1. THE CRUCIFIXION IN THE LIGHT OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM

 

Note by the Translator: This 5-part essay is a translation taken from Tomberg’s early essays and other writing entitled “Aufbruch zur VI. Kulturepoche" published by Achamoth Verlag in Southern Germany by Katharina Barker in 2020 and available  in English as "Towards the 6th Cultural Age" from Amazon. It ties in well with the title and mission of the Facebook and Telegram group “The Christmas Conference - Anthroposophical Movement as New Christianity”, on which these 5 sections were first published during the last part of the 12 Holy Nights because the Anthroposophical Society, refounded at the Christmas Conference is the organizational form of the true Christianity of the 6^th cultural age that is to begin in only the 4th millennium but that has to be prepared in this present 5th age. This form was, it is true, inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner at this Christmas Conference in 1923, but has since then been seriously damaged, due to among other things the lack of understanding and therefore practice in the Anthroposophical Society of what Rudolf Steiner called “The Reverse Ritual”, the awakening in soul and spirit of its members through the union with the other. How this diseased social corporeality could possibly be restored, may be gleaned from my video request to the General Assembly of the General Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum, Dornach on March 27, 2021. (https://willehalminstitute.blogspot.com/2021/03/request-to-general-assembly-of-general.html).     

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When one attempts to immerse oneself in the holy Mystery of Golgotha, one will have to ascertain that a meditative immersion into the image of the cross awakens in us a feeling of innermost remorse. This feeling, which Christian believers know so well, must in our time assume another, more cognitive form.

            In its purest form, this feeling of guilt with respect to the crucified God can be experienced through The Philosophy of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner. For this Philosophy of Spiritual Activity [as it has also been called] gives us a key for penetrating into the Mystery of Golgotha. And as a matter of fact, these ideas of The Philosophy of Freedom are especially suited to fathom the mystery of the crucified God that are related to the nature of human freedom. For the teaching about the nature of human knowledge is a true reflection of the great world-historical event.

            As we know, human knowledge is according to this Philosophy of Freedom structured in such a way that the human being is at the beginning of his cognitive activity dependent on deleting the total ideational content of the world, that remains immanent within him so that this ideational content is at first only revealed in him as a striving for knowledge. And this striving, this feeling of dissatisfaction with the given image of the world can only be satisfied such that the human being at the end of his cognitive activity restores within him the originally deleted ideational content through a free effort of thinking.

            And to the circumstance that the cognitive organism of the human being has this structure, to the fact that the human being at the beginning of his path of knowledge must delete the truth in order to at the end independently regain his knowledge, to this circumstance the human being owes his freedom. Thanks to this cognitional mode human freedom is incorporated in a wonderful way into the world.

            Yet this experience of human freedom is only one aspect of the experience that can be gained through the study of The Philosophy of Freedom. For at first we only experience in which way our human freedom in the world becomes possible through this cognitional mode. We experience thereby what the original deletion of the truth and its restoration through the thinking of the cognitive human being signifies.

            But it can and may also be asked what the aforementioned human cognitional mode signifies for the at first deleted and then restored ideational content of the world. And when one asks oneself about this, one shall have to ascertain that this path of knowledge of the human being signifies for the truth a path of death and resurrection– in order to ensure freedom for the human being, the truth must die away in him -  and thus we must say to ourselves: It is we ourselves that kill this truth in order to experience ourselves at the beginning of knowledge as independent beings, it is we who in the striving for knowledge must experience our great guilt for the truth; and it is also we, who through the effort of self-sacrifice are to raise the truth again that was killed within us.  

            Thus we see that our human knowledge is based on the tragic mystery of death and resurrection.  And this tragic mystery that is revealed in The Philosophy of Freedom in the field of human knowledge, takes place in the destiny of the individual human being as well as in the destiny of the whole of mankind.^[1]

            Upon studying the destiny of the individual human being, one will be able to discover that man’s tragic character is conditioned by the fact that between heaven and earth there yawns for the human being a deep abyss and that both worlds are divided by a threshold. And it is just by the presence of his threshold dividing both worlds from another that the two central experiences of human existence lead inevitably to the experiences of birth and death.

            Now it is essential to realize that birth and death with regard to the threshold dividing both worlds are relative concepts. For an earthly birth, understood as a departure from the heavenly world is, from the standpoint of the latter that is thereby left, an experience of death, while an earthly death, from the standpoint of this world, is a birth of the spirit, a resurrection.

            In fact, the earthly birth is felt as dying and the earthly death as reviving by that being which is man’s higher I, his actual spirit. Because what is for the earthly lower human being a birth, is death for this higher heavenly human being, and what for the earthly lower being is death, is birth for the higher heavenly human being.

            One could therefore compare the whole human being, which includes the higher as well as the lower human being, with the Moon. For just in the way that the Moon must alternatingly pass through various phases, this happens as well with the total being of man. And it is therefore quite right when we compare the earthly phase of human existence with the Full Moon and the heavenly phase of this existence with the New Moon. And just as one phase of the Moon excludes the other, so it is also with human existence. The birth of the lower earthly consciousness is a death for the higher spiritual consciousness, and the earthly death of the human being death is a rebirth in the spirit.

