What are the causes leading to a blotting out of the total world of ideas in our worldview?
The second question has a phenomenological meaning, it concerns a question of self-reflection and can be formulated thus:
The second question has a phenomenological meaning, it concerns a question of self-reflection and can be formulated thus:
Under what circumstances do we become conscious of the religious-moral meaning of our knowledge?
The third question is addressed to a future, just as the first one to a past and the second one to a present. It has a teleological meaning and can be formulated thus:
What means must we apply in order that the ideational content in us may be raised again?
The first of these three questions concerns the problem of our metaphysical guilt. By posing this question, we actually do not seek anything other than to recognize the cases of the guilt amassed by us, those causes that impel us to forget the spiritual universe in us. For the ignorance is with respect to this notion of knowledge a greater riddle than to be conscious of it. And not must we ask ourselves how we come to the point of knowing something, but first the question must concern us how we come to the point of not knowing something. In our self-knowledge we can experience that the outlines that we come upon at the beginning of knowledge originate from our conjointness with an earthly, bodily organism. It is the earthly body that blots out the universe in us and that separates us from our true being. This true being must due to this conjointness with the earthly body to begin with experience itself as an ignoramus, a doubter.
As a consequence the whole world as well is experienced by this true being in us as a problem, as a riddle and this being itself experiences this doubt as an impulse compelling it to solve this riddle of the world. This riddle arises due to our conjointness with the earthly body and is to be solved from a special point of view. And it is only due to this conjointness with the body that the true being in us attains a stage of free self-affirmation in ignorance.
Now one could ask how does this conjointness with an earthly body come about? By what means does our true spiritual being feel prompted to connect itself with the earthly corporeality and to consider the world from its viewpoint?
If we want to observe ourselves with this question in mind, we will become aware in ourselves of yet another, a third being that is neither a spiritual nor a bodily being, but an intermediary between both of them. It is namely the psychic principle in us that shows a special interest for the perceptual world imparted by the body. And it is this psychic principle in us as well that chains the higher principe, the spirit in us, to the perceptual world by impelling the spirit to wake up in this perceptual world and to become conscious of it. But we can also ask further, we can also ask why this psychic principle is prompted to develop an interest for the perceptual world. In order to correctly answer this question, we must proceed from another question. We must ask ourselves what our worldview would look like, if we were not induced to consider the world from the standpoint of our corporeality.
Yes, then we would indeed be entities whose knowledge would be organized according to the first type of knowledge. The truth would then be given without our own doing. It is, however, in the world the case that such an organism cannot simply be eliminated, when other forces emerge. No, they remain also in existence, even though their original direction is changed by the emergence of a new force.
Such is also the case with the original knowledge of the truth. Through the appearance of that force that connects us with our corporeality the original knowledge is not eliminated but indeed transformed: From a conscious vision of the truth, it becomes an unconscious willing to seek that same truth. The truth continues to remain immanent in the same human spirit, yet not in the form of a vision, but in the form of a cognitive impulse. This transformation of the original knowledge in a striving for knowledge can be graphically represented when one partitions the force active in knowledge today in two other forces, in a horizontally active force of the original knowledge and a vertical force active from above to below, the power of self-affirmation that seeks to satisfy itself through the earthly body. Were thus only the horizontally active force to be effective, Man would admittedly be a knower, although not an independent striving being; were on the other hand only the vertical force directed from above to below to be active, Man would have to fall into the abyss of complete unconsciousness. But since all two forces are at work, the development proceeds in the direction of their results: The descent in the ruin of ignorance is kept at bay by the horizontally active force and takes place gradually, in stages, whereby the stages correspond to the three elemental forces inherent in human nature. In this triple-staged self-affirmation the body provides the place whereupon Man can make firstly his willing, secondly his feeling and thirdly his thinking independent.
And each of these transitional stages to independence corresponds to the deletion of a certain part of the universe immanent in Man. By affirming his will through the body, Man kills in himself the cosmic will, by affirming his feeling, he kills the cosmic life, by affirming his thinking as his property, he kills the cosmic thought in himself. Thus the earthly body of Man becomes the place where the divine Logos must thrice suffer death, thus becoming the grave of God. There we have a causal chain that leads to the blotting out of the original ideational content of the original universal knowledge. A power of self-affirmation forces our soul and the spirit connected with her to submerge into the body, to blot out through its forces the entire world of ideas and to develop in ignorance the knowledge initiative.
If one now wants to live in the characterized epistemological circumstances, wants to imagine them as living soul forces, then out of them blossom like flowers from Aaron’s rod powerful symbols in which we recognize the figures from the Bible.
Just as during a restoration of old images of saints the original features become visible from the dust of by-gone ages, powerful world historical Biblical figures behind the abstract connections of our knowledge activity are also becoming visible.
Thus we recognize in our spiritual being that was a bearer of the original knowledge – that however had blotted it out in itself by identifying itself with the body – the Biblical Adam principle in so far that it is the Biblical Adam, who from the beginning bears the spiritual universe within himself, but had to forfeit it through the Fall.
The second principle in us, the principle of the soul, which is inwardly connected with the spirit, with Adam and that shares his destiny, can be experienced by us as the Eve principle, in so far as it is our soul that awakens the sleeping Adam, so that he may also taste of the Tree of Knowledge.
The third principle, namely that of the power of self-affirmation, which is active vertically, can be experienced by us as the power of the snake, of Lucifer. For it is Lucifer, who changes the original knowledge organism of Man by making the soul and the spirit independent. In this way, our knowledge reveals itself, when we do research into the causes of our ignorance, as a repetition of the Fall of Man.
At every moment of our conscious life the Tempter calls on our soul, Eve, to taste from the fruits of knowledge. At every moment the tempted soul, Eve, wakes the sleeping spirit, Adam in us up and hands him the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge so that he may taste of it. And Adam, the spirit in us, follows the voice of his temptress, the soul, Eve, and both are banished from the paradise of the original wisdom and must cloak themselves in the leather clothes of the earthly corporeality.
In a similar fashion, one can also immerse oneself in the second question by trying to become aware of the circumstances under which we may discover the religious-moral meaning of knowledge.
This became possible for us by directing our attention during the cognitive activity to ourselves as knowers and immersing ourselves as it were in the disposition caused in us by the cognitive process. Engrossed in self-reflection we must hear our own voice, the voice of the personal longing for the truth, the voice of guilt and atonement in our depths.
For this purpose, the world had to become a wasteland for us, a desert of loneliness. And only in this wasteland can we become aware of our cognitive impulse, which is normally active unconsciously.
This process of becoming self-conscious of the cognitive impulse is at the same time a consciousness of guilt against the past and a striving for a change of heart in the future. In the present, however, this cognitive impulse experiences itself as the voice of conscience, the voice of one crying in solitude that speaks to us about the mysterium of guilt and atonement. Thus what is the cognitive impulse? It is the voice of one crying in solitude that has become conscious of itself, the John the Baptist principle in our knowledge! It is also incumbent upon us, by hearkening to this voice of the inner John the Baptist, to change our ways and to expect from the future what through our guilt has been lost in the past. Thus we experience in this process of becoming self-conscious of the usually unconsciously active knowledge impulse as it were an inner testament revolution in the field of self-knowledge.
The third question is addressed to a future, just as the first one to a past and the second one to a present. It has a teleological meaning and can be formulated thus:
What means must we apply in order that the ideational content in us may be raised again?
The first of these three questions concerns the problem of our metaphysical guilt. By posing this question, we actually do not seek anything other than to recognize the cases of the guilt amassed by us, those causes that impel us to forget the spiritual universe in us. For the ignorance is with respect to this notion of knowledge a greater riddle than to be conscious of it. And not must we ask ourselves how we come to the point of knowing something, but first the question must concern us how we come to the point of not knowing something. In our self-knowledge we can experience that the outlines that we come upon at the beginning of knowledge originate from our conjointness with an earthly, bodily organism. It is the earthly body that blots out the universe in us and that separates us from our true being. This true being must due to this conjointness with the earthly body to begin with experience itself as an ignoramus, a doubter.
As a consequence the whole world as well is experienced by this true being in us as a problem, as a riddle and this being itself experiences this doubt as an impulse compelling it to solve this riddle of the world. This riddle arises due to our conjointness with the earthly body and is to be solved from a special point of view. And it is only due to this conjointness with the body that the true being in us attains a stage of free self-affirmation in ignorance.
Now one could ask how does this conjointness with an earthly body come about? By what means does our true spiritual being feel prompted to connect itself with the earthly corporeality and to consider the world from its viewpoint?
If we want to observe ourselves with this question in mind, we will become aware in ourselves of yet another, a third being that is neither a spiritual nor a bodily being, but an intermediary between both of them. It is namely the psychic principle in us that shows a special interest for the perceptual world imparted by the body. And it is this psychic principle in us as well that chains the higher principe, the spirit in us, to the perceptual world by impelling the spirit to wake up in this perceptual world and to become conscious of it. But we can also ask further, we can also ask why this psychic principle is prompted to develop an interest for the perceptual world. In order to correctly answer this question, we must proceed from another question. We must ask ourselves what our worldview would look like, if we were not induced to consider the world from the standpoint of our corporeality.
Yes, then we would indeed be entities whose knowledge would be organized according to the first type of knowledge. The truth would then be given without our own doing. It is, however, in the world the case that such an organism cannot simply be eliminated, when other forces emerge. No, they remain also in existence, even though their original direction is changed by the emergence of a new force.
Such is also the case with the original knowledge of the truth. Through the appearance of that force that connects us with our corporeality the original knowledge is not eliminated but indeed transformed: From a conscious vision of the truth, it becomes an unconscious willing to seek that same truth. The truth continues to remain immanent in the same human spirit, yet not in the form of a vision, but in the form of a cognitive impulse. This transformation of the original knowledge in a striving for knowledge can be graphically represented when one partitions the force active in knowledge today in two other forces, in a horizontally active force of the original knowledge and a vertical force active from above to below, the power of self-affirmation that seeks to satisfy itself through the earthly body. Were thus only the horizontally active force to be effective, Man would admittedly be a knower, although not an independent striving being; were on the other hand only the vertical force directed from above to below to be active, Man would have to fall into the abyss of complete unconsciousness. But since all two forces are at work, the development proceeds in the direction of their results: The descent in the ruin of ignorance is kept at bay by the horizontally active force and takes place gradually, in stages, whereby the stages correspond to the three elemental forces inherent in human nature. In this triple-staged self-affirmation the body provides the place whereupon Man can make firstly his willing, secondly his feeling and thirdly his thinking independent.
And each of these transitional stages to independence corresponds to the deletion of a certain part of the universe immanent in Man. By affirming his will through the body, Man kills in himself the cosmic will, by affirming his feeling, he kills the cosmic life, by affirming his thinking as his property, he kills the cosmic thought in himself. Thus the earthly body of Man becomes the place where the divine Logos must thrice suffer death, thus becoming the grave of God. There we have a causal chain that leads to the blotting out of the original ideational content of the original universal knowledge. A power of self-affirmation forces our soul and the spirit connected with her to submerge into the body, to blot out through its forces the entire world of ideas and to develop in ignorance the knowledge initiative.
If one now wants to live in the characterized epistemological circumstances, wants to imagine them as living soul forces, then out of them blossom like flowers from Aaron’s rod powerful symbols in which we recognize the figures from the Bible.
Just as during a restoration of old images of saints the original features become visible from the dust of by-gone ages, powerful world historical Biblical figures behind the abstract connections of our knowledge activity are also becoming visible.
Thus we recognize in our spiritual being that was a bearer of the original knowledge – that however had blotted it out in itself by identifying itself with the body – the Biblical Adam principle in so far that it is the Biblical Adam, who from the beginning bears the spiritual universe within himself, but had to forfeit it through the Fall.
The second principle in us, the principle of the soul, which is inwardly connected with the spirit, with Adam and that shares his destiny, can be experienced by us as the Eve principle, in so far as it is our soul that awakens the sleeping Adam, so that he may also taste of the Tree of Knowledge.
The third principle, namely that of the power of self-affirmation, which is active vertically, can be experienced by us as the power of the snake, of Lucifer. For it is Lucifer, who changes the original knowledge organism of Man by making the soul and the spirit independent. In this way, our knowledge reveals itself, when we do research into the causes of our ignorance, as a repetition of the Fall of Man.
At every moment of our conscious life the Tempter calls on our soul, Eve, to taste from the fruits of knowledge. At every moment the tempted soul, Eve, wakes the sleeping spirit, Adam in us up and hands him the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge so that he may taste of it. And Adam, the spirit in us, follows the voice of his temptress, the soul, Eve, and both are banished from the paradise of the original wisdom and must cloak themselves in the leather clothes of the earthly corporeality.
In a similar fashion, one can also immerse oneself in the second question by trying to become aware of the circumstances under which we may discover the religious-moral meaning of knowledge.
This became possible for us by directing our attention during the cognitive activity to ourselves as knowers and immersing ourselves as it were in the disposition caused in us by the cognitive process. Engrossed in self-reflection we must hear our own voice, the voice of the personal longing for the truth, the voice of guilt and atonement in our depths.
For this purpose, the world had to become a wasteland for us, a desert of loneliness. And only in this wasteland can we become aware of our cognitive impulse, which is normally active unconsciously.
This process of becoming self-conscious of the cognitive impulse is at the same time a consciousness of guilt against the past and a striving for a change of heart in the future. In the present, however, this cognitive impulse experