly rich picture’‘’. You have the feeling that what I am experiencing is something that lasts for hours, that it is something very, very long that is unfolding and unrolling before me - and when I look at the second hand of the clock, it seems to be standing still. So what I experience internally as hours or days, externally no time passes. So it is ‘’‘experienced in an instant,’‘’ measured in terms of our external time. It can happen in dreams, too, in reality. It often happens when a dream is triggered by something, especially when you wake up and enter the sensory world. For example, the morning sun comes in through the window, even with your eyes closed, your senses somehow perceive it without us being aware of the sunlight. We are still in the dream and suddenly a huge fire breaks out in the dream, a huge fire, and there you experience a long story: the fire brigade arrives, there are dramatic scenes unfolding so that the residents in the house can be rescued and you think that it has been going on for two hours. You wake up and look at the sun, which has just come around the corner, which has just appeared, almost at the same moment. So actually, these dream images also unfold in timelessness, basically. This consciousness, this imaginative consciousness is connected to the fact that when we no longer need the physical body as a mirroring apparatus for consciousness, then we mirror in the living etheric body, then ‘’‘we go out of the time stream’‘’ and ‘’‘can move freely in time.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4946s The Soul World and Time 1:22:26] ===
In the astral world, in the ‘’‘soul world’', it is different, there is a very special paradox, time seems to come towards us. Future, it seems that ‘’‘time moves in reverse.’‘’ This is very important, because this is the way in which creative impulses enter the world. In order for something to manifest itself creatively in the physical world, there must be a physical time stream that goes from the past to the future, which is what we know in normal life. The etheric must be there, where timelessness, above all mobility, reigns in time - and something must come from the future, actually from the end of the development process - and ‘’‘where the stream from the past and the stream from the future collide,’‘’ it becomes our momentary ‘’‘present’‘’. Something happens there.

With every event that takes place in the world, it is never just a consequence of the past, as is often believed in the natural sciences, because they only have physical and sensory means at their disposal, which is why they only know this stream of time that comes from the past and goes into the future, and they can only deduce from what has happened in the past what might happen in the future. With simple things, you can even calculate it in advance: A physicist can easily predict how a stone will fall if nothing else interferes, such as a bird flying past or something like that. But otherwise, ‘’'most real events ,‘’‘ that happen in the world, “”’you can't predict,‘’' because they are not only determined by the past, but are also determined, half of them, at least half of them, by what is heading towards us from the future. These two things have to come together. This means that when we move on from imagination or ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ something comes in that goes beyond this pictorial consciousness and shows us something of the future. Something ‘’‘shows us where this development is going,’‘’ because this goal actually comes towards us, in a sense. We have to look at the beginning and the end in order to be able to understand the current moment of development at all. These two currents have to come together.

I'll now read you a few sentences from the Apocalypse, where this is also hinted at to a certain extent, very clearly. Again, where basically Christ speaks, or at least the angel speaks through Christ. It says:<blockquote>‘’‘I am the Alpha and the Omega.’‘’</blockquote>In Greek, this means the beginning and the end. The first and the last letter in the Greek alphabet, the Alpha and the Omega.<blockquote>‘’‘Thus says the Lord, our God, who is and who was and who is to come, the ruler of the universe’.‘’</blockquote>It's all there. ‘’‘He is, who was and who is to come.’‘’ The present, that's where it starts, ‘he who is’. So it's important to keep that in mind, the order is not random, because the experience always starts in the present moment. The moment is also, in which the whole eternity is also inside. From here, I look to both sides, to what was there, that is, back, and thus also to what determines my fate, because - as far as we humans are concerned - it also contains all the mistakes we have made and which we must correct in the future, that is, what we must work on. We also see something towards which we are heading, namely our self, our individual self. Every individual self has a special nuance. It is not the case that we all have exactly the same goal. We ‘’‘all contribute together’‘’ to perhaps ‘’‘a higher goal’', that's how you could perhaps outline it. You can also find that in the words in there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5302s The spiritualisation of the physical body - the goal of human development 1:28:22] ===
Now I'll come back to the seven creator spirits in connection with the human body. I have not yet told you ‘’‘what happens to the physical body when it is spiritualised’‘’. Now I hope that you have gained a little impression that the physical can also be spiritualised - and this is not to be equated simply with the material-physical, which we know as our body. That there is also ‘’‘an invisible physical’‘’, that it is ‘’‘in truth the actual physical.’‘’ If we succeed, with the help of the Christ and the help of the father forces, in restoring this originally spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which we can now achieve, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human being’‘’. This is the highest spiritual that we can develop, as far as we can see, and it is precisely in the spiritualisation of the physical. We must not underestimate the physical, but we must see that the greatest task of humanity lies in at least working towards the spiritualisation of this physical. This is also connected with the ‘’‘resurrection of Christ’‘’. The resurrection forces of Christ, which could not have come into effect without the Father's activity, are connected with the transformation of the physical body into a spiritual being. For it to be truly successful means that we are then able, out of our own strength, out of our own I, to bring forth such a high, such a spiritualised physical body. But this is certainly no longer a body that is material. We will then not walk around on a material ‘’‘globe’‘’ or any other sphere, however it may be formed, in a material body, but rather the highest spiritual will enter. To understand this, you have to ask yourself why it is actually the highest spiritual and how it is otherwise connected to the material.

I think that the physical is the most difficult to work with. In the soul, we can already work a little today, at least to some extent, to bring forth the spirit self, consciously or unconsciously. ‘’‘An artist,’‘’ when he is really creative, ‘’‘creates a new work in his soul’‘’ and then realises it, outwardly too, but to do that he has to ‘’‘experience it in his soul first’‘’, then he is creatively active in a spiritual way. Then he is active out of his spiritual self. That means, ‘’‘he transforms astral, soul into real spiritual self.’‘’ This spirit self or this spark of spirit self that he has within him, he has created from his own I. Out of nothing, basically. He has not taken it from anywhere else, from anywhere outside, ‘’‘but from within himself.’‘’

It is much more difficult to create etheric forces out of nothing, that is, to ‘’‘unfold the spirit of life.’‘’ That is much more difficult. On the whole, we are not yet able to do that, but we need the help of the Christ to be able to do it. We don't even need to talk about the physical, because we ourselves create almost nothing there, especially consciously. In order for it to become our own, we have to be able to do it consciously, that is, consciously transform the physical body into this high spiritual being. This is only beginning to happen.

Only the highest spiritual hierarchies can really work on the physical, namely ‘’‘the Christ and the Father-Godhead’‘’, which is behind it. But very high angelic beings work with them as executive organs. These include, for example, the ‘’‘thrones’‘’ in a leading position. They are in the upper group of three hierarchies. Above them are only the beings of the zodiac, the ‘’‘cherubim’‘’ and then the ‘’‘seraphim’‘’, who are basically connected to the whole cosmos, through the visible universe - and even beyond the visible, at least for our eyes beyond the visible. These are therefore very, very high spiritual beings who are behind the physical. ‘’‘In the soul, anyone can work today, so to speak’‘’. The angelic beings that are closely connected to us, the actual angels, they all cannot do that. But we are approaching a time when we will be able to ‘’‘create a complete physical body for ourselves’‘’. It will no longer be called a physical body, but a spiritual human being. It is this that will enable us to achieve our ‘’‘highest consciousness’‘’.

Today we have ‘’‘only a mirror image,’‘’ because we are most conscious of the physical, which is basically polluted by the material. We cannot yet become self-aware of the etheric body. We are not yet able to do that. If we only had the I and the astral body, then we would know nothing about ourselves, absolutely nothing. ‘’‘It is precisely in the physical that one can develop the highest consciousness.’‘’ This applies equally to the spiritual being. That is to say, the spiritual being is the highest spiritual element that we can acquire. What happens next is a different chapter, and is not our subject.

I have now made a huge ‘’‘interjection’‘’ just to explain a little bit about the significance of the number seven, and these stages of development. We have come across these seven stages of human development or these seven constituent parts of the human being, via the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the I, which stands in the centre, and up to the spiritual constituent parts, which we can acquire through our own efforts: ‘’‘the spirit self, the life spirit, the spiritual human being’‘’. This has to do with the ‘’‘number seven’‘’. And we have come to these, simply because it was of seven churches that John speaks, to which he turns and to which he now writes in a certain way, to the seven churches. In doing so, he mentions the seven creator spirits. I'll read the short passage again.<blockquote>‘’‘John to the seven churches in Asia:’‘

’‘Grace and peace be yours,’‘

’‘from him who is and who was and who is to come,’‘

’‘and from the seven spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘The seven spirits before his throne’‘’, these are the spiritual beings that ‘’‘help to create our seven members of the human being’‘’. Because, in general, the higher spiritual elements of our being, which we actually have to create ourselves - because only then are they ours - still have to be prepared. That is, so to speak, if you put it in earthly terms, ‘’‘a model for it’‘’. It has to be prepared once. These seven creator spirits work on it. It would be too much to go into which angelic beings they are. They are also high angelic beings, very high. You should not be surprised that, for example, ‘’‘the thrones have something to do with it,’‘’ yes, with the physical body and ‘’‘also with the preparation of the spiritual being,’‘’ that they have a hand in it, because they are able to work into the physical, for example. Just as a small hint.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5873s The Revelation of John on Patmos 1:37:53] ===
Now I want to read something else to you at the end of the lecture, namely also from the first chapter what John now writes in detail ‘’‘to these seven churches:’‘’<blockquote>‘’«I, John, your brother and companion in all trials, as well as in the inner kingdom and in the persevering strength that we possess as those who are united with Jesus, was on the island of Patmos. There I was to be made partaker of the divine word of the world and worthy of bearing witness to the suffering of Christ.‘</blockquote>

’The suffering of Jesus’ is what it says in the translation. The translation is by ‘’‘Emil Bock’‘, one of the “”’founding priests of the Christian Community‘’‘. So, “”’on the island of Patmos he had this spiritual vision.‘’‘ He describes very clearly an “”’imagination‘’‘ and how this imagination was “”’translated into sensual images‘’'. He cannot communicate the image in any other way than by translating it into sensual words. He describes it in a very typical way:<blockquote>‘’«On the day of the Lord, I was transported into the spiritual realm and heard a mighty voice behind me like the sound of a ‘’‘trombone’‘’».‘’</blockquote>It is often the case ‘’‘in spiritual experiences,’‘’ that you have the feeling «there is something behind me» and my first test is whether I turn around or not. Do I have the courage to turn around, because if I have the courage to turn around, then it means that I am in a sense crossing the ‘’‘threshold’‘’. And that is ‘’‘a kind of death experience’‘’. You have to be aware of that, it is a death experience. And it is also connected with, how shall I put it, with the unpleasant side of death, that is, to feel this loss in the physical world - without completely leaving the body. You really have the experience of ‘’‘going through death’‘’. Without that ‘’‘you cannot cross the threshold’‘’. That means that the first test is: do I dare to turn around or not. Of course, this has nothing to do with physically turning around, but rather in the spiritual world. That means that the ‘’‘turning around’‘’ is to ‘’‘let go of everything that is sensual in order to turn to the spiritual’‘’. This mighty voice like the sound of a trumpet. Incidentally, the word ‘trombone’ means - and since we are talking about sound - that ‘’‘inspiration’‘’ is already playing a part in the development of the imagination. In fact, every spiritual experience begins at an even higher level, with ‘’‘intuition’‘’. I have to become one with a spiritual being in order to enter the spiritual world at all. That is intuition. However, it does not become immediately conscious. It is, so to speak, the prerequisite and forms the unconscious background.

The next stage is ‘’‘inspiration.’‘’ When you have a real spiritual experience, then you have at least an echo of this inspirational experience, without being able to fully grasp its content, that you ‘’‘hear a voice like a trombone,’‘’ which is just loud and powerful and shattering, but you don't really understand it at that moment.

The third and last thing is actually ‘’‘the imaginative image,’‘’ that builds up - and this image is not a sensual one at first, but rather, you could say, ‘’‘a kind of highly differentiated mood of the soul’‘’ that one experiences. I will perhaps come back to this in more detail another time. There is no more time now. It is actually a ‘’‘highly differentiated spiritual experience’‘’ that one has, which one can now ‘’‘overlook like a panorama’‘’, which is in motion, which is changing, and in this experience one can, so to speak, wander around spiritually. That is the real imagination. But John has to describe it as a spiritual image. So he hears this voice and he continues to say or write:<blockquote>‘’« She said: Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches. To Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamon, to Thyatira, to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea ».‘’</blockquote>So these are the seven churches. ‘’‘Ephesus’‘’ ([[A:Ephesos|Ephesos]]), the first, with which John was, incidentally, ‘’‘very closely connected,’‘’ that is, in the period long after the events in Palestine, after the death of Christ on the cross. The island of Patmos, incidentally, is very close, on the coast of Asia Minor, and Ephesus and the mystery centre of Ephesus are relatively close on the mainland. That is also an advantage, that there was a mystery centre there, an important one. ‘’‘The important Christian centres’‘’ were all initially located where ancient mystery centres were also located - so this ‘’‘mystery centre’‘’ of Ephesus was closely connected to Patmos, or rather the other way round, Patmos was in a sense ‘’‘an offshoot of the mysteries of Ephesus.’‘’ So, there are seven churches and the voice speaks now and John continues to write:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>So the Christ appears in human form.<blockquote>’‘’Clothed with a long flowing robe,‘’

‘’girded at the breast with a golden girdle,‘’

‘’with a white head, the hair of which shone like white wool and like snow,‘’

‘’with eyes as if they were flames of fire,‘’

‘’with feet as if they were of gold ore that has been heated in the fire,‘’

‘’with a voice like the the sound of great waters,‘’

‘’in his right hand he held ‘’‘seven stars’‘’,‘’

‘’out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword,‘’

‘’and his countenance was like the sun in its strength."</blockquote>It is a very powerful experience. The sensual image is a pale shadow of what really lies behind it in the imagination. But it points the way. And how strong that was, comes out further:<blockquote>‘’‘and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said -’' we have already read this today “”- Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last and the Living. I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the ages. Mine is the key to the realms of death and the shadows. Write down what you see, the present and the future. The mystery of the seven stars that you see in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands,‘’ ‘’is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches themselves.‘</blockquote>With that, “”’the first chapter of the Apocalypse‘’' ends, and I would like to close for today.
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[[Index of terms Lecture series The Apocalypse of John by Wolfgang Peter#A|APOCALYPSE]]

* ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also called ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of the own self - namely in the moment when I and Christ are one [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The riddle of the self 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|‘’‘Apocalypse of John’‘’]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ASTRAL BODY

* We transform the ‘’‘astral body’‘’ into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

ETHER

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect itself ‘’‘in the etheric’', then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experiencing in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:16:35]]
The ‘’‘ether’‘’ world is much richer than the physical world: the physical is actually a dead thing, something that has died out of the ‘’‘ether’‘’ world [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:46:18]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with number rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the ‘’‘ethereal’‘’, because the ‘’‘etheric forces’‘’, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’ still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ‘’‘ether’‘’ and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
ATLANTIS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-‘’‘Atlantean’‘’ era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|B}}

CONSCIOUSNESS

* When our ‘’‘consciousness’‘’ no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different ‘’‘consciousness’‘’, with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the ‘’‘consciousness,’‘’ in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|C}}

CHRIST

* If we succeed, with the help of ‘’‘Christ’‘’ and with the help of the father forces, in restoring the original spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our I completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of ypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We need the fatherly forces that are conveyed through ‘’‘Christ’‘’ to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of the self - namely at the moment when I and ‘’‘Christ’‘’ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the self that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as ‘’‘Christ’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|D}}

DANTE ALIGHIERI

* Descent into the realm of shadows is described by ‘’‘Dante’‘’ ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]] ) in his ‘Divine Comedy’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]). The path leads through the centre of the earth to the ascent [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:31:28]]

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

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

{{BS|F}}

FREEDOM

* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. For this he has ‘’‘freedom’‘’. He can open himself to the spiritual out of free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|G}}

SPIRIT

* We need the father forces, which are mediated by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

SPIRITUAL HUMAN

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our I, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

SPIRIT SELF

* An artist who is truly creative from his I is active from the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’. This means that he transforms the astral into ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* The [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] is also called manas in the East. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

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

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

{{BS|I}}

I

* An artist who is truly creative from his ‘’‘I’‘’ is working from the spirit self. That is, he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of the Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our ‘’‘I’‘’, then we will create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* Karma is nothing more than our ‘’‘I’‘’ striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of one's own ‘’‘I’‘’ - namely at the moment when ‘’‘I’‘’ and Christ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the ‘’‘I’‘’ that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

IMAGINATION

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience ‘’‘imaginations’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the Spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|J}}

JOHN, THE EVANGELIST

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]), the writer of the Gospel of John ([[A:GA 103|GA 103]]) and the Apocalypse, is the [[A:Lazarus|Lazarus]] raised from the dead by Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Introduction 0:00:36|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:00:36]]

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

{{BS|K}}

KARMA

* ‘’‘[[A:Karma|Karma]]’‘’ is nothing more than our ego striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
CULTURAL EPOCHS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven ‘’‘cultural epochs’‘’ of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ART

* An ‘’‘artist’‘’ who is truly creative from his I is active from the spirit self. This means that he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

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

{{BS|L}}

LIFE PANORAMA

* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|‘’‘life panorama’‘’]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
* Like in a great [[A:panorama of life|‘’‘panorama of life’‘’]], this image of the past life appears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|[1 | 0:03:14]]

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

{{BS|M}}

MANAS

* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called [[A:manas|‘’‘manas’‘’]] in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called ‘’‘[[A:manas|manas]]’‘’ in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘man’ also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

MAN

* The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called manas in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘’man‘’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, ‘’‘man’‘’ can err. He has the freedom to do so. He can open himself to the spiritual world of his own free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same nature as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|N}}

NEW JERUSALEM

* In the [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] the view is opened to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’ ([[A:New Jerusalem|New Jerusalem]]). This is a kind of new planetary state that will one day become our Earth [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The New Jerusalem - a new Earth 0:35:47|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:35:47]]

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

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

{{BS|P}}

PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the Father forces, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even spiritualise something of our ‘’‘physical body’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #The physical body and our self-awareness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

{{BS|R}}

RUDOLF STEINER

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’‘’ so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Ap Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|S}}

CREATIVE SPIRITS

* The seven ‘’‘creative spirits’‘’ are essentially those spiritual forces or beings that created our physical bodies [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter# The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 1:03:33]]
SEVEN CHURCHES

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|T}}

DEATH

* In the first three days after ‘’‘death’', the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]

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{{BS|U}}
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{{BS|V}}

FATHER FORCES

* We need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ that are imparted by the Christ in order to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our ego-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

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

{{BS|Z}}

NUMBERS

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with ‘’‘number’‘’ rhythms. The number seven‘’' indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with ‘’‘time’‘’. [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|0-9}}

SEVEN

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-26T00:57:55Z

Admin: /* Glossary */

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[[File:1.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM|thumb|Link to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/jc3wz02vgbi6mq4/1.apo.mp3?dl=0 audio] ]]

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== MAIN TOPIC ==
This lecture focuses on insights into the ‘’‘vision of John’‘’, written on the island of Patmos, which he shared in a letter to the seven churches (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea). According to the [[A:Book of Revelation of John|Book of Revelation of John]], it was dictated to the evangelist John by the Christ in order to encourage and admonish the communities. According to Rudolf Steiner, the [[A:seven churches|seven churches]] represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era. [[A:Patmos|Patmos]] was closely connected with the mystery centre [[A:Ephesus|Ephesus]], where all the Christian centres were initially located. John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) translated his experienced imagination into sensual images. In a highly differentiated spiritual experience, it unfolded like a panorama in which he could wander around spiritually.

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== Transcription of the 1. lecture of the Apocalypse of John ==
by Ghislaine, Susanne, Elke (December 2022)

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=36s Introduction 0:00:36] ===
So, my dear friends, I think we'll just start. No one has missed anything. So even those who were not there last time have not missed much. Basically, we have only dealt with the beginning of the Apocalypse of John. Basically, we had the first sentence and have linked a lot to it.

So the question we had is: ‘’‘Who is this John who writes this Apocalypse of John and who also wrote the Gospel of John?’‘’ So the evangelist John - how did he become the person who was able to write these things? And we came to the conclusion, based on Rudolf Steiner's indications, that it was in fact ‘’‘the resurrected Lazarus’‘’. You may know that. It is described in the Bible in the New Testament, ‘’‘the raising of Lazarus’‘’ as a, in a certain sense, ‘’‘raising of the dead’‘’, as it is called, which in truth is ‘’‘an initiation process’‘’. An initiation process that in a certain sense is similar to what has been customary since Egyptian times. We then also spoke at length about the Egyptian initiation. In those days, the ‘’‘initiation students’‘’ had to undergo long and difficult ‘’‘examinations’‘’ before they were admitted to the ‘’‘central initiation experience’‘’. These examinations repeatedly led them into ‘’‘life-threatening’‘’ situations. That was such an important point. The ‘’‘willpower was trained’‘’, and it was also trained that he really walks at the ‘’‘edge of death’‘’ in a certain way during these tests - and when the initiate was found to be ready for the great test, then he was actually put in a ‘’‘dead-like state’‘’ for ‘’‘three days’‘’ or three and a half days. This was done through ‘’‘meditation’‘, and also through certain substances that were given to them, “”’drugs‘’‘ if you will, which could have induced a state of apparent death, one might say. Because the goal of the initiation was to be able to “”’report from the spiritual world‘’, to be able to experience something there and to be able to report from there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=194s Initiation in ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14] ===
The problem is: how do you get there, how do you experience something beyond the threshold? The way that was taken in Egyptian culture, but basically in all advanced civilisations at that time, was to actually put people into this state that is similar to death for three and a half days. For about three and a half days. If you are familiar with Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of what happens after death, then you know that ‘’‘about three and a half days’‘’ after death, you experience ‘’‘a review of your past life on earth’‘’.

This image of one's past life appears before one as if in a great ‘’‘panorama of life’‘’, and one realises what one has done in this life, one really gets to know oneself in a certain way. You see this image from a very interesting distance, like a ‘’‘beautiful panorama’‘’, you could say, so you can even see the ‘’‘negative events’‘’ in their ‘’‘meaning for life’‘’ and what you take away from them in a certain way. So it is a very ‘’‘sunny’‘’, a very ‘’‘joyful experience’‘’. As a side note, these are, for example, the descriptions that can be found in ‘’‘Islam’‘’, ‘’‘given by Mohammed’‘’, where he speaks of the ‘’‘joys of paradise’‘’, which refer primarily to the experience of this life panorama, that is, these very happy experiences in the three days after death. So there is nothing unpleasant for the person who has passed over. The only thing that one does not yet experience or receive is a direct insight into the real spiritual world. It is still a ‘’‘memory of earthly life’‘’. This is connected with the fact that the ‘’‘life forces’‘’ that have animated us during our entire earthly life, that have animated the body, remain in a certain ‘’‘closer connection’‘’ during these three days or three and a half days. So the etheric body of the human being - the life forces are this etheric body of the human being, the ‘’‘etheric body is also the bearer of memory’‘’, the actual bearer of memory - remains in a certain compact form during these three and a half days and then begins to dissolve. Dissolving means that it connects with the ‘’‘world ether’‘’ and then this panorama disappears in a certain way.

And only then, ‘’‘when this panorama disappears, does the actual view into the soul world’‘’ begin, initially not yet into higher spiritual worlds, but at least into the soul world. So only then have you really ‘’‘crossed the threshold’‘’ properly. And that means that if you ultimately put a person in a state similar to death for the purpose of initiation, you have to get through these three or three and a half days - or at least get to ‘’‘this border - so that you can get any insight into the spiritual world or, more precisely, into the soul world’‘, because before that you only experience the “”’review of earthly life‘’'. Looking back means that you can basically move freely in this panorama of life, so to speak, you can look at different events in life and observe them from a higher perspective, as it were. But that is not yet the actual spiritual. So you have to get over this boundary three/three and a half days, but you had to be very careful at the Egyptian initiation ‘’‘that the connection to the physical body’‘’, which now lies there like dead - often really put into a sarcophagus for the purpose of initiation - that the connection to this physical body ‘’‘does not break off completely’‘’. Because if it is completely severed, if the life is completely out, the soul is completely out, the spiritual is completely out and this connection is severed, then there is no way back. Then death really occurs. And the Egyptian initiation was set up in such a way that the ‘’‘priesthood,’‘’ which ‘’‘oversaw this initiation process’‘’ - there were usually twelve priests who were around the person being initiated and monitored this state - that they could observe exactly when the last possible moment was ‘’‘when they had to bring him back.’‘’ So he was brought back mainly by letting sunlight fall on him in the right way. So through the ‘’‘light’‘’ he was ‘’‘woken up,’‘’ but also, of course, through recitation and the like, through incense that was burnt, through awakening explanations. And then he had to be brought back very quickly - and the initiation student was ‘’‘trained’‘’ and practised ‘’‘to report quickly what he had seen over there.’‘’ It's a bit like waking up from a dream in the morning. If you don't immediately write down what happened in the dream, it's usually gone and you can't remember it anymore. Because you can't store dream experiences, or even less spiritual experiences, in our normal memory.

So you can't really hold on to an ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ a real imagination - and that is an imagination that a person has in the initiation at first - with your memory. At most, you can try to get back to such an experience. If you want to have it again, you actually have to go back there and see it again. What I can remember very well is when I wake up or come out of it, as it was in the Egyptian initiation, and put it into words and tell it. I can remember these words. And not only the initiate has to remember these words for a lifetime, but also the priesthood that surrounded him. They have kept these words in their memory after hearing them once. And it must be said that this initiate did not speak in everyday language, but rather ‘’‘in a ritual language,’‘’ that is, ‘’‘with certain rhythms,’‘’ which are inherent in it. It was the Egyptian language in terms of the words. But the way it was formulated, we would say today, ‘’‘it was poetic, it was ritualistic,’‘’ and that was immediately impressed on the memory. It is this ‘’‘elevated priestly way of speaking’‘’ and to a certain extent it has remained with us to this day. It is absorbed differently, it has a different effect. But nevertheless, it is a translation of the spiritual experience into an earthly language. One must bear in mind that even in the life after death, ‘’‘the language’‘’ that we have spoken here on earth ‘’‘disappears.’‘’ It disappears very quickly. Not immediately after the three and a half days, but very soon it is gone. It is, if you like, ‘’‘a spiritual language’‘’ that one then speaks, but that is then only an auxiliary term to call it ‘language’, it is a different experience. This means that the initiate had to ‘’‘get over these three and a half days’‘’, then he could have the experience of ‘over there’, that is, from the other side of the threshold - and at the moment of waking up he could bring this experience in. Bring it in for himself and ‘’‘for the priesthood,’‘’ which surrounded him.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=712s The Initiation of Lazarus 0:11:52] ===
And something similar also happened during the ‘’‘initiation of Lazarus.’‘’ Only the starting point was different. This Lazarus was not put into a death-like state by a priesthood or anyone else, but rather he - one could say - ‘’‘fell into this state on his own.’‘’ I say ‘on his own’, but I must also add that it was in a certain way the after-effect of the words of the priest with whom he had a lot of contact. I must also say that ‘’‘Lazarus was a very important man in Jerusalem, a very rich man’‘’ and very well known. He was known throughout Jerusalem, and he also made a name for himself as a follower of Christ. He experienced what Christ said so intensely that, as a result of this experience, he fell into this death-like state of his own accord. He fell into this state so deeply that the people around him thought he had died and laid him in the grave afterwards. And when the Christ then learns that Lazarus has died, he ‘’‘takes a very long time’‘’ and does not go to ‘’‘Lazarus in Bethany’‘’ to wake him up. He simply waits. He waits for two days, but nothing happens. And then he sets off - and only on the fourth day, at the very last possible moment, on the fourth day, which is really very late, does he wake Lazarus with the words ‘’‘«Lazarus, come out»’‘’. In a figurative sense, these were the words of awakening, as the Egyptians also spoke them, of course in Egyptian. And Lazarus now brought with him a great deal of experience, and ‘’‘the Gospel of John, for example, arose from the after-effects of these experiences,’‘’ and also, in a certain sense, ‘’‘the Apocalypse of John,’‘’, but that is a deeper level in a certain sense. Of course, you might ask why he is now called John and no longer Lazarus. He was not called John before. We also tried to find out where that came from last time. To do so, you have to know that relatively shortly before Lazarus was resurrected, John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod; you are sure to know the story. And the point is that after the death of John the Baptist - now - this ‘’‘John the Baptist’‘’ became something like ‘’‘a kind of protective spirit or community spirit of the twelve apostles.’‘’ The twelve apostles also included the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, so also a John, but ‘’‘John Zebedee.’‘’

So, among these twelve apostles, John the Evangelist is not to be counted initially, but now the following is the case: the spirit of this John the Baptist becomes in some way ‘’‘something like an inspiring community soul’‘’ and community spirit of this circle of twelve, these twelve apostles, and the whole thing then becomes even more condensed. There is then the transfiguration of Christ. This is also shortly before the resurrection of Lazarus, when ‘’‘this effect of John the Baptist's is concentrated’‘’ on the apostles, now on three very specific apostles, ‘’‘the two sons of Zebedee and Peter.’‘’ That means that he is now only the community spirit of these three, if you will. They thereby attain a higher level of knowledge. The other apostles would not have been able to experience the transfiguration, which is a spiritual experience, only the three of them could. And with the raising of Lazarus, the last condensation takes place, if you will. A very close bond is created between Lazarus, who is resurrected and goes through this initiation, and the spirit of John the Baptist.