            As we know, these periodically alternating phases that exclude each other are expressed in the law of reincarnation. This law of reincarnation is for the beings of the spiritual world a means to protect the human being against Lucifer and Ahriman. And that is why it is so fruitful for an exact knowledge of both adversaries to view them in their relation to birth and death.  Lucifer reveals himself then as an entity that behaves antagonistically towards birth, while Ahriman is an entity that fights against death.

            Lucifer would love nothing better than that the human being would never needed to be born; but because Lucifer cannot prevent this, since the human being over and over again appears with the help of the Gods on the earth, Lucifer attempts, as well as can be, to withhold the human being from completely incarnating on the earth and to arouse in him a longing for the lost paradise. And were Lucifer to reach this goal, then the human being would experience himself in a paradise, yet this paradise would not be a true one. For since the history of the world is tragic, since toil, suffering and death prevail in the world, the state of paradisiacal bliss has become an unjustified, egotistical state, which can only be prevented by over and over again banishing the human being from the Luciferic sphere, where he would remain before his incarnation, through the portal of earthly birth.

            Directly opposite intentions are pursued by Ahriman. While Lucifer would like to restrain the human being from his earthly birth, Ahriman strives to prevent the earthly death of the human being, which is after all a rebirth of the spirit. Ahriman would like nothing better than that the human being would never have to return through the portal of death to the spiritual world, that he would forever have connected himself to the earth. But because the human being must submit himself to the curse of death and despite all Ahriman’s efforts over and over again returns through the portal of death to the spiritual world in order to appear there before the judgment of the Gods, Ahriman attempts, as well as can be, to chain the human being during his living days as tight as possible to the Earth. Over and over again, he attempts to bind the human soul to his spiritless worldview and hopes that he will one day succeed in withholding the human beings from the judgment of Kamaloka.

            Yet just as the human being is saved with the help of the Gods from the power of Lucifer by them banning the human being through the portal of birth from a pre-natal existence, the human being is saved from the power of Ahriman by being forced to return through the portal of death to the spiritual world in order to appear there before the judgment of the Gods.

            As therefore birth is a repetition of the banishment from paradise, death is a prophetic preview of the Last Judgment. For what for the whole of mankind was the banishment from paradise, is birth for an individual human being.  And what the whole of mankind will one day experience as the Last Judgment, is death for an individual human being. Thus birth and death are weapons for the spiritual beings of the higher world that they employ in their struggle for the human beings against both antagonists.

            But it is now important to keep in mind that this struggle of the Gods against both antagonists could never lead to a decisive victory over them, in as much as the human soul through birth and death every time simply avoids a further struggle, i.e. abandons the field of this struggle.  Through earthly birth, the soul evades Lucifer and through earthly death she evades Ahriman. Birth is an escape from Lucifer, death an escape from Ahriman.

            What is now necessary to ultimately defeat Lucifer and Ahriman? To that end, it is necessary to be able to experience inside one’s corporeality what the higher I of the human being otherwise experiences only outside this corporeality as death at the earthly birth and birth at the earthly death. In other words, the human being, if he is willing to ultimately defeat Lucifer and Ahriman, is to become conscious of the destiny of his spirit also within his earthly body. The human being must be born a second time again after he has already physically gone through the portal of birth and he is to be able to mystically experience death before this death also physically occurs. Thus he is apt to develop in himself a consciousness that at the same time would be a state of death as well as a state of birth, and it is to occur by means of the human being becoming aware of those experiences that his spirit otherwise only has outside the earthly body before the earthly birth and after the earthly death. In this way the human being, if he is willing to achieve a decisive victory over Lucifer and Ahriman, is to experience in the earthly body a state that would at the same time be a birth of the higher in a lower being and a death of the lower in a higher being.

            But what is this experience of the birth of higher in a lower being that is at the same time the death of a lower in a higher being? It is the state of crucifixion. And it is the higher I of the human being that in this state of crucifixion experiences itself crucified in his body.  For on the one hand this higher I becomes during such a crucifixion in the earthly body aware of its spiritual streams, and on the other hand, it must however experience how these spiritual streams are as it were bound, as it were nailed to this stiff cross of the earthly body.

            But just this painful state of crucifixion is nothing else than a decisive victory over  Lucifer and Ahriman. For the resistances that are met by the force currents of the higher I in the earthly body stem from Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences, from influences that can only be overcome by the higher I of the human being learning to expand itself just as freely inside the earthly body as it could previously only do outside the corporeality.

            Thereby it must however especially be emphasized that not somehow the lower state of consciousness, which is itself a result of the earthly embodiment, is consciously capable of experiencing the crucifixion, but that it is the higher I of the human being that as such could previously only experience itself outside the body.

            For only through a process of self-consciousness-raising in the physical body of that higher I, which otherwise only had experienced itself outside this body, only through this process of self-consciousness-raising in the earthly body arises the experience of crucifixion in the earthly consciousness of the human being.

            If one knows this, then the necessity for mankind of the crucifixion of the Word in the course of world history becomes obvious, for just as for the purpose of the redemption of Lucifer and Ahriman the higher I of an individual must pass through the experience of crucifixion, so it is also with the redemption from these powers within the whole of mankind.  The I-consciousness of the whole of mankind that is represented by Jesus can neither by its own inherent forces alone overcome Lucifer and Ahriman. Only the higher I of mankind, Christ, which relates to Jesus as the higher I of the individual human being to his earthly self-consciousness, is capable of doing this. Only Christ can through the power of Golgotha liberate mankind from the power of both antagonists and indeed through the synthesis of birth and death during the crucifixion. Through the birth of a higher in a lower being, Christ overcomes Lucifer, through the death of a lower in a higher being He overcomes Ahriman.

            Now that we have attempted to fathom the inner significance of the crucifixion in the destiny of an individual as well in the destiny of the whole of mankind and have realized the necessity of this crucifixion for achieving a decisive victory over both protagonists, the question must arise for us about the historical reality of the crucifixion. We must namely inquire whether the historical reality of Golgotha without any tradition or documents whatsoever can be understood by a person who has not yet had an inner meeting with Christ.

            If one raises this question, one will be able to discover that the historical reality of the Mystery of Golgotha too can be understood in the light of “The Philosophy of Freedom”. This is in no way a matter of rational proof, for it would be an unbearable pretension to somehow want to logically prove the highest miracle in history, the incarnation of God. Yet it is marvelous that the historical reality of Golgotha can be understood not out of a necessity of thinking, but out of freedom.

            As we have already mentioned, the human mode of cognition is structured such that man must first become morally in debt towards the truth and afterward must atone for this debt and that just this path of debt and atonement renders our freedom possible. And the same path of guilt and atonement is to also tread the whole of mankind in order to be able to become free.

            On account of freedom, therefore, the Fall of Man is admitted as well and on account of the same freedom, mankind is bound to be able to make amends for this Fall. And even though world history is in a certain sense a chain of necessities, this chain of necessities is accordingly based on the ideal of freedom. And as freedom on account of the Fall of Man was admitted at the beginning of history, so on account of this freedom, Christ appeared as the ideal of this freedom in the middle of the course of history. And from the same freedom from which the Fall of Man was admitted and the Redeemer was crucified, we can nowadays condone and acknowledge the wise guidance of the world, because for someone who from the viewpoint of freedom studies the history of the world, the reality of Golgotha is a matter of course that does not need to be proven and cannot be doubted. Just as in the center of a cyclone there is calm, because all around storms are blustering, we also find in the midst of the blustering storms of the times the divine calm of Golgotha.  This Mystery of Golgotha is not conditioned by anything but itself. It is simply there, as a revelation of the most profound meaning of the world, so that anyone looking for the meaning of the world will find it.  And the essence of a true Christian faith consists in understanding out of freedom the reality of the Mystery of Golgotha, understanding as that which should also occur historically because it is a revelation of the meaning of world history. 

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[1] See also “Anthroposophical Meditations on the Old Testament” in “Christ and Sophia” (Ch. XII “Jesus of Nazareth”, Section 3: “The Jesus Being and the Nathan Jesus”) by Valentin Tomberg

2. THE MYSTERY OF GOLGOTHA AND HEAVEN

Note by the translator: In this second section of his 5-part essay the author by virtue of his divine consultations "in heaven" truly reveals himself as a modern messenger of the Gods, as Hermes reborn, whom he after all reportedly said that he was.  

The source for this remarkable statement and more is a program note written by the team of the publisher of these early essays, Achamoth Verlag (Tomberg Books) in Southern Germany on the occasion of the presentation of Vol. 1 of the Dutch translation of Valentin Tomberg’s book Meditations on the Tarot in Soesterberg, Holland on July1, 2017. This note reads (in my translation from Dutch): “Dear Friends and Those Interested in the Anthroposophical and Hermetic Work of Rudolf Steiner and Valentin Tomberg, As you know, the life work of Rudolf Steiner, anthroposophy, is a ‘resurrection’ of the Egyptian Mysteries’ as Rudolf Steiner has repeatedly said himself. Who now was the founder of these Egyptian Mysteries? That was Hermes, who inherited the astral body of the great Zarathustra and who since then bears this astral body, or rather was entrusted with it. This individuality was incarnated in almost every century because he is the future Bodhisattva Maitreya who will once bring “the Good”. – This individuality also lived in Valentin Tomberg, of whom it is known that when he was once pressed to answer the question of whether HE was the Bodhisattva said: ‘Ask me rather who I was in the Egyptian period!’ When the questioner held on three times to the question as to the identity of the Bodhisattva, Tomberg said quietly: ‘Hermes, I was Hermes during the Egyptian cultural period.’ After all no one will say directly of himself that HE is the Bodhisattva.”

 No indeed, but indirectly Valentin Tomberg has in fact said this, at least for those who are able to read in between the lines what he has written as the “Anonymous author from beyond the grave” in his Meditations on the Tarot, a book that he wanted only to be published post mortem, but which on the contrary was published in his lifetime in 1972. In the 21st  Letter to an Unknown Friend on the arcanum of "The Fool", it is written, starting on p. 613 on the given online PDF file:

“After Jesus, the GodMan, who was the complete unity not only of spirituality and intellectuality, but also of divine will and human will, and even of divine essence and human essence —the work of the fusion of spirituality and intellectuality can be nothing other than the germination of the Christie seed in human nature and consciousness. In other words, it is a matter of the progress of the Christianization of mankind, not only in the sense of a growing number of baptized people, but above all in the sense of a qualitative transformation of human nature and consciousness. This latter will work in conformity with the law: general aspiration and longing; culminating point of success in an individuality; general diffusion spread out over a number of generations, i.e. the climate of general expectation will lead to the particular realization which will subsequently become general. This is why Buddhists await the coming of the Maitreya Buddha and Hindus that of the Kalki Avatar. They await him having in view a step forward in mankind's spiritual evolution which will be crossed as a consequence of the manifestation of the new Buddha and the new Avatar. And this step forward will be nothing other than the fusion of spirituality and intellectuality.

            This expectation is, moreover,  not  restricted  to  the  Orient: theosophists made a considerable contribution  to  it  by  launching a movement of international scope aiming  at  preparing  minds  for  the  coming  —supposedly  at  hand —of  the  new teacher.  To  this end they founded the Order of the Star of the East which numbered about 250,000 members,  and  which organized congresses, conferences  and  rallies  all over the place, as well  as  publishing hundreds of books and brochures. Whilst spreading  the  idea  of  the  imminent coming  of  a  new  teacher  for  mankind,  the  Order  of  the  Star  of  the  East  was, alas,  too  fixed  on  a  particular  personality — chosen  not  by  heaven,   but  rather  by  the  leaders  of  the  Theosophical Society — who was extolled  in  advance so as to build  up  his  prestige,  which in the last analysis displeased this  person,   who  disbanded  the  Order. 

            It  was  more  discreetly,   and  without putting a particular person in the limelight as  candidate,  that  Dr.  Rudolf Steiner, founder  of  the  Anthroposophical  Society, predicted  the  manifestation — again  in  the  first  half of the twentieth century— not  of  the  new  Maitreya  Buddha  or  Kalki Avatar,  but  rather of the  Bodhisattva. i.e.   the   individuality  in  the  process  of  becoming  the  next  Buddha,  whose  field  of activity he hoped the Anthroposophical Society would serve.  A  new  disappointment! This time  the  disappointment  was  due  not  to  an  error with regard  to  the  awaited  individuality,  nor  even with regard  to  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  his  activity,  b u t  rather  to  an  overestimation  of  the  Anthroposophical  Society  on  the  part  of  its  founder  —thus  nothing became  of  it. 

            Be that as it may,  the  idea  and  the  expectation of the coming of the new Buddha  and  new  Avatar  lives  at  present  both  in  the  western  world  and  in  the  orient. There is much confusion concerning this idea, above all among theosophists,  but  there  are  also those  who  see  clearly here.  Rudolf  Steiner,  for  example,  saw  very clearly:  of  all  that  has  been  written  and  said  in  public,  the  most  correct  is  what was  said   by  Rudolf Steiner.   He  was  on  the  right  track,  at  least.

            Now,  in  following  the  same  track—that  leading  to  the  culminating  point  of  the  fusion  of  spirituality  and  intellectuality—we  arrive  at  the  following  synopsis:”

           Those  further interested may read on, but for all those who know the biography of Valentin Tomberg with respect to his suspended career as General secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Estonia, as writer of numerous articles, as respected and beloved speaker in various European countries, his Anthroposophical Meditations on the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Apocalypse of John collected in the book Christ and Sophia with as an Appendix his lecture cycle in Rotterdam in 1939 the Four Sacrifices of Jesus Christ and his Appearance in the Etheric given one year after his lecture cycle there on Inner Development, his work The Foundation Stone Meditation of Rudolf Steiner and then the dramatic break just before the outbreak of World War II, “nothing came of it”:  his forced withdrawal from the Anthroposophical Society motivated by the attitude of the then president of the Dutch Society, who found this work of Valentin Tomberg to stand in his way and not quite suitable for the education of the Dutch folk soul (!), and furthermore for all those who can give credence to the report “On the Proceedings of the Day Before the Christmas Conference on December 1923” by his late German publisher Willy Seiss that Rudolf Steiner even intended to invite Valentin Tomberg to become a member of the original Council of the Society, these self-identifications of the individuality of Valentin Tomberg appear not at all so incredible as they seem to those who believe e.g. that as a writer of merely secondary literature he has neither been of any service to the Anthroposophical Society nor to the Catholic Church.

But judge for yourself now:   

After we have viewed the Mystery of Golgotha in the light of The Philosophy of Freedom as a final victory over Lucifer and Ahriman, which was achieved in the course of world history by the higher I of mankind, by Christ, the need arises for us to also ask what significance this victory over Lucifer and Ahriman has for the whole universe.

            We now feel the need to comprehend the overall significance of the Mystery of Golgotha, namely its significance for all three kingdoms of the world: for the heavenly, for the earthly, and for the human kingdom.

            Thus we ask ourselves: What is the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for heaven? What is the significance of the Mystery for the earth? What is the significance for mankind? We must ask ourselves, what is necessary for heaven, the earth, and mankind, what are these three worlds longing for, and what would have happened to them if Christ had not come.

            First, we will direct our attention toward heaven and consult the Gods. Yet here we enter an area that actually lies beyond the normal, earthly faculty of imagination. The highest truths of the world can only be expressed in the form of paradoxes. To that end, we must however clear away certain axiomatic notions. Only when certain representations obtained from the earthly world no longer stand in our way, do we acquire the possibility to fruitfully think about the primal secrets of the divine worlds.

