Cosmic and Human Metamorphoses
GA 175
The first seven lectures from the series: Building Stones for an Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. Cosmic and Human Metamorphoses. Published in German as: Bausteine zu Einer Erkenntnis des Mysteriums von Golgotha. Kosmische und menschliche Metamorphose. The original German texts of these lectures can be found in the Collected Edition of Rudolf Steiner's works, No. 175 in the Bibliographical Survey, 1961.
| I. | Materialism and Spirituality. | 6th February, 1917 |
| Oliver Lodge. Deception through etheric corpse. Deuteroscopia. The dead can only be reached by our following a spiritual path. From 1909 we are in a very special period. The coming of the Etheric Christ. Why do the Gospel words now seem cold and weak? ‘I am with you always, even unto the end of the earth time’. ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Christ should be approached in all matters as a companion. A new language. Our questions. ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’ | ||
| II. | The Metamorphoses of the Soul-Forces. | 13th February, 1917 |
| Inadequacy of language to express the spiritual. Gratitude to the spiritual. The proper balance. Old picture consciousness. Communion with dead. Language of the dead. Necessity of learning about old Saturn, etc. By repeatedly reading Spiritual Science we get the habit of reaching the spiritual world and the most appropriate time as we develop we gradually find to be the moment of falling asleep or awaking. Another time is when confronted by a decision not of our own. Inner balance. Attention at the moment of waking and when shaken by an outer event. Plato's cosmic year. 25920. The vernal point and man's breathing. A life of 70 years. The breathing process of earth. The Sun. Everyone, materialist or no, has spiritual forces within. If they are suppressed they become forces of illusion. Infection is dangerous in Spiritual domain. | ||
| III. | The Human Soul and the Universe I | 20th February, 1917 |
| Man is twofold, inner and outer. Correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm expressed in numbers. The three meetings of the soul with a Being of the Universe. We now have the germ of the Angels and the Spirit Self which will appear in Jupiter, and that of the Archangels and Life Spirit which will appear in Venus. Plutarch. Paracelsus. The daimon or genius is the Spirit Self in evolution now home by one of the Angels. When friends or foes meet, the Etheric head emerges and when the love is unselfish the etheric protrudes so far that the astral is seen like a halo. The first meeting of the Ego with the Spirit Self is between sleeping and waking and is in connection with the course of the day. The second meeting is between the Astral and Life Spirit and is more fixed and connected with macrocosm and the course of the year. It is through the Life Spirit that Christ reveals Himself and through a Being of the Archangels, though He is immeasurably higher than they. Christmas is connected with processes in the Earth. Easter with processes in the Heavens. The ancient Mysteries after Easter, tried to unite with John, but now the Christ disappears into us and permeates us. Spiritual Science not a religion, but a support for it. Spiritual consciousness or an inner religious life leads to the Spiritual Science of today. Third Meeting, the Spirit Man brought by one of the Archai — this is the Father Principle and occurs between 28 and 42. This should be prepared for in our education, by filling young minds with the sense of the beauty of the world. After death, the picture of death and this meeting should accompany the soul. If death is before 28, meeting takes place then. Suicide. Premature deaths mean a great activity to be exercised by Spiritual world on the physical. Plutarch and the genius or daimon. The holiness of sleep. A suggested introduction to sleep. Spiritual Science must permeate the soul as our blood does the body. | ||
| IV. | Morality, As A Germinating Force | 27th February, 1917 |