It is important to know that ‘’‘at every initiation’‘’, when it happens, ‘’‘a person on earth’‘’ always works together ‘’‘with at least one spiritual being,’‘’ who is on the other side. It cannot be any other way. One has to come to a very concrete connection with a spiritual being from the other side. One does not simply enter the spiritual world. It is teeming with spiritual beings, one looks at that. But it is actually only possible if one gets a very, very intense relationship with a very specific spiritual being, with whom one is connected by fate or comes into contact with. And in this case, it is ‘’‘this connection between Lazarus here on earth and John the Baptist,’‘’ who is over there. And Lazarus gets his initiation name John after this John the Baptist. So this explains why we have a ‘’‘Gospel of John’‘’ and why this John is not John Zebedee, but someone else. But this resurrected ‘’‘Lazarus/John takes part in the Last Supper.’‘’ He is always referred to in the Gospel as ‘’‘the disciple whom the Lord loved.’‘’ That is, the one who rests in the Lord's bosom, who rests on his breast, who is not named, but who is, so to speak, one of the twelve apostles and at the same time the resurrected Lazarus, who is called John because he is connected with John the Baptist. And now, at this moment, he is also the apostle John, namely during the Last Supper. This is when the circle of the twelve is finally completed. That is to say, John Zebedee was, in a certain sense, the representative of the resurrected Lazarus, who has now become John. And this is, so to speak, the final form of the ‘’‘circle of the twelve, the twelve apostles.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1168s The Christ and the realm of death 0:19:28] ===
It is quite interesting because all of this event really condenses around the Christ, most of all condenses in this last moment ‘’‘beginning with Maundy Thursday’‘’. Yes, perhaps with the whole of Holy Week before that, but especially with Maundy Thursday, and then of course with the experience of ‘’‘Good Friday.’‘’ With the death, the ‘’‘crucifixion of Jesus Christ,’‘’ there is also the moment of the fullest incarnation. One has to think that the incarnation of Christ begins with the baptism of John, three years before, and is a gradual process. It did not happen in one fell swoop; you don't have to believe that Christ was fully incarnated at the time of his baptism in the Jordan, but it is a process that continues until the last minute, until the last minute it is completed. Then it is accomplished. So when the ‘’‘Christ's words on the cross are “It is finished”’‘’, that is exactly what is meant, namely, ‘’‘that the incarnation has now been completed’‘’ and Christ has become fully human. Immediately at the moment of death. It is very important that this incarnation takes place in its full fullness, in its entirety, basically ‘’‘in a single moment.’‘’ That is the moment when he passes through death, the Christ - and descends into the realm of death. We know that Holy Saturday is the descent into the underworld, the descent into hell, if you will, the descent into the realm of the dead, into the realm of death. Something that is not normally possible in the times. Before the angelic beings, archangels, original angels, etc., and even before Christ, human beings preceded all other spiritual beings in entering the realm of death, in entering this darkness, in entering hell, if you will, in entering the realm of the dead. We were the ones who had experience of it, at least to a certain extent. But ‘’‘all the other spiritual beings,’‘’ who are above us, up to the Christ, ‘’‘did not know the realm of death.’‘’ In the spiritual world, there is no death. It is a very special realm, and the fact that ‘’‘the Christ completed his humanity on Golgotha’‘’ also enables him to descend into this realm of death.

It is also very clearly stated in the text of the Apocalypse, which I will perhaps read out. I have to find the passage quickly... Yes, it is still in the first chapter, towards the end of the first chapter, and there ‘’‘John has a Christ encounter.’‘’ In truth, it is ‘’‘the trigger’‘’ for the whole writing of the Apocalypse of John. Because you have to think about what ‘Apocalypse of John’ means. These are the first words with which he begins: ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is what it actually says. The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ - and Apocalypse means as much as ‘’‘revelation, manifestation’‘’. So it is about the revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ. That is the content of the Apocalypse. And we also pointed out last time that the Christ is very closely connected with our human ego. We will have to work on this much more precisely in the next lecture or lectures. The Apocalypse has something to do with ‘’‘revealing the essence of our ego.’‘’ And what significance Christ has for this. So what John describes here is really an encounter with Christ, and he then says:<blockquote>‘’«When I saw him, I fell at his feet and was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Falling at his feet and being dead is another image for the fact that he is actually experiencing something that is beyond the threshold, on the other side of the threshold. So it is not a sensual event, but ‘’‘a spiritual experience,’‘’ that he has. And then it goes on:<blockquote>‘’«But he (that is, the Christ) laid his right hand on me and said: Fear not. I am the first and the last and the living. I was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Please note the «‘’I was dead»,‘’ says the Christ. No spiritual being could have said that about a human being until then. None of these beings had ever been dead. ‘’‘I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine.’‘’ So, the ‘’‘Christ has the key to the realm of death and the shadows’‘’. That is also something very important.

JOHN THE BAPTIST APOSTLE The spirit of John the Baptist became something like an inspiring community soul and community spirit of the circle of twelve apostles [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the Kingdom of Death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

CHRIST'S DEATH As the only higher spiritual being, the Christ knows death. Therefore he said: ‘’‘Mine is the key to the kingdom of death and the shadows’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the kingdom of death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1579s The Shadow Powers in the Realm of Death 0:26:19] ===
A little later in the Apocalypse, we will hear about the Key of David. ‘’‘The Key of David is the key to the spiritual world.’‘’ And we as human beings, if we strive spiritually, have access to both keys in a certain way. We can ‘’‘open or close the gate to the spiritual world.’‘’ We can open and close the gate to the world of death, to the world of shadows. This is connected to our ‘’‘human freedom’‘’ - or it is based on the fact that we can open these gates in a certain sense by our own power. That is the essential passage for us. This ‘’«I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine»‘’. And it was precisely into this realm of death that John himself went, that is, Lazarus/John‘’‘ in the course of his “”’initiation.‘’' This is the path that one has to go through. It should be said that this encounter with the ‘’‘realm of shadows’‘’ is particularly important in the initiation process. It is not usually the case that when one passes over the threshold in a normal way, that is to say, through death, one experiences too much of this realm of shadows immediately after death. If one passes through in the state of initiation, that is to say, in this sleep similar to death, then one is very much confronted with this realm. Very clearly. And also with all the shadowy sides that exist there and the temptations that are associated with them. These are experienced very strongly and it was precisely this that the Egyptian initiates had to prepare themselves for very intensively. This test, that is actually the Ahrimanic side that one encounters in order to get through it. So that means that these were often very gruesome experiences that this initiate had to go through again and again over the years - and they increased more and more. Only when they had endured this were they ‘’‘found ripe’‘’ to really go through the last great test, the three-day sleep of death.

Of course, all kinds of elements associated with this ‘’‘dark world of death’‘’ are now included in the ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’. This revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ also reveals the spiritual world that is above us. But it also reveals the world that lies below us, or works among us, or simmers among us, however you want to call it. This is the very special position we have as human beings, this spiritual being that we are as human beings, that we stand between the spiritual world above us and the world of death below us. Exactly on the border. If you want an image of it: ‘’‘The surface of the earth’‘’ on which we stand is exactly ‘’‘the border line.’‘’ It goes up there - and down there. We have to concern ourselves with both realms. In the Egyptian initiation, and in the initiation of the ancient Orient in general, the main aim was to gain ‘’‘knowledge of the light side,’‘’ that is, the side that lies above us, because the power to deal with the dark side was not yet very strong. So people had certain experiences that foreshadowed something that we basically have to experience to a much greater extent today if we want to enter the spiritual world. For the person who wants to have real spiritual experiences today or is mature enough to have them... Anyone who wants to have ‘’‘such insights’‘’ today and also wants to have them ‘’‘in a healthy way’‘’ must or ‘’‘should not be afraid of confronting the dark forces.’‘’

FREEDOM OF MAN As human beings, if we strive spiritually, we can open or close the door to the spiritual world. This is connected with our human freedom [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Shadow Forces in the Realm of Death 0:26:19|[1 | 0:26:19]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28] ===
This is one of the reasons why Dante ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’ in his ‘’‘Divine Comedy’‘’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’. Basically, what Dante describes there ‘’‘is also an initiation experience.’‘’ He shows very clearly how the path to the upper spiritual world, that is, what he also ‘’‘refers to as paradise,’‘’ leads through the underworld. That the right way is not a direct ascent to paradise, that one would fail there, that one would in fact come to a bright world, but it would be the Luciferic world. It would not be the real spiritual world, but it would be ‘’‘the world of Luciferic beings.’‘’ They are also spiritual beings, but spiritual beings that have ‘’‘in a sense remained behind,’‘’ that is, they have not developed their full spiritual powers. This means that if a person were to integrate themselves into this realm, they would ultimately also block or at least slow down their path to the future. In pre-Christian times, it was not yet so problematic. But in the post-Christian era, it becomes ‘’‘problematic’‘’. That means that ‘’‘we have to pass the test of going through the underworld’‘’, if you will. That is why ‘’‘Dante’‘’ describes it so clearly in his «Divine Comedy»: the path goes down to the centre of the earth. This is of course a metaphor. It is not about descending with crampons, drilling into the earth, but ‘’‘going down spiritually.’‘’ Descending ‘’‘into the dark depths of our own being’‘’ and the dark depths of the earthly world. So we have to think that our earth itself has this dual nature. On the one hand, a multitude of ‘’‘light-filled spiritual forces’‘’, high spiritual forces, but there are also ‘’‘dark forces’‘’ in it. Down there in the earth, that is the realm of Ahriman. That is the realm of the spirits of darkness, if you will. Lucifer hovers a little above it, but Ahriman and even stronger opposing forces live down there. And that is exactly where you have to go through.

In Dante's version, the path leads ‘’‘through the centre of the earth.’‘’ Then the ascent begins. Interestingly, it happens very quickly, he scurries up a few levels and lands on the surface of the earth, emerging at the ‘’‘Mountain of Purification’‘’. And the Mountain of Purification is what leads him to the so-called ‘’‘Purgatory’‘’, ‘’‘to the Fiery Furnace’', if you will. So this is the first supernatural realm that leads beyond the earth. And this is precisely the realm in which the Luciferic beings essentially live. There we must then ‘’‘purify ourselves’‘’ from all these ‘’‘Luciferic forces’‘’ in order to be able to ascend into the real paradise and the real spiritual world. That is the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy. But this applies to all forms of Christian initiation in a certain way. These stages are somewhere inside, it is hardly where it is expressed as clearly as in Dante, so systematically. But it is just as much in the Apocalypse. There you also find the confrontation with the very, very dark forces. That is why there are also images that seem very frightening at first glance. But in reality they are only an expression of a purification process that we have to go through. If we did not go through it, we would not get an insight into the spiritual world.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2147s The New Jerusalem - a new earth 0:35:47] ===
In the Book of Revelation, the view is opened above all to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem.’‘’ The New Jerusalem is ‘’‘a kind of new planetary state,’‘’ which will one day become ‘’‘our earth’‘’. When we as humanity and the Earth as a whole have gone through a certain development, at some point in the future the Earth as the planet as we know it will die, perish, be destroyed. It must be destroyed, just as our physical body must ultimately be destroyed - and then the New Jerusalem will arise. ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often calls it’‘’ in his lectures... he calls it ‘’‘the New Jupiter’‘’, which will come. This is a kind of new planet that will of course be different from our Earth. It is still a long way off, we still have a little time to go, but there we will be ‘’‘transferred to a new, higher spiritual state’‘’. But we will be mature enough to enter this higher spiritual state. A state that is in some ways ‘’‘comparable’‘’ to what ‘’‘today's angelic beings’‘’ possess. It will be different from our present-day angelic beings, but in terms of spiritual potency it is comparable to them. And then, above all, we will not have a body like the one we have today - and above all under different conditions. An important moment in the Book of Revelation is also given where John speaks of the ‘’‘so-called first death and the so-called second death’‘’. It is quite late in the Apocalypse, so one wonders what the first and second death are. I don't want to go into detail about this today either. But it has to do with the fact that we will finally lay down our physical body there. We will lay it down in every conceivable form and will not get it back in this form, so we have to learn to live without it. So, ‘’‘the first death’‘’ has to do with ‘’‘finally laying down the physical body forever.’‘’ And ‘’‘the second death’‘’ means finally ‘’‘laying down the corresponding etheric body.’‘’ That does not mean that we will then no longer have anything etheric, but no longer in the form that we have now. We will discuss this in more detail in the next lecture, but for now, this is just a suggestion.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2334s The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54] ===
I have now repeated a lot of what we discussed last time. Now we should move on a little and look at what is described in the Apocalypse. I will just read a short passage and then explain it. So in the first chapter, before the passage I read to you, John now addresses his ‘’‘words to the seven churches in Asia’‘’. So seven Christian communities in Asia - there were certainly more communities - they are the seven, if you will, leading communities, at least in the spiritual sense, in the outward sense it was a different chapter. We will encounter the ‘’‘number seven’‘’ very often in the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of John works a lot with ‘’‘number rhythms’‘’, they play a very important role. Wherever the number seven occurs, we can always be aware that it has something to do with a temporal development, with an evolution, with a series of developments. The number seven is also the ‘’‘number of the etheric,’‘’ for example. ‘’‘The etheric forces,’‘’ the life forces, ‘’‘have something to do with time.’‘’ Life takes place in time and life becomes rigid when nothing changes any more. Then death has occurred. After death, decay always follows. But no longer a living development.

So when the number seven plays a role, it always refers to a living development. For example, the human body renews itself about every seven years. This is one of the reasons why ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often speaks clearly in his education’‘’ about these ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’ that people go through: that ‘’‘the child’‘’ enters school at the age of seven, with the change of teeth , that puberty begins at the age of fourteen, that new spiritual forces awaken, that the twenty-first year of life is very important, that the ego begins to emerge very clearly. And so it goes on - again and again in ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’, which are no longer so noticeable externally. But if you look a little more closely, they are there too. Externally, they are connected to the fact that ‘’‘the body physically renews itself every seven years’‘’ and that, over the course of about seven years, it has ‘’‘completely exchanged its material’‘’. Rudolf Steiner always pointed this out, but it was often dismissed as an old wives' tale. You know that scientists never believe anything at first, they are always sceptical - that is perhaps also their virtue. But if they are thorough, they are open to being taught otherwise. It is actually the case that in recent years, through systematic medical, biological and chemical research, it has been possible to prove that the substances in the human body renew themselves on average every seven years. Some take a little longer, some renew themselves more quickly, but if you take the average, it really is every seven years.

So, in terms of our material substance, nothing that was there seven years ago is still there. We have become something completely new in terms of our material substance, but we have retained our forms to a certain extent, at least to the extent that we are usually recognised again after seven years. We can get a little older, we change a little, but we are still clearly recognisable as human beings. So the form, that is to say the etheric forces that renew this form again and again, they go through this whole ‘’‘seven-year period’‘’, but ‘’‘the physical is renewed again and again.’‘’ Basically, physically speaking, we do not die only once at the end of our lives, but in every seven-year period we basically, materially speaking, discard a corpse. Scattered into the world. It happens quite inconspicuously, with every breath we take, with every piece of food we eat and then excrete again, with what we sweat out and so on. All of this is shed, with the scales on our skin, where something is constantly being shed, something is always being lost. So, materially speaking, we are completely new people after seven years. And ‘’‘behind it all is ultimately a rhythm of the etheric body. It is this that in truth,’‘’ causes these seven-year cycles. With many sub-rhythms that also play a role. Today, science is already investigating - there is a discipline that has developed in this way since the middle of the twentieth century and has become increasingly clear in recent years, and that is ‘’‘chronobiology’‘’. Chronobiology is concerned with the rhythms that operate in the human body, and also in animals. And many exciting things have been discovered - among other things, the daily rhythm plays a major role, but so do seven-day rhythms, for example the seven-day rhythm as a quarter of a month. The month is again connected with the ‘’‘moon rhythm’‘’, the daily rhythm, which is connected with the rotation of the earth, the moon rhythm is connected with the moon's orbit. It has its subdivisions and a quarter of it is about seven days. It is also not by chance that we have a ‘’‘seven-day week’‘’. It is very wise. The ‘’‘calendar’‘’ could be organised in a completely different way, but then it would no longer be ‘’‘in harmony with these natural rhythms.’‘’ These natural rhythms are actually based on the etheric body. It is behind them - or the etheric world in general. From a cosmic point of view, it is the etheric world; in us, it is the etheric body, the internalisation of these rhythms. There are x rhythms in the body, very, very fast ones that vibrate very ‘’‘nervously’‘, so to speak - I say nervously on purpose, because it is very strongly “”’connected to the nervous system‘’‘ - and there are much longer rhythms that go more leisurely and renew us right down to the “”’metabolic processes‘’' within seven years.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2778s Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18] ===
So John has a lot to do with these forces, and that is why he often speaks of the number seven and that is why he also speaks of the seven churches ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). That is the reason. That is the real reason, because these ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ are - one could say - ‘’‘representatives of certain stages of development’‘’. So they represent seven stages of development that together make up a whole. Yes, I'll read a bit of it out:<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be yours from him,‘’

‘’who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven spirits of creation before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>From him who is and who was and who is to come - well, he basically spanned ‘’‘the whole time’‘’, the past, the present and the future, ‘’‘drawing the bow.’‘’

In the spiritual self, time and temporal development no longer play the same role as they do here in our earthly lives. In a sense, we enter the ‘’‘realm of eternity, of timelessness’‘’ - and yet there is movement in it. That seems paradoxical: how can there be movement if there is no time? Basically, you can move freely, as I should say, in what we call time, here as time. This actually begins in the ‘’‘etheric world’‘’. The experience in the etheric world is such that we can ‘’‘move freely in time’‘’. This means that we can go back, not just look back, but really go back - in an etheric way. But we can also go into the future, take a look, so to speak, into the future at least. How this future, which we experience in the etheric, is then realised in the physical, is another chapter. The etheric world is much, much richer than the physical world - and ‘’‘the physical’‘’ is actually something that has died, something that has ‘’‘died out of the etheric world’‘’. And that means that the physical manifests itself when something etheric dies, but much other etheric continues. And the etheric encompasses the future, everything that continues in the etheric world. And one thing dies out again and again, so to speak, and manifests itself here as something physical. What we can see today in the etheric is this whole abundance, which, from our point of view, flows or goes into the future. What we cannot foresee is every single physical event that dies out. So we cannot see exactly what will die in the etheric. But we can see at least a certain line, a certain direction in which the whole thing is going. We also see that certain things ‘’‘have to happen,’‘’ namely ‘’‘as compensation for what happened in the past’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM& Repeated earthly lives and human freedom 0:50:06] ===
I now have to make a connection to another sub-topic, so to speak, namely the topic of ‘’‘reincarnation and karma’‘’. As you know, if you are already familiar with anthroposophy, we are talking about ‘’‘repeated earthly lives.’‘’ Human beings do not live on earth just once, but repeatedly. This means that when they die, they first pass through the ‘’‘soul world’‘, then through the “”’spiritual world‘’, and then descend again after a shorter or longer period of time to ‘’‘a new incarnation’‘’. Simply because this earthly existence offers us so many opportunities for development that we could not exhaust in a single incarnation. Or we are ‘’‘not spiritually advanced enough to be able to complete our earthly development in a single incarnation.’‘’ We need a little more time. We have to go through it a few times. We are pupils who may have to repeat a few years. Of course, we can distinguish ourselves during our earthly incarnation. In a certain sense, ‘’‘the spiritual beings above us’‘’ cannot ‘’‘make any mistakes.’‘’

You could say: ‘Well, I'd like to be like that too, that would be great.’ Yes, but then we would not have ‘’‘freedom’‘’. This is a big word, because it says that even the angelic beings that are above us - and also the higher angelic beings that are above them, right up to the highest angelic beings - do not have the freedom that human beings have. They ‘’‘fulfil’‘’ God's will as a matter of course, if you want to put it in our terms. That means that the higher spiritual beings that are above them flow into them, they absorb it and ‘’‘act on it. Without error.’‘’ That is wonderful. Basically, nothing can go wrong. But - they have no free decision-making ability as a result. They don't even get the idea. Actually, the highest spiritual source, that is, the divine self, had to create the possibility for freedom in the world, and this is connected with the ability not to follow the error that flows down from the spiritual world. ‘’‘What distinguishes us as human beings is,’‘’ that we ‘’‘can't follow’‘’ the spiritual world. You could say that this cannot be the ideal of a human being, that we should now rebel against the divine. Well, yes and no. It is the prerequisite for us to be able to turn to the spiritual again in freedom after we have rebelled against it. This gives it a completely different quality. We fulfil ourselves with the spiritual, not because we cannot do otherwise, but because we fulfil ourselves with it because we want to, ‘’‘out of our own free will’‘’. But that means that a spiritual element lives in us that is comparable to the highest spiritual world from which everything flows. That means that a source ‘’‘opens up in us, in our I,’‘’ that is truly, one has to say it like this, ‘’‘of the same essence’‘’ ‘’‘as the highest divine being.’‘’ Even if it is, so to speak, the small version of it, ‘’‘the miniature version,’‘’, and we only experience it in individual moments, perhaps once in an incarnation or perhaps not at all in five incarnations, but there is a moment when we are of the same essence as the highest divine. When we are the embodiment of the divine. When we are ‘’‘of the same essence as Christ’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3292s The mystery of the self 0:54:52] ===
There is a beautiful ‘’‘Pauline saying’‘’ that Rudolf Steiner often mentions and usually says in the form: ‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me’‘’. This word could easily be misunderstood if we were to say: ‘I give up my free will and let Christ do things for me or through me.’ But that is not what is meant. The ‘not I’ refers to my little ‘’‘everyday ego’‘’ - which is not our true self - and we must eliminate it. So whether we love a roast pork or are grumpy because of our personal circumstances has nothing to do with the spiritual world. That gets in our way. So this ‘’‘ego, this “I want, I want, I have to, I need”’, that's what we actually have to get rid of. But ‘’‘our real self,’‘’ we will not really experience in its concrete form in everyday life. We know that we have an ego, but that's all we know about it in our everyday consciousness. It has nothing to do with how we were born, what education we have, how much money we have, it doesn't matter at all. It really has nothing to do with our ego. You have to get to ‘’‘the conscious experience of your own ego’‘’. But it's a great moment to experience that we have one. Children usually experience it around the age of three. Then it hits them: ‘I am an I’. Many people can no longer remember this later in life. Sometimes it reappears later in life, in old age, just like ‘’‘memories of early childhood’‘’ tend to resurface in old age. But some people never forget this experience.

I can remember the experience incredibly well and in great detail. It was sometime in November, maybe even on my third birthday. If it wasn't on my third birthday, then it was on St Nicholas‘ Day. My parents were there, my maternal grandmother, uncles, aunts, behind me was a fireplace that was lit, it was already quite dark. Suddenly, I looked around me with wide, astonished eyes and realised, “”’I'm something different.‘’' I'll never forget it. It was like a shock, I can't say whether it was devastating - no, it certainly wasn't devastating - I didn't know that - but it was just so emphatic that it kept coming back to me. And I have to say, the older I get, the clearer it is.

There are also such moments later in life. Rudolf Steiner describes how he experienced this in his twenty-first year, when the I becomes even more awake. I'll have to read that out one day. It's quite interesting. He read about it in the works of the philosopher ‘’‘Schelling’', who also describes this experience. And then Steiner describes how he had this experience himself. He was also sure that he had had this experience. So, you can have this experience of the self at different levels. It is not to be compared with the everyday ego that we have. Having this experience of the self has something to do with the apocalypse. The ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is also the ‘Apocalypse of one's own self’, namely at the moment ‘when I and Christ are one in essence’. At the moment when one has such an experience, this ‘unity of essence’ is there. Only for a moment, then it disappears again - or at least it is not in our consciousness. In reality, it is somehow already there, but we cannot make ourselves aware of it again, perhaps not for years, not until the end of our lives. But in that one moment it is there. That is what Paul meant when he said: ‘It is not I, but Christ in me.’ You could also formulate it in the sense of: ‘It is not my little self, but my real I in me.’ It is actually exactly the same.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3618s Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and correction 1:00:18] ===
Let's go back to the seven churches in Asia. It was a bit of a detour. Yes, there was something I wanted to say, but I lost sight of it. It has to do with the ‘’‘repeated earthly lives,’‘’ that we have to go through. It is only through these many earthly lives that our ego develops further. We can only acquire an awareness of our own self through many lives on earth. But ‘’‘we also make mistakes on earth,’‘’ we are not like the angels above us, where the spiritual simply flows into us and we implement it, but we can err, we can make mistakes - and thus take on a task, namely by making these mistakes, we change the course of the world in a certain way. It is up to us to ‘’‘correct it again.’‘’ Above all, we ourselves suffer as a result. The Christ helps us to correct the mistakes that remain in the world in a certain way. But what we destroy in ourselves by making mistakes - because mistakes also mean that we ultimately put our ego in danger or scratch it - in the next incarnation or the one after that, when our strength has grown a little, we have to correct this mistake, you could say. That is what ‘’‘is connected with our karma,’‘’ with our ‘’‘destiny’‘’. Our karma is nothing other than our ego striving to repair the damage it has done to itself, to work on it. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that we ourselves are ultimately the ones who ‘’‘send our fate’‘’, our ‘’‘karma’‘’. Our real I. No one else. We don't need to complain to anyone. We can only be happy that the Christ, by working with and in our I, but in a very individual way, ‘’‘helps us to bear this karma’‘’, that he also gives us ‘’‘strength’‘’, gives our I strength. But always only to the extent that we ‘’‘really struggle for it,’‘’ it is never just something that is given, but always something ‘’‘that we have to do’‘’. That is very important. So, that is the karma that we carry with us, that is connected with our error, with our possibilities of error. But it is precisely ‘’‘on that that we mature.’‘’ That is why the path is given for many earthly lives, so that we can experience all this and thereby learn to become free beings.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3813s The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Humanity 1:03:33] ===
But let us now return to the seven churches.<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be with you,‘’

‘’from him who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven creator spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>The seven creator spirits: Well, who are the seven creator spirits? Essentially, they are those spiritual forces or those spiritual beings who created our ‘’‘bodily shells’‘’ and prepared them so that these spiritual shells, these bodily shells - yes, I have already used the word ‘spiritual shells’ - could one day be transformed into spiritual forces. So what are these bodies: the ‘’‘physical body’‘’, the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’, that is, the life forces, then the ‘’‘astral body’‘’, which makes us a sentient, conscious being. In the etheric body, we are actually still asleep, and in the astral body, we are at least dreaming. This is exactly what we have in common with animals. So, animals also have a certain consciousness, but it is still dream-like, this ‘’‘consciousness.’‘’ If we only had this consciousness, this astral consciousness, we would not be very awake. We would not recognise ourselves as an I. That means that the ‘’‘I’‘’ comes in a certain way as the fourth, or the ‘’‘I-bearer, as Rudolf Steiner often calls it,’‘’ which is, so to speak, the physical prerequisite for an I to be able to incarnate. Incarnation means that the I completely permeates the body shells and thus ‘’‘makes the body shells’‘’ into ‘’‘I-bearers,’‘’ but that is the fourth principle. The ‘’‘I’‘’ that is now incarnating, by unfolding its spiritual forces, ‘’‘shapes the astral body, the etheric body and finally the physical body’‘’ through its spiritual forces, through the individual spiritual forces that lie within each I. The astral body, which was initially given by the spiritual beings, is transformed into what Rudolf Steiner calls the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ or our higher self. Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. This is a power that our I has at its disposal, so to speak. In the East, it is also called ‘’‘manas.’‘’ Manas has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ also comes from it, by the way. There is another word that comes from it, which can be found in the Bible, namely ‘’‘manna.’‘’ When ‘’‘Moses and the Israelites journey through the desert’', they are given manna. This is nothing other than the powers of this spirit self, which in a certain sense descend upon the Israelites as a whole, not yet upon the individual at that time, but upon the community.