            Something similar must also arise in the field of mathematics. As long as one wanted to stick to the principle that the straight line is the shortest distance between two points, it was not possible to construct a theory about four-dimensional space. In this way, we must also concerning knowledge of certain truths of higher worlds liberate ourselves from certain earthly principles, namely from the notion that the top one is at the top and the bottom one at the bottom, that the innermost is inside and the outermost outside. In the higher worlds, the fact of the matter is that in order to ascend, one must descend, and in order to come inside, one must reveal oneself to the outside. How deeper one descends there, how higher does one come, and how more one goes outside, how more one penetrates into the inside.

            How deeper the levels of existence are ruled by a being, how higher does it stand. And that is the reason why the Father is the highest being of the world because He rules the lowest.

            It is He who determines wickedness as evil and goodness as good. Exalted beyond both He, therefore, becomes the primordial ground of the world. He establishes the polarity between good and evil, since He Himself is exalted beyond both. In this way, the whole world process is thus based on a polarity between good and evil, a polarity that is established and suspended by the Father. For He is the dormant one beyond both.  Goodness is here because the Father from the primordial beginning in eternity overcomes evil by it. The evil is here as a support for the good that through the eternal overcoming of evil becomes as such conscious of itself. Between these two poles in eternal tension moves the stream of beings, which ascends from below to above, which streams from above to down below.   

            Calmness wants to move, the self-moving wants to rest. In-the-calmness-self-moving is duration, in-the-movement-calmness is eternity. And it is towards this in-itself-moving-calmness, to the Father that all beings of the divine world are striving, for they know that in Him the meaning of the world is hidden. Him they behold from the primordial beginning, before the creation of the world on high. From the primordial begin they were in a position to behold Him, yet they were not in a position to approach Him, in no position to reach Him in His heights. And this is what the imperfection of their nature consisted of, namely that they could behold the Father, but were unable to reach Him.

            In order to come to the Father, the Gods had to pursue their path downward.  In extreme darkness, they had to create a world in order to penetrate into their own innermost self. They had to rule the lowest realm in order to reach the highest. And from the awareness of their own imperfection, from the longing for divine self-knowledge, towards the exploration of their own essence, the Gods became the creators of the world. In that way, they thus awoke to creative activity, because they knew that only down below and outwards they could attain the highest and innermost goal; the image of the Triune Godhead.

            It is this image of the Most High that the human being ought to become. In the human being that was created by the Gods, the meaning of the world was hidden for them. This meaning of the world still had to be fathomed by the Gods, through the human beings the Father had to utter the Holy of Holies to them. Yet eons passed by and the Father remained silent…

            The Father remained silent from the beginning of cosmic time until the hour that God the Son had to die. Creating the good, controlling the evil, exalted beyond both He remained silent about His profound primordial ground plan of world evolution, in which evil ought to play a part as well in order to be transformed into the good.

            In silence, He allowed cosmic time to emerge, in silence he allowed the Fall of Man to occur, in silence He condoned the ever-growing, tragic mood of the Gods, which after the Fall of Man became more and more acute.

            For it was this tragic mood of the Gods, this growing tension of their experiences that was necessary as a preparation for the probation of the divine initiation, the violent initiation into the secret of death that they had to undergo at the hour of the Mystery of Golgotha.

            Originally, this meaning of the Fall of Man presented also to the Gods a riddle, so that they had to experience the Fall as a failure of their own development plan. For according to this divine development plan, the human being was supposed to remain sinless and only behold the evil from the outside, but not absorb it in himself inwardly. And God was supposed to reveal Himself to this sinless human being not in the figure of the Crucified One, but as eternal life. It was only at Golgotha that the profound primordial development plan of the Father was revealed, according to which death ought not to be overcome by eternal life, but through death itself. Something completely new and never seen before was revealed by this victory over death by death for the Gods. For while the Gods took their plan from an experience that stemmed from worlds prior to the existence of ancient Saturn, while they thus created their plan from an infinitely distant past, the primordial ground plan of the Father stemmed from the ineffable heights of the primordial mystery, from a realm that in human existence corresponds to the sphere of moral intuition. In this sense, the crucifixion at Golgotha can be regarded by us as a moral intuition by the Father that was realized through the moral phantasy of the Son and the moral technique of the Spirit in the course of world history.

            The horizontal line of the evolutionary plan of the Gods, which led from an infinite past to an infinite future, was crossed by the vertical line of the moral intuition of the Father. And at the point where both axes are crossed, there arose the cross of Golgotha. In powerful images of historical reality, the Father uttered that what we now know as the three Rosicrucian sayings: The world born out of the Father must die in Christ in order to be able to resurrect in the Holy Spirit. The development of the world is based on the overcoming of death. Through the development of the world, the Holy Trinity overcomes death.

