עברית The Modern Christ Experience and the Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming
From The Teaching of the Resurrected Etheric Christ
The New Edition of The New Experience of the Supersensible, forthcoming in 2023-4
The Modern Christ Experience and the Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming
From The Teaching of the Resurrected Etheric Christ
The New Edition of The New Experience of the Supersensible, forthcoming in 2023-4
The original Christ experience took place in the week leading to Easter 1975. In the seven weeks between Easter and Pentecost I begun to grasp and assimilate what I experienced, and after 15 years, I described it in my book The New Experience of the Supersensible (1995). I continued this research in the coming decades and the expanded edition of the book will appear in 1923-4 in 4 volumes, entitled: The Modern Christ Experience and the Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming.
In each Easter and between Easter and Pentecost I go back to the week before Easter 1975 and the seven weeks between Easter and Pentecost of 1975. In this way, I refresh and rejuvenate my present experience, and open it to its future forces. Each year, during the seven weeks, the essence of the present teaching of the resurrected Etheric Christ is perceived with ever growing clarity, strength and depths. The investigation of this teaching through modern spiritual science is called, The Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming.
The first task of the knowledge drama is to investigate the modern Christ experience and describe the various aspects of Christ’s supersensible teaching, trying to express, in human language, His etheric appearance, words and deeds, as precisely as possible. The second task is to individualize it, making it part of our entire being, in spirit, soul and body. The third task is to use its individualized forces to recapitulate it independently, in the free spiritual activity possible today in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul, through the guidance of the Time Spirit, Michael.
Below I post a short summary of the four volumes of the new edition, as I contemplate them in this order during the seven weeks between Easter and Pentecost.
First Volume
The Modern Christ Experience
From now onward there is a new revelation of Christ; we will be ready to acknowledge it; we will belong to the few who will help it to become more powerful, to become lasting; we will base ourselves upon the inner strength of such a revelation, so that it may spread among mankind, for this knowledge will gradually be shared by all. This is what we call wisdom, and some may call folly. To stand firm we need only remind ourselves that this is the time of the second Michael revelation and remember what was said by one of the early Initiates at the time of the former Michael revelation: What often seems folly to man, is wisdom in the eyes of God.
Rudolf Steiner, lecture of 2 May 1913 (GA 152)
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1
The Mystery of Spiritual Remembrance
Chapter 2
Saul-Paul at the Gates of Damascus
Chapter 3
The Conditions of the Modern Christ Experience
The Evolution of Freedom
Chapter 4
The Modern Christ Experience: The Meeting with the New Initiator
Detailed Contents
Chapter 1
The Mystery of Spiritual Remembrance
How the disciples were transformed into apostles; Teaching of the resurrected Christ and the transformation of memory through the Mystery of Golgotha; Spiritualization of the etheric body and memory and the construction of the modern bridge to the etheric Christ.
Chapter 2
Saul-Paul at the Gates of Damascus
Paul’s meeting with the resurrected Christ is the archetype of the modern Christ experience and the knowledge drama of the Second Coming; Consolidation of the duality of human nature and the opening of the wound of Amfortas; Mystery of the giving of Christ’s ‘I’ and the individuation of Christ’s given keys of Death and Evil.
Chapter 3
The Conditions of the Modern Christ Experience - The Evolution of Freedom
The meeting with the etheric Christ is only possible in the age of the Consciousness Soul, when man has become free; Man’s severance from the spiritual worlds, caused by the dying out of the ancient clairvoyance, must precede and prepare this fully conscious meeting; Present release of the etheric body from the physical body causes a far-reaching transformation of the entire human constitution; Meeting with the Christ occurs at the climax of the crisis of individuation, in the moment of ‘the most significant disharmony in human feelings that ever existed in human evolution’.
Chapter 4
The Modern Christ Experience - The Meeting with the New Initiator
The three main stages in the meeting with the etheric Christ: Experience of the death and resurrection of cognition, experience of evil and the healing of the soul, and the experience of the future potential of the complete transformation of man; In the first stage, the etheric Christ demonstrates the spiritualization of ordinary cognition into imaginative cognition; In the second stage, His living words heal the discord and degradation of the separated soul forces; In the third stage, He shows how the physical body can be spiritualized; In the human spirit, soul and body, the Christ plants three golden spirit seeds, as potential for future development, which man can only develop further by means of his free spiritual activity; This development is the task of the knowledge drama of the Second Coming.
