This book contains 13 lectures by Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy. One of the differences between Anthroposophy and its "parent religion" Theosophy is that Steiner placed more emphasis on the person and role of Jesus Christ in the cosmic drama. This book contains some of Steiner's ideas on the Christ and his role in human spiritual evolution.
Steiner seems to believe that spiritual evolution follows a dialectical scheme of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. Originally, humans were aware of the spiritual world, and had a kind of dream-like clairvoyance. Gradually, human consciousness became more and more physical and "materialist". This was necessary to develop individual autonomy, but it also cut humanity off from beneficial spiritual influences. The future synthesis and ultimate goal of evolution is conscious clairvoyance. Humans must communicate with the spirit-world without loosing their individual consciousness and freedom.
Steiner believes that human evolution was in danger of getting off track about 2000 years ago, as more and more people were loosing their clairvoyant abilities. Christ was a sun-spirit who incarnated on Earth in order to set things right. At the cross, Christ shed "etherized blood" which got into the energy field of the planet and then into our etheric bodies, thereby aiding our spiritual development. This is the Mystery of Golgotha. Unless I misunderstood Steiner, the etherized blood of Christ is therefore really a spiritual substance and somehow needs to be "turned on" by certain meditation techniques. It's unclear why Christ had to be crucified in order to accomplish this feat!
Steiner hotly denies that Christ will reappear in a physical form. At least in part, this is a polemic against the Adyar branch of Theosophy, which was promoting Jiddu Krishnamurti as a future "World Teacher" and saviour. By contrast, Steiner holds that Christ will reappear in the etheric, a spiritual dimension visible only to clairvoyants. This will take place at some point between 1930 and 1940. Over the next 2,500 years more and more people will become clairvoyant and see the etheric Christ. Together with Christ, the ancient wonderland of Shamballa will also appear in the etheric realm. There is a constant tension in Steiner's thinking between a strong determinism and a more open-ended view of human history, where evil forces can fool humanity to go off track again.
In another lecture, Steiner contrasts Buddhism with Christianity. Buddha wanted his followers to leave the earthly incarnation altogether due to the evil and suffering of physical existence. Steiner's explanation is that humans weren't sufficiently firmly incarnated in the physical during this period, and hence hoped to escape their suffering by withdrawing back to the spiritual realms. Christianity, by contrast, taught the transformation of the earthly realm. In order to get people to exert themselves to the maximum, Christianity therefore denied the fact of reincarnation (at least officially). In the future, Buddhism and Christianity must unite and teach both the Christ and reincarnation. Steiner even claims that Maitreya will appear physically on Earth in the future as a kind of World Teacher. (Valentin Tomberg, an apostate from Anthroposophy, later drew upon this idea to claim that Maitreya would somehow be Christian! Note that Maitreya is really the Buddhist saviour figure, a kind of Buddhist Messiah.)
The book also contains lectures only marginally connected to the reappearance of Christ in the etheric. Thus, Steiner claims that comets are feminine and innovative, but also materialist. Apparently, Halley's Comet caused the 18th century Enlightenment! Two lectures summarize themes more extensively dealt with in another book, "Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double". They deal with the war in Heaven in 1879, secret societies of black magicians, and so on. Finally, Steiner claims that the truth about Jesus isn't accessibly through modern historical-critical scholarship. (A modern foreword to the book mocks the Jesus Seminar for their minimalist view of Jesus.) The events surrounding the life and ministry of Christ can only be accessed through "spiritual science", i.e. Anthroposophy. The most important event in cosmic evolution can only be known by those willing to embrace Steiner's own message.
Steiner's writings are not an easy read. They are in some strange fashion simultaneously both dull and weird. Another problem is that Steiner constantly introduces new ideas seemingly unconnected to what went before, making his full teachings extremely unwieldy. "The reappearance of Christ in the etheric" only contains a small portion of the Anthroposophical view of Jesus.
Still, a relatively easy read for being a tome by this particular writer.
No comments:
Post a Comment