When we transform the etheric body through the power of the I, then the etheric body becomes the ‘’‘life spirit’‘’. This power of the life spirit then lives within our I. That is to say, just as the body sheaths - the physical body, etheric body, astral body - surround our I from the outside, so our I envelops the spirit self and life spirit within itself - figuratively speaking. They are part of ‘’‘this I.’‘’ In the highest form, for example, it means that if I take only the spirit self, that is, the transformed astral body, then it means that our I has become capable of ‘’‘creating an astral body out of nothing.’‘’ It is something different from when we wrap ourselves in an astral body during our normal incarnation on earth. For the most part, it is only lent to us by the spiritual world - and this will continue to happen as long as we are not able to create one for ourselves out of nothing. That is then actually our real astral body. But then we no longer call it an ‘’‘astral body, but a spirit self.’‘’ He is then completely ours.

The aim of all the initiation processes that have been taking place on earth since Egyptian times, or that lead into the future in some other way, is to form ‘’‘as much as possible’‘’ of this spirit self. So, in addition to the fact that we are developing our I here on earth, the people who are really making spiritual progress are those who have already developed a good part of the spirit self. It will then be the task of the so-called ‘’‘New Jupiter’‘’ - or what John calls the ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’, which I have discussed today - to fully develop this spirit self. But we should already have a certain part of it at the end of the earth's development, then we will at least be among the spiritually more developed people. Yes, the life spirit is the transformed etheric body. We will not be able to transform the etheric body into the life spirit on our own during the development of the Earth. We can work on it, we can work on it above all, or we can bring it a little further in the direction of ‘’‘the help of the Christ.’‘’ In this case it is really the help of the Christ. That means something that cannot be accomplished by our ego. For this, for example, the word ‘’‘grace’‘’ is very important. This is a gift that Christ gives us. As far as the spirit self is concerned, that is already our own responsibility. This is the ‘’‘endowment with the Holy Spirit’‘’, as one might call it. But this Holy Spirit is then our Holy Spirit. This is not something that remains above us or directs us from outside, but something that ultimately belongs to our I. Only then has it become a true spirit self, which we are now developing during the development of the earth, and we owe this solely to our I. But what we are already producing in terms of life spirit, at least in a preliminary form, is something for which we need the help of the Christ.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4327s The physical body and our consciousness of self 1:12:07] ===
And then we will even need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ to do this, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body. Sounds paradoxical. What is a spiritualised physical body? That sounds like a contradiction. We have to think about what the physical body, in which we are now normally embodied on earth, the physical and material body, is for. Physically and materially are not exactly the same thing. ‘’‘The material’‘’ is actually what fulfils the physical form. If, for example, the Luciferic temptation had not come, that is, if we had not come under the influence of the ‘’‘opposing forces’‘’, then we would not have had the kind of physical body that we have today. It would have been invisible to the senses.

There are a great many physical beings that are not visible to our eyes. For example, there are ‘’‘elemental beings’‘’ that definitely have a physical body and yet are ‘’‘not visible to us with our physical eyes’‘’. There are whole realms of physical worlds out there that are not visible to us because they are ‘’‘not material’‘’. So, our physical body becomes visible through the material. But what does this physical body give us, precisely through the fulfilment with the material and through the problems that are associated with it? It is precisely through the material that the whole physical body tends to decay. The material has this principle of decaying from within. When the etheric body is no longer present to constantly renew these substances, in these seven-year cycles that we have spoken of, then it simply decays, just as the corpse decays with death. So, our physical body cannot maintain its form by itself. This is because we have this ‘’‘Luciferic impact’‘’. By being filled with matter, our actually imperfect invisible physical body was actually damaged. ‘’‘This is how it became visible. This is how it became mortal.’‘’ But this is also how we have gained our consciousness of self - and we gain it precisely because we are mortal.

Our consciousness of self awakens in the processes - also in life - when they are processes of decay. For example, with every nerve impulse that passes through, something dies in the brain. It is then re-energised, but actually something dies until death, until a ‘’‘salt-like state’‘’ in the nerves. This is precisely why the ‘’‘brain’‘’ is an instrument with which we can acquire ‘’‘consciousness’‘’. To do this, we need the physical, material brain. Not for thinking, actually. ‘’‘Thinking is not a function of the physical brain.’‘’ We need the brain to become aware of these thoughts, which are actually etheric forces. As a rule, we are not yet at the stage where we can consciously experience the etheric, which is not visible to the senses but only leaves its trace in the senses - then in the growth forces - in order to experience these formative forces, these etheric forces, it has to be reflected in the physical brain and it is reflected when these ‘’‘decay processes’‘’ take place in the brain. Then, when it is regenerated again, or at least regenerated to a large extent, then the consciousness is already gone again. The dying process must take place there, that is when we become aware. We have ‘’‘death’‘’, the constant death that has in truth accompanied us since birth, ‘’‘to which we owe our consciousness’‘’ - that is a prerequisite for it - and in particular ‘’‘our I-consciousness’‘’ is especially to be owed.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4595s Imagination - Experiencing in the Spiritual 1:16:35] ===
Of course, an astral body and an etheric body are also part of it, but this ability to die through the material body is very important for our consciousness. That is why we have it and why we need it. We will need it until our consciousness has become able to do without the help of these dying processes. That means that when this consciousness can now seek out another counterpart, another mirror, when it no longer needs this physical ‘’‘mirror’‘’, when it can, for example, reflect itself in the etheric, that is, in the life forces. This mirroring in the life forces, when we enter this world of life, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we ‘’‘experience imaginations’', pictures. And now we put huge quotation marks around the word “pictures” - I will come back to this - pictures from the spiritual world. They are living pictures. ‘’‘These images cannot be described’‘’ like an oil painting, an old painting on the wall, because it is a moving image that changes continuously. You can't really capture it at all. There is movement in it - we have already discussed the paradox - a ‘’‘movement that takes place in timelessness’‘’. The movement arises from the fact that we can look at this image from different perspectives, go through it and, if I translate that into the sensual, then a temporal series of developments, a temporal event, emerges from it. But in the etheric I can go forward, backward, take detours, so I can move freely. In meditation, when you really get to a true imagination, where time no longer plays a role, a true imagination, that is experienced ‘’‘in complete timelessness.’‘’ I think, if I remember correctly, I briefly mentioned in the first lecture we had, we had two lectures, that you can experience that. Because when you do ‘’‘meditation’‘’ with today's consciousness, it's not that you're completely out of it and just floating in another world, but ‘’‘we still retain’‘’ ‘’‘consciousness here for the sensory world’‘’ even when you're not focusing on it, but it remains there. I remain aware that I am in the physical world with my body. I don't enter a dream-like state of consciousness where I am lifted out and simply float above everything, somewhere. You can really notice, under certain circumstances, if there is a clock on the table somewhere, that I have an incredibly ‘’‘intense imagination’‘’, that is, a moving picture, as we have discussed, ‘’‘an incredibly rich picture’‘’. You have the feeling that what I am experiencing is something that lasts for hours, that it is something very, very long that is unfolding and unrolling before me - and when I look at the second hand of the clock, it seems to be standing still. So what I experience internally as hours or days, externally no time passes. So it is ‘’‘experienced in an instant,’‘’ measured in terms of our external time. It can happen in dreams, too, in reality. It often happens when a dream is triggered by something, especially when you wake up and enter the sensory world. For example, the morning sun comes in through the window, even with your eyes closed, your senses somehow perceive it without us being aware of the sunlight. We are still in the dream and suddenly a huge fire breaks out in the dream, a huge fire, and there you experience a long story: the fire brigade arrives, there are dramatic scenes unfolding so that the residents in the house can be rescued and you think that it has been going on for two hours. You wake up and look at the sun, which has just come around the corner, which has just appeared, almost at the same moment. So actually, these dream images also unfold in timelessness, basically. This consciousness, this imaginative consciousness is connected to the fact that when we no longer need the physical body as a mirroring apparatus for consciousness, then we mirror in the living etheric body, then ‘’‘we go out of the time stream’‘’ and ‘’‘can move freely in time.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4946s The Soul World and Time 1:22:26] ===
In the astral world, in the ‘’‘soul world’', it is different, there is a very special paradox, time seems to come towards us. Future, it seems that ‘’‘time moves in reverse.’‘’ This is very important, because this is the way in which creative impulses enter the world. In order for something to manifest itself creatively in the physical world, there must be a physical time stream that goes from the past to the future, which is what we know in normal life. The etheric must be there, where timelessness, above all mobility, reigns in time - and something must come from the future, actually from the end of the development process - and ‘’‘where the stream from the past and the stream from the future collide,’‘’ it becomes our momentary ‘’‘present’‘’. Something happens there.

With every event that takes place in the world, it is never just a consequence of the past, as is often believed in the natural sciences, because they only have physical and sensory means at their disposal, which is why they only know this stream of time that comes from the past and goes into the future, and they can only deduce from what has happened in the past what might happen in the future. With simple things, you can even calculate it in advance: A physicist can easily predict how a stone will fall if nothing else interferes, such as a bird flying past or something like that. But otherwise, ‘’'most real events ,‘’‘ that happen in the world, “”’you can't predict,‘’' because they are not only determined by the past, but are also determined, half of them, at least half of them, by what is heading towards us from the future. These two things have to come together. This means that when we move on from imagination or ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ something comes in that goes beyond this pictorial consciousness and shows us something of the future. Something ‘’‘shows us where this development is going,’‘’ because this goal actually comes towards us, in a sense. We have to look at the beginning and the end in order to be able to understand the current moment of development at all. These two currents have to come together.

I'll now read you a few sentences from the Apocalypse, where this is also hinted at to a certain extent, very clearly. Again, where basically Christ speaks, or at least the angel speaks through Christ. It says:<blockquote>‘’‘I am the Alpha and the Omega.’‘’</blockquote>In Greek, this means the beginning and the end. The first and the last letter in the Greek alphabet, the Alpha and the Omega.<blockquote>‘’‘Thus says the Lord, our God, who is and who was and who is to come, the ruler of the universe’.‘’</blockquote>It's all there. ‘’‘He is, who was and who is to come.’‘’ The present, that's where it starts, ‘he who is’. So it's important to keep that in mind, the order is not random, because the experience always starts in the present moment. The moment is also, in which the whole eternity is also inside. From here, I look to both sides, to what was there, that is, back, and thus also to what determines my fate, because - as far as we humans are concerned - it also contains all the mistakes we have made and which we must correct in the future, that is, what we must work on. We also see something towards which we are heading, namely our self, our individual self. Every individual self has a special nuance. It is not the case that we all have exactly the same goal. We ‘’‘all contribute together’‘’ to perhaps ‘’‘a higher goal’', that's how you could perhaps outline it. You can also find that in the words in there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5302s The spiritualisation of the physical body - the goal of human development 1:28:22] ===
Now I'll come back to the seven creator spirits in connection with the human body. I have not yet told you ‘’‘what happens to the physical body when it is spiritualised’‘’. Now I hope that you have gained a little impression that the physical can also be spiritualised - and this is not to be equated simply with the material-physical, which we know as our body. That there is also ‘’‘an invisible physical’‘’, that it is ‘’‘in truth the actual physical.’‘’ If we succeed, with the help of the Christ and the help of the father forces, in restoring this originally spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which we can now achieve, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human being’‘’. This is the highest spiritual that we can develop, as far as we can see, and it is precisely in the spiritualisation of the physical. We must not underestimate the physical, but we must see that the greatest task of humanity lies in at least working towards the spiritualisation of this physical. This is also connected with the ‘’‘resurrection of Christ’‘’. The resurrection forces of Christ, which could not have come into effect without the Father's activity, are connected with the transformation of the physical body into a spiritual being. For it to be truly successful means that we are then able, out of our own strength, out of our own I, to bring forth such a high, such a spiritualised physical body. But this is certainly no longer a body that is material. We will then not walk around on a material ‘’‘globe’‘’ or any other sphere, however it may be formed, in a material body, but rather the highest spiritual will enter. To understand this, you have to ask yourself why it is actually the highest spiritual and how it is otherwise connected to the material.

I think that the physical is the most difficult to work with. In the soul, we can already work a little today, at least to some extent, to bring forth the spirit self, consciously or unconsciously. ‘’‘An artist,’‘’ when he is really creative, ‘’‘creates a new work in his soul’‘’ and then realises it, outwardly too, but to do that he has to ‘’‘experience it in his soul first’‘’, then he is creatively active in a spiritual way. Then he is active out of his spiritual self. That means, ‘’‘he transforms astral, soul into real spiritual self.’‘’ This spirit self or this spark of spirit self that he has within him, he has created from his own I. Out of nothing, basically. He has not taken it from anywhere else, from anywhere outside, ‘’‘but from within himself.’‘’

It is much more difficult to create etheric forces out of nothing, that is, to ‘’‘unfold the spirit of life.’‘’ That is much more difficult. On the whole, we are not yet able to do that, but we need the help of the Christ to be able to do it. We don't even need to talk about the physical, because we ourselves create almost nothing there, especially consciously. In order for it to become our own, we have to be able to do it consciously, that is, consciously transform the physical body into this high spiritual being. This is only beginning to happen.

Only the highest spiritual hierarchies can really work on the physical, namely ‘’‘the Christ and the Father-Godhead’‘’, which is behind it. But very high angelic beings work with them as executive organs. These include, for example, the ‘’‘thrones’‘’ in a leading position. They are in the upper group of three hierarchies. Above them are only the beings of the zodiac, the ‘’‘cherubim’‘’ and then the ‘’‘seraphim’‘’, who are basically connected to the whole cosmos, through the visible universe - and even beyond the visible, at least for our eyes beyond the visible. These are therefore very, very high spiritual beings who are behind the physical. ‘’‘In the soul, anyone can work today, so to speak’‘’. The angelic beings that are closely connected to us, the actual angels, they all cannot do that. But we are approaching a time when we will be able to ‘’‘create a complete physical body for ourselves’‘’. It will no longer be called a physical body, but a spiritual human being. It is this that will enable us to achieve our ‘’‘highest consciousness’‘’.

Today we have ‘’‘only a mirror image,’‘’ because we are most conscious of the physical, which is basically polluted by the material. We cannot yet become self-aware of the etheric body. We are not yet able to do that. If we only had the I and the astral body, then we would know nothing about ourselves, absolutely nothing. ‘’‘It is precisely in the physical that one can develop the highest consciousness.’‘’ This applies equally to the spiritual being. That is to say, the spiritual being is the highest spiritual element that we can acquire. What happens next is a different chapter, and is not our subject.

I have now made a huge ‘’‘interjection’‘’ just to explain a little bit about the significance of the number seven, and these stages of development. We have come across these seven stages of human development or these seven constituent parts of the human being, via the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the I, which stands in the centre, and up to the spiritual constituent parts, which we can acquire through our own efforts: ‘’‘the spirit self, the life spirit, the spiritual human being’‘’. This has to do with the ‘’‘number seven’‘’. And we have come to these, simply because it was of seven churches that John speaks, to which he turns and to which he now writes in a certain way, to the seven churches. In doing so, he mentions the seven creator spirits. I'll read the short passage again.<blockquote>‘’‘John to the seven churches in Asia:’‘

’‘Grace and peace be yours,’‘

’‘from him who is and who was and who is to come,’‘

’‘and from the seven spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘The seven spirits before his throne’‘’, these are the spiritual beings that ‘’‘help to create our seven members of the human being’‘’. Because, in general, the higher spiritual elements of our being, which we actually have to create ourselves - because only then are they ours - still have to be prepared. That is, so to speak, if you put it in earthly terms, ‘’‘a model for it’‘’. It has to be prepared once. These seven creator spirits work on it. It would be too much to go into which angelic beings they are. They are also high angelic beings, very high. You should not be surprised that, for example, ‘’‘the thrones have something to do with it,’‘’ yes, with the physical body and ‘’‘also with the preparation of the spiritual being,’‘’ that they have a hand in it, because they are able to work into the physical, for example. Just as a small hint.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5873s The Revelation of John on Patmos 1:37:53] ===
Now I want to read something else to you at the end of the lecture, namely also from the first chapter what John now writes in detail ‘’‘to these seven churches:’‘’<blockquote>‘’«I, John, your brother and companion in all trials, as well as in the inner kingdom and in the persevering strength that we possess as those who are united with Jesus, was on the island of Patmos. There I was to be made partaker of the divine word of the world and worthy of bearing witness to the suffering of Christ.‘</blockquote>

’The suffering of Jesus’ is what it says in the translation. The translation is by ‘’‘Emil Bock’‘, one of the “”’founding priests of the Christian Community‘’‘. So, “”’on the island of Patmos he had this spiritual vision.‘’‘ He describes very clearly an “”’imagination‘’‘ and how this imagination was “”’translated into sensual images‘’'. He cannot communicate the image in any other way than by translating it into sensual words. He describes it in a very typical way:<blockquote>‘’«On the day of the Lord, I was transported into the spiritual realm and heard a mighty voice behind me like the sound of a ‘’‘trombone’‘’».‘’</blockquote>It is often the case ‘’‘in spiritual experiences,’‘’ that you have the feeling «there is something behind me» and my first test is whether I turn around or not. Do I have the courage to turn around, because if I have the courage to turn around, then it means that I am in a sense crossing the ‘’‘threshold’‘’. And that is ‘’‘a kind of death experience’‘’. You have to be aware of that, it is a death experience. And it is also connected with, how shall I put it, with the unpleasant side of death, that is, to feel this loss in the physical world - without completely leaving the body. You really have the experience of ‘’‘going through death’‘’. Without that ‘’‘you cannot cross the threshold’‘’. That means that the first test is: do I dare to turn around or not. Of course, this has nothing to do with physically turning around, but rather in the spiritual world. That means that the ‘’‘turning around’‘’ is to ‘’‘let go of everything that is sensual in order to turn to the spiritual’‘’. This mighty voice like the sound of a trumpet. Incidentally, the word ‘trombone’ means - and since we are talking about sound - that ‘’‘inspiration’‘’ is already playing a part in the development of the imagination. In fact, every spiritual experience begins at an even higher level, with ‘’‘intuition’‘’. I have to become one with a spiritual being in order to enter the spiritual world at all. That is intuition. However, it does not become immediately conscious. It is, so to speak, the prerequisite and forms the unconscious background.

The next stage is ‘’‘inspiration.’‘’ When you have a real spiritual experience, then you have at least an echo of this inspirational experience, without being able to fully grasp its content, that you ‘’‘hear a voice like a trombone,’‘’ which is just loud and powerful and shattering, but you don't really understand it at that moment.

The third and last thing is actually ‘’‘the imaginative image,’‘’ that builds up - and this image is not a sensual one at first, but rather, you could say, ‘’‘a kind of highly differentiated mood of the soul’‘’ that one experiences. I will perhaps come back to this in more detail another time. There is no more time now. It is actually a ‘’‘highly differentiated spiritual experience’‘’ that one has, which one can now ‘’‘overlook like a panorama’‘’, which is in motion, which is changing, and in this experience one can, so to speak, wander around spiritually. That is the real imagination. But John has to describe it as a spiritual image. So he hears this voice and he continues to say or write:<blockquote>‘’« She said: Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches. To Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamon, to Thyatira, to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea ».‘’</blockquote>So these are the seven churches. ‘’‘Ephesus’‘’ ([[A:Ephesos|Ephesos]]), the first, with which John was, incidentally, ‘’‘very closely connected,’‘’ that is, in the period long after the events in Palestine, after the death of Christ on the cross. The island of Patmos, incidentally, is very close, on the coast of Asia Minor, and Ephesus and the mystery centre of Ephesus are relatively close on the mainland. That is also an advantage, that there was a mystery centre there, an important one. ‘’‘The important Christian centres’‘’ were all initially located where ancient mystery centres were also located - so this ‘’‘mystery centre’‘’ of Ephesus was closely connected to Patmos, or rather the other way round, Patmos was in a sense ‘’‘an offshoot of the mysteries of Ephesus.’‘’ So, there are seven churches and the voice speaks now and John continues to write:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>So the Christ appears in human form.<blockquote>’‘’Clothed with a long flowing robe,‘’

‘’girded at the breast with a golden girdle,‘’

‘’with a white head, the hair of which shone like white wool and like snow,‘’

‘’with eyes as if they were flames of fire,‘’

‘’with feet as if they were of gold ore that has been heated in the fire,‘’

‘’with a voice like the the sound of great waters,‘’

‘’in his right hand he held ‘’‘seven stars’‘’,‘’

‘’out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword,‘’

‘’and his countenance was like the sun in its strength."</blockquote>It is a very powerful experience. The sensual image is a pale shadow of what really lies behind it in the imagination. But it points the way. And how strong that was, comes out further:<blockquote>‘’‘and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said -’' we have already read this today “”- Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last and the Living. I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the ages. Mine is the key to the realms of death and the shadows. Write down what you see, the present and the future. The mystery of the seven stars that you see in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands,‘’ ‘’is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches themselves.‘</blockquote>With that, “”’the first chapter of the Apocalypse‘’' ends, and I would like to close for today.
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[[Index of terms Lecture series The Apocalypse of Johnn by Wolfgang Peter#A|APOCALYPSE]]

* ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of Johnn|Apocalypse of Johnn]]) is also called ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of the own self - namely in the moment when I and Christ are one [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The riddle of the self 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1st series, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of Johnn|‘’‘Apocalypse of Johnn’‘’]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ASTRAL BODY

* We transform the ‘’‘astral body’‘’ into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

ETHER

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect itself ‘’‘in the etheric’', then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experiencing in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:16:35]]
The ‘’‘ether’‘’ world is much richer than the physical world: the physical is actually a dead thing, something that has died out of the ‘’‘ether’‘’ world [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 0:46:18]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of Johnn|Apocalypse of Johnn]] works a lot with number rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the ‘’‘ethereal’‘’, because the ‘’‘etheric forces’‘’, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. part, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’ still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ‘’‘ether’‘’ and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
ATLANTIS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-‘’‘Atlantean’‘’ era [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|B}}

CONSCIOUSNESS

* When our ‘’‘consciousness’‘’ no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different ‘’‘consciousness’‘’, with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the ‘’‘consciousness,’‘’ in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|C}}

CHRIST

* If we succeed, with the help of ‘’‘Christ’‘’ and with the help of the father forces, in restoring the original spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our I completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of ypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. part, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We need the fatherly forces that are conveyed through ‘’‘Christ’‘’ to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of Johnn|Apocalypse of Johnn]]) is also the Apocalypse of the self - namely at the moment when I and ‘’‘Christ’‘’ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the self that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as ‘’‘Christ’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|D}}

DANTE ALIGHIERI

* Descent into the realm of shadows is described by ‘’‘Dante’‘’ ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]] ) in his ‘Divine Comedy’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]). The path leads through the centre of the earth to the ascent [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 0:31:28]]

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

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

{{BS|F}}

FREEDOM

* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. For this he has ‘’‘freedom’‘’. He can open himself to the spiritual out of free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|G}}

SPIRIT

* We need the father forces, which are mediated by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

SPIRITUAL HUMAN

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our I, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

SPIRIT SELF

* An artist who is truly creative from his I is active from the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’. This means that he transforms the astral into ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* The [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] is also called manas in the East. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

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

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

{{BS|I}}

I

* An artist who is truly creative from his ‘’‘I’‘’ is working from the spirit self. That is, he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of the Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our ‘’‘I’‘’, then we will create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* Karma is nothing more than our ‘’‘I’‘’ striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of Johnn|Apocalypse of Johnn]]) is also the Apocalypse of one's own ‘’‘I’‘’ - namely at the moment when ‘’‘I’‘’ and Christ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the ‘’‘I’‘’ that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as Christ [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

IMAGINATION

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience ‘’‘imaginations’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the Spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|J}}

JOHN, THE EVANGELIST

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]), the writer of the Gospel of John ([[A:GA 103|GA 103]]) and the Apocalypse, is the [[A:Lazarus|Lazarus]] raised from the dead by Christ [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Introduction 0:00:36|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. part, 2020, 0:00:36]]

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

{{BS|K}}

KARMA

* ‘’‘[[A:Karma|Karma]]’‘’ is nothing more than our ego striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
CULTURAL EPOCHS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven ‘’‘cultural epochs’‘’ of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ART

* An ‘’‘artist’‘’ who is truly creative from his I is active from the spirit self. This means that he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]

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

{{BS|L}}

LIFE PANORAMA

* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|‘’‘life panorama’‘’]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
* Like in a great [[A:panorama of life|‘’‘panorama of life’‘’]], this image of the past life appears [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|[1 | 0:03:14]]

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

{{BS|M}}

MANAS

* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called [[A:manas|‘’‘manas’‘’]] in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called ‘’‘[[A:manas|manas]]’‘’ in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘man’ also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

MAN

* The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called manas in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘’man‘’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, ‘’‘man’‘’ can err. He has the freedom to do so. He can open himself to the spiritual world of his own free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same nature as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|N}}

NEW JERUSALEM

* In the [[A:Apocalypse of Johnn|Apocalypse of Johnn]] the view is opened to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’ ([[A:New Jerusalem|New Jerusalem]]). This is a kind of new planetary state that will one day become our Earth [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The New Jerusalem - a new Earth 0:35:47|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:35:47]]

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

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

{{BS|P}}

PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the Father forces, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even spiritualise something of our ‘’‘physical body’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #The physical body and our self-awareness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

{{BS|R}}

RUDOLF STEINER

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’‘’ so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Ap Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 1:28:22]]
John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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CREATIVE SPIRITS

* The seven ‘’‘creative spirits’‘’ are essentially those spiritual forces or beings that created our physical bodies [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter# The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1st series, 2020, 1:03:33]]
SEVEN CHURCHES

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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DEATH

* In the first three days after ‘’‘death’', the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]

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FATHER FORCES

* We need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ that are imparted by the Christ in order to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our ego-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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{{BS|Y}}
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NUMBERS

* The [[A:Apocalypse of Johnn|Apocalypse of Johnn]] works a lot with ‘’‘number’‘’ rhythms. The number seven‘’' indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with ‘’‘time’‘’. [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. lecture, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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SEVEN

* The [[A:Apocalypse of Johnn|Apocalypse of Johnn]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of Johnn - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Johnn, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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[[File:2.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c|thumb|Link to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c Video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/qcn7lpb30c8w127/2.apo.mp3?dl=0 Audio] ]]
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==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)

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=51s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=230s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=502s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=860s 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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1350s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1558s 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!‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1758s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=1896s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, how you have glorified me!’‘’</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’how have you glorified me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>Or the other variant:<blockquote>‘’‘My God, my God, “”’why have you forsaken me?‘’‘’‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2105s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2368s 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:<blockquote>‘’"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 ...‘’‘</blockquote>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 -<blockquote>’... ‘’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. ‘‘’</blockquote>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?’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=2860s 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’‘’
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===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3435s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=3832s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Let there be light and there was light!’‘’</blockquote> 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.’‘’

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4330s 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:<blockquote>‘’‘Man's daimon is his destiny!’‘’ </blockquote>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: <blockquote>‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me.’‘’ </blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=4362s 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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=5268s 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.<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’‘’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.‘’'</blockquote>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:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>In this case, that also means: You know that “”’you must bring down these spiritual forces. That is the actual task.<blockquote>‘’‘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.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6291s 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:<blockquote>‘’"But you have it in your favour that you detest the actions of the Nicolaitans, which I also detest.’ ‘’</blockquote>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.

