עברית From the 1st chapter of the second volume of The Modern Christ Experience and the Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming
The Spiritualization of Thinking
Short Passage from the 1st chapter of the second volume of The Modern Christ Experience and the Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming
The knowledge drama of the Second Coming can be divided into three main parts:
- The spiritualization of thinking, or the opening of the gate of thinking;
- The spiritualization of sense-perception, or the opening of the gate of perception;
- The construction of the threefold bridge of spiritual memory and continuity of consciousness over the abyss of life’s annihilation, soul death and spirit-forgetfulness.
A fully modern bridge of spiritual memory and continuity of consciousness can only be built with the soul forces gained through the transformation of thinking and sense-perception. This is the origin of the Michaelic yoga and Paul’s method of investigating and actualizing the modern Christ experience. In this chapter, we demonstrate the results of applying, practically, Rudolf Steiner’s indications, how to spiritualize The Philosophy of Freedom and Goethe's work with sense-perception, and bring the two to an intimate and intensive interpenetration, mutual essence exchange and fertilization. In this way the given meeting with the etheric Christ is thoroughly individualized and become a true modern 'I' experience, in accord with the requirements of the development of the Consciousness Soul…
The exchange described above, between the 3 prominent German thinkers at the beginning of the 20th century, Brentano, Husserl, Heidegger, becomes for us much more significant than an ordinary academic philosophical dispute, when we remember Rudolf Steiner's indication concerning the gradual instreaming of the Imaginative element into the intellectual life of our time, as an outcome of the new Christ impulse. (See in this connection the fine study of Husserl’s thinking, in Scott E. Hicks’ book, Earthly, Transcendental, & Spiritual Logic: From Husserl's Phenomenology to Steiner's Anthroposophy, Amazon, 2019).
If we take this impulse into our living hearts, we will experience its emergence and its tragic rejection and suppression, as a significant historical symptom. We shall be able to observe at close hand how the Christ impulse strives to enter modern thinking, but also how it is continuously repressed and denied, as modern thinking continuously resists it and fails to actualize the spiritualization of thinking.
What would happen, then, if we would not reject the Imaginative Christ impulse and would let it flow into our thinking? This question became, from the beginning of my work, especially in the 80’ of last century, the most urgent question of the knowledge drama of the second coming.
I asked myself repeatedly through many years: What would happen, if we canceled the act that conceals Christ’s living presence? What will happen if we would not suppress the gift of His new life that seeks to flow into our thinking, and remain positively upright, conscious and awake in this process? We would in this case stop the suppression of this Imaginative-creative force and lift the heavy Ahrimanic stone placed on the grave of our dead thinking in the brain; we would open the grave, delve into the abyss of death inside and beneath it, unite our thinking with the forces of the resurrected etheric Christ, and use them to resurrect modern, intellectual thinking from what Rudolf Steiner called ‘the grave of civilization’. To do this, we must cease living in the coherently combined, logical production of dead thinking and immerse ourselves in the experience of thinking-in-the-making, in its living stream of becoming. Thus, the knowledge drama of the second coming begins to come to life in our souls and hearts; we are awakened from the sleep of ordinary thinking, and begin to perceive the etheric Christ in His current etheric revelation, as He is active in our living thinking. Intuitive thinking, practiced through The Philosophy of Freedom, truly becomes in this way an innermost, intimate and creative ‘love in its spiritual form’.
If we do so, we confront consciously the stream of dying thinking that takes place in our soul, ‘because you lose the power of thought in the stream of time’s annihilation’, expressing the powerful admonition, spoken by the Guardian of the threshold, calling us to practice true self-knowledge. (Rudolf Steiner, the 8th esoteric class lesson, 18 April 1924, GA 241a).
And if we continue this practice in the knowledge drama of the second coming, we gradually invert this annihilation process to its living, resurrected, counterpart. Then we actualize the stream of time’s resurrection and find the fountain of living thought, love in its spiritual form, and demonstrate to the Guardian that ‘we find the power of thought resurrected in Christ’s stream of living time’, and he would respond positively, gracefully opening the portal and guiding us safely into the spiritual world.
If we have individualized this experience- decades of persistent and intensive meditation are required to achieve this- we have taken the first, preliminary step, towards the spiritualization of thinking: we have begun to open one of the gates to the reality of the living spirit. This is the first real fruit of the knowledge drama of the second coming. Here we begin to build its robust and trustworthy foundation; we find a stronghold in modern, crystal clear thinking and free self-consciousness, from which we shall continuously spiritualize the consciousness soul and transform it into the ‘imaginative soul’, which will become the main supersensible cognitive organ of the knowledge drams of the second coming.
As described also in The Three Meetings, in this way, the etheric brain becomes a truly self-supporting, independent spiritual Archimedean point, which reflects the living flow of spiritualized thinking. The mirror of consciousness, that makes ordinary thinking and perception possible, is thus transferred from the physical brain to the etheric brain. But while the mirror of the physical brain is fixed in space and time, the magical etheric mirror is like flowing waters, which we must calm down to pacify its turbulent surface and make it clear enough to reflect Imaginative perception. But because the etheric body is in constant movement and metamorphosis, this process must be constituted again in each new impulse of spiritual activity, and only gradually the etheric brain attains the etheric consistency that allows it to embed, embody and reflect imaginative cognition.
From this new vantage point, we now return to the fundamental riddle that confronted us in the experience of the second Mystery of Golgotha: how does the etheric brain, in each moment of thinking and perceiving, unite with the physical brain to produce ordinary thinking and reflection? How does the etheric Christ impulse enters into the grave of dead thinking, and bring it to resurrection? We can now undertake another, deeper plunge, into the further exploration and investigation of this mystery….