עברית The death and resurrection of the etheric Christ becomes our guide to the specific initiation experience of the present, fifth post-Atlantean epoch of the Consciousness Soul
The Modern Christ Experience: This is a significant, Great Task of the Fifth Culture-Epoch
'... the vital longing of the newer future humanity for the compensating spirit, for a youth who is already Jupiter, which is no longer earth-youth, which is already the youth of the next planetary embodiment of the earth’.
Only after man develops enough spiritual scientific light of knowledge by means of his free spiritual activity, he realizes the full meaning and significant of the present etheric Christ event. It grows and unfolds gradually from its essential seed, that was planted by Christ’s Ego, in His death of suffocation in our human ‘I’, to flower as the mystery of the becoming of supersensible, direct, perception and consciousness of Christ, that rises out of the grave of modern materialistic and intellectual consciousness. This is also, to use the language of the Apocalypse, the giving and individuation of the ‘key of death’ that Christ holds in His hand, that becomes the first pilar of the knowledge drama of the Second Coming, while the second key, the ‘key of evil’, is given and individualized in the more advanced stages, when it progresses from the cognitive-head system to the heart and to the metabolic-limb system.
In this way, the death and resurrection of the etheric Christ becomes our guide to the specific initiation experience of the present, fifth post-Atlantean epoch of the Consciousness Soul:
‘The Initiation-wisdom of the fifth-post Atlantean time is not to be won without one's having as it were full consciousness of the significance of Death, not only in human life, but in the life of the whole world as well. We possess indeed our powers of thinking because we continually bear the forces of death in our head...That is... the law of our time. When I tell you this, I can understand that it does not penetrate specially deeply into your hearts, into your souls. To have experienced it, signifies something fearful; to have experienced that impulse which in every effort for knowledge says: What thou canst acquire as knowledge at the present time, thou owest to Death which penetrates more and more into the earth-life. What really must enter into the earth-life of humanity will only enter when this initiation-principle, now at the very beginning of its growth — the power of Death! — extends further and further and engenders the vital longing of the newer future humanity for the compensating spirit, for a youth who is already Jupiter, which is no longer earth-youth, which is already the youth of the next planetary embodiment of the earth’.
As we pointed out above, the practice of the physical rose-cross meditation leads to the etheric event of the second Mystery of Golgotha, from the physical to the etheric world, from ordinary, dead cognition, to living imaginative cognition. It therefore becomes the foundation of the bridge of spiritual memory and continuation of consciousness. In the etheric world we are becoming the second Mystery of Golgotha as a whole; we become, in our whole being, this shocking and heart breaking, uplifting and blissful, event, experienced through immense polarities and intensifications of all gradations and nuances of feelings and sensations; it wholly shatters and rattles our entire human existence, because the second, etheric Mystery of Golgotha and the second, etheric resurrection, happens in us, and in us it becomes the process in which humanity and the earth becomes now and in all future to come. And we die and become through it constantly, in the individuation and recapitulation of the etherically crucified and resurrected living Christ. With the deepest feelings of devotion and reverence, gratitude, and love, can approach this mystery, and we know that through this event, ‘we have the picture of the Second Mystery of Golgotha taking place now in the etheric world’.
It is infinitely tragic, to note in 2022 that the will to truly grasp and experience, in full consciousness the new Christ impulse is still so weak in humanity, even after all the catastrophes of the 20th century. Each decade and year that this lagging behind our evolutionary schedule in the present age of Michael continuous, must bring about new shocking upheavals, by means of which the good gods try to wake us up, to stimulate our souls and hearts, and inspire courage, enthusiasm, and creative joy, that we will finally grasp the new spiritual revelations with all our forces. This must be achieved, and the longer it is postponed, the harder it gets:
‘This fifth culture-epoch is incumbent to go to meet the Mystery of Golgotha gradually with full knowledge of spirit, with full understanding, with all forces of knowledge of the soul; not only with the forces of the reason, the forces of devoutness. It has to comprehend Christ, Who went through Death and Resurrection, bit by bit with everything the soul can produce from itself of knowledge and understanding forces. So that the word of Paul is true, indeed, in a new way: “not I, but Christ in me.” Every effort we make in spiritual science is a preparation to grasp with all internal recognizing forces of the soul in the end what is, actually, this Christ. This is a significant, great task of the fifth culture-epoch’.
Historically, the second Mystery of Golgotha was to be followed by ‘the resurrection of direct Christ consciousness in the earthly sphere’, beginning in 1933 and continuing in the next 3000 years. But we discovered that until the end of the century it was overwhelmed and suppressed by the apocalyptic events of the 30’ and 40’ and their continuation until the end of the century. This is the reason also why the emergence of ‘direct Christ consciousness in the earthly sphere’ could only start at the end of last century. What could be experienced since the end of the 20th century, is the whole event, with its three distinct phases: The etheric crucifixion begun at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, Christ’s etheric entombment since 1933, and His etheric resurrection since the end of last century and the beginning of the 21st century. This historical process, that continues today, is recapitulated in each individual experience of the second Mystery of Golgotha.
The aim of the knowledge drama of the Second Coming, described in this chapter, is to individualize and recapitulate it in our own spirit, soul, and body. The second Mystery of Golgotha is the perennial center of both the given and voluntary meetings with the etheric Christ, and the foundation of the knowledge drama as a whole. We described its essential elements at the beginning of the chapter, to indicate that it is enacted in the background of the entire knowledge drama, also when it is not explicitly mentioned. From the very start, it is its source and life, and all the forces developed in the course of the knowledge drama, derive from this source of eternal life.