===[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FrYuUgc2c&t=6733s Bestowal of the powers of the Spirit of life by Christ 1:52:13]===
<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>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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== Glossary==
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{{BS|A}}ARTEMIS-TEMPLE

* The ‘’‘Artemis’‘’' sanctuary in Ephesus has something to do with the life forces, the life-giving forces, the Christ forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship between the Apocalypse of John and Christ]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 0:47:40]]

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{{BS|B}}BEGRIFF

* ‘’‘Terms’‘’ are entities that are present in the etheric world as formative forces [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical world]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 0:08:22]]

CONSCIOUS SOUL

* The ‘’‘conscious soul’‘’ that we are developing today basically has two sides, only one of which is currently strongly developed, namely the awareness of the external sensual world. The next step, which comes now, is to direct our consciousness towards the spiritual. This happens in thinking by moving from brain thinking to living thinking [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Directing the consciousness soul to the spiritual - living thinking 0:35:05|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 0:35:05]]

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{{BS|C}}CHRIST

* The ‘’‘Christ’‘’ is in truth the master builder of the world. He is the one who moulded the world. The Father God is the substance in the background. But the moulding power that puts the will of the Godhead into practice is the Christ behind it. He makes the [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why does Judas have to betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|D}}DAIMON

* Heraclitus‘ statement: “The ”’‘daimon’‘’ is man's fate’ means that the ego leads to the events of fate. It is always the ego, never something else. By ‘’‘daimon’‘’ is meant the ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd instalment, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|E}}

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{{BS|F}}

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{{BS|G}}GEISTSELBST

* Nobody helps us to develop the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’, we have to do it ourselves through our ego [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#G| Complete Glossary]]. Lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd instalment, 2020, 0:47:40]]

GOLGATHA

* ‘’‘Golgotha’‘’ means: the place of the skull [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Der physische Leib als Grundlage unseres ICH-Bewusstseins 0:08:22|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 2. Folge, 2020, 0:08:22]]

SON OF GOD

* Through the earthly life of Christ, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ has become fully the Son of Man. This process is completed at the moment of his death on Calvary. At this moment, the ‘’‘Son of God’‘’ became the Son of Man [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from Son of God to Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd instalment, 2020, 0:14:20]]
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{{BS|H}}HARAPPA CULTURE

* The ‘’‘Harappa culture’‘’' (Indus culture) is to be placed between 2800 and 1800 BC and must not be confused with the primeval Indian epoch [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Consciousness change - Descent into the sensual 1:27:48|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 1:27:48]]

HERACLITE

* The philosopher ‘’‘Heraclitus’‘’ was initiated into the mystery of Ephesus [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Heraclitus and Daimon 1:12:10|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 1:12:10]]

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{{BS|I}}INCARNATION OF CHRIST

* The ‘’‘incarnation of Christ’‘’ on earth begins with the baptism in the Jordan and ends in the mystery of Golgotha at the moment of death on the cross [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|J}}

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{{BS|K}}KAMALOKA

* When we go through the ‘’‘Kamaloka’‘’' (purgatory), we experience what other beings have experienced in us in joy or pain by meeting us [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#What happens to us after death? 0:22:30|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 0:22:30]]

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{{BS|L}}LAZARUS

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The relationship of John to the church of Ephesus 0:47:40|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd instalment, 2020, 0:47:40]]
* The powers of the ‘’‘Spirit of Life’‘’ are the powers that were taken from us by the Fall [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Giving Christ the powers of the Spirit of Life 1:52:13|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 1:52:13]]

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{{BS|M}}

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{{BS|N}}NICOLAITES

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2. 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#A new initiation process begins with Lazarus 1:44:51|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 1:44:51]]

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{{BS|O}}

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{{BS|P}}PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the ‘’‘physical body’‘’ to acquire and maintain our I-consciousness [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|Q}}

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{{BS|S}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 - 2nd 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, 2nd episode, 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The first three years of life - from the Son of God to the Son of Man 0:14:20|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 0:14:20]]

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{{BS|U}}URPFLANZE

* 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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body as the basis of our I-Consciousness 0:08:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 0:08:22]]

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{{BS|V}}VISHVA KARMAN

* ‘’‘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 [[The Apocalypse of John - 2nd lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Why must Judas betray the Christ? 1:03:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 2nd episode, 2020, 1:03:52]]

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{{BS|0-9}}SIEBENZAHL

* 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 - 2nd 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, 2nd instalment, 2020, 0:00:51]]
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== {{All episodes at a glance}} ==
{{Apocalypse lectures as a table}}[[The Apocalypse of John - all lectures by Wolfgang Peter|| The Apocalypse of John - all lectures |]]
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==Literature references==
{{Literature references lecture cycle Apocalypse}}

-[[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. Vortrag von Wolfgang Peter#Die erste Gemeinde - die urindische Kulturepoche 0:25:58|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, [[A:GA 346|GA 346]] (2001), <nowiki>ISBN 3-7274-3460-0</nowiki>;

Rudolf Steiner: [[Die Apokalypse des Johannes - 2. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Mit Lazarus beginnt ein neuer Einweihungsprozess 1:44:51|Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten,]]. GA 10, 1904-1905
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The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-25T20:05:31Z

Admin: /* t=3006s Repeated earthly lives and human freedom 0:50:06 */

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[[File:1.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM|thumb|Link to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/jc3wz02vgbi6mq4/1.apo.mp3?dl=0 audio] ]]

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== MAIN TOPIC ==
This lecture focuses on insights into the ‘’‘vision of John’‘’, written on the island of Patmos, which he shared in a letter to the seven churches (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea). According to the [[A:Book of Revelation of John|Book of Revelation of John]], it was dictated to the evangelist John by the Christ in order to encourage and admonish the communities. According to Rudolf Steiner, the [[A:seven churches|seven churches]] represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era. [[A:Patmos|Patmos]] was closely connected with the mystery centre [[A:Ephesus|Ephesus]], where all the Christian centres were initially located. John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) translated his experienced imagination into sensual images. In a highly differentiated spiritual experience, it unfolded like a panorama in which he could wander around spiritually.

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== Transcription of the 1. lecture of the Apocalypse of John ==
by Ghislaine, Susanne, Elke (December 2022)

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=36s Introduction 0:00:36] ===
So, my dear friends, I think we'll just start. No one has missed anything. So even those who were not there last time have not missed much. Basically, we have only dealt with the beginning of the Apocalypse of John. Basically, we had the first sentence and have linked a lot to it.

So the question we had is: ‘’‘Who is this John who writes this Apocalypse of John and who also wrote the Gospel of John?’‘’ So the evangelist John - how did he become the person who was able to write these things? And we came to the conclusion, based on Rudolf Steiner's indications, that it was in fact ‘’‘the resurrected Lazarus’‘’. You may know that. It is described in the Bible in the New Testament, ‘’‘the raising of Lazarus’‘’ as a, in a certain sense, ‘’‘raising of the dead’‘’, as it is called, which in truth is ‘’‘an initiation process’‘’. An initiation process that in a certain sense is similar to what has been customary since Egyptian times. We then also spoke at length about the Egyptian initiation. In those days, the ‘’‘initiation students’‘’ had to undergo long and difficult ‘’‘examinations’‘’ before they were admitted to the ‘’‘central initiation experience’‘’. These examinations repeatedly led them into ‘’‘life-threatening’‘’ situations. That was such an important point. The ‘’‘willpower was trained’‘’, and it was also trained that he really walks at the ‘’‘edge of death’‘’ in a certain way during these tests - and when the initiate was found to be ready for the great test, then he was actually put in a ‘’‘dead-like state’‘’ for ‘’‘three days’‘’ or three and a half days. This was done through ‘’‘meditation’‘, and also through certain substances that were given to them, “”’drugs‘’‘ if you will, which could have induced a state of apparent death, one might say. Because the goal of the initiation was to be able to “”’report from the spiritual world‘’, to be able to experience something there and to be able to report from there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=194s Initiation in ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14] ===
The problem is: how do you get there, how do you experience something beyond the threshold? The way that was taken in Egyptian culture, but basically in all advanced civilisations at that time, was to actually put people into this state that is similar to death for three and a half days. For about three and a half days. If you are familiar with Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of what happens after death, then you know that ‘’‘about three and a half days’‘’ after death, you experience ‘’‘a review of your past life on earth’‘’.

This image of one's past life appears before one as if in a great ‘’‘panorama of life’‘’, and one realises what one has done in this life, one really gets to know oneself in a certain way. You see this image from a very interesting distance, like a ‘’‘beautiful panorama’‘’, you could say, so you can even see the ‘’‘negative events’‘’ in their ‘’‘meaning for life’‘’ and what you take away from them in a certain way. So it is a very ‘’‘sunny’‘’, a very ‘’‘joyful experience’‘’. As a side note, these are, for example, the descriptions that can be found in ‘’‘Islam’‘’, ‘’‘given by Mohammed’‘’, where he speaks of the ‘’‘joys of paradise’‘’, which refer primarily to the experience of this life panorama, that is, these very happy experiences in the three days after death. So there is nothing unpleasant for the person who has passed over. The only thing that one does not yet experience or receive is a direct insight into the real spiritual world. It is still a ‘’‘memory of earthly life’‘’. This is connected with the fact that the ‘’‘life forces’‘’ that have animated us during our entire earthly life, that have animated the body, remain in a certain ‘’‘closer connection’‘’ during these three days or three and a half days. So the etheric body of the human being - the life forces are this etheric body of the human being, the ‘’‘etheric body is also the bearer of memory’‘’, the actual bearer of memory - remains in a certain compact form during these three and a half days and then begins to dissolve. Dissolving means that it connects with the ‘’‘world ether’‘’ and then this panorama disappears in a certain way.

And only then, ‘’‘when this panorama disappears, does the actual view into the soul world’‘’ begin, initially not yet into higher spiritual worlds, but at least into the soul world. So only then have you really ‘’‘crossed the threshold’‘’ properly. And that means that if you ultimately put a person in a state similar to death for the purpose of initiation, you have to get through these three or three and a half days - or at least get to ‘’‘this border - so that you can get any insight into the spiritual world or, more precisely, into the soul world’‘, because before that you only experience the “”’review of earthly life‘’'. Looking back means that you can basically move freely in this panorama of life, so to speak, you can look at different events in life and observe them from a higher perspective, as it were. But that is not yet the actual spiritual. So you have to get over this boundary three/three and a half days, but you had to be very careful at the Egyptian initiation ‘’‘that the connection to the physical body’‘’, which now lies there like dead - often really put into a sarcophagus for the purpose of initiation - that the connection to this physical body ‘’‘does not break off completely’‘’. Because if it is completely severed, if the life is completely out, the soul is completely out, the spiritual is completely out and this connection is severed, then there is no way back. Then death really occurs. And the Egyptian initiation was set up in such a way that the ‘’‘priesthood,’‘’ which ‘’‘oversaw this initiation process’‘’ - there were usually twelve priests who were around the person being initiated and monitored this state - that they could observe exactly when the last possible moment was ‘’‘when they had to bring him back.’‘’ So he was brought back mainly by letting sunlight fall on him in the right way. So through the ‘’‘light’‘’ he was ‘’‘woken up,’‘’ but also, of course, through recitation and the like, through incense that was burnt, through awakening explanations. And then he had to be brought back very quickly - and the initiation student was ‘’‘trained’‘’ and practised ‘’‘to report quickly what he had seen over there.’‘’ It's a bit like waking up from a dream in the morning. If you don't immediately write down what happened in the dream, it's usually gone and you can't remember it anymore. Because you can't store dream experiences, or even less spiritual experiences, in our normal memory.

So you can't really hold on to an ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ a real imagination - and that is an imagination that a person has in the initiation at first - with your memory. At most, you can try to get back to such an experience. If you want to have it again, you actually have to go back there and see it again. What I can remember very well is when I wake up or come out of it, as it was in the Egyptian initiation, and put it into words and tell it. I can remember these words. And not only the initiate has to remember these words for a lifetime, but also the priesthood that surrounded him. They have kept these words in their memory after hearing them once. And it must be said that this initiate did not speak in everyday language, but rather ‘’‘in a ritual language,’‘’ that is, ‘’‘with certain rhythms,’‘’ which are inherent in it. It was the Egyptian language in terms of the words. But the way it was formulated, we would say today, ‘’‘it was poetic, it was ritualistic,’‘’ and that was immediately impressed on the memory. It is this ‘’‘elevated priestly way of speaking’‘’ and to a certain extent it has remained with us to this day. It is absorbed differently, it has a different effect. But nevertheless, it is a translation of the spiritual experience into an earthly language. One must bear in mind that even in the life after death, ‘’‘the language’‘’ that we have spoken here on earth ‘’‘disappears.’‘’ It disappears very quickly. Not immediately after the three and a half days, but very soon it is gone. It is, if you like, ‘’‘a spiritual language’‘’ that one then speaks, but that is then only an auxiliary term to call it ‘language’, it is a different experience. This means that the initiate had to ‘’‘get over these three and a half days’‘’, then he could have the experience of ‘over there’, that is, from the other side of the threshold - and at the moment of waking up he could bring this experience in. Bring it in for himself and ‘’‘for the priesthood,’‘’ which surrounded him.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=712s The Initiation of Lazarus 0:11:52] ===
And something similar also happened during the ‘’‘initiation of Lazarus.’‘’ Only the starting point was different. This Lazarus was not put into a death-like state by a priesthood or anyone else, but rather he - one could say - ‘’‘fell into this state on his own.’‘’ I say ‘on his own’, but I must also add that it was in a certain way the after-effect of the words of the priest with whom he had a lot of contact. I must also say that ‘’‘Lazarus was a very important man in Jerusalem, a very rich man’‘’ and very well known. He was known throughout Jerusalem, and he also made a name for himself as a follower of Christ. He experienced what Christ said so intensely that, as a result of this experience, he fell into this death-like state of his own accord. He fell into this state so deeply that the people around him thought he had died and laid him in the grave afterwards. And when the Christ then learns that Lazarus has died, he ‘’‘takes a very long time’‘’ and does not go to ‘’‘Lazarus in Bethany’‘’ to wake him up. He simply waits. He waits for two days, but nothing happens. And then he sets off - and only on the fourth day, at the very last possible moment, on the fourth day, which is really very late, does he wake Lazarus with the words ‘’‘«Lazarus, come out»’‘’. In a figurative sense, these were the words of awakening, as the Egyptians also spoke them, of course in Egyptian. And Lazarus now brought with him a great deal of experience, and ‘’‘the Gospel of John, for example, arose from the after-effects of these experiences,’‘’ and also, in a certain sense, ‘’‘the Apocalypse of John,’‘’, but that is a deeper level in a certain sense. Of course, you might ask why he is now called John and no longer Lazarus. He was not called John before. We also tried to find out where that came from last time. To do so, you have to know that relatively shortly before Lazarus was resurrected, John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod; you are sure to know the story. And the point is that after the death of John the Baptist - now - this ‘’‘John the Baptist’‘’ became something like ‘’‘a kind of protective spirit or community spirit of the twelve apostles.’‘’ The twelve apostles also included the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, so also a John, but ‘’‘John Zebedee.’‘’

So, among these twelve apostles, John the Evangelist is not to be counted initially, but now the following is the case: the spirit of this John the Baptist becomes in some way ‘’‘something like an inspiring community soul’‘’ and community spirit of this circle of twelve, these twelve apostles, and the whole thing then becomes even more condensed. There is then the transfiguration of Christ. This is also shortly before the resurrection of Lazarus, when ‘’‘this effect of John the Baptist's is concentrated’‘’ on the apostles, now on three very specific apostles, ‘’‘the two sons of Zebedee and Peter.’‘’ That means that he is now only the community spirit of these three, if you will. They thereby attain a higher level of knowledge. The other apostles would not have been able to experience the transfiguration, which is a spiritual experience, only the three of them could. And with the raising of Lazarus, the last condensation takes place, if you will. A very close bond is created between Lazarus, who is resurrected and goes through this initiation, and the spirit of John the Baptist.

It is important to know that ‘’‘at every initiation’‘’, when it happens, ‘’‘a person on earth’‘’ always works together ‘’‘with at least one spiritual being,’‘’ who is on the other side. It cannot be any other way. One has to come to a very concrete connection with a spiritual being from the other side. One does not simply enter the spiritual world. It is teeming with spiritual beings, one looks at that. But it is actually only possible if one gets a very, very intense relationship with a very specific spiritual being, with whom one is connected by fate or comes into contact with. And in this case, it is ‘’‘this connection between Lazarus here on earth and John the Baptist,’‘’ who is over there. And Lazarus gets his initiation name John after this John the Baptist. So this explains why we have a ‘’‘Gospel of John’‘’ and why this John is not John Zebedee, but someone else. But this resurrected ‘’‘Lazarus/John takes part in the Last Supper.’‘’ He is always referred to in the Gospel as ‘’‘the disciple whom the Lord loved.’‘’ That is, the one who rests in the Lord's bosom, who rests on his breast, who is not named, but who is, so to speak, one of the twelve apostles and at the same time the resurrected Lazarus, who is called John because he is connected with John the Baptist. And now, at this moment, he is also the apostle John, namely during the Last Supper. This is when the circle of the twelve is finally completed. That is to say, John Zebedee was, in a certain sense, the representative of the resurrected Lazarus, who has now become John. And this is, so to speak, the final form of the ‘’‘circle of the twelve, the twelve apostles.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1168s The Christ and the realm of death 0:19:28] ===
It is quite interesting because all of this event really condenses around the Christ, most of all condenses in this last moment ‘’‘beginning with Maundy Thursday’‘’. Yes, perhaps with the whole of Holy Week before that, but especially with Maundy Thursday, and then of course with the experience of ‘’‘Good Friday.’‘’ With the death, the ‘’‘crucifixion of Jesus Christ,’‘’ there is also the moment of the fullest incarnation. One has to think that the incarnation of Christ begins with the baptism of John, three years before, and is a gradual process. It did not happen in one fell swoop; you don't have to believe that Christ was fully incarnated at the time of his baptism in the Jordan, but it is a process that continues until the last minute, until the last minute it is completed. Then it is accomplished. So when the ‘’‘Christ's words on the cross are “It is finished”’‘’, that is exactly what is meant, namely, ‘’‘that the incarnation has now been completed’‘’ and Christ has become fully human. Immediately at the moment of death. It is very important that this incarnation takes place in its full fullness, in its entirety, basically ‘’‘in a single moment.’‘’ That is the moment when he passes through death, the Christ - and descends into the realm of death. We know that Holy Saturday is the descent into the underworld, the descent into hell, if you will, the descent into the realm of the dead, into the realm of death. Something that is not normally possible in the times. Before the angelic beings, archangels, original angels, etc., and even before Christ, human beings preceded all other spiritual beings in entering the realm of death, in entering this darkness, in entering hell, if you will, in entering the realm of the dead. We were the ones who had experience of it, at least to a certain extent. But ‘’‘all the other spiritual beings,’‘’ who are above us, up to the Christ, ‘’‘did not know the realm of death.’‘’ In the spiritual world, there is no death. It is a very special realm, and the fact that ‘’‘the Christ completed his humanity on Golgotha’‘’ also enables him to descend into this realm of death.

It is also very clearly stated in the text of the Apocalypse, which I will perhaps read out. I have to find the passage quickly... Yes, it is still in the first chapter, towards the end of the first chapter, and there ‘’‘John has a Christ encounter.’‘’ In truth, it is ‘’‘the trigger’‘’ for the whole writing of the Apocalypse of John. Because you have to think about what ‘Apocalypse of John’ means. These are the first words with which he begins: ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is what it actually says. The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ - and Apocalypse means as much as ‘’‘revelation, manifestation’‘’. So it is about the revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ. That is the content of the Apocalypse. And we also pointed out last time that the Christ is very closely connected with our human ego. We will have to work on this much more precisely in the next lecture or lectures. The Apocalypse has something to do with ‘’‘revealing the essence of our ego.’‘’ And what significance Christ has for this. So what John describes here is really an encounter with Christ, and he then says:<blockquote>‘’«When I saw him, I fell at his feet and was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Falling at his feet and being dead is another image for the fact that he is actually experiencing something that is beyond the threshold, on the other side of the threshold. So it is not a sensual event, but ‘’‘a spiritual experience,’‘’ that he has. And then it goes on:<blockquote>‘’«But he (that is, the Christ) laid his right hand on me and said: Fear not. I am the first and the last and the living. I was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Please note the «‘’I was dead»,‘’ says the Christ. No spiritual being could have said that about a human being until then. None of these beings had ever been dead. ‘’‘I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine.’‘’ So, the ‘’‘Christ has the key to the realm of death and the shadows’‘’. That is also something very important.

JOHN THE BAPTIST APOSTLE The spirit of John the Baptist became something like an inspiring community soul and community spirit of the circle of twelve apostles [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the Kingdom of Death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

CHRIST'S DEATH As the only higher spiritual being, the Christ knows death. Therefore he said: ‘’‘Mine is the key to the kingdom of death and the shadows’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the kingdom of death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1579s The Shadow Powers in the Realm of Death 0:26:19] ===
A little later in the Apocalypse, we will hear about the Key of David. ‘’‘The Key of David is the key to the spiritual world.’‘’ And we as human beings, if we strive spiritually, have access to both keys in a certain way. We can ‘’‘open or close the gate to the spiritual world.’‘’ We can open and close the gate to the world of death, to the world of shadows. This is connected to our ‘’‘human freedom’‘’ - or it is based on the fact that we can open these gates in a certain sense by our own power. That is the essential passage for us. This ‘’«I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine»‘’. And it was precisely into this realm of death that John himself went, that is, Lazarus/John‘’‘ in the course of his “”’initiation.‘’' This is the path that one has to go through. It should be said that this encounter with the ‘’‘realm of shadows’‘’ is particularly important in the initiation process. It is not usually the case that when one passes over the threshold in a normal way, that is to say, through death, one experiences too much of this realm of shadows immediately after death. If one passes through in the state of initiation, that is to say, in this sleep similar to death, then one is very much confronted with this realm. Very clearly. And also with all the shadowy sides that exist there and the temptations that are associated with them. These are experienced very strongly and it was precisely this that the Egyptian initiates had to prepare themselves for very intensively. This test, that is actually the Ahrimanic side that one encounters in order to get through it. So that means that these were often very gruesome experiences that this initiate had to go through again and again over the years - and they increased more and more. Only when they had endured this were they ‘’‘found ripe’‘’ to really go through the last great test, the three-day sleep of death.

Of course, all kinds of elements associated with this ‘’‘dark world of death’‘’ are now included in the ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’. This revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ also reveals the spiritual world that is above us. But it also reveals the world that lies below us, or works among us, or simmers among us, however you want to call it. This is the very special position we have as human beings, this spiritual being that we are as human beings, that we stand between the spiritual world above us and the world of death below us. Exactly on the border. If you want an image of it: ‘’‘The surface of the earth’‘’ on which we stand is exactly ‘’‘the border line.’‘’ It goes up there - and down there. We have to concern ourselves with both realms. In the Egyptian initiation, and in the initiation of the ancient Orient in general, the main aim was to gain ‘’‘knowledge of the light side,’‘’ that is, the side that lies above us, because the power to deal with the dark side was not yet very strong. So people had certain experiences that foreshadowed something that we basically have to experience to a much greater extent today if we want to enter the spiritual world. For the person who wants to have real spiritual experiences today or is mature enough to have them... Anyone who wants to have ‘’‘such insights’‘’ today and also wants to have them ‘’‘in a healthy way’‘’ must or ‘’‘should not be afraid of confronting the dark forces.’‘’

FREEDOM OF MAN As human beings, if we strive spiritually, we can open or close the door to the spiritual world. This is connected with our human freedom [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Shadow Forces in the Realm of Death 0:26:19|[1 | 0:26:19]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28] ===
This is one of the reasons why Dante ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’ in his ‘’‘Divine Comedy’‘’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’. Basically, what Dante describes there ‘’‘is also an initiation experience.’‘’ He shows very clearly how the path to the upper spiritual world, that is, what he also ‘’‘refers to as paradise,’‘’ leads through the underworld. That the right way is not a direct ascent to paradise, that one would fail there, that one would in fact come to a bright world, but it would be the Luciferic world. It would not be the real spiritual world, but it would be ‘’‘the world of Luciferic beings.’‘’ They are also spiritual beings, but spiritual beings that have ‘’‘in a sense remained behind,’‘’ that is, they have not developed their full spiritual powers. This means that if a person were to integrate themselves into this realm, they would ultimately also block or at least slow down their path to the future. In pre-Christian times, it was not yet so problematic. But in the post-Christian era, it becomes ‘’‘problematic’‘’. That means that ‘’‘we have to pass the test of going through the underworld’‘’, if you will. That is why ‘’‘Dante’‘’ describes it so clearly in his «Divine Comedy»: the path goes down to the centre of the earth. This is of course a metaphor. It is not about descending with crampons, drilling into the earth, but ‘’‘going down spiritually.’‘’ Descending ‘’‘into the dark depths of our own being’‘’ and the dark depths of the earthly world. So we have to think that our earth itself has this dual nature. On the one hand, a multitude of ‘’‘light-filled spiritual forces’‘’, high spiritual forces, but there are also ‘’‘dark forces’‘’ in it. Down there in the earth, that is the realm of Ahriman. That is the realm of the spirits of darkness, if you will. Lucifer hovers a little above it, but Ahriman and even stronger opposing forces live down there. And that is exactly where you have to go through.

In Dante's version, the path leads ‘’‘through the centre of the earth.’‘’ Then the ascent begins. Interestingly, it happens very quickly, he scurries up a few levels and lands on the surface of the earth, emerging at the ‘’‘Mountain of Purification’‘’. And the Mountain of Purification is what leads him to the so-called ‘’‘Purgatory’‘’, ‘’‘to the Fiery Furnace’', if you will. So this is the first supernatural realm that leads beyond the earth. And this is precisely the realm in which the Luciferic beings essentially live. There we must then ‘’‘purify ourselves’‘’ from all these ‘’‘Luciferic forces’‘’ in order to be able to ascend into the real paradise and the real spiritual world. That is the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy. But this applies to all forms of Christian initiation in a certain way. These stages are somewhere inside, it is hardly where it is expressed as clearly as in Dante, so systematically. But it is just as much in the Apocalypse. There you also find the confrontation with the very, very dark forces. That is why there are also images that seem very frightening at first glance. But in reality they are only an expression of a purification process that we have to go through. If we did not go through it, we would not get an insight into the spiritual world.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2147s The New Jerusalem - a new earth 0:35:47] ===
In the Book of Revelation, the view is opened above all to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem.’‘’ The New Jerusalem is ‘’‘a kind of new planetary state,’‘’ which will one day become ‘’‘our earth’‘’. When we as humanity and the Earth as a whole have gone through a certain development, at some point in the future the Earth as the planet as we know it will die, perish, be destroyed. It must be destroyed, just as our physical body must ultimately be destroyed - and then the New Jerusalem will arise. ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often calls it’‘’ in his lectures... he calls it ‘’‘the New Jupiter’‘’, which will come. This is a kind of new planet that will of course be different from our Earth. It is still a long way off, we still have a little time to go, but there we will be ‘’‘transferred to a new, higher spiritual state’‘’. But we will be mature enough to enter this higher spiritual state. A state that is in some ways ‘’‘comparable’‘’ to what ‘’‘today's angelic beings’‘’ possess. It will be different from our present-day angelic beings, but in terms of spiritual potency it is comparable to them. And then, above all, we will not have a body like the one we have today - and above all under different conditions. An important moment in the Book of Revelation is also given where John speaks of the ‘’‘so-called first death and the so-called second death’‘’. It is quite late in the Apocalypse, so one wonders what the first and second death are. I don't want to go into detail about this today either. But it has to do with the fact that we will finally lay down our physical body there. We will lay it down in every conceivable form and will not get it back in this form, so we have to learn to live without it. So, ‘’‘the first death’‘’ has to do with ‘’‘finally laying down the physical body forever.’‘’ And ‘’‘the second death’‘’ means finally ‘’‘laying down the corresponding etheric body.’‘’ That does not mean that we will then no longer have anything etheric, but no longer in the form that we have now. We will discuss this in more detail in the next lecture, but for now, this is just a suggestion.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2334s The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54] ===
I have now repeated a lot of what we discussed last time. Now we should move on a little and look at what is described in the Apocalypse. I will just read a short passage and then explain it. So in the first chapter, before the passage I read to you, John now addresses his ‘’‘words to the seven churches in Asia’‘’. So seven Christian communities in Asia - there were certainly more communities - they are the seven, if you will, leading communities, at least in the spiritual sense, in the outward sense it was a different chapter. We will encounter the ‘’‘number seven’‘’ very often in the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of John works a lot with ‘’‘number rhythms’‘’, they play a very important role. Wherever the number seven occurs, we can always be aware that it has something to do with a temporal development, with an evolution, with a series of developments. The number seven is also the ‘’‘number of the etheric,’‘’ for example. ‘’‘The etheric forces,’‘’ the life forces, ‘’‘have something to do with time.’‘’ Life takes place in time and life becomes rigid when nothing changes any more. Then death has occurred. After death, decay always follows. But no longer a living development.

So when the number seven plays a role, it always refers to a living development. For example, the human body renews itself about every seven years. This is one of the reasons why ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often speaks clearly in his education’‘’ about these ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’ that people go through: that ‘’‘the child’‘’ enters school at the age of seven, with the change of teeth , that puberty begins at the age of fourteen, that new spiritual forces awaken, that the twenty-first year of life is very important, that the ego begins to emerge very clearly. And so it goes on - again and again in ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’, which are no longer so noticeable externally. But if you look a little more closely, they are there too. Externally, they are connected to the fact that ‘’‘the body physically renews itself every seven years’‘’ and that, over the course of about seven years, it has ‘’‘completely exchanged its material’‘’. Rudolf Steiner always pointed this out, but it was often dismissed as an old wives' tale. You know that scientists never believe anything at first, they are always sceptical - that is perhaps also their virtue. But if they are thorough, they are open to being taught otherwise. It is actually the case that in recent years, through systematic medical, biological and chemical research, it has been possible to prove that the substances in the human body renew themselves on average every seven years. Some take a little longer, some renew themselves more quickly, but if you take the average, it really is every seven years.

So, in terms of our material substance, nothing that was there seven years ago is still there. We have become something completely new in terms of our material substance, but we have retained our forms to a certain extent, at least to the extent that we are usually recognised again after seven years. We can get a little older, we change a little, but we are still clearly recognisable as human beings. So the form, that is to say the etheric forces that renew this form again and again, they go through this whole ‘’‘seven-year period’‘’, but ‘’‘the physical is renewed again and again.’‘’ Basically, physically speaking, we do not die only once at the end of our lives, but in every seven-year period we basically, materially speaking, discard a corpse. Scattered into the world. It happens quite inconspicuously, with every breath we take, with every piece of food we eat and then excrete again, with what we sweat out and so on. All of this is shed, with the scales on our skin, where something is constantly being shed, something is always being lost. So, materially speaking, we are completely new people after seven years. And ‘’‘behind it all is ultimately a rhythm of the etheric body. It is this that in truth,’‘’ causes these seven-year cycles. With many sub-rhythms that also play a role. Today, science is already investigating - there is a discipline that has developed in this way since the middle of the twentieth century and has become increasingly clear in recent years, and that is ‘’‘chronobiology’‘’. Chronobiology is concerned with the rhythms that operate in the human body, and also in animals. And many exciting things have been discovered - among other things, the daily rhythm plays a major role, but so do seven-day rhythms, for example the seven-day rhythm as a quarter of a month. The month is again connected with the ‘’‘moon rhythm’‘’, the daily rhythm, which is connected with the rotation of the earth, the moon rhythm is connected with the moon's orbit. It has its subdivisions and a quarter of it is about seven days. It is also not by chance that we have a ‘’‘seven-day week’‘’. It is very wise. The ‘’‘calendar’‘’ could be organised in a completely different way, but then it would no longer be ‘’‘in harmony with these natural rhythms.’‘’ These natural rhythms are actually based on the etheric body. It is behind them - or the etheric world in general. From a cosmic point of view, it is the etheric world; in us, it is the etheric body, the internalisation of these rhythms. There are x rhythms in the body, very, very fast ones that vibrate very ‘’‘nervously’‘, so to speak - I say nervously on purpose, because it is very strongly “”’connected to the nervous system‘’‘ - and there are much longer rhythms that go more leisurely and renew us right down to the “”’metabolic processes‘’' within seven years.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2778s Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18] ===
So John has a lot to do with these forces, and that is why he often speaks of the number seven and that is why he also speaks of the seven churches ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). That is the reason. That is the real reason, because these ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ are - one could say - ‘’‘representatives of certain stages of development’‘’. So they represent seven stages of development that together make up a whole. Yes, I'll read a bit of it out:<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be yours from him,‘’

‘’who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven spirits of creation before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>From him who is and who was and who is to come - well, he basically spanned ‘’‘the whole time’‘’, the past, the present and the future, ‘’‘drawing the bow.’‘’

In the spiritual self, time and temporal development no longer play the same role as they do here in our earthly lives. In a sense, we enter the ‘’‘realm of eternity, of timelessness’‘’ - and yet there is movement in it. That seems paradoxical: how can there be movement if there is no time? Basically, you can move freely, as I should say, in what we call time, here as time. This actually begins in the ‘’‘etheric world’‘’. The experience in the etheric world is such that we can ‘’‘move freely in time’‘’. This means that we can go back, not just look back, but really go back - in an etheric way. But we can also go into the future, take a look, so to speak, into the future at least. How this future, which we experience in the etheric, is then realised in the physical, is another chapter. The etheric world is much, much richer than the physical world - and ‘’‘the physical’‘’ is actually something that has died, something that has ‘’‘died out of the etheric world’‘’. And that means that the physical manifests itself when something etheric dies, but much other etheric continues. And the etheric encompasses the future, everything that continues in the etheric world. And one thing dies out again and again, so to speak, and manifests itself here as something physical. What we can see today in the etheric is this whole abundance, which, from our point of view, flows or goes into the future. What we cannot foresee is every single physical event that dies out. So we cannot see exactly what will die in the etheric. But we can see at least a certain line, a certain direction in which the whole thing is going. We also see that certain things ‘’‘have to happen,’‘’ namely ‘’‘as compensation for what happened in the past’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM& Repeated earthly lives and human freedom 0:50:06] ===
I now have to make a connection to another sub-topic, so to speak, namely the topic of ‘’‘reincarnation and karma’‘’. As you know, if you are already familiar with anthroposophy, we are talking about ‘’‘repeated earthly lives.’‘’ Human beings do not live on earth just once, but repeatedly. This means that when they die, they first pass through the ‘’‘soul world’‘, then through the “”’spiritual world‘’, and then descend again after a shorter or longer period of time to ‘’‘a new incarnation’‘’. Simply because this earthly existence offers us so many opportunities for development that we could not exhaust in a single incarnation. Or we are ‘’‘not spiritually advanced enough to be able to complete our earthly development in a single incarnation.’‘’ We need a little more time. We have to go through it a few times. We are pupils who may have to repeat a few years. Of course, we can distinguish ourselves during our earthly incarnation. In a certain sense, ‘’‘the spiritual beings above us’‘’ cannot ‘’‘make any mistakes.’‘’

You could say: ‘Well, I'd like to be like that too, that would be great.’ Yes, but then we would not have ‘’‘freedom’‘’. This is a big word, because it says that even the angelic beings that are above us - and also the higher angelic beings that are above them, right up to the highest angelic beings - do not have the freedom that human beings have. They ‘’‘fulfil’‘’ God's will as a matter of course, if you want to put it in our terms. That means that the higher spiritual beings that are above them flow into them, they absorb it and ‘’‘act on it. Without error.’‘’ That is wonderful. Basically, nothing can go wrong. But - they have no free decision-making ability as a result. They don't even get the idea. Actually, the highest spiritual source, that is, the divine self, had to create the possibility for freedom in the world, and this is connected with the ability not to follow the error that flows down from the spiritual world. ‘’‘What distinguishes us as human beings is,’‘’ that we ‘’‘can't follow’‘’ the spiritual world. You could say that this cannot be the ideal of a human being, that we should now rebel against the divine. Well, yes and no. It is the prerequisite for us to be able to turn to the spiritual again in freedom after we have rebelled against it. This gives it a completely different quality. We fulfil ourselves with the spiritual, not because we cannot do otherwise, but because we fulfil ourselves with it because we want to, ‘’‘out of our own free will’‘’. But that means that a spiritual element lives in us that is comparable to the highest spiritual world from which everything flows. That means that a source ‘’‘opens up in us, in our I,’‘’ that is truly, one has to say it like this, ‘’‘of the same essence’‘’ ‘’‘as the highest divine being.’‘’ Even if it is, so to speak, the small version of it, ‘’‘the miniature version,’‘’, and we only experience it in individual moments, perhaps once in an incarnation or perhaps not at all in five incarnations, but there is a moment when we are of the same essence as the highest divine. When we are the embodiment of the divine. When we are ‘’‘of the same essence as Christ’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3292s The mystery of the self 0:54:52] ===
There is a beautiful ‘’‘Pauline saying’‘’ that Rudolf Steiner often mentions and usually says in the form: ‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me’‘’. This word could easily be misunderstood if we were to say: ‘I give up my free will and let Christ do things for me or through me.’ But that is not what is meant. The ‘not I’ refers to my little ‘’‘everyday ego’‘’ - which is not our true self - and we must eliminate it. So whether we love a roast pork or are grumpy because of our personal circumstances has nothing to do with the spiritual world. That gets in our way. So this ‘’‘ego, this “I want, I want, I have to, I need”’, that's what we actually have to get rid of. But ‘’‘our real self,’‘’ we will not really experience in its concrete form in everyday life. We know that we have an ego, but that's all we know about it in our everyday consciousness. It has nothing to do with how we were born, what education we have, how much money we have, it doesn't matter at all. It really has nothing to do with our ego. You have to get to ‘’‘the conscious experience of your own ego’‘’. But it's a great moment to experience that we have one. Children usually experience it around the age of three. Then it hits them: ‘I am an I’. Many people can no longer remember this later in life. Sometimes it reappears later in life, in old age, just like ‘’‘memories of early childhood’‘’ tend to resurface in old age. But some people never forget this experience.

I can remember the experience incredibly well and in great detail. It was sometime in November, maybe even on my third birthday. If it wasn't on my third birthday, then it was on St Nicholas‘ Day. My parents were there, my maternal grandmother, uncles, aunts, behind me was a fireplace that was lit, it was already quite dark. Suddenly, I looked around me with wide, astonished eyes and realised, “”’I'm something different.‘’' I'll never forget it. It was like a shock, I can't say whether it was devastating - no, it certainly wasn't devastating - I didn't know that - but it was just so emphatic that it kept coming back to me. And I have to say, the older I get, the clearer it is.

There are also such moments later in life. Rudolf Steiner describes how he experienced this in his twenty-first year, when the I becomes even more awake. I'll have to read that out one day. It's quite interesting. He read about it in the works of the philosopher ‘’‘Schelling’', who also describes this experience. And then Steiner describes how he had this experience himself. He was also sure that he had had this experience. So, you can have this experience of the self at different levels. It is not to be compared with the everyday ego that we have. Having this experience of the self has something to do with the apocalypse. The ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is also the ‘Apocalypse of one's own self’, namely at the moment ‘when I and Christ are one in essence’. At the moment when one has such an experience, this ‘unity of essence’ is there. Only for a moment, then it disappears again - or at least it is not in our consciousness. In reality, it is somehow already there, but we cannot make ourselves aware of it again, perhaps not for years, not until the end of our lives. But in that one moment it is there. That is what Paul meant when he said: ‘It is not I, but Christ in me.’ You could also formulate it in the sense of: ‘It is not my little self, but my real I in me.’ It is actually exactly the same.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3618s Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and correction 1:00:18] ===
Let's go back to the seven churches in Asia. It was a bit of a detour. Yes, there was something I wanted to say, but I lost sight of it. It has to do with the ‘’‘repeated earthly lives,’‘’ that we have to go through. It is only through these many earthly lives that our ego develops further. We can only acquire an awareness of our own self through many lives on earth. But ‘’‘we also make mistakes on earth,’‘’ we are not like the angels above us, where the spiritual simply flows into us and we implement it, but we can err, we can make mistakes - and thus take on a task, namely by making these mistakes, we change the course of the world in a certain way. It is up to us to ‘’‘correct it again.’‘’ Above all, we ourselves suffer as a result. The Christ helps us to correct the mistakes that remain in the world in a certain way. But what we destroy in ourselves by making mistakes - because mistakes also mean that we ultimately put our ego in danger or scratch it - in the next incarnation or the one after that, when our strength has grown a little, we have to correct this mistake, you could say. That is what ‘’‘is connected with our karma,’‘’ with our ‘’‘destiny’‘’. Our karma is nothing other than our ego striving to repair the damage it has done to itself, to work on it. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that we ourselves are ultimately the ones who ‘’‘send our fate’‘’, our ‘’‘karma’‘’. Our real I. No one else. We don't need to complain to anyone. We can only be happy that the Christ, by working with and in our I, but in a very individual way, ‘’‘helps us to bear this karma’‘’, that he also gives us ‘’‘strength’‘’, gives our I strength. But always only to the extent that we ‘’‘really struggle for it,’‘’ it is never just something that is given, but always something ‘’‘that we have to do’‘’. That is very important. So, that is the karma that we carry with us, that is connected with our error, with our possibilities of error. But it is precisely ‘’‘on that that we mature.’‘’ That is why the path is given for many earthly lives, so that we can experience all this and thereby learn to become free beings.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3813s The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Humanity 1:03:33] ===
But let us now return to the seven churches.<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be with you,‘’

‘’from him who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven creator spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>The seven creator spirits: Well, who are the seven creator spirits? Essentially, they are those spiritual forces or those spiritual beings who created our ‘’‘bodily shells’‘’ and prepared them so that these spiritual shells, these bodily shells - yes, I have already used the word ‘spiritual shells’ - could one day be transformed into spiritual forces. So what are these bodies: the ‘’‘physical body’‘’, the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’, that is, the life forces, then the ‘’‘astral body’‘’, which makes us a sentient, conscious being. In the etheric body, we are actually still asleep, and in the astral body, we are at least dreaming. This is exactly what we have in common with animals. So, animals also have a certain consciousness, but it is still dream-like, this ‘’‘consciousness.’‘’ If we only had this consciousness, this astral consciousness, we would not be very awake. We would not recognise ourselves as an I. That means that the ‘’‘I’‘’ comes in a certain way as the fourth, or the ‘’‘I-bearer, as Rudolf Steiner often calls it,’‘’ which is, so to speak, the physical prerequisite for an I to be able to incarnate. Incarnation means that the I completely permeates the body shells and thus ‘’‘makes the body shells’‘’ into ‘’‘I-bearers,’‘’ but that is the fourth principle. The ‘’‘I’‘’ that is now incarnating, by unfolding its spiritual forces, ‘’‘shapes the astral body, the etheric body and finally the physical body’‘’ through its spiritual forces, through the individual spiritual forces that lie within each I. The astral body, which was initially given by the spiritual beings, is transformed into what Rudolf Steiner calls the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ or our higher self. Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. This is a power that our I has at its disposal, so to speak. In the East, it is also called ‘’‘manas.’‘’ Manas has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ also comes from it, by the way. There is another word that comes from it, which can be found in the Bible, namely ‘’‘manna.’‘’ When ‘’‘Moses and the Israelites journey through the desert’', they are given manna. This is nothing other than the powers of this spirit self, which in a certain sense descend upon the Israelites as a whole, not yet upon the individual at that time, but upon the community.

When we transform the etheric body through the power of the I, then the etheric body becomes the ‘’‘life spirit’‘’. This power of the life spirit then lives within our I. That is to say, just as the body sheaths - the physical body, etheric body, astral body - surround our I from the outside, so our I envelops the spirit self and life spirit within itself - figuratively speaking. They are part of ‘’‘this I.’‘’ In the highest form, for example, it means that if I take only the spirit self, that is, the transformed astral body, then it means that our I has become capable of ‘’‘creating an astral body out of nothing.’‘’ It is something different from when we wrap ourselves in an astral body during our normal incarnation on earth. For the most part, it is only lent to us by the spiritual world - and this will continue to happen as long as we are not able to create one for ourselves out of nothing. That is then actually our real astral body. But then we no longer call it an ‘’‘astral body, but a spirit self.’‘’ He is then completely ours.

The aim of all the initiation processes that have been taking place on earth since Egyptian times, or that lead into the future in some other way, is to form ‘’‘as much as possible’‘’ of this spirit self. So, in addition to the fact that we are developing our I here on earth, the people who are really making spiritual progress are those who have already developed a good part of the spirit self. It will then be the task of the so-called ‘’‘New Jupiter’‘’ - or what John calls the ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’, which I have discussed today - to fully develop this spirit self. But we should already have a certain part of it at the end of the earth's development, then we will at least be among the spiritually more developed people. Yes, the life spirit is the transformed etheric body. We will not be able to transform the etheric body into the life spirit on our own during the development of the Earth. We can work on it, we can work on it above all, or we can bring it a little further in the direction of ‘’‘the help of the Christ.’‘’ In this case it is really the help of the Christ. That means something that cannot be accomplished by our ego. For this, for example, the word ‘’‘grace’‘’ is very important. This is a gift that Christ gives us. As far as the spirit self is concerned, that is already our own responsibility. This is the ‘’‘endowment with the Holy Spirit’‘’, as one might call it. But this Holy Spirit is then our Holy Spirit. This is not something that remains above us or directs us from outside, but something that ultimately belongs to our I. Only then has it become a true spirit self, which we are now developing during the development of the earth, and we owe this solely to our I. But what we are already producing in terms of life spirit, at least in a preliminary form, is something for which we need the help of the Christ.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4327s The physical body and our consciousness of self 1:12:07] ===
And then we will even need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ to do this, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body. Sounds paradoxical. What is a spiritualised physical body? That sounds like a contradiction. We have to think about what the physical body, in which we are now normally embodied on earth, the physical and material body, is for. Physically and materially are not exactly the same thing. ‘’‘The material’‘’ is actually what fulfils the physical form. If, for example, the Luciferic temptation had not come, that is, if we had not come under the influence of the ‘’‘opposing forces’‘’, then we would not have had the kind of physical body that we have today. It would have been invisible to the senses.

There are a great many physical beings that are not visible to our eyes. For example, there are ‘’‘elemental beings’‘’ that definitely have a physical body and yet are ‘’‘not visible to us with our physical eyes’‘’. There are whole realms of physical worlds out there that are not visible to us because they are ‘’‘not material’‘’. So, our physical body becomes visible through the material. But what does this physical body give us, precisely through the fulfilment with the material and through the problems that are associated with it? It is precisely through the material that the whole physical body tends to decay. The material has this principle of decaying from within. When the etheric body is no longer present to constantly renew these substances, in these seven-year cycles that we have spoken of, then it simply decays, just as the corpse decays with death. So, our physical body cannot maintain its form by itself. This is because we have this ‘’‘Luciferic impact’‘’. By being filled with matter, our actually imperfect invisible physical body was actually damaged. ‘’‘This is how it became visible. This is how it became mortal.’‘’ But this is also how we have gained our consciousness of self - and we gain it precisely because we are mortal.

Our consciousness of self awakens in the processes - also in life - when they are processes of decay. For example, with every nerve impulse that passes through, something dies in the brain. It is then re-energised, but actually something dies until death, until a ‘’‘salt-like state’‘’ in the nerves. This is precisely why the ‘’‘brain’‘’ is an instrument with which we can acquire ‘’‘consciousness’‘’. To do this, we need the physical, material brain. Not for thinking, actually. ‘’‘Thinking is not a function of the physical brain.’‘’ We need the brain to become aware of these thoughts, which are actually etheric forces. As a rule, we are not yet at the stage where we can consciously experience the etheric, which is not visible to the senses but only leaves its trace in the senses - then in the growth forces - in order to experience these formative forces, these etheric forces, it has to be reflected in the physical brain and it is reflected when these ‘’‘decay processes’‘’ take place in the brain. Then, when it is regenerated again, or at least regenerated to a large extent, then the consciousness is already gone again. The dying process must take place there, that is when we become aware. We have ‘’‘death’‘’, the constant death that has in truth accompanied us since birth, ‘’‘to which we owe our consciousness’‘’ - that is a prerequisite for it - and in particular ‘’‘our I-consciousness’‘’ is especially to be owed.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4595s Imagination - Experiencing in the Spiritual 1:16:35] ===
Of course, an astral body and an etheric body are also part of it, but this ability to die through the material body is very important for our consciousness. That is why we have it and why we need it. We will need it until our consciousness has become able to do without the help of these dying processes. That means that when this consciousness can now seek out another counterpart, another mirror, when it no longer needs this physical ‘’‘mirror’‘’, when it can, for example, reflect itself in the etheric, that is, in the life forces. This mirroring in the life forces, when we enter this world of life, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we ‘’‘experience imaginations’', pictures. And now we put huge quotation marks around the word “pictures” - I will come back to this - pictures from the spiritual world. They are living pictures. ‘’‘These images cannot be described’‘’ like an oil painting, an old painting on the wall, because it is a moving image that changes continuously. You can't really capture it at all. There is movement in it - we have already discussed the paradox - a ‘’‘movement that takes place in timelessness’‘’. The movement arises from the fact that we can look at this image from different perspectives, go through it and, if I translate that into the sensual, then a temporal series of developments, a temporal event, emerges from it. But in the etheric I can go forward, backward, take detours, so I can move freely. In meditation, when you really get to a true imagination, where time no longer plays a role, a true imagination, that is experienced ‘’‘in complete timelessness.’‘’ I think, if I remember correctly, I briefly mentioned in the first lecture we had, we had two lectures, that you can experience that. Because when you do ‘’‘meditation’‘’ with today's consciousness, it's not that you're completely out of it and just floating in another world, but ‘’‘we still retain’‘’ ‘’‘consciousness here for the sensory world’‘’ even when you're not focusing on it, but it remains there. I remain aware that I am in the physical world with my body. I don't enter a dream-like state of consciousness where I am lifted out and simply float above everything, somewhere. You can really notice, under certain circumstances, if there is a clock on the table somewhere, that I have an incredibly ‘’‘intense imagination’‘’, that is, a moving picture, as we have discussed, ‘’‘an incredibly rich picture’‘’. You have the feeling that what I am experiencing is something that lasts for hours, that it is something very, very long that is unfolding and unrolling before me - and when I look at the second hand of the clock, it seems to be standing still. So what I experience internally as hours or days, externally no time passes. So it is ‘’‘experienced in an instant,’‘’ measured in terms of our external time. It can happen in dreams, too, in reality. It often happens when a dream is triggered by something, especially when you wake up and enter the sensory world. For example, the morning sun comes in through the window, even with your eyes closed, your senses somehow perceive it without us being aware of the sunlight. We are still in the dream and suddenly a huge fire breaks out in the dream, a huge fire, and there you experience a long story: the fire brigade arrives, there are dramatic scenes unfolding so that the residents in the house can be rescued and you think that it has been going on for two hours. You wake up and look at the sun, which has just come around the corner, which has just appeared, almost at the same moment. So actually, these dream images also unfold in timelessness, basically. This consciousness, this imaginative consciousness is connected to the fact that when we no longer need the physical body as a mirroring apparatus for consciousness, then we mirror in the living etheric body, then ‘’‘we go out of the time stream’‘’ and ‘’‘can move freely in time.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4946s The Soul World and Time 1:22:26] ===
In the astral world, in the ‘’‘soul world’', it is different, there is a very special paradox, time seems to come towards us. Future, it seems that ‘’‘time moves in reverse.’‘’ This is very important, because this is the way in which creative impulses enter the world. In order for something to manifest itself creatively in the physical world, there must be a physical time stream that goes from the past to the future, which is what we know in normal life. The etheric must be there, where timelessness, above all mobility, reigns in time - and something must come from the future, actually from the end of the development process - and ‘’‘where the stream from the past and the stream from the future collide,’‘’ it becomes our momentary ‘’‘present’‘’. Something happens there.

With every event that takes place in the world, it is never just a consequence of the past, as is often believed in the natural sciences, because they only have physical and sensory means at their disposal, which is why they only know this stream of time that comes from the past and goes into the future, and they can only deduce from what has happened in the past what might happen in the future. With simple things, you can even calculate it in advance: A physicist can easily predict how a stone will fall if nothing else interferes, such as a bird flying past or something like that. But otherwise, ‘’'most real events ,‘’‘ that happen in the world, “”’you can't predict,‘’' because they are not only determined by the past, but are also determined, half of them, at least half of them, by what is heading towards us from the future. These two things have to come together. This means that when we move on from imagination or ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ something comes in that goes beyond this pictorial consciousness and shows us something of the future. Something ‘’‘shows us where this development is going,’‘’ because this goal actually comes towards us, in a sense. We have to look at the beginning and the end in order to be able to understand the current moment of development at all. These two currents have to come together.

I'll now read you a few sentences from the Apocalypse, where this is also hinted at to a certain extent, very clearly. Again, where basically Christ speaks, or at least the angel speaks through Christ. It says:<blockquote>‘’‘I am the Alpha and the Omega.’‘’</blockquote>In Greek, this means the beginning and the end. The first and the last letter in the Greek alphabet, the Alpha and the Omega.<blockquote>‘’‘Thus says the Lord, our God, who is and who was and who is to come, the ruler of the universe’.‘’</blockquote>It's all there. ‘’‘He is, who was and who is to come.’‘’ The present, that's where it starts, ‘he who is’. So it's important to keep that in mind, the order is not random, because the experience always starts in the present moment. The moment is also, in which the whole eternity is also inside. From here, I look to both sides, to what was there, that is, back, and thus also to what determines my fate, because - as far as we humans are concerned - it also contains all the mistakes we have made and which we must correct in the future, that is, what we must work on. We also see something towards which we are heading, namely our self, our individual self. Every individual self has a special nuance. It is not the case that we all have exactly the same goal. We ‘’‘all contribute together’‘’ to perhaps ‘’‘a higher goal’', that's how you could perhaps outline it. You can also find that in the words in there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5302s The spiritualisation of the physical body - the goal of human development 1:28:22] ===
Now I'll come back to the seven creator spirits in connection with the human body. I have not yet told you ‘’‘what happens to the physical body when it is spiritualised’‘’. Now I hope that you have gained a little impression that the physical can also be spiritualised - and this is not to be equated simply with the material-physical, which we know as our body. That there is also ‘’‘an invisible physical’‘’, that it is ‘’‘in truth the actual physical.’‘’ If we succeed, with the help of the Christ and the help of the father forces, in restoring this originally spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which we can now achieve, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human being’‘’. This is the highest spiritual that we can develop, as far as we can see, and it is precisely in the spiritualisation of the physical. We must not underestimate the physical, but we must see that the greatest task of humanity lies in at least working towards the spiritualisation of this physical. This is also connected with the ‘’‘resurrection of Christ’‘’. The resurrection forces of Christ, which could not have come into effect without the Father's activity, are connected with the transformation of the physical body into a spiritual being. For it to be truly successful means that we are then able, out of our own strength, out of our own I, to bring forth such a high, such a spiritualised physical body. But this is certainly no longer a body that is material. We will then not walk around on a material ‘’‘globe’‘’ or any other sphere, however it may be formed, in a material body, but rather the highest spiritual will enter. To understand this, you have to ask yourself why it is actually the highest spiritual and how it is otherwise connected to the material.