| Kant-Laplace and Hermann Grimm. Haeckel. People prefer to think materialistically, and have forgotten how to think of the Christ Mystery. In the new age it must expand with man's whole thinking and feeling. The materialist divides the world into a natural order and moral order ending in the grave. The Christ Mystery belongs to the cosmic order. Dreams. The Meeting with the Father Principle is a legacy of the past back to the Moon but affects the next incarnation. The meeting with, the Spirit Principle every night affects one's whole future. In these two meetings man goes beyond the natural order. The meeting with Christ is different. Formerly, birth could only take place at a certain season. Myth of Hertha. To develop free will man had to forget his spirit home. This was in the fifth epoch. If he continues to be materialistic he will become bound to earth and not to cosmos. Therefore the Mystery of Golgotha and the need of a Heavenly Being uniting with earth. The old Alchemic Valentine Andrea,. Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreuz. Mechthild of Magdeburg. President Wilson. Theology and Science. Hunzinger. Mystery of Golgotha. Kant-Laplace. The theory that the world perishes included our moral order. But Christ makes the germ that bears man back to Spiritual world. Religious concepts may bring intoxication; scientific concepts blindness. Fichte. The Cinema-man develops etheric goggle-eyes. | ||
| V. | The Human soul and the Universe II | 6th March, 1917 |
| First Meeting with Holy Spirit. Sleep caused by necessary rhythm between physical and spirit world. Fatigue is not the only cause. In waking we enjoy outer world, in sleep we enjoy inner world. Biology and Plato. The Ego is physically connected with the lower part of man during the day; Astral with thorax; Etheric with head; Physical with environment. The grace of the spirit. The Holy Ghost. The holiness of sleep. Sleep would not help us without our memory. Our spiritual ideas come from subconscious memory. We must compel the etheric body of our head to picture things nowise connected with outer matter. These concepts require great effort. Non-recognition of the Spiritual world comes from laziness of soul. If man refuses to exert himself he becomes spiritually blind, or his personal sympathy and antipathy lead him to spiritual intoxication. Our souls need elasticity. If we do not connect ourselves with the spirit during life it will go hard with us after death; for we are really bound with Cosmos, not only earth. Dead people are longing to co-operate. They do not co-operate physically but through our souls. To the dead a soul devoid of spirit is dark. The dead have become estranged because of our materialism. We must develop ideas which lead to the spiritual. | ||
| VI. | Man and the Super-Terrestrial | 13th March, 1917 |
| The Meeting with the Holy Spirit. Differences between formerly and now. The Old Mysteries. The Pythia. The Winter Mysteries. The divine duologue between cosmos and the earth has dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth. Christmas points to the descent; Easter to the fact that Christ belongs to the whole universe according to the constellations of Sun and Moon. Here man should not exercise free will for Easter belongs to universe. First Mystery Play. ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Christianity should not belong to one creed only but to the Universe. People dispute about everything except that sun shines on Jew and Gentile. This agreement should extend to the Christ — the Sun Being. Social questions of the day. Human and animal spirit: ‘Above and below’ characterises going out of Ego and Astral during sleep; Before and behind equals East and West. ‘He has entered the eternal East’ refers to death; ‘the inner and outer.’ The Meeting with the Spirit is connected with rhythms of day and night; with the Son is connected with the seasons; with the Father is connected with the middle of man's life. The Father and the Spirit principles are beyond rhythm. The Meeting with the Father takes place during growth of mind soul — in its deepest subconscious regions. This correlates with the course of Saturn which (according to Copernicus) takes thirty years to complete its course round the Sun. Uranus and Neptune do not belong to our solar system; their origin is different. M. de Saint-Martin ‘the unknown philosopher.’ | ||
| VII. | Errors and Truths. | 13th March, 1917 |
| De Saint Martin. ‘Periods of transition?’ Mercury, sulphur, salt. The different point of view between 18th century and ours. Freud. Konsirt. Herder. Goethe. Schiller. Theosophy. Bengel. Otinger. Otinger and his disciples. Richard Rothe. Ranke. Bengel, 1842. ‘Matter is the end of God's Path.’ The second Mystery Play. Spiritual Science must be connected with spiritual ideas. ‘Ye are the Salt of the Earth.’ Metabolic, rhythmic and nervous systems. The error of modern occult societies who, in preserving the old language decorate themselves with old vignettes. Our language and conceptions have changed, and are dead to the physical world, but they live in the spiritual world and are understood by the dead. What loses its meaning here rises into the spiritual world and a new conception takes place on the physical plane. | ||