            At the hour of the Mystery of Golgotha, the Gods were initiated into this great secret of the Father. It was a huge shock on the part of the divine initiation that they had to undergo. And the tragedy of this divine initiation was even infinitely greater than that tragic mood which a human initiant must undergo. Then as tragic as death is every initiation and were it not be tragic, then it could not also be followed by the joy of resurrection.  Tragic, infinitely tragic was the mood of the Gods at the hour of the crucifixion. Indescribable dismay overcame all beings of the heavenly world. And this consternation of the Gods found its expression in the eclipse of the sun, which during the hour of death, of the crucifixion spread out over the whole area of the earth there. Because of the fact that the Moon positioned itself between the sun and the earth, the sun was not only covered by the earth but also the earth by the sun. The corpse of the earth, the moon, covered the holy mystery of the Crucifixion. The earth lay dead under the coffin lid of the moon for the Gods; the Divine Word of the Father, the meaning of world development, lay dead in the earth.

            In that way thus the immortals had to undergo the death of the Word – this was their divine initiation into the mystery of death, an experience that was to be the basis for their whole future development.

            They had to experience how their holy essence, the Cosmic I, disappeared in the darkness of the kingdom of death. Yet soon afterward they experienced how this Holy of Holies ascended again from this kingdom of death and darkness as a victor over death. And the holy and lofty meaning of the world was revealed to them, which as the secret of the Father rested from the primordial beginning in His bosom. From now on they knew why they are creating, why the world must be born and why it must die. The crucifixion of the Most High as a synthesis of birth and death, as a simultaneous victory over the arch-Lucifer of time and the arch-Ahriman of space, stood from now on always before them. In this way, the great longing of the Gods for self-knowledge was fulfilled. By now looking downwards to Golgotha they established the Most High; by looking at death they recognized the nature of the Father and the path that led to Him.     

            And by thus looking downwards to the Cross of Golgotha they were permitted to experience something else, something highly important, with which their whole future mission was connected. They experienced namely that the Mystery of Golgotha signified an enormous turning point in time. For the arch-Lucifer, the time, was converted by this mystery of the crucified Godman and acquired henceforth the power to gradually overcome the threefold denial of God’s existence in a moment of space.

            The time, which before the Mystery of Golgotha, distanced itself more and more from the Holy Trinity, acquired through the Cross of Golgotha the poweful impulse to henceforth ascend upwards, to ascend into that sphere where the beginning can be connected again with the end, the A with the O. And as on ancient Saturn, on ancient Sun, and on ancient Moon, the time became poorer and poorer, as it was first abandoned by the Father, then by the Son and finally by the Holy Spirit, it will through the great sacrifice by Christ of Golgotha unite on the future levels of existence of Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan first with the Spirit, then with the Son and finally with the Father.

            At the end of Vulcan, the time will stream again into eternity, which is to occur through a complete overcoming of space. Saturated by the spirit and the Son, the time will then be able to return to the Father, through the region of the Cherubim who are waking at the threshold of eternity.  And all beings that are developing themselves in the current of time, the whole infinite plethora of the children of time, will be able to stream into eternity, to where eternity will be girded by the time as in a circle where time shall again catch its snake’s tail, the A connecting with the O. And the Gods, by beholding this wonderful conversion of the arch-Lucifer, of time, will realize how they are to work in the future in order to help this salvation of time and all its children on one’s own accord. In view of the great sacrifice of Christ, the three hierarchies make a holy decision to set in the spirit for all children of time an example of the three future stages of earth’s evolution already in the present and stand for mankind as paragons of the future.

            Thus the third hierarchy sets already today in the spirit an example of the Jupiter stage for mankind, and likewise the second hierarchy by setting an example of the Venus stage while the first hierarchy does the same with respect to the Vulcan stage.

            Thus the Gods position themselves as a shining ladder of the high ideals underlying the evolution of the world in order to show the converted cosmic time, arch-Lucifer, the way to the Father. This they could never do however if Golgotha had not occurred, because only Golgotha gives a higher meaning to the activity of the Gods too by showing them the way to the Most High.

3. THE MYSTERY OF GOLGOTHA AND THE EARTH

And now we turn to the second question: Let us ask what the Mystery of Golgotha means for the Earth and what would happen with the Earth if this holy mystery had not occurred?

            In order to answer this question, one must first be clear about what the Earth actually is. When one wants to use Man as the measure of all things for the purpose of gaining knowledge of the world, as the ancients used to do, then one will have to say to oneself, that the Earth is nothing else than a retarded, inverted human being, and that the Gods on their part are advanced human beings.

            For the Earth is just as much longing for a true humanhood, as the Gods are counting on this advanced manhood in their further development.

            As a retarded, inverted human being the Earth has a mind, a consciousness, which has long been overcome by today’s human being but which he possessed at the ancient Saturn period. However this all-encompassing Saturn consciousness of the Earth has been dulled due to the fact that she is no longer in that state of warmth in which Man was free to live, but in a state of cosmic frost. Now, as warmth is an expression of divine love, love so powerful  that it can also be sensed from the outside, so is cosmic frost an expression of Ahriman’s hate. Since the Earth has this been brought into a state of frost, she had to fall prey to the influence of Ahriman. But in so far as the Earth in this state of frost also has a Saturn consciousness, a consciousness that the Man possessed during the existence on Saturn, she is connected with the human being.

            Now the Earth feels but dimly that Man in his body, which consists of its substances, does something that it cannot do, namely that Man develops in this body a consciousness which in its case can only operate outside the body.

            And now the earth is seized as a consequence of this by a peculiar desire. In order to better understand this dim desire of the Earth, one must know the mutual relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm. They namely relate to one another in such a way that they supplement each other and long for each other. The big world is for the microcosm an ideal. For the macrocosm on the other hand, as well as for the Earth, which is also a macrocosmic being, the small world, which can take up the spirit, is also an ideal. Thus the microcosm emulates the big, the macrocosm the small world.

            Dimly the Earth is striving to become in future what Man is today, to be able to inwardly spiritualize herself as well, for she wants to become good, to imbue herself with the good. She would like to invert herself in order to carry the true humanhood in itself. Because she is however a macrocosmic being, she does not only aspire to take up the individual human, but would like to become the abode for the great cosmic-I, its body. She seeks to relate to this great cosmic-I as an individual human body relates to its I.

            By which means now does the Earth want to fulfill her dim desire? She wants to fulfill it by nourishing herself with Man. And the nourishment of the Earth that she needs namely is – the corpses of earthly human beings. The human body that she gives to the human being at his birth is what she wants back after the death of the human being. For the human being possess the wonderful gift through the morality of his thinking, feeling and willing to spiritualize the earthly substantiality. And the human being could attain this without hindrances, could deliver the nourishment to the Earth that she needs, were it not that the Fall of Man had occurred.

             Now as we know the Fall of Man took place, as a result of which the whole relationship between Man and the earth became different. Instead of remaining an ideal, instead of revealing the true human nature within him, fragmented Man became a temptation for the Earth. For the materiality that human beings after their death supplied to the earth became more and more poisonous for her, inebriating and benumbing it.

            However, the dim desire of the Earth to take up Man inwardly nevertheless persists. And if the task of the Man can no longer happen through a spiritualization of earthly substantiality, then the Earth attempts to accomplish this in another way, namely through the materialization of the human spirit.  Since she does not receive any spiritual refreshment from Man, she tries to seduce him. Therein the double nature of the Earth is expressed, which similar to Kundry from the Grail legend is at the same time a handmaiden of the Grail and a medium of Klingsor.

            If one knows this tendency of the Earth of taking up Man inwardly, then it becomes understandable what would have to happen to the Earth, in case Christ not had appeared on the Earth. Then the Earth would more and more have become a medium of Klingsor and like a Kundry seduce Man more and more. She would then over time devour Man. For then not the Earth would acquire human consciousness, but mankind would develop backwards to the trance consciousness of the past, to a consciousness that would be a return to the ancient Saturn consciousness. The whole development of mankind would then, according to the intentions of Ahriman, have to become retrograde and end with nothingness. For mankind, however, this backward development would signify a fall in hell.

              However, Christ has come into the world and has gone through death like all mortals. He has fulfilled the desire of the Earth. On this Only One, on this Most High the Earth has bestowed its bettermost, all the most noble that has remained behind from ancient Saturn, as the physical phantom of Man, all the most noble that has remained behind from the ancient Sun as the etheric, all the most noble that has remained from the ancient Moon as the astral. All kingdoms of nature give their most noble for the sheaths of this Holy Body. And in these noble cosmic sheaths of the corporeality of Jesus, in this true microcosm, descended the great macrocosmic I of mankind, just as a human I descends in a normal process of becoming self-consciousness.

            Thus from the noblest substances of the Earth a Grail cup as it were was formed from which the Earth could obtain what she needed from the outset: the holy refreshment of the Grail. 

4. THE MYSTERY OF GOLGOTHA AND MANKIND

 After we have now understood the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha for heaven as well as for the Earth, we must ask ourselves the question what the meaning of this holy mystery is for that being whose destiny it is to be a link between heaven and Earth – namely Man.

It is important to proceed from the central position of Man in the universe. For Man is a being for whom the Earth longs from below and on whom heaven counts from above. Man appears as a connecting link between heaven and Earth. His mission in the universe is through a transformation of the Earth to establish heaven and through a knowledge of heaven to transform the Earth. This he is capable of, because his nature is related to both worlds. The super-conscious spirit of Man is rooted in the heavenly worlds. Through a process of self-consciousness-raising the soul is able to work in the sense of the good. The subconsciousness of Man that wants to live out through the earthly corporeality is rooted in the inside of the Earth. By following his subconsciousness, Man acts in the sense of evil.

The soul of Man is thus a stage on which the struggle between the good and the bad is acted out. At the same time, however, it is a place where God undergoes His crucifixion and is to resurrect. And the fact that this has come about, that is what Man owes to this earthly destiny. For the Mystery of Golgotha had in the course of the whole development of mankind following the Fall to be prepared according to the laws of karma. It could only occur by virtue of the fact that the positive as well as the negative karma of mankind contributed thereto. In fact, the positive karma of mankind made the conception of the Savior in the Jordan and His birth at Golgotha possible. It lies at the basis of the complete genealogy of Jesus as well as the whole path of destiny that led Jesus to the Jordan. Thanks to this positive karma of mankind, thanks to this regenerating stream of the human race, which consisted of the prophets and initiates, mankind was judged by the spiritual world to be worthy to give birth to the Savior from its bosom.

The other, the negative stream of this karma of mankind led on the contrary to the death of the Redeemer. Thus mankind was condemned to kill that Holy of Holies that it had itself given birth to.