I think that the physical is the most difficult to work with. In the soul, we can already work a little today, at least to some extent, to bring forth the spirit self, consciously or unconsciously. ‘’‘An artist,’‘’ when he is really creative, ‘’‘creates a new work in his soul’‘’ and then realises it, outwardly too, but to do that he has to ‘’‘experience it in his soul first’‘’, then he is creatively active in a spiritual way. Then he is active out of his spiritual self. That means, ‘’‘he transforms astral, soul into real spiritual self.’‘’ This spirit self or this spark of spirit self that he has within him, he has created from his own I. Out of nothing, basically. He has not taken it from anywhere else, from anywhere outside, ‘’‘but from within himself.’‘’

It is much more difficult to create etheric forces out of nothing, that is, to ‘’‘unfold the spirit of life.’‘’ That is much more difficult. On the whole, we are not yet able to do that, but we need the help of the Christ to be able to do it. We don't even need to talk about the physical, because we ourselves create almost nothing there, especially consciously. In order for it to become our own, we have to be able to do it consciously, that is, consciously transform the physical body into this high spiritual being. This is only beginning to happen.

Only the highest spiritual hierarchies can really work on the physical, namely ‘’‘the Christ and the Father-Godhead’‘’, which is behind it. But very high angelic beings work with them as executive organs. These include, for example, the ‘’‘thrones’‘’ in a leading position. They are in the upper group of three hierarchies. Above them are only the beings of the zodiac, the ‘’‘cherubim’‘’ and then the ‘’‘seraphim’‘’, who are basically connected to the whole cosmos, through the visible universe - and even beyond the visible, at least for our eyes beyond the visible. These are therefore very, very high spiritual beings who are behind the physical. ‘’‘In the soul, anyone can work today, so to speak’‘’. The angelic beings that are closely connected to us, the actual angels, they all cannot do that. But we are approaching a time when we will be able to ‘’‘create a complete physical body for ourselves’‘’. It will no longer be called a physical body, but a spiritual human being. It is this that will enable us to achieve our ‘’‘highest consciousness’‘’.

Today we have ‘’‘only a mirror image,’‘’ because we are most conscious of the physical, which is basically polluted by the material. We cannot yet become self-aware of the etheric body. We are not yet able to do that. If we only had the I and the astral body, then we would know nothing about ourselves, absolutely nothing. ‘’‘It is precisely in the physical that one can develop the highest consciousness.’‘’ This applies equally to the spiritual being. That is to say, the spiritual being is the highest spiritual element that we can acquire. What happens next is a different chapter, and is not our subject.

I have now made a huge ‘’‘interjection’‘’ just to explain a little bit about the significance of the number seven, and these stages of development. We have come across these seven stages of human development or these seven constituent parts of the human being, via the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the I, which stands in the centre, and up to the spiritual constituent parts, which we can acquire through our own efforts: ‘’‘the spirit self, the life spirit, the spiritual human being’‘’. This has to do with the ‘’‘number seven’‘’. And we have come to these, simply because it was of seven churches that John speaks, to which he turns and to which he now writes in a certain way, to the seven churches. In doing so, he mentions the seven creator spirits. I'll read the short passage again.<blockquote>‘’‘John to the seven churches in Asia:’‘

’‘Grace and peace be yours,’‘

’‘from him who is and who was and who is to come,’‘

’‘and from the seven spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘The seven spirits before his throne’‘’, these are the spiritual beings that ‘’‘help to create our seven members of the human being’‘’. Because, in general, the higher spiritual elements of our being, which we actually have to create ourselves - because only then are they ours - still have to be prepared. That is, so to speak, if you put it in earthly terms, ‘’‘a model for it’‘’. It has to be prepared once. These seven creator spirits work on it. It would be too much to go into which angelic beings they are. They are also high angelic beings, very high. You should not be surprised that, for example, ‘’‘the thrones have something to do with it,’‘’ yes, with the physical body and ‘’‘also with the preparation of the spiritual being,’‘’ that they have a hand in it, because they are able to work into the physical, for example. Just as a small hint.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5873s The Revelation of John on Patmos 1:37:53] ===
Now I want to read something else to you at the end of the lecture, namely also from the first chapter what John now writes in detail ‘’‘to these seven churches:’‘’<blockquote>‘’«I, John, your brother and companion in all trials, as well as in the inner kingdom and in the persevering strength that we possess as those who are united with Jesus, was on the island of Patmos. There I was to be made partaker of the divine word of the world and worthy of bearing witness to the suffering of Christ.‘</blockquote>

’The suffering of Jesus’ is what it says in the translation. The translation is by ‘’‘Emil Bock’‘, one of the “”’founding priests of the Christian Community‘’‘. So, “”’on the island of Patmos he had this spiritual vision.‘’‘ He describes very clearly an “”’imagination‘’‘ and how this imagination was “”’translated into sensual images‘’'. He cannot communicate the image in any other way than by translating it into sensual words. He describes it in a very typical way:<blockquote>‘’«On the day of the Lord, I was transported into the spiritual realm and heard a mighty voice behind me like the sound of a ‘’‘trombone’‘’».‘’</blockquote>It is often the case ‘’‘in spiritual experiences,’‘’ that you have the feeling «there is something behind me» and my first test is whether I turn around or not. Do I have the courage to turn around, because if I have the courage to turn around, then it means that I am in a sense crossing the ‘’‘threshold’‘’. And that is ‘’‘a kind of death experience’‘’. You have to be aware of that, it is a death experience. And it is also connected with, how shall I put it, with the unpleasant side of death, that is, to feel this loss in the physical world - without completely leaving the body. You really have the experience of ‘’‘going through death’‘’. Without that ‘’‘you cannot cross the threshold’‘’. That means that the first test is: do I dare to turn around or not. Of course, this has nothing to do with physically turning around, but rather in the spiritual world. That means that the ‘’‘turning around’‘’ is to ‘’‘let go of everything that is sensual in order to turn to the spiritual’‘’. This mighty voice like the sound of a trumpet. Incidentally, the word ‘trombone’ means - and since we are talking about sound - that ‘’‘inspiration’‘’ is already playing a part in the development of the imagination. In fact, every spiritual experience begins at an even higher level, with ‘’‘intuition’‘’. I have to become one with a spiritual being in order to enter the spiritual world at all. That is intuition. However, it does not become immediately conscious. It is, so to speak, the prerequisite and forms the unconscious background.

The next stage is ‘’‘inspiration.’‘’ When you have a real spiritual experience, then you have at least an echo of this inspirational experience, without being able to fully grasp its content, that you ‘’‘hear a voice like a trombone,’‘’ which is just loud and powerful and shattering, but you don't really understand it at that moment.

The third and last thing is actually ‘’‘the imaginative image,’‘’ that builds up - and this image is not a sensual one at first, but rather, you could say, ‘’‘a kind of highly differentiated mood of the soul’‘’ that one experiences. I will perhaps come back to this in more detail another time. There is no more time now. It is actually a ‘’‘highly differentiated spiritual experience’‘’ that one has, which one can now ‘’‘overlook like a panorama’‘’, which is in motion, which is changing, and in this experience one can, so to speak, wander around spiritually. That is the real imagination. But John has to describe it as a spiritual image. So he hears this voice and he continues to say or write:<blockquote>‘’« She said: Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches. To Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamon, to Thyatira, to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea ».‘’</blockquote>So these are the seven churches. ‘’‘Ephesus’‘’ ([[A:Ephesos|Ephesos]]), the first, with which John was, incidentally, ‘’‘very closely connected,’‘’ that is, in the period long after the events in Palestine, after the death of Christ on the cross. The island of Patmos, incidentally, is very close, on the coast of Asia Minor, and Ephesus and the mystery centre of Ephesus are relatively close on the mainland. That is also an advantage, that there was a mystery centre there, an important one. ‘’‘The important Christian centres’‘’ were all initially located where ancient mystery centres were also located - so this ‘’‘mystery centre’‘’ of Ephesus was closely connected to Patmos, or rather the other way round, Patmos was in a sense ‘’‘an offshoot of the mysteries of Ephesus.’‘’ So, there are seven churches and the voice speaks now and John continues to write:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>So the Christ appears in human form.<blockquote>’‘’Clothed with a long flowing robe,‘’

‘’girded at the breast with a golden girdle,‘’

‘’with a white head, the hair of which shone like white wool and like snow,‘’

‘’with eyes as if they were flames of fire,‘’

‘’with feet as if they were of gold ore that has been heated in the fire,‘’

‘’with a voice like the the sound of great waters,‘’

‘’in his right hand he held ‘’‘seven stars’‘’,‘’

‘’out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword,‘’

‘’and his countenance was like the sun in its strength."</blockquote>It is a very powerful experience. The sensual image is a pale shadow of what really lies behind it in the imagination. But it points the way. And how strong that was, comes out further:<blockquote>‘’‘and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said -’' we have already read this today “”- Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last and the Living. I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the ages. Mine is the key to the realms of death and the shadows. Write down what you see, the present and the future. The mystery of the seven stars that you see in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands,‘’ ‘’is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches themselves.‘</blockquote>With that, “”’the first chapter of the Apocalypse‘’' ends, and I would like to close for today.
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[[Index of terms Lecture series The Apocalypse of John by Wolfgang Peter#A|APOCALYPSE]]

* ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also called ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of the own self - namely in the moment when I and Christ are one [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The riddle of the self 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|‘’‘Apocalypse of John’‘’]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ASTRAL BODY

* We transform the ‘’‘astral body’‘’ into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

ETHER

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect itself ‘’‘in the etheric’', then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experiencing in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. episode, 2020, 1:16:35]]
The ‘’‘ether’‘’ world is much richer than the physical world: the physical is actually a dead thing, something that has died out of the ‘’‘ether’‘’ world [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:46:18]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with number rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the ‘’‘ethereal’‘’, because the ‘’‘etheric forces’‘’, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’ still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ‘’‘ether’‘’ and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
ATLANTIS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-‘’‘Atlantean’‘’ era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|B}}

CONSCIOUSNESS

* When our ‘’‘consciousness’‘’ no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different ‘’‘consciousness’‘’, with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the ‘’‘consciousness,’‘’ in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|C}}

CHRIST

* If we succeed, with the help of ‘’‘Christ’‘’ and with the help of the father forces, in restoring the original spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our I completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of ypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We need the fatherly forces that are conveyed through ‘’‘Christ’‘’ to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of the self - namely at the moment when I and ‘’‘Christ’‘’ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the self that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as ‘’‘Christ’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|D}}

DANTE ALIGHIERI

* Descent into the realm of shadows is described by ‘’‘Dante’‘’ ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]] ) in his ‘Divine Comedy’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]). The path leads through the centre of the earth to the ascent [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Dante's Divine Comedy - Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:31:28]]

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

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

{{BS|F}}

FREEDOM

* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. For this he has ‘’‘freedom’‘’. He can open himself to the spiritual out of free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|G}}

SPIRIT

* We need the father forces, which are mediated by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

SPIRITUAL HUMAN

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our I, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:28:22]]

SPIRIT SELF

* An artist who is truly creative from his I is active from the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’. This means that he transforms the astral into ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* The [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] is also called manas in the East. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

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

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

{{BS|I}}

I

* An artist who is truly creative from his ‘’‘I’‘’ is working from the spirit self. That is, he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of the Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our ‘’‘I’‘’, then we will create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* Karma is nothing more than our ‘’‘I’‘’ striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of one's own ‘’‘I’‘’ - namely at the moment when ‘’‘I’‘’ and Christ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the ‘’‘I’‘’ that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

IMAGINATION

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience ‘’‘imaginations’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the Spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|J}}

JOHN, THE EVANGELIST

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]), the writer of the Gospel of John ([[A:GA 103|GA 103]]) and the Apocalypse, is the [[A:Lazarus|Lazarus]] raised from the dead by Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Introduction 0:00:36|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:00:36]]

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

{{BS|K}}

KARMA

* ‘’‘[[A:Karma|Karma]]’‘’ is nothing more than our ego striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives - mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
CULTURAL EPOCHS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven ‘’‘cultural epochs’‘’ of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ART

* An ‘’‘artist’‘’ who is truly creative from his I is active from the spirit self. This means that he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:28:22]]

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

{{BS|L}}

LIFE PANORAMA

* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|‘’‘life panorama’‘’]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
* Like in a great [[A:panorama of life|‘’‘panorama of life’‘’]], this image of the past life appears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|[1 | 0:03:14]]

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

{{BS|M}}

MANAS

* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called [[A:manas|‘’‘manas’‘’]] in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called ‘’‘[[A:manas|manas]]’‘’ in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘man’ also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

MAN

* The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called manas in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘’man‘’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, ‘’‘man’‘’ can err. He has the freedom to do so. He can open himself to the spiritual world of his own free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same nature as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|N}}

NEW JERUSALEM

* In the [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] the view is opened to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’ ([[A:New Jerusalem|New Jerusalem]]). This is a kind of new planetary state that will one day become our Earth [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The New Jerusalem - a new Earth 0:35:47|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:35:47]]

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

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

{{BS|P}}

PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the Father forces, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even spiritualise something of our ‘’‘physical body’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #The physical body and our self-awareness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

{{BS|R}}

RUDOLF STEINER

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’‘’ so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Ap apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body - goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:28:22]]
John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|S}}

CREATIVE SPIRITS

* The seven ‘’‘creative spirits’‘’ are essentially those spiritual forces or beings that created our physical bodies [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter# The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 1:03:33]]
SEVEN CHURCHES

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|T}}

DEATH

* In the first three days after ‘’‘death’', the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]

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

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

{{BS|V}}

FATHER FORCES

* We need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ that are imparted by the Christ in order to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our ego-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

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

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

{{BS|Z}}

NUMBERS

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with ‘’‘number’‘’ rhythms. The number seven‘’' indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with ‘’‘time’‘’. [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|0-9}}

SEVEN

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter

2024-08-25T20:02:05Z

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[[File:1.apo.jpg|link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM|thumb|Link to the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM video] or [https://www.dropbox.com/s/jc3wz02vgbi6mq4/1.apo.mp3?dl=0 audio] ]]

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== MAIN TOPIC ==
This lecture focuses on insights into the ‘’‘vision of John’‘’, written on the island of Patmos, which he shared in a letter to the seven churches (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea). According to the [[A:Book of Revelation of John|Book of Revelation of John]], it was dictated to the evangelist John by the Christ in order to encourage and admonish the communities. According to Rudolf Steiner, the [[A:seven churches|seven churches]] represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era. [[A:Patmos|Patmos]] was closely connected with the mystery centre [[A:Ephesus|Ephesus]], where all the Christian centres were initially located. John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) translated his experienced imagination into sensual images. In a highly differentiated spiritual experience, it unfolded like a panorama in which he could wander around spiritually.

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== Transcription of the 1. lecture of the Apocalypse of John ==
by Ghislaine, Susanne, Elke (December 2022)

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=36s Introduction 0:00:36] ===
So, my dear friends, I think we'll just start. No one has missed anything. So even those who were not there last time have not missed much. Basically, we have only dealt with the beginning of the Apocalypse of John. Basically, we had the first sentence and have linked a lot to it.

So the question we had is: ‘’‘Who is this John who writes this Apocalypse of John and who also wrote the Gospel of John?’‘’ So the evangelist John – how did he become the person who was able to write these things? And we came to the conclusion, based on Rudolf Steiner's indications, that it was in fact ‘’‘the resurrected Lazarus’‘’. You may know that. It is described in the Bible in the New Testament, ‘’‘the raising of Lazarus’‘’ as a, in a certain sense, ‘’‘raising of the dead’‘’, as it is called, which in truth is ‘’‘an initiation process’‘’. An initiation process that in a certain sense is similar to what has been customary since Egyptian times. We then also spoke at length about the Egyptian initiation. In those days, the ‘’‘initiation students’‘’ had to undergo long and difficult ‘’‘examinations’‘’ before they were admitted to the ‘’‘central initiation experience’‘’. These examinations repeatedly led them into ‘’‘life-threatening’‘’ situations. That was such an important point. The ‘’‘willpower was trained’‘’, and it was also trained that he really walks at the ‘’‘edge of death’‘’ in a certain way during these tests - and when the initiate was found to be ready for the great test, then he was actually put in a ‘’‘dead-like state’‘’ for ‘’‘three days’‘’ or three and a half days. This was done through ‘’‘meditation’‘, and also through certain substances that were given to them, “”’drugs‘’‘ if you will, which could have induced a state of apparent death, one might say. Because the goal of the initiation was to be able to “”’report from the spiritual world‘’, to be able to experience something there and to be able to report from there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=194s Initiation in ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14] ===
The problem is: how do you get there, how do you experience something beyond the threshold? The way that was taken in Egyptian culture, but basically in all advanced civilisations at that time, was to actually put people into this state that is similar to death for three and a half days. For about three and a half days. If you are familiar with Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of what happens after death, then you know that ‘’‘about three and a half days’‘’ after death, you experience ‘’‘a review of your past life on earth’‘’.

This image of one's past life appears before one as if in a great ‘’‘panorama of life’‘’, and one realises what one has done in this life, one really gets to know oneself in a certain way. You see this image from a very interesting distance, like a ‘’‘beautiful panorama’‘’, you could say, so you can even see the ‘’‘negative events’‘’ in their ‘’‘meaning for life’‘’ and what you take away from them in a certain way. So it is a very ‘’‘sunny’‘’, a very ‘’‘joyful experience’‘’. As a side note, these are, for example, the descriptions that can be found in ‘’‘Islam’‘’, ‘’‘given by Mohammed’‘’, where he speaks of the ‘’‘joys of paradise’‘’, which refer primarily to the experience of this life panorama, that is, these very happy experiences in the three days after death. So there is nothing unpleasant for the person who has passed over. The only thing that one does not yet experience or receive is a direct insight into the real spiritual world. It is still a ‘’‘memory of earthly life’‘’. This is connected with the fact that the ‘’‘life forces’‘’ that have animated us during our entire earthly life, that have animated the body, remain in a certain ‘’‘closer connection’‘’ during these three days or three and a half days. So the etheric body of the human being – the life forces are this etheric body of the human being, the ‘’‘etheric body is also the bearer of memory’‘’, the actual bearer of memory – remains in a certain compact form during these three and a half days and then begins to dissolve. Dissolving means that it connects with the ‘’‘world ether’‘’ and then this panorama disappears in a certain way.

And only then, ‘’‘when this panorama disappears, does the actual view into the soul world’‘’ begin, initially not yet into higher spiritual worlds, but at least into the soul world. So only then have you really ‘’‘crossed the threshold’‘’ properly. And that means that if you ultimately put a person in a state similar to death for the purpose of initiation, you have to get through these three or three and a half days – or at least get to ‘’‘this border – so that you can get any insight into the spiritual world or, more precisely, into the soul world’‘, because before that you only experience the “”’review of earthly life‘’'. Looking back means that you can basically move freely in this panorama of life, so to speak, you can look at different events in life and observe them from a higher perspective, as it were. But that is not yet the actual spiritual. So you have to get over this boundary three/three and a half days, but you had to be very careful at the Egyptian initiation ‘’‘that the connection to the physical body’‘’, which now lies there like dead - often really put into a sarcophagus for the purpose of initiation - that the connection to this physical body ‘’‘does not break off completely’‘’. Because if it is completely severed, if the life is completely out, the soul is completely out, the spiritual is completely out and this connection is severed, then there is no way back. Then death really occurs. And the Egyptian initiation was set up in such a way that the ‘’‘priesthood,’‘’ which ‘’‘oversaw this initiation process’‘’ - there were usually twelve priests who were around the person being initiated and monitored this state - that they could observe exactly when the last possible moment was ‘’‘when they had to bring him back.’‘’ So he was brought back mainly by letting sunlight fall on him in the right way. So through the ‘’‘light’‘’ he was ‘’‘woken up,’‘’ but also, of course, through recitation and the like, through incense that was burnt, through awakening explanations. And then he had to be brought back very quickly - and the initiation student was ‘’‘trained’‘’ and practised ‘’‘to report quickly what he had seen over there.’‘’ It's a bit like waking up from a dream in the morning. If you don't immediately write down what happened in the dream, it's usually gone and you can't remember it anymore. Because you can't store dream experiences, or even less spiritual experiences, in our normal memory.

So you can't really hold on to an ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ a real imagination - and that is an imagination that a person has in the initiation at first - with your memory. At most, you can try to get back to such an experience. If you want to have it again, you actually have to go back there and see it again. What I can remember very well is when I wake up or come out of it, as it was in the Egyptian initiation, and put it into words and tell it. I can remember these words. And not only the initiate has to remember these words for a lifetime, but also the priesthood that surrounded him. They have kept these words in their memory after hearing them once. And it must be said that this initiate did not speak in everyday language, but rather ‘’‘in a ritual language,’‘’ that is, ‘’‘with certain rhythms,’‘’ which are inherent in it. It was the Egyptian language in terms of the words. But the way it was formulated, we would say today, ‘’‘it was poetic, it was ritualistic,’‘’ and that was immediately impressed on the memory. It is this ‘’‘elevated priestly way of speaking’‘’ and to a certain extent it has remained with us to this day. It is absorbed differently, it has a different effect. But nevertheless, it is a translation of the spiritual experience into an earthly language. One must bear in mind that even in the life after death, ‘’‘the language’‘’ that we have spoken here on earth ‘’‘disappears.’‘’ It disappears very quickly. Not immediately after the three and a half days, but very soon it is gone. It is, if you like, ‘’‘a spiritual language’‘’ that one then speaks, but that is then only an auxiliary term to call it ‘language’, it is a different experience. This means that the initiate had to ‘’‘get over these three and a half days’‘’, then he could have the experience of ‘over there’, that is, from the other side of the threshold - and at the moment of waking up he could bring this experience in. Bring it in for himself and ‘’‘for the priesthood,’‘’ which surrounded him.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=712s The Initiation of Lazarus 0:11:52] ===
And something similar also happened during the ‘’‘initiation of Lazarus.’‘’ Only the starting point was different. This Lazarus was not put into a death-like state by a priesthood or anyone else, but rather he - one could say - ‘’‘fell into this state on his own.’‘’ I say ‘on his own’, but I must also add that it was in a certain way the after-effect of the words of the priest with whom he had a lot of contact. I must also say that ‘’‘Lazarus was a very important man in Jerusalem, a very rich man’‘’ and very well known. He was known throughout Jerusalem, and he also made a name for himself as a follower of Christ. He experienced what Christ said so intensely that, as a result of this experience, he fell into this death-like state of his own accord. He fell into this state so deeply that the people around him thought he had died and laid him in the grave afterwards. And when the Christ then learns that Lazarus has died, he ‘’‘takes a very long time’‘’ and does not go to ‘’‘Lazarus in Bethany’‘’ to wake him up. He simply waits. He waits for two days, but nothing happens. And then he sets off – and only on the fourth day, at the very last possible moment, on the fourth day, which is really very late, does he wake Lazarus with the words ‘’‘«Lazarus, come out»’‘’. In a figurative sense, these were the words of awakening, as the Egyptians also spoke them, of course in Egyptian. And Lazarus now brought with him a great deal of experience, and ‘’‘the Gospel of John, for example, arose from the after-effects of these experiences,’‘’ and also, in a certain sense, ‘’‘the Apocalypse of John,’‘’, but that is a deeper level in a certain sense. Of course, you might ask why he is now called John and no longer Lazarus. He was not called John before. We also tried to find out where that came from last time. To do so, you have to know that relatively shortly before Lazarus was resurrected, John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod; you are sure to know the story. And the point is that after the death of John the Baptist – now – this ‘’‘John the Baptist’‘’ became something like ‘’‘a kind of protective spirit or community spirit of the twelve apostles.’‘’ The twelve apostles also included the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, so also a John, but ‘’‘John Zebedee.’‘’

So, among these twelve apostles, John the Evangelist is not to be counted initially, but now the following is the case: the spirit of this John the Baptist becomes in some way ‘’‘something like an inspiring community soul’‘’ and community spirit of this circle of twelve, these twelve apostles, and the whole thing then becomes even more condensed. There is then the transfiguration of Christ. This is also shortly before the resurrection of Lazarus, when ‘’‘this effect of John the Baptist's is concentrated’‘’ on the apostles, now on three very specific apostles, ‘’‘the two sons of Zebedee and Peter.’‘’ That means that he is now only the community spirit of these three, if you will. They thereby attain a higher level of knowledge. The other apostles would not have been able to experience the transfiguration, which is a spiritual experience, only the three of them could. And with the raising of Lazarus, the last condensation takes place, if you will. A very close bond is created between Lazarus, who is resurrected and goes through this initiation, and the spirit of John the Baptist.

It is important to know that ‘’‘at every initiation’‘’, when it happens, ‘’‘a person on earth’‘’ always works together ‘’‘with at least one spiritual being,’‘’ who is on the other side. It cannot be any other way. One has to come to a very concrete connection with a spiritual being from the other side. One does not simply enter the spiritual world. It is teeming with spiritual beings, one looks at that. But it is actually only possible if one gets a very, very intense relationship with a very specific spiritual being, with whom one is connected by fate or comes into contact with. And in this case, it is ‘’‘this connection between Lazarus here on earth and John the Baptist,’‘’ who is over there. And Lazarus gets his initiation name John after this John the Baptist. So this explains why we have a ‘’‘Gospel of John’‘’ and why this John is not John Zebedee, but someone else. But this resurrected ‘’‘Lazarus/John takes part in the Last Supper.’‘’ He is always referred to in the Gospel as ‘’‘the disciple whom the Lord loved.’‘’ That is, the one who rests in the Lord's bosom, who rests on his breast, who is not named, but who is, so to speak, one of the twelve apostles and at the same time the resurrected Lazarus, who is called John because he is connected with John the Baptist. And now, at this moment, he is also the apostle John, namely during the Last Supper. This is when the circle of the twelve is finally completed. That is to say, John Zebedee was, in a certain sense, the representative of the resurrected Lazarus, who has now become John. And this is, so to speak, the final form of the ‘’‘circle of the twelve, the twelve apostles.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1168s The Christ and the realm of death 0:19:28] ===
It is quite interesting because all of this event really condenses around the Christ, most of all condenses in this last moment ‘’‘beginning with Maundy Thursday’‘’. Yes, perhaps with the whole of Holy Week before that, but especially with Maundy Thursday, and then of course with the experience of ‘’‘Good Friday.’‘’ With the death, the ‘’‘crucifixion of Jesus Christ,’‘’ there is also the moment of the fullest incarnation. One has to think that the incarnation of Christ begins with the baptism of John, three years before, and is a gradual process. It did not happen in one fell swoop; you don't have to believe that Christ was fully incarnated at the time of his baptism in the Jordan, but it is a process that continues until the last minute, until the last minute it is completed. Then it is accomplished. So when the ‘’‘Christ's words on the cross are “It is finished”’‘’, that is exactly what is meant, namely, ‘’‘that the incarnation has now been completed’‘’ and Christ has become fully human. Immediately at the moment of death. It is very important that this incarnation takes place in its full fullness, in its entirety, basically ‘’‘in a single moment.’‘’ That is the moment when he passes through death, the Christ – and descends into the realm of death. We know that Holy Saturday is the descent into the underworld, the descent into hell, if you will, the descent into the realm of the dead, into the realm of death. Something that is not normally possible in the times. Before the angelic beings, archangels, original angels, etc., and even before Christ, human beings preceded all other spiritual beings in entering the realm of death, in entering this darkness, in entering hell, if you will, in entering the realm of the dead. We were the ones who had experience of it, at least to a certain extent. But ‘’‘all the other spiritual beings,’‘’ who are above us, up to the Christ, ‘’‘did not know the realm of death.’‘’ In the spiritual world, there is no death. It is a very special realm, and the fact that ‘’‘the Christ completed his humanity on Golgotha’‘’ also enables him to descend into this realm of death.