Second Volume
The Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming
Part I
In this fifth post-Atlantean age he has the greatest possibility of making himself spiritual. No age has been so favourable to spirituality as this fifth epoch. Courage must only be found to drive the money-changers out of the Temple. Courage must be found to confront with the real, abstractions and things estranged from reality, to set against them full reality and therewith the spiritual reality. (Lecture of 8 January 1918, GA 180).
Contents
Preface
Introduction: The Second Mystery of Golgotha
Chapter 1
The Spiritualization of Thinking
Chapter 2
The Spiritualization of Sense-Perception
Chapter 3
The Preparation of the Construction of the Bridge of Spiritual Memory and continuity of consciousness
Chapter 4
The Construction of the First Etheric-Cognitive Layer of the Bridge
Chapter 5
The Construction of Second Astral-Soul Layer of the Bridge
Detailed Contents
Introduction
The Second Mystery of Golgotha
Second Mystery of Golgotha that takes place in the etheric world and human soul, is the starting point and foundation of the knowledge drama of the Second Coming; Rose-cross meditation from Occult Science becomes an experience of the death of the Etheric Christ in the ‘black sphere of materialism’ created by our ahrimanic thinking; Christ’s death and resurrection in the human soul creates supersensible self-consciousness and individuation of His ‘I’.
Chapter 1
The Spiritualization of Thinking
Spiritualization of thinking confronts and overcomes modern ahrimanic thinking; Resurrected from the grave of the brain, thinking returns to cosmic life; Separation of past and future time streams and thinking, feeling and will; Deepening of the meditative practice of Occult Science with the exercises to attain Inspiration and Intuition; Liberated being of will, guides us into the mysteries of birth and death, past and future life; Resurrected etheric Christ appears from the ‘dark-gloomy world abyss’ when feeling is liberated as well.
Chapter 2
The Spiritualization of Sense-Perception
In the Michaelic Yoga, the spiritualization of thinking is followed by the spiritualization of sense-perception; Oblivion stream of Lethe experienced at the threshold of perception; New Mysteries of Hades and Persephone revealed on the other side of this threshold; Further development of Imagination through the meditative exercises of Knowledge of the Higher Worlds; Experience of etheric Christ in the etheric world through spiritualized perception, reveals the etheric ring around the sun-becoming-earth; Man becomes a creative partner of the Christ in the creation of the earthly-human Sun.
Chapter 3
The Preparation for the construction of the bridge
Construction of the bridge prepared by weaving the forces of spiritualized thinking and perception, which augment each other; Spiritualization of the etherization of the blood and the etheric body; Formation of spiritual memory on which the bridge of spiritual memory and continuity of consciousness is founded; Specific esoteric practice prepares the etheric and physical brains to reflect conscious supersensible experiences.
Chapter 4
The Construction of the First Etheric-Cognitive Layer of the Bridge
Builder of the bridge, the true ‘I’, actualized by the activity of spiritualized thinking; Development of two petaled lotus flower between the eyes; Merging the forces flowing between the two petaled lotus flower and the higher self in the pineal; First formation of Spirit Self; Deeper confrontation with Ahriman in his workshop in the modern brain; Construction of the first etheric-cognitive layer of the bridge from the head, through the larynx, to the heart; Battle with luciferic-ahrimanic forces in the heart and the sacrifice of the Green Snake.
Second Volume
The Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming, Part II:
The Construction of the Third Spiritual-Physical Layer of the Bridge
The Word becoming flesh is the first Michael revelation; the flesh becoming Spirit must be the second Michael revelation.
Rudolf Steiner, lecture of 22 November 1919 (GA 194).
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
The Modern Mystery of Evil: The Confrontation with the New Force of Evil in the Physical Body
Chapter 2
The Michaelic Kundalini Meditation
Chapter 3
The Healing of Amfortas’ Wound of Sexuality and Mortality
Chapter 4
The Construction of the Third Spiritual-Physical Layer of the Bridge
Detailed Contents
Chapter 1
The Confrontation with the New Forces of Evil in the Physical Body
Conscious return to the physical body fraught with great difficulties in the present age; Entry into human evolution of radically new force of evil; Spiritualization of the blood necessary to confront it; ‘Follow the path of cyanide formation from above downward’; First confrontation with Asuras in the heart and the path into the metabolic-limb and reproductive systems; Searching for the meditative praxis to spiritualize the forces of will, early childhood, karma, and limbs.