Mannkind received the strength to give birth to Jesus from heaven. This was a result of its covenant with the spiritual world. The strength to kill Christ, mankind received from the earthly depths. And this was the consequence of its sinfulness. And at the place where these two streams crossed each other, the cross of Golgotha was erected, the cross on which the cosmic I, born trough the mediation of mankind, now, through the mediation of the same mankind, had to suffer death and could conquer death through death.[1]

This wonderful relationship of mankind with the Mystery of Golgotha prompts us to look back at this mystery as something that must appear to us as the greatest guilt and at the same time as our only rescue. We are guilty of the fact that the Godman was crucified – such we must tell us – but by His Grace we were saved. And by immersing ourselves in this unique feeling, which is at the same time a feeling of infinite guilt and a feeling of infinite gratitude, something happens in us that reveals our true relationship to the Savior: We learn to love Christ.

For while with respect to heaven Christ is the Revealer of the Father and with respect to the Earth the victor over evil, with respect to mankind He is the Benefactor of love.

By meditating on the cross, the Cross of Golgotha through an experience of co-crucifixion love is born in Man. For what happens in the process? For the soul that immerses herself in the symbol of the cross, a repetition occurs of that what happened on a large scale in Palestine. Just as at that time the Crucified One descended into the subconsciousness of the Earth and from there rose as a victor over evil, He does so now also in the subconscious soul depths of the human being beholding the Cross of Golgotha with a feeling of infinite guilt and gratitude. The Crucified One descends into the subconscious depths of such a human being and by achieving victory over the dark Ahrimanic double, He arises in the soul of the human being as love.

Whereas all other beings by the descent into the depths must lose the connection with the Father, Christ is the Only Being that also maintains this connection below, that also remains united with the Father below, through death revealing the Father. And whereas therefore with all other beings by their descent into the depths the good must be transformed into evil, by Christ occurs a transformation from evil into the good. Thus also by means of the experience of co-crucifixion the dark double of Man as the bearer of negative karma is overcome by the Christ power of the Cross and love born as the power of positive karma.

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[1] See also Valentin Tomberg, “Meditations on the Tarot”, Lesson XX “Judgment”, where the crucifixion of Christ is called a magical act of homeopathy.  

5. THE WORLD ROSE CROSS

Thus we have made a feeble attempt to explore the meaning that the Mystery of Golgotha has for all worlds. We are conscious of the fact how inadequate all attempts must be to penetrate into this holy mystery and to express its essence. Yet it suffices for us when by the honorable friends a feeling could be awakened for the all-encompassing significance of the Mystery of Golgotha.

            In order to only very shortly summarize what has been said, we once again visualize the great symbol of the cross of Golgotha. As we have seen, this cross, which represents a synthesis of death and birth, is erected in the center of world events as the deep primordial, moral intuition of the  Father that is to be realized by the moral fantasy of the Son and the moral technique of the Spirit. This cross, which is erected on the Earth, must be experienced by Man, and the Gods, by looking down at this cross, strengthen themselves towards the fulfillment of their cosmic mission.

            Arch-Lucifer is converted by this cross. Arch-Ahriman of space is defeated by the cross. 

            For heaven it is a revelation of the Father and the meaning of the world. For the Earth it is a power that can transform it. For mankind it is its destiny.

            Would the Mystery of Golgotha not occur, the Gods would not have had a possibility to ever gain a knowledge of their own deepest essence.

            Would the Mystery of Golgotha not occur, the Earth would have no possibility to fulfill her deepest desire to become a body for cosmic consciousness.

            Would the Mystery of Golgotha not occur, mankind could not be a connecting link between heaven and Earth. She would then be torn apart.

            But the Mystery of Golgotha is here, did occur. This cosmic cross of Golgotha stands in the center of world events as a powerful synthesis of cosmic birth and cosmic death, as the crucifixion of God in a moment of space. As a World Rose Cross it stands there, as the World Rose Cross that is being erected by all worlds. For all levels of existence of the Earth are concentrated and transformed in the figure of the Crucified One.  The astrality of the ancient Moon is transformed into the Manas of Jupiter, the ethereality of the ancient Sun here becomes the Buddhi of Venus and the physical phantom of Saturn becomes the Atma of Vulcan, the Resurrection Body that is ensouled by mankind and spiritualized by Christ.

            And this great wonder of the world of a complete transformation of the cosmic past into the cosmic future occurs through the great Christ-I of the world, in the threefold corporeality of Jesus in the image of the crucifixion that encompasses the whole evolution of the world.

            It is the Earth that forms the support of this World Rose Cross. The Gods are the ones that recognize this mystery and from their knowledge contribute toward the possibility that through the power of Golgotha the lowermost can in the course of the future evolution of the world be transformed into the uppermost. However, the Mystery of Golgotha is uppermost, holiest for mankind in so far as it signifies for mankind its destiny.

            For by mankind experiencing the Mystery of Golgotha, it renders the transformative activity of the Gods possible as well as the salvation of the world, which is to be transformed by the Gods. For it remains true: Man stands in the center of the world. For him long the Gods from above and the Earth from below. And it is only through Man and with Man that the Gods can fulfill their transformative activity. And only through Man and with Man can the Earth be saved. 

Tallin, 1929 and 1939