It is also very clearly stated in the text of the Apocalypse, which I will perhaps read out. I have to find the passage quickly... Yes, it is still in the first chapter, towards the end of the first chapter, and there ‘’‘John has a Christ encounter.’‘’ In truth, it is ‘’‘the trigger’‘’ for the whole writing of the Apocalypse of John. Because you have to think about what ‘Apocalypse of John’ means. These are the first words with which he begins: ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is what it actually says. The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ - and Apocalypse means as much as ‘’‘revelation, manifestation’‘’. So it is about the revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ. That is the content of the Apocalypse. And we also pointed out last time that the Christ is very closely connected with our human ego. We will have to work on this much more precisely in the next lecture or lectures. The Apocalypse has something to do with ‘’‘revealing the essence of our ego.’‘’ And what significance Christ has for this. So what John describes here is really an encounter with Christ, and he then says:<blockquote>‘’«When I saw him, I fell at his feet and was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Falling at his feet and being dead is another image for the fact that he is actually experiencing something that is beyond the threshold, on the other side of the threshold. So it is not a sensual event, but ‘’‘a spiritual experience,’‘’ that he has. And then it goes on:<blockquote>‘’«But he (that is, the Christ) laid his right hand on me and said: Fear not. I am the first and the last and the living. I was dead.»‘’</blockquote>Please note the «‘’I was dead»,‘’ says the Christ. No spiritual being could have said that about a human being until then. None of these beings had ever been dead. ‘’‘I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine.’‘’ So, the ‘’‘Christ has the key to the realm of death and the shadows’‘’. That is also something very important.

JOHN THE BAPTIST APOSTLE The spirit of John the Baptist became something like an inspiring community soul and community spirit of the circle of twelve apostles [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the Kingdom of Death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

CHRIST'S DEATH As the only higher spiritual being, the Christ knows death. Therefore he said: ‘’‘Mine is the key to the kingdom of death and the shadows’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Christ and the kingdom of death 0:19:28|[1 | 0:19:28]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=1579s The Shadow Powers in the Realm of Death 0:26:19] ===
A little later in the Apocalypse, we will hear about the Key of David. ‘’‘The Key of David is the key to the spiritual world.’‘’ And we as human beings, if we strive spiritually, have access to both keys in a certain way. We can ‘’‘open or close the gate to the spiritual world.’‘’ We can open and close the gate to the world of death, to the world of shadows. This is connected to our ‘’‘human freedom’‘’ - or it is based on the fact that we can open these gates in a certain sense by our own power. That is the essential passage for us. This ‘’«I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the aeons. The key to the realm of death and the shadows is mine»‘’. And it was precisely into this realm of death that John himself went, that is, Lazarus/John‘’‘ in the course of his “”’initiation.‘’' This is the path that one has to go through. It should be said that this encounter with the ‘’‘realm of shadows’‘’ is particularly important in the initiation process. It is not usually the case that when one passes over the threshold in a normal way, that is to say, through death, one experiences too much of this realm of shadows immediately after death. If one passes through in the state of initiation, that is to say, in this sleep similar to death, then one is very much confronted with this realm. Very clearly. And also with all the shadowy sides that exist there and the temptations that are associated with them. These are experienced very strongly and it was precisely this that the Egyptian initiates had to prepare themselves for very intensively. This test, that is actually the Ahrimanic side that one encounters in order to get through it. So that means that these were often very gruesome experiences that this initiate had to go through again and again over the years – and they increased more and more. Only when they had endured this were they ‘’‘found ripe’‘’ to really go through the last great test, the three-day sleep of death.

Of course, all kinds of elements associated with this ‘’‘dark world of death’‘’ are now included in the ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’. This revelation of the nature of Jesus Christ also reveals the spiritual world that is above us. But it also reveals the world that lies below us, or works among us, or simmers among us, however you want to call it. This is the very special position we have as human beings, this spiritual being that we are as human beings, that we stand between the spiritual world above us and the world of death below us. Exactly on the border. If you want an image of it: ‘’‘The surface of the earth’‘’ on which we stand is exactly ‘’‘the border line.’‘’ It goes up there - and down there. We have to concern ourselves with both realms. In the Egyptian initiation, and in the initiation of the ancient Orient in general, the main aim was to gain ‘’‘knowledge of the light side,’‘’ that is, the side that lies above us, because the power to deal with the dark side was not yet very strong. So people had certain experiences that foreshadowed something that we basically have to experience to a much greater extent today if we want to enter the spiritual world. For the person who wants to have real spiritual experiences today or is mature enough to have them... Anyone who wants to have ‘’‘such insights’‘’ today and also wants to have them ‘’‘in a healthy way’‘’ must or ‘’‘should not be afraid of confronting the dark forces.’‘’

FREEDOM OF MAN As human beings, if we strive spiritually, we can open or close the door to the spiritual world. This is connected with our human freedom [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The Shadow Forces in the Realm of Death 0:26:19|[1 | 0:26:19]]]

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi 9LgM&t=1888s Dante's Divine Comedy – Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28] ===
This is one of the reasons why Dante ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’ in his ‘’‘Divine Comedy’‘’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]) describes this subterranean realm so ‘’‘drastically and so intensely’‘’. Basically, what Dante describes there ‘’‘is also an initiation experience.’‘’ He shows very clearly how the path to the upper spiritual world, that is, what he also ‘’‘refers to as paradise,’‘’ leads through the underworld. That the right way is not a direct ascent to paradise, that one would fail there, that one would in fact come to a bright world, but it would be the Luciferic world. It would not be the real spiritual world, but it would be ‘’‘the world of Luciferic beings.’‘’ They are also spiritual beings, but spiritual beings that have ‘’‘in a sense remained behind,’‘’ that is, they have not developed their full spiritual powers. This means that if a person were to integrate themselves into this realm, they would ultimately also block or at least slow down their path to the future. In pre-Christian times, it was not yet so problematic. But in the post-Christian era, it becomes ‘’‘problematic’‘’. That means that ‘’‘we have to pass the test of going through the underworld’‘’, if you will. That is why ‘’‘Dante’‘’ describes it so clearly in his «Divine Comedy»: the path goes down to the centre of the earth. This is of course a metaphor. It is not about descending with crampons, drilling into the earth, but ‘’‘going down spiritually.’‘’ Descending ‘’‘into the dark depths of our own being’‘’ and the dark depths of the earthly world. So we have to think that our earth itself has this dual nature. On the one hand, a multitude of ‘’‘light-filled spiritual forces’‘’, high spiritual forces, but there are also ‘’‘dark forces’‘’ in it. Down there in the earth, that is the realm of Ahriman. That is the realm of the spirits of darkness, if you will. Lucifer hovers a little above it, but Ahriman and even stronger opposing forces live down there. And that is exactly where you have to go through.

In Dante's version, the path leads ‘’‘through the centre of the earth.’‘’ Then the ascent begins. Interestingly, it happens very quickly, he scurries up a few levels and lands on the surface of the earth, emerging at the ‘’‘Mountain of Purification’‘’. And the Mountain of Purification is what leads him to the so-called ‘’‘Purgatory’‘’, ‘’‘to the Fiery Furnace’', if you will. So this is the first supernatural realm that leads beyond the earth. And this is precisely the realm in which the Luciferic beings essentially live. There we must then ‘’‘purify ourselves’‘’ from all these ‘’‘Luciferic forces’‘’ in order to be able to ascend into the real paradise and the real spiritual world. That is the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy. But this applies to all forms of Christian initiation in a certain way. These stages are somewhere inside, it is hardly where it is expressed as clearly as in Dante, so systematically. But it is just as much in the Apocalypse. There you also find the confrontation with the very, very dark forces. That is why there are also images that seem very frightening at first glance. But in reality they are only an expression of a purification process that we have to go through. If we did not go through it, we would not get an insight into the spiritual world.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2147s The New Jerusalem – a new earth 0:35:47] ===
In the Book of Revelation, the view is opened above all to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem.’‘’ The New Jerusalem is ‘’‘a kind of new planetary state,’‘’ which will one day become ‘’‘our earth’‘’. When we as humanity and the Earth as a whole have gone through a certain development, at some point in the future the Earth as the planet as we know it will die, perish, be destroyed. It must be destroyed, just as our physical body must ultimately be destroyed - and then the New Jerusalem will arise. ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often calls it’‘’ in his lectures... he calls it ‘’‘the New Jupiter’‘’, which will come. This is a kind of new planet that will of course be different from our Earth. It is still a long way off, we still have a little time to go, but there we will be ‘’‘transferred to a new, higher spiritual state’‘’. But we will be mature enough to enter this higher spiritual state. A state that is in some ways ‘’‘comparable’‘’ to what ‘’‘today's angelic beings’‘’ possess. It will be different from our present-day angelic beings, but in terms of spiritual potency it is comparable to them. And then, above all, we will not have a body like the one we have today – and above all under different conditions. An important moment in the Book of Revelation is also given where John speaks of the ‘’‘so-called first death and the so-called second death’‘’. It is quite late in the Apocalypse, so one wonders what the first and second death are. I don't want to go into detail about this today either. But it has to do with the fact that we will finally lay down our physical body there. We will lay it down in every conceivable form and will not get it back in this form, so we have to learn to live without it. So, ‘’‘the first death’‘’ has to do with ‘’‘finally laying down the physical body forever.’‘’ And ‘’‘the second death’‘’ means finally ‘’‘laying down the corresponding etheric body.’‘’ That does not mean that we will then no longer have anything etheric, but no longer in the form that we have now. We will discuss this in more detail in the next lecture, but for now, this is just a suggestion.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2334s The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54] ===
I have now repeated a lot of what we discussed last time. Now we should move on a little and look at what is described in the Apocalypse. I will just read a short passage and then explain it. So in the first chapter, before the passage I read to you, John now addresses his ‘’‘words to the seven churches in Asia’‘’. So seven Christian communities in Asia – there were certainly more communities – they are the seven, if you will, leading communities, at least in the spiritual sense, in the outward sense it was a different chapter. We will encounter the ‘’‘number seven’‘’ very often in the Apocalypse of John, the Apocalypse of John works a lot with ‘’‘number rhythms’‘’, they play a very important role. Wherever the number seven occurs, we can always be aware that it has something to do with a temporal development, with an evolution, with a series of developments. The number seven is also the ‘’‘number of the etheric,’‘’ for example. ‘’‘The etheric forces,’‘’ the life forces, ‘’‘have something to do with time.’‘’ Life takes place in time and life becomes rigid when nothing changes any more. Then death has occurred. After death, decay always follows. But no longer a living development.

So when the number seven plays a role, it always refers to a living development. For example, the human body renews itself about every seven years. This is one of the reasons why ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner often speaks clearly in his education’‘’ about these ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’ that people go through: that ‘’‘the child’‘’ enters school at the age of seven, with the change of teeth , that puberty begins at the age of fourteen, that new spiritual forces awaken, that the twenty-first year of life is very important, that the ego begins to emerge very clearly. And so it goes on - again and again in ‘’‘seven-year cycles’‘’, which are no longer so noticeable externally. But if you look a little more closely, they are there too. Externally, they are connected to the fact that ‘’‘the body physically renews itself every seven years’‘’ and that, over the course of about seven years, it has ‘’‘completely exchanged its material’‘’. Rudolf Steiner always pointed this out, but it was often dismissed as an old wives' tale. You know that scientists never believe anything at first, they are always sceptical - that is perhaps also their virtue. But if they are thorough, they are open to being taught otherwise. It is actually the case that in recent years, through systematic medical, biological and chemical research, it has been possible to prove that the substances in the human body renew themselves on average every seven years. Some take a little longer, some renew themselves more quickly, but if you take the average, it really is every seven years.

So, in terms of our material substance, nothing that was there seven years ago is still there. We have become something completely new in terms of our material substance, but we have retained our forms to a certain extent, at least to the extent that we are usually recognised again after seven years. We can get a little older, we change a little, but we are still clearly recognisable as human beings. So the form, that is to say the etheric forces that renew this form again and again, they go through this whole ‘’‘seven-year period’‘’, but ‘’‘the physical is renewed again and again.’‘’ Basically, physically speaking, we do not die only once at the end of our lives, but in every seven-year period we basically, materially speaking, discard a corpse. Scattered into the world. It happens quite inconspicuously, with every breath we take, with every piece of food we eat and then excrete again, with what we sweat out and so on. All of this is shed, with the scales on our skin, where something is constantly being shed, something is always being lost. So, materially speaking, we are completely new people after seven years. And ‘’‘behind it all is ultimately a rhythm of the etheric body. It is this that in truth,’‘’ causes these seven-year cycles. With many sub-rhythms that also play a role. Today, science is already investigating - there is a discipline that has developed in this way since the middle of the twentieth century and has become increasingly clear in recent years, and that is ‘’‘chronobiology’‘’. Chronobiology is concerned with the rhythms that operate in the human body, and also in animals. And many exciting things have been discovered – among other things, the daily rhythm plays a major role, but so do seven-day rhythms, for example the seven-day rhythm as a quarter of a month. The month is again connected with the ‘’‘moon rhythm’‘’, the daily rhythm, which is connected with the rotation of the earth, the moon rhythm is connected with the moon's orbit. It has its subdivisions and a quarter of it is about seven days. It is also not by chance that we have a ‘’‘seven-day week’‘’. It is very wise. The ‘’‘calendar’‘’ could be organised in a completely different way, but then it would no longer be ‘’‘in harmony with these natural rhythms.’‘’ These natural rhythms are actually based on the etheric body. It is behind them - or the etheric world in general. From a cosmic point of view, it is the etheric world; in us, it is the etheric body, the internalisation of these rhythms. There are x rhythms in the body, very, very fast ones that vibrate very ‘’‘nervously’‘, so to speak - I say nervously on purpose, because it is very strongly “”’connected to the nervous system‘’‘ - and there are much longer rhythms that go more leisurely and renew us right down to the “”’metabolic processes‘’' within seven years.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=2778s Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18] ===
So John has a lot to do with these forces, and that is why he often speaks of the number seven and that is why he also speaks of the seven churches ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). That is the reason. That is the real reason, because these ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ are - one could say - ‘’‘representatives of certain stages of development’‘’. So they represent seven stages of development that together make up a whole. Yes, I'll read a bit of it out:<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be yours from him,‘’

‘’who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven spirits of creation before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>From him who is and who was and who is to come - well, he basically spanned ‘’‘the whole time’‘’, the past, the present and the future, ‘’‘drawing the bow.’‘’

In the spiritual self, time and temporal development no longer play the same role as they do here in our earthly lives. In a sense, we enter the ‘’‘realm of eternity, of timelessness’‘’ – and yet there is movement in it. That seems paradoxical: how can there be movement if there is no time? Basically, you can move freely, as I should say, in what we call time, here as time. This actually begins in the ‘’‘etheric world’‘’. The experience in the etheric world is such that we can ‘’‘move freely in time’‘’. This means that we can go back, not just look back, but really go back - in an etheric way. But we can also go into the future, take a look, so to speak, into the future at least. How this future, which we experience in the etheric, is then realised in the physical, is another chapter. The etheric world is much, much richer than the physical world – and ‘’‘the physical’‘’ is actually something that has died, something that has ‘’‘died out of the etheric world’‘’. And that means that the physical manifests itself when something etheric dies, but much other etheric continues. And the etheric encompasses the future, everything that continues in the etheric world. And one thing dies out again and again, so to speak, and manifests itself here as something physical. What we can see today in the etheric is this whole abundance, which, from our point of view, flows or goes into the future. What we cannot foresee is every single physical event that dies out. So we cannot see exactly what will die in the etheric. But we can see at least a certain line, a certain direction in which the whole thing is going. We also see that certain things ‘’‘have to happen,’‘’ namely ‘’‘as compensation for what happened in the past’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM& t=3006s Repeated earthly lives and human freedom 0:50:06] ===
I now have to make a connection to another sub-topic, so to speak, namely the topic of ‘’‘reincarnation and karma’‘’. As you know, if you are already familiar with anthroposophy, we are talking about ‘’‘repeated earthly lives.’‘’ Human beings do not live on earth just once, but repeatedly. This means that when they die, they first pass through the ‘’‘soul world’‘, then through the “”’spiritual world‘’, and then descend again after a shorter or longer period of time to ‘’‘a new incarnation’‘’. Simply because this earthly existence offers us so many opportunities for development that we could not exhaust in a single incarnation. Or we are ‘’‘not spiritually advanced enough to be able to complete our earthly development in a single incarnation.’‘’ We need a little more time. We have to go through it a few times. We are pupils who may have to repeat a few years. Of course, we can distinguish ourselves during our earthly incarnation. In a certain sense, ‘’‘the spiritual beings above us’‘’ cannot ‘’‘make any mistakes.’‘’

You could say: ‘Well, I'd like to be like that too, that would be great.’ Yes, but then we would not have ‘’‘freedom’‘’. This is a big word, because it says that even the angelic beings that are above us – and also the higher angelic beings that are above them, right up to the highest angelic beings – do not have the freedom that human beings have. They ‘’‘fulfil’‘’ God's will as a matter of course, if you want to put it in our terms. That means that the higher spiritual beings that are above them flow into them, they absorb it and ‘’‘act on it. Without error.’‘’ That is wonderful. Basically, nothing can go wrong. But - they have no free decision-making ability as a result. They don't even get the idea. Actually, the highest spiritual source, that is, the divine self, had to create the possibility for freedom in the world, and this is connected with the ability not to follow the error that flows down from the spiritual world. ‘’‘What distinguishes us as human beings is,’‘’ that we ‘’‘can't follow’‘’ the spiritual world. You could say that this cannot be the ideal of a human being, that we should now rebel against the divine. Well, yes and no. It is the prerequisite for us to be able to turn to the spiritual again in freedom after we have rebelled against it. This gives it a completely different quality. We fulfil ourselves with the spiritual, not because we cannot do otherwise, but because we fulfil ourselves with it because we want to, ‘’‘out of our own free will’‘’. But that means that a spiritual element lives in us that is comparable to the highest spiritual world from which everything flows. That means that a source ‘’‘opens up in us, in our I,’‘’ that is truly, one has to say it like this, ‘’‘of the same essence’‘’ ‘’‘as the highest divine being.’‘’ Even if it is, so to speak, the small version of it, ‘’‘the miniature version,’‘’, and we only experience it in individual moments, perhaps once in an incarnation or perhaps not at all in five incarnations, but there is a moment when we are of the same essence as the highest divine. When we are the embodiment of the divine. When we are ‘’‘of the same essence as Christ’‘’.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3292s The mystery of the self 0:54:52] ===
There is a beautiful ‘’‘Pauline saying’‘’ that Rudolf Steiner often mentions and usually says in the form: ‘’‘Not I, but the Christ in me’‘’. This word could easily be misunderstood if we were to say: ‘I give up my free will and let Christ do things for me or through me.’ But that is not what is meant. The ‘not I’ refers to my little ‘’‘everyday ego’‘’ - which is not our true self - and we must eliminate it. So whether we love a roast pork or are grumpy because of our personal circumstances has nothing to do with the spiritual world. That gets in our way. So this ‘’‘ego, this “I want, I want, I have to, I need”’, that's what we actually have to get rid of. But ‘’‘our real self,’‘’ we will not really experience in its concrete form in everyday life. We know that we have an ego, but that's all we know about it in our everyday consciousness. It has nothing to do with how we were born, what education we have, how much money we have, it doesn't matter at all. It really has nothing to do with our ego. You have to get to ‘’‘the conscious experience of your own ego’‘’. But it's a great moment to experience that we have one. Children usually experience it around the age of three. Then it hits them: ‘I am an I’. Many people can no longer remember this later in life. Sometimes it reappears later in life, in old age, just like ‘’‘memories of early childhood’‘’ tend to resurface in old age. But some people never forget this experience.

I can remember the experience incredibly well and in great detail. It was sometime in November, maybe even on my third birthday. If it wasn't on my third birthday, then it was on St Nicholas‘ Day. My parents were there, my maternal grandmother, uncles, aunts, behind me was a fireplace that was lit, it was already quite dark. Suddenly, I looked around me with wide, astonished eyes and realised, “”’I'm something different.‘’' I'll never forget it. It was like a shock, I can't say whether it was devastating – no, it certainly wasn't devastating – I didn't know that – but it was just so emphatic that it kept coming back to me. And I have to say, the older I get, the clearer it is.

There are also such moments later in life. Rudolf Steiner describes how he experienced this in his twenty-first year, when the I becomes even more awake. I'll have to read that out one day. It's quite interesting. He read about it in the works of the philosopher ‘’‘Schelling’', who also describes this experience. And then Steiner describes how he had this experience himself. He was also sure that he had had this experience. So, you can have this experience of the self at different levels. It is not to be compared with the everyday ego that we have. Having this experience of the self has something to do with the apocalypse. The ‘Apocalypse of Jesus Christ’ is also the ‘Apocalypse of one's own self’, namely at the moment ‘when I and Christ are one in essence’. At the moment when one has such an experience, this ‘unity of essence’ is there. Only for a moment, then it disappears again - or at least it is not in our consciousness. In reality, it is somehow already there, but we cannot make ourselves aware of it again, perhaps not for years, not until the end of our lives. But in that one moment it is there. That is what Paul meant when he said: ‘It is not I, but Christ in me.’ You could also formulate it in the sense of: ‘It is not my little self, but my real I in me.’ It is actually exactly the same.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3618s Repeated earthly lives – mistakes and correction 1:00:18] ===
Let's go back to the seven churches in Asia. It was a bit of a detour. Yes, there was something I wanted to say, but I lost sight of it. It has to do with the ‘’‘repeated earthly lives,’‘’ that we have to go through. It is only through these many earthly lives that our ego develops further. We can only acquire an awareness of our own self through many lives on earth. But ‘’‘we also make mistakes on earth,’‘’ we are not like the angels above us, where the spiritual simply flows into us and we implement it, but we can err, we can make mistakes - and thus take on a task, namely by making these mistakes, we change the course of the world in a certain way. It is up to us to ‘’‘correct it again.’‘’ Above all, we ourselves suffer as a result. The Christ helps us to correct the mistakes that remain in the world in a certain way. But what we destroy in ourselves by making mistakes – because mistakes also mean that we ultimately put our ego in danger or scratch it – in the next incarnation or the one after that, when our strength has grown a little, we have to correct this mistake, you could say. That is what ‘’‘is connected with our karma,’‘’ with our ‘’‘destiny’‘’. Our karma is nothing other than our ego striving to repair the damage it has done to itself, to work on it. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that we ourselves are ultimately the ones who ‘’‘send our fate’‘’, our ‘’‘karma’‘’. Our real I. No one else. We don't need to complain to anyone. We can only be happy that the Christ, by working with and in our I, but in a very individual way, ‘’‘helps us to bear this karma’‘’, that he also gives us ‘’‘strength’‘’, gives our I strength. But always only to the extent that we ‘’‘really struggle for it,’‘’ it is never just something that is given, but always something ‘’‘that we have to do’‘’. That is very important. So, that is the karma that we carry with us, that is connected with our error, with our possibilities of error. But it is precisely ‘’‘on that that we mature.’‘’ That is why the path is given for many earthly lives, so that we can experience all this and thereby learn to become free beings.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=3813s The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Humanity 1:03:33] ===
But let us now return to the seven churches.<blockquote>‘’«John to the seven churches in Asia:‘’

‘’Grace and peace be with you,‘’

‘’from him who is and who was and who is to come,‘’

‘’and from the seven creator spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ».‘’</blockquote>The seven creator spirits: Well, who are the seven creator spirits? Essentially, they are those spiritual forces or those spiritual beings who created our ‘’‘bodily shells’‘’ and prepared them so that these spiritual shells, these bodily shells – yes, I have already used the word ‘spiritual shells’ – could one day be transformed into spiritual forces. So what are these bodies: the ‘’‘physical body’‘’, the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’, that is, the life forces, then the ‘’‘astral body’‘’, which makes us a sentient, conscious being. In the etheric body, we are actually still asleep, and in the astral body, we are at least dreaming. This is exactly what we have in common with animals. So, animals also have a certain consciousness, but it is still dream-like, this ‘’‘consciousness.’‘’ If we only had this consciousness, this astral consciousness, we would not be very awake. We would not recognise ourselves as an I. That means that the ‘’‘I’‘’ comes in a certain way as the fourth, or the ‘’‘I-bearer, as Rudolf Steiner often calls it,’‘’ which is, so to speak, the physical prerequisite for an I to be able to incarnate. Incarnation means that the I completely permeates the body shells and thus ‘’‘makes the body shells’‘’ into ‘’‘I-bearers,’‘’ but that is the fourth principle. The ‘’‘I’‘’ that is now incarnating, by unfolding its spiritual forces, ‘’‘shapes the astral body, the etheric body and finally the physical body’‘’ through its spiritual forces, through the individual spiritual forces that lie within each I. The astral body, which was initially given by the spiritual beings, is transformed into what Rudolf Steiner calls the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ or our higher self. Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. This is a power that our I has at its disposal, so to speak. In the East, it is also called ‘’‘manas.’‘’ Manas has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘’‘man’‘’ also comes from it, by the way. There is another word that comes from it, which can be found in the Bible, namely ‘’‘manna.’‘’ When ‘’‘Moses and the Israelites journey through the desert’', they are given manna. This is nothing other than the powers of this spirit self, which in a certain sense descend upon the Israelites as a whole, not yet upon the individual at that time, but upon the community.

When we transform the etheric body through the power of the I, then the etheric body becomes the ‘’‘life spirit’‘’. This power of the life spirit then lives within our I. That is to say, just as the body sheaths - the physical body, etheric body, astral body - surround our I from the outside, so our I envelops the spirit self and life spirit within itself - figuratively speaking. They are part of ‘’‘this I.’‘’ In the highest form, for example, it means that if I take only the spirit self, that is, the transformed astral body, then it means that our I has become capable of ‘’‘creating an astral body out of nothing.’‘’ It is something different from when we wrap ourselves in an astral body during our normal incarnation on earth. For the most part, it is only lent to us by the spiritual world – and this will continue to happen as long as we are not able to create one for ourselves out of nothing. That is then actually our real astral body. But then we no longer call it an ‘’‘astral body, but a spirit self.’‘’ He is then completely ours.

The aim of all the initiation processes that have been taking place on earth since Egyptian times, or that lead into the future in some other way, is to form ‘’‘as much as possible’‘’ of this spirit self. So, in addition to the fact that we are developing our I here on earth, the people who are really making spiritual progress are those who have already developed a good part of the spirit self. It will then be the task of the so-called ‘’‘New Jupiter’‘’ - or what John calls the ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’, which I have discussed today - to fully develop this spirit self. But we should already have a certain part of it at the end of the earth's development, then we will at least be among the spiritually more developed people. Yes, the life spirit is the transformed etheric body. We will not be able to transform the etheric body into the life spirit on our own during the development of the Earth. We can work on it, we can work on it above all, or we can bring it a little further in the direction of ‘’‘the help of the Christ.’‘’ In this case it is really the help of the Christ. That means something that cannot be accomplished by our ego. For this, for example, the word ‘’‘grace’‘’ is very important. This is a gift that Christ gives us. As far as the spirit self is concerned, that is already our own responsibility. This is the ‘’‘endowment with the Holy Spirit’‘’, as one might call it. But this Holy Spirit is then our Holy Spirit. This is not something that remains above us or directs us from outside, but something that ultimately belongs to our I. Only then has it become a true spirit self, which we are now developing during the development of the earth, and we owe this solely to our I. But what we are already producing in terms of life spirit, at least in a preliminary form, is something for which we need the help of the Christ.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4327s The physical body and our consciousness of self 1:12:07] ===
And then we will even need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ to do this, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body. Sounds paradoxical. What is a spiritualised physical body? That sounds like a contradiction. We have to think about what the physical body, in which we are now normally embodied on earth, the physical and material body, is for. Physically and materially are not exactly the same thing. ‘’‘The material’‘’ is actually what fulfils the physical form. If, for example, the Luciferic temptation had not come, that is, if we had not come under the influence of the ‘’‘opposing forces’‘’, then we would not have had the kind of physical body that we have today. It would have been invisible to the senses.

There are a great many physical beings that are not visible to our eyes. For example, there are ‘’‘elemental beings’‘’ that definitely have a physical body and yet are ‘’‘not visible to us with our physical eyes’‘’. There are whole realms of physical worlds out there that are not visible to us because they are ‘’‘not material’‘’. So, our physical body becomes visible through the material. But what does this physical body give us, precisely through the fulfilment with the material and through the problems that are associated with it? It is precisely through the material that the whole physical body tends to decay. The material has this principle of decaying from within. When the etheric body is no longer present to constantly renew these substances, in these seven-year cycles that we have spoken of, then it simply decays, just as the corpse decays with death. So, our physical body cannot maintain its form by itself. This is because we have this ‘’‘Luciferic impact’‘’. By being filled with matter, our actually imperfect invisible physical body was actually damaged. ‘’‘This is how it became visible. This is how it became mortal.’‘’ But this is also how we have gained our consciousness of self - and we gain it precisely because we are mortal.

Our consciousness of self awakens in the processes – also in life – when they are processes of decay. For example, with every nerve impulse that passes through, something dies in the brain. It is then re-energised, but actually something dies until death, until a ‘’‘salt-like state’‘’ in the nerves. This is precisely why the ‘’‘brain’‘’ is an instrument with which we can acquire ‘’‘consciousness’‘’. To do this, we need the physical, material brain. Not for thinking, actually. ‘’‘Thinking is not a function of the physical brain.’‘’ We need the brain to become aware of these thoughts, which are actually etheric forces. As a rule, we are not yet at the stage where we can consciously experience the etheric, which is not visible to the senses but only leaves its trace in the senses – then in the growth forces – in order to experience these formative forces, these etheric forces, it has to be reflected in the physical brain and it is reflected when these ‘’‘decay processes’‘’ take place in the brain. Then, when it is regenerated again, or at least regenerated to a large extent, then the consciousness is already gone again. The dying process must take place there, that is when we become aware. We have ‘’‘death’‘’, the constant death that has in truth accompanied us since birth, ‘’‘to which we owe our consciousness’‘’ - that is a prerequisite for it - and in particular ‘’‘our I-consciousness’‘’ is especially to be owed.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4595s Imagination - Experiencing in the Spiritual 1:16:35] ===
Of course, an astral body and an etheric body are also part of it, but this ability to die through the material body is very important for our consciousness. That is why we have it and why we need it. We will need it until our consciousness has become able to do without the help of these dying processes. That means that when this consciousness can now seek out another counterpart, another mirror, when it no longer needs this physical ‘’‘mirror’‘’, when it can, for example, reflect itself in the etheric, that is, in the life forces. This mirroring in the life forces, when we enter this world of life, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we ‘’‘experience imaginations’', pictures. And now we put huge quotation marks around the word “pictures” - I will come back to this - pictures from the spiritual world. They are living pictures. ‘’‘These images cannot be described’‘’ like an oil painting, an old painting on the wall, because it is a moving image that changes continuously. You can't really capture it at all. There is movement in it – we have already discussed the paradox – a ‘’‘movement that takes place in timelessness’‘’. The movement arises from the fact that we can look at this image from different perspectives, go through it and, if I translate that into the sensual, then a temporal series of developments, a temporal event, emerges from it. But in the etheric I can go forward, backward, take detours, so I can move freely. In meditation, when you really get to a true imagination, where time no longer plays a role, a true imagination, that is experienced ‘’‘in complete timelessness.’‘’ I think, if I remember correctly, I briefly mentioned in the first lecture we had, we had two lectures, that you can experience that. Because when you do ‘’‘meditation’‘’ with today's consciousness, it's not that you're completely out of it and just floating in another world, but ‘’‘we still retain’‘’ ‘’‘consciousness here for the sensory world’‘’ even when you're not focusing on it, but it remains there. I remain aware that I am in the physical world with my body. I don't enter a dream-like state of consciousness where I am lifted out and simply float above everything, somewhere. You can really notice, under certain circumstances, if there is a clock on the table somewhere, that I have an incredibly ‘’‘intense imagination’‘’, that is, a moving picture, as we have discussed, ‘’‘an incredibly rich picture’‘’. You have the feeling that what I am experiencing is something that lasts for hours, that it is something very, very long that is unfolding and unrolling before me – and when I look at the second hand of the clock, it seems to be standing still. So what I experience internally as hours or days, externally no time passes. So it is ‘’‘experienced in an instant,’‘’ measured in terms of our external time. It can happen in dreams, too, in reality. It often happens when a dream is triggered by something, especially when you wake up and enter the sensory world. For example, the morning sun comes in through the window, even with your eyes closed, your senses somehow perceive it without us being aware of the sunlight. We are still in the dream and suddenly a huge fire breaks out in the dream, a huge fire, and there you experience a long story: the fire brigade arrives, there are dramatic scenes unfolding so that the residents in the house can be rescued and you think that it has been going on for two hours. You wake up and look at the sun, which has just come around the corner, which has just appeared, almost at the same moment. So actually, these dream images also unfold in timelessness, basically. This consciousness, this imaginative consciousness is connected to the fact that when we no longer need the physical body as a mirroring apparatus for consciousness, then we mirror in the living etheric body, then ‘’‘we go out of the time stream’‘’ and ‘’‘can move freely in time.’‘’

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=4946s The Soul World and Time 1:22:26] ===
In the astral world, in the ‘’‘soul world’', it is different, there is a very special paradox, time seems to come towards us. Future, it seems that ‘’‘time moves in reverse.’‘’ This is very important, because this is the way in which creative impulses enter the world. In order for something to manifest itself creatively in the physical world, there must be a physical time stream that goes from the past to the future, which is what we know in normal life. The etheric must be there, where timelessness, above all mobility, reigns in time – and something must come from the future, actually from the end of the development process – and ‘’‘where the stream from the past and the stream from the future collide,’‘’ it becomes our momentary ‘’‘present’‘’. Something happens there.

With every event that takes place in the world, it is never just a consequence of the past, as is often believed in the natural sciences, because they only have physical and sensory means at their disposal, which is why they only know this stream of time that comes from the past and goes into the future, and they can only deduce from what has happened in the past what might happen in the future. With simple things, you can even calculate it in advance: A physicist can easily predict how a stone will fall if nothing else interferes, such as a bird flying past or something like that. But otherwise, ‘’'most real events ,‘’‘ that happen in the world, “”’you can't predict,‘’' because they are not only determined by the past, but are also determined, half of them, at least half of them, by what is heading towards us from the future. These two things have to come together. This means that when we move on from imagination or ‘’‘imagination,’‘’ something comes in that goes beyond this pictorial consciousness and shows us something of the future. Something ‘’‘shows us where this development is going,’‘’ because this goal actually comes towards us, in a sense. We have to look at the beginning and the end in order to be able to understand the current moment of development at all. These two currents have to come together.

I'll now read you a few sentences from the Apocalypse, where this is also hinted at to a certain extent, very clearly. Again, where basically Christ speaks, or at least the angel speaks through Christ. It says:<blockquote>‘’‘I am the Alpha and the Omega.’‘’</blockquote>In Greek, this means the beginning and the end. The first and the last letter in the Greek alphabet, the Alpha and the Omega.<blockquote>‘’‘Thus says the Lord, our God, who is and who was and who is to come, the ruler of the universe’.‘’</blockquote>It's all there. ‘’‘He is, who was and who is to come.’‘’ The present, that's where it starts, ‘he who is’. So it's important to keep that in mind, the order is not random, because the experience always starts in the present moment. The moment is also, in which the whole eternity is also inside. From here, I look to both sides, to what was there, that is, back, and thus also to what determines my fate, because – as far as we humans are concerned – it also contains all the mistakes we have made and which we must correct in the future, that is, what we must work on. We also see something towards which we are heading, namely our self, our individual self. Every individual self has a special nuance. It is not the case that we all have exactly the same goal. We ‘’‘all contribute together’‘’ to perhaps ‘’‘a higher goal’', that's how you could perhaps outline it. You can also find that in the words in there.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5302s The spiritualisation of the physical body – the goal of human development 1:28:22] ===
Now I'll come back to the seven creator spirits in connection with the human body. I have not yet told you ‘’‘what happens to the physical body when it is spiritualised’‘’. Now I hope that you have gained a little impression that the physical can also be spiritualised - and this is not to be equated simply with the material-physical, which we know as our body. That there is also ‘’‘an invisible physical’‘’, that it is ‘’‘in truth the actual physical.’‘’ If we succeed, with the help of the Christ and the help of the father forces, in restoring this originally spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which we can now achieve, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human being’‘’. This is the highest spiritual that we can develop, as far as we can see, and it is precisely in the spiritualisation of the physical. We must not underestimate the physical, but we must see that the greatest task of humanity lies in at least working towards the spiritualisation of this physical. This is also connected with the ‘’‘resurrection of Christ’‘’. The resurrection forces of Christ, which could not have come into effect without the Father's activity, are connected with the transformation of the physical body into a spiritual being. For it to be truly successful means that we are then able, out of our own strength, out of our own I, to bring forth such a high, such a spiritualised physical body. But this is certainly no longer a body that is material. We will then not walk around on a material ‘’‘globe’‘’ or any other sphere, however it may be formed, in a material body, but rather the highest spiritual will enter. To understand this, you have to ask yourself why it is actually the highest spiritual and how it is otherwise connected to the material.

I think that the physical is the most difficult to work with. In the soul, we can already work a little today, at least to some extent, to bring forth the spirit self, consciously or unconsciously. ‘’‘An artist,’‘’ when he is really creative, ‘’‘creates a new work in his soul’‘’ and then realises it, outwardly too, but to do that he has to ‘’‘experience it in his soul first’‘’, then he is creatively active in a spiritual way. Then he is active out of his spiritual self. That means, ‘’‘he transforms astral, soul into real spiritual self.’‘’ This spirit self or this spark of spirit self that he has within him, he has created from his own I. Out of nothing, basically. He has not taken it from anywhere else, from anywhere outside, ‘’‘but from within himself.’‘’

It is much more difficult to create etheric forces out of nothing, that is, to ‘’‘unfold the spirit of life.’‘’ That is much more difficult. On the whole, we are not yet able to do that, but we need the help of the Christ to be able to do it. We don't even need to talk about the physical, because we ourselves create almost nothing there, especially consciously. In order for it to become our own, we have to be able to do it consciously, that is, consciously transform the physical body into this high spiritual being. This is only beginning to happen.

Only the highest spiritual hierarchies can really work on the physical, namely ‘’‘the Christ and the Father-Godhead’‘’, which is behind it. But very high angelic beings work with them as executive organs. These include, for example, the ‘’‘thrones’‘’ in a leading position. They are in the upper group of three hierarchies. Above them are only the beings of the zodiac, the ‘’‘cherubim’‘’ and then the ‘’‘seraphim’‘’, who are basically connected to the whole cosmos, through the visible universe - and even beyond the visible, at least for our eyes beyond the visible. These are therefore very, very high spiritual beings who are behind the physical. ‘’‘In the soul, anyone can work today, so to speak’‘’. The angelic beings that are closely connected to us, the actual angels, they all cannot do that. But we are approaching a time when we will be able to ‘’‘create a complete physical body for ourselves’‘’. It will no longer be called a physical body, but a spiritual human being. It is this that will enable us to achieve our ‘’‘highest consciousness’‘’.

Today we have ‘’‘only a mirror image,’‘’ because we are most conscious of the physical, which is basically polluted by the material. We cannot yet become self-aware of the etheric body. We are not yet able to do that. If we only had the I and the astral body, then we would know nothing about ourselves, absolutely nothing. ‘’‘It is precisely in the physical that one can develop the highest consciousness.’‘’ This applies equally to the spiritual being. That is to say, the spiritual being is the highest spiritual element that we can acquire. What happens next is a different chapter, and is not our subject.

I have now made a huge ‘’‘interjection’‘’ just to explain a little bit about the significance of the number seven, and these stages of development. We have come across these seven stages of human development or these seven constituent parts of the human being, via the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the I, which stands in the centre, and up to the spiritual constituent parts, which we can acquire through our own efforts: ‘’‘the spirit self, the life spirit, the spiritual human being’‘’. This has to do with the ‘’‘number seven’‘’. And we have come to these, simply because it was of seven churches that John speaks, to which he turns and to which he now writes in a certain way, to the seven churches. In doing so, he mentions the seven creator spirits. I'll read the short passage again.<blockquote>‘’‘John to the seven churches in Asia:’‘

’‘Grace and peace be yours,’‘

’‘from him who is and who was and who is to come,’‘

’‘and from the seven spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ.’‘’</blockquote>‘’‘The seven spirits before his throne’‘’, these are the spiritual beings that ‘’‘help to create our seven members of the human being’‘’. Because, in general, the higher spiritual elements of our being, which we actually have to create ourselves – because only then are they ours – still have to be prepared. That is, so to speak, if you put it in earthly terms, ‘’‘a model for it’‘’. It has to be prepared once. These seven creator spirits work on it. It would be too much to go into which angelic beings they are. They are also high angelic beings, very high. You should not be surprised that, for example, ‘’‘the thrones have something to do with it,’‘’ yes, with the physical body and ‘’‘also with the preparation of the spiritual being,’‘’ that they have a hand in it, because they are able to work into the physical, for example. Just as a small hint.

=== [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOJ3yZi9LgM&t=5873s The Revelation of John on Patmos 1:37:53] ===
Now I want to read something else to you at the end of the lecture, namely also from the first chapter what John now writes in detail ‘’‘to these seven churches:’‘’<blockquote>‘’«I, John, your brother and companion in all trials, as well as in the inner kingdom and in the persevering strength that we possess as those who are united with Jesus, was on the island of Patmos. There I was to be made partaker of the divine word of the world and worthy of bearing witness to the suffering of Christ.‘</blockquote>

’The suffering of Jesus’ is what it says in the translation. The translation is by ‘’‘Emil Bock’‘, one of the “”’founding priests of the Christian Community‘’‘. So, “”’on the island of Patmos he had this spiritual vision.‘’‘ He describes very clearly an “”’imagination‘’‘ and how this imagination was “”’translated into sensual images‘’'. He cannot communicate the image in any other way than by translating it into sensual words. He describes it in a very typical way:<blockquote>‘’«On the day of the Lord, I was transported into the spiritual realm and heard a mighty voice behind me like the sound of a ‘’‘trombone’‘’».‘’</blockquote>It is often the case ‘’‘in spiritual experiences,’‘’ that you have the feeling «there is something behind me» and my first test is whether I turn around or not. Do I have the courage to turn around, because if I have the courage to turn around, then it means that I am in a sense crossing the ‘’‘threshold’‘’. And that is ‘’‘a kind of death experience’‘’. You have to be aware of that, it is a death experience. And it is also connected with, how shall I put it, with the unpleasant side of death, that is, to feel this loss in the physical world - without completely leaving the body. You really have the experience of ‘’‘going through death’‘’. Without that ‘’‘you cannot cross the threshold’‘’. That means that the first test is: do I dare to turn around or not. Of course, this has nothing to do with physically turning around, but rather in the spiritual world. That means that the ‘’‘turning around’‘’ is to ‘’‘let go of everything that is sensual in order to turn to the spiritual’‘’. This mighty voice like the sound of a trumpet. Incidentally, the word ‘trombone’ means - and since we are talking about sound - that ‘’‘inspiration’‘’ is already playing a part in the development of the imagination. In fact, every spiritual experience begins at an even higher level, with ‘’‘intuition’‘’. I have to become one with a spiritual being in order to enter the spiritual world at all. That is intuition. However, it does not become immediately conscious. It is, so to speak, the prerequisite and forms the unconscious background.

The next stage is ‘’‘inspiration.’‘’ When you have a real spiritual experience, then you have at least an echo of this inspirational experience, without being able to fully grasp its content, that you ‘’‘hear a voice like a trombone,’‘’ which is just loud and powerful and shattering, but you don't really understand it at that moment.

The third and last thing is actually ‘’‘the imaginative image,’‘’ that builds up – and this image is not a sensual one at first, but rather, you could say, ‘’‘a kind of highly differentiated mood of the soul’‘’ that one experiences. I will perhaps come back to this in more detail another time. There is no more time now. It is actually a ‘’‘highly differentiated spiritual experience’‘’ that one has, which one can now ‘’‘overlook like a panorama’‘’, which is in motion, which is changing, and in this experience one can, so to speak, wander around spiritually. That is the real imagination. But John has to describe it as a spiritual image. So he hears this voice and he continues to say or write:<blockquote>‘’« She said: Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches. To Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamon, to Thyatira, to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea ».‘’</blockquote>So these are the seven churches. ‘’‘Ephesus’‘’ ([[A:Ephesos|Ephesos]]), the first, with which John was, incidentally, ‘’‘very closely connected,’‘’ that is, in the period long after the events in Palestine, after the death of Christ on the cross. The island of Patmos, incidentally, is very close, on the coast of Asia Minor, and Ephesus and the mystery centre of Ephesus are relatively close on the mainland. That is also an advantage, that there was a mystery centre there, an important one. ‘’‘The important Christian centres’‘’ were all initially located where ancient mystery centres were also located - so this ‘’‘mystery centre’‘’ of Ephesus was closely connected to Patmos, or rather the other way round, Patmos was in a sense ‘’‘an offshoot of the mysteries of Ephesus.’‘’ So, there are seven churches and the voice speaks now and John continues to write:<blockquote>‘’"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.‘’‘</blockquote>So the Christ appears in human form.<blockquote>’‘’Clothed with a long flowing robe,‘’

‘’girded at the breast with a golden girdle,‘’

‘’with a white head, the hair of which shone like white wool and like snow,‘’

‘’with eyes as if they were flames of fire,‘’

‘’with feet as if they were of gold ore that has been heated in the fire,‘’

‘’with a voice like the the sound of great waters,‘’

‘’in his right hand he held ‘’‘seven stars’‘’,‘’

‘’out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword,‘’

‘’and his countenance was like the sun in its strength."</blockquote>It is a very powerful experience. The sensual image is a pale shadow of what really lies behind it in the imagination. But it points the way. And how strong that was, comes out further:<blockquote>‘’‘and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said -’' we have already read this today “”- Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last and the Living. I was dead, yet I carry the life of the world through all the ages. Mine is the key to the realms of death and the shadows. Write down what you see, the present and the future. The mystery of the seven stars that you see in my right hand, and of the seven golden lampstands,‘’ ‘’is this. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches themselves.‘</blockquote>With that, “”’the first chapter of the Apocalypse‘’' ends, and I would like to close for today.
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[[Index of terms Lecture series The Apocalypse of John by Wolfgang Peter#A|APOCALYPSE]]

* ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also called ‘’‘Apocalypse’‘’ of the own self - namely in the moment when I and Christ are one [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The riddle of the self 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|‘’‘Apocalypse of John’‘’]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ASTRAL BODY

* We transform the ‘’‘astral body’‘’ into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

ETHER

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect itself ‘’‘in the etheric’', then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experiencing in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. episode, 2020, 1:16:35]]
The ‘’‘ether’‘’ world is much richer than the physical world: the physical is actually a dead thing, something that has died out of the ‘’‘ether’‘’ world [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Development in time and timelessness 0:46:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:46:18]]
* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with number rhythms. The number seven indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the ‘’‘ethereal’‘’, because the ‘’‘etheric forces’‘’, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the ‘’‘etheric body’‘’ still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ‘’‘ether’‘’ and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
ATLANTIS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-‘’‘Atlantean’‘’ era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|B}}

CONSCIOUSNESS

* When our ‘’‘consciousness’‘’ no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different ‘’‘consciousness’‘’, with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the ‘’‘consciousness,’‘’ in which we experience imaginations [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|C}}

CHRIST

* If we succeed, with the help of ‘’‘Christ’‘’ and with the help of the father forces, in restoring the original spiritual, but in such a way that it now fits our I completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of ypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body – goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We need the fatherly forces that are conveyed through ‘’‘Christ’‘’ to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of the self - namely at the moment when I and ‘’‘Christ’‘’ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the self that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as ‘’‘Christ’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|D}}

DANTE ALIGHIERI

* Descent into the realm of shadows is described by ‘’‘Dante’‘’ ([[A:Dante Alighieri|Dante Alighieri]] ) in his ‘Divine Comedy’ ([[A:Divine Comedy|Divine Comedy]]). The path leads through the centre of the earth to the ascent [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Dante's Divine Comedy – Descent into the Realm of the Shades and Ascent 0:31:28|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:31:28]]

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

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

{{BS|F}}

FREEDOM

* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. For this he has ‘’‘freedom’‘’. He can open himself to the spiritual out of free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|G}}

SPIRIT

* We need the father forces, which are mediated by the Christ, in order to even ‘’‘spiritualise’‘’ something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our I-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

SPIRITUAL HUMAN

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our I, then we create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the ‘’‘spiritual human’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body – goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:28:22]]

SPIRIT SELF

* An artist who is truly creative from his I is active from the ‘’‘spirit self’‘’. This means that he transforms the astral into ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body – goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called manas in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this ‘’‘spirit self’‘’ is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* The [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] is also called manas in the East. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

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

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

{{BS|I}}

I

* An artist who is truly creative from his ‘’‘I’‘’ is working from the spirit self. That is, he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body – goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of the Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits perfectly with our ‘’‘I’‘’, then we will create our highest spiritual, which Rudolf Steiner so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body – goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:28:22]]
* Karma is nothing more than our ‘’‘I’‘’ striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives – mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
* The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ ([[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]]) is also the Apocalypse of one's own ‘’‘I’‘’ - namely at the moment when ‘’‘I’‘’ and Christ are one in essence [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The mystery of the I 0:54:52|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:54:52]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, human beings can err. That is why they have freedom. They can open themselves to the spiritual realm of their own free will, which opens a source in the ‘’‘I’‘’ that is of the same essence as the highest divine: being of the same essence as Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

IMAGINATION

* When our consciousness no longer needs the physical mirror and can reflect in the etheric, then we actually acquire a different consciousness, a consciousness with which we can already look a little into the spiritual world. This is the consciousness in which we experience ‘’‘imaginations’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Imagination - Experience in the Spiritual 1:16:35|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:16:35]]

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

{{BS|J}}

JOHN, THE EVANGELIST

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]
* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]), the writer of the Gospel of John ([[A:GA 103|GA 103]]) and the Apocalypse, is the [[A:Lazarus|Lazarus]] raised from the dead by Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Introduction 0:00:36|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. part, 2020, 0:00:36]]

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

{{BS|K}}

KARMA

* ‘’‘[[A:Karma|Karma]]’‘’ is nothing more than our ego striving to repair the damage it has inflicted on itself. We have to do it, otherwise we would not get anywhere. That means that ultimately we ourselves are the ones who send our fate, our karma [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#Repeated earthly lives – mistakes and corrections 1:00:18|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 1:00:18]]
CULTURAL EPOCHS

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven ‘’‘cultural epochs’‘’ of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]

ART

* An ‘’‘artist’‘’ who is truly creative from his I is active from the spirit self. This means that he transforms astral into spiritual out of nothing [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body – goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:28:22]]

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

{{BS|L}}

LIFE PANORAMA

* In the first three days after death, the [[A:life panorama|‘’‘life panorama’‘’]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the ancient Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]
* Like in a great [[A:panorama of life|‘’‘panorama of life’‘’]], this image of the past life appears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|[1 | 0:03:14]]

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

{{BS|M}}

MANAS

* We transform the astral body into what Rudolf Steiner calls the [[A:spirit self|‘’‘spirit self’‘’]] or our higher self (called [[A:manas|‘’‘manas’‘’]] in the East). Our real I becomes richer to the extent that this higher self, this spirit self, is formed. It is a power that our I has at its disposal [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called ‘’‘[[A:manas|manas]]’‘’ in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘man’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word ‘man’ also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]

MAN

* The [[A:spirit self|spirit self]] is also called manas in the Orient. It has to do with meynen, thinking. The word ‘’‘’man‘’‘’ is also related to it. It is an old Indo-Germanic word. The word man also comes from it [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven creator spirits and the development of man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 1:03:33]]
* Unlike higher beings in the spiritual world, ‘’‘man’‘’ can err. He has the freedom to do so. He can open himself to the spiritual world of his own free will, whereby a source opens in the I that is of the same nature as the highest divine: being one with the Christ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #Repeated earthly lives and the freedom of man 0:50:06|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 0:50:06]]

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

{{BS|N}}

NEW JERUSALEM

* In the [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] the view is opened to the so-called ‘’‘New Jerusalem’‘’ ([[A:New Jerusalem|New Jerusalem]]). This is a kind of new planetary state that will one day become our Earth [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The New Jerusalem – a new Earth 0:35:47|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:35:47]]

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

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

{{BS|P}}

PHYSICAL BODY

* We need the Father forces, which are conveyed by the Christ, in order to even spiritualise something of our ‘’‘physical body’‘’ [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter #The physical body and our self-awareness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

{{BS|R}}

RUDOLF STEINER

* If we succeed in restoring the original spiritual with the help of Christ and the Father forces, but in such a way that it now fits our ego completely, then we create our highest spiritual, which ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’‘’ so aptly calls the spiritual human being [[The Ap apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The spiritualisation of the physical body – goal of human development 1:28:22|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 1:28:22]]
John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the seven churches in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to ‘’‘Rudolf Steiner’', they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|S}}

CREATIVE SPIRITS

* The seven ‘’‘creative spirits’‘’ are essentially those spiritual forces or beings that created our physical bodies [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter# The Seven Creator Spirits and the Development of Man 1:03:33|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st series, 2020, 1:03:33]]
SEVEN CHURCHES

* John ([[A:John the Evangelist|John the Evangelist]]) addresses his words quite decidedly to the ‘’‘seven churches’‘’ in Asia: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea ([[A:Seven Letters to the Churches|Seven Letters to the Churches]]). According to Rudolf Steiner, they represent the seven cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. Die Apokalypse des Joh, 1. Folge, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|T}}

DEATH

* In the first three days after ‘’‘death’', the [[A:life panorama|life panorama]] unfolds because the etheric body still remains in a certain compact form and is also the bearer of memory. After that, it dissolves into the world ether and the panorama disappears [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The initiation in the old Egyptian culture 0:03:14|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of Joh, 1. episode, 2020, 0:03:14]]

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

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

{{BS|V}}

FATHER FORCES

* We need the ‘’‘Father forces’‘’ that are imparted by the Christ in order to even spiritualise something of our physical body [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The physical body and our ego-consciousness 1:12:07|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1st part, 2020, 1:12:07]]

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

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

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

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

{{BS|Z}}

NUMBERS

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with ‘’‘number’‘’ rhythms. The number seven‘’' indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The number seven is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with ‘’‘time’‘’. [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. series, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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

{{BS|0-9}}

SEVEN

* The [[A:Apocalypse of John|Apocalypse of John]] works a lot with numerical rhythms. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ indicates a temporal development, an evolution or a series of developments. The ‘’‘number seven’‘’ is also the number of the etheric, because the etheric forces, the life forces, have something to do with time [[The Apocalypse of John - 1. lecture by Wolfgang Peter#The seven churches and the number seven 0:38:54|| Peter, W. The Apocalypse of John, 1. episode, 2020, 0:38:54]]

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