Lecture 1 [excerpt]*
Let me first extend to you my heart felt greetings. Friends in Norrköping have expressed the wish that on this occasion I should take a theme concerning that being who in the realm of spiritual science is above all else that is near to us, the Christ Being.
I tried to meet this wish by undertaking to speak about the coming to life of the Christ being in the human soul and the significance of this. We shall thus have the opportunity to speak of the most human and intimate significance of Christianity, from the standpoint of spiritual silence.
Let us consider the human soul. In the sense of spiritual science we have a short word which, although it does not embrace all that the expression "human soul" signifies for us, points to something which for us men of earth fills and permeates the Soul element to its furthest limits. We have the short word, capital I. In so far as we are men of Earth, our Ego Being reaches as far as does our Soul Nature.
You know that by the name I, or ego, we denote one of the foremost immediate principles of man. We speak in the first instance of four members of principles of the human being: the physical body, of the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego. And in order to have the starting point for what we shall be considering in these lectures, we need recall only one thing: we do not regard the laws, and the living essence of the physical body of man, as explicable in terms of our present Earthly environment.
We know that if we want to understand the physical human body, we must go back to the three preceding embodiments of our Earth the Saturn, the Sun, the Moon periods. In a remote primordial past during the Saturn embodiment, The Germ of the physical body was already laid down.
During the sun embodiment the foundation of the etheric body was lain down. and during the moon embodiment that of the astral body. In reality our earth evolution in all its phases and in all its epochs is none other than that which enables the ego to fulfill its whole being.
We can say that just as the Physical Body has reached a significant stage of its evolution at the end of the Saturn Period, The Etheric Body at the end of the Sun Period, and the Astral Body at the end of the Moon Period, so at the end of the Earth Period, our ego will have reached a signifigant point in its evolution.
We know that our ego develops through three soul members or principles: through the sentient soul, the intellectual or the mind soul, and the spiritual or Consciousness soul. All the worlds that come within the compass of these three Soul members are also concerned with our ego.
In the course of our earth evolution, these three soul members first prepared for themselves the three external body members: physical body, the etherical Body, and the astral body; through long Earth Periods.
In successive post-Atlantian epochs of civilization the three Soul principles develop further. And in future Earth periods they will again adapt themselves to the Astral Etheric and physical bodies so that the Earth can be prepared to pass over to the Jupiter Evolution.
If we take the expression comprehensively enough, we might also speak of man's Earth evolution as his soul evolution. One could say that when the earth began the soul element also began, in conformity with law, to bestir itself with man.
At first it began to work on the external sheaths, then it developed its own being and from then onward it begins again to work on the external sheaths, in order that preparation may be made for the Jupiter Evolution.
We must keep before our minds eye, e-y-e, what man is meant to become in his soul, during the Earth Evolution. He is to become what may be designated by the word Personality. This Personality needs in the first place what may be called Free Will. But, it needs also on the other side the possibility of finding within itself the way to the Divine in the world.
On the one side free will, the possibility of choosing between the Beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the true and the false;
On the other side is laying hold of the Divine so that the Divine penetrates Into the Soul we know ourselves to be inwardly filled with, such are the two goals of man's Evolution on the Earth.
And to aid him in reaching them, he has received two religious Gifts: one of these gifts is destined to lay down in the human soul those forces which lead to freedom, to the capacity for distinguishing between the true and the false, the beautiful and ugly, the good and bad.
And another religious gift had to be given to man during his Earth evolution in order that there might be laid in his soul the seed through which the soul can feel united to the Divine within itself.
The first religious Gift comes to meet us at the beginning of the Old Testament as the great picture of the Temptation and the fall. The second religious gift comes to us from all that the mystery of Golgotha signifies.
The Temptation and the Fall have to do with the implanting of freedom in man; the gift of being able to distinguish between good and bad, beautiful and ugly, true and false.
The mystery of Golgotha points to the possibility of man's Soul finding again the path to the Divine. Of knowing the Divine can flash up within it and penetrate it.
These religious gifts include everything that is most important in the earth evolution. Everything proceeding from the earth evolution that the soul can experience in its uttermost depths. Everything Associated most profoundly with the being and the becoming of the human soul.
How far is there a connection between these two religious gifts and the being and the becoming of the human soul, its inner experience. I do not want to put these matters before you in an abstract way so I will start from a perfectly concrete element--from that certain scene in the mystery of Golgotha as it stands before our eyes in historical tradition, and as impressed itself and should indeed have impressed himself even more on the hearts and The Souls of mankind.
Let us assume that we have in Christ Jesus that being of whom we have often spoken in the course of our lectures. Let us assume that in Christ Jesus we have before our spiritual eyes that which must appear to humanity as the most important fact in the whole universe.
And then let us set in contrast to this feeling the outcry, the fury of the enraged multitudes in Jerusalem at the time of the condemnation before the crucifixion.
Let us observe that the high court of Jerusalem held it above all things necessary to question Christ Jesus as to his relationship with the divine; as to whether he claimed to be the son of God;
Let us bear in mind that the high court held such a claim to be the greatest Blasphemy that Christ Jesus could have uttered.
An historical scene is there before us. A scene in which the people cry out and clamor for the death of Christ Jesus.
Now let us try to picture to ourselves what this shouting and rage signify historically.
Let us ask what ought these people to have recognized in Christ Jesus?
They ought to have recognized that being who gives meaning and significance to Earth life.
They ought to recognize that being who had to accomplish the deed without which Earth Humanity can not find the way back to the Divine.
Thy ought to have understood that humanity has no significance apart from this being. "
[ ... ]
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Note: I recently came across this video from YT, of this lecture series by Steiner. As I listened to it, there is a segment of the lecture that applies perfectly to the subect of an essay I'm writing.
"Changing of the Guard (13 Oct '22)", the essay I'm currently writing is the discussion of the place of personality and ego, during this time of transition. The words of Steiner as probably more relevant today, than when he spoke them, in 1914.
The main reason I'm transcribing the lecture is to give a written version for my members, and subs. It should be heard for its self in the oration on YT. This part that's specifically relevant is definitely recommended for those interested.
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* Ref.: [ Christ and the Human Soul (from CW 155), four lectures by Rudolf Steiner given in Norrköping from 12th to the 16th July 1914. Translation revised by C.D. ]
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