Chapter 2
The Michaelic Kundalini Meditation
In 1906 Rudolf Steiner gave a pupil a meditation aiming to develop the forces of the higher self and spiritualize the physical body through the sacred fire of kundalini; It creates the forces required to penetrate into the metabolic-limb and reproduction systems; Nine steps of the meditation and their results; Spiritual role of cerebellum, pineal and pituitary; Activation of the four petaled lotus flower at the base of the spine in connection to the sixteen petaled lotus flower in the larynx; Renewed confrontation with the Asuras in their stronghold in the reproductive system; ABC and DEF of black magic; The fundamental problem of the wound of sexuality and mortality must be confronted in the present age of Michael.
Chapter 3
The Healing of the Wound of Sexuality and Mortality
The modern riddles of the wound of Amfortas are discovered, the deeper man delves into the reproductive system; Asuric and Soratic usurpation of the divine forces behind sexuality; ‘Fragment after fragment will be torn out of the ‘I’; Magically closed wound and the temptation of Asuric immortality; Radically divided human constitution and decisive Michaelic battle with the Asuric forces; Birth of Anthroposophia in the larynx; The portal that leads to the mysteries of the Phantom.
Chapter 4
The Construction of the Third Spiritual-Physical Layer of the Bridge
Formation of lasting etheric foundations for the third layer of the bridge; Merging of Christ’s Sun forces of midday, midnight, and cosmic midnight hour; Cosmic cultus and spiritual communion of humanity in the earthly-human Sun temple; New metabolic knowledge attained in the spiritualization of breathing, eating and speaking, nose and mouth, smell, taste and touch; Digestive threshold and probation: Sweet as spiritual honey and bitter as karma; Spiritualization of metabolism through the six petaled lotus flower; Renewed confrontation with the Asuric forces; Highest hierarchy revealed in spiritualized metabolism and physical body; Chemical Christological process produces the philosopher’s stone from the spiritualized forces of earthly and cosmic nourishment, karma and love; Chemical wedding of heaven and earth in the human heart and birth of the spiritualized body; Umstülpung of the threefold human constitution; Loom of creation on which the Phantom is woven; Making the philosopher’s Stone through the spiritualization of breathing and carbon; Mysterious bone Luz; Shall the dead bones awaken?; Fountain of eternal life in bone’s marrow; Imagination of the Phantom; Midsummer alchemical Christological process; The Foundation Stone of love.
Fourth Volume
The Creation of the Earthly-human Sun
The New Human Meeting and Michaelic Community
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1
The Creation of the New Earth and Heaven of the Earthly-human Sun
Chapter 2
Christ’s Appearance Between ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ and the New Michaelic Community
Chapter 3
The Formation of the Earthly-Human Sun
Detailed Content
Chapter 1
The Creation of the New Earth and Heaven of the Earthly-human Sun
The old earth has sunk into the abyss during the apocalyptic twilight of humanity in 1933-45; In the etheric world, it has arisen anew as the new Earth and Heaven of the new earthly-human Sun; Resurrected earth must be formed consciously on earth in the 21st century in the school of Michael; Imagination of the Old Sun reflected and embodied in the creation of the earthly-human Sun; New Earth created from spiritualized will, new Heaven through spiritualized thinking and perception; the heart of the earthly-human Sun, that connects the new Earth and Heaven, is formed through human meetings.
Chapter 2
Christ’s Appearance Between ‘I’ and ‘Thou’
The New Michaelic Community
Social and karmic chaos brought about a darkening of the earthly-human Sun in the 20th century; Social-moral life of humans is a planetary creative force, that either destroys or creates the rhythmic system of the earthly-human Sun; Human meetings today perceived as ominous social and karmic sleep, total forgetfulness and denial of karmic relationships and obligations; Awakening from social sleep through Christ’s appearance between ‘I’ and ‘Thou’; Mutual karmic Healing and the creation of the new Michaelic community; Etheric Christ as living healer and comforter in our midst.
Chapter 3
The Formation of the Earthly-Human Sun
The seed of the earthly-human Sun embodied in man’s creative forces; Transubstantiation of man substantiates earth’s resurrection body; Imagination of the earthly-human Sun and it’s temple; Cosmic Dance of the earthly-human star and its new journey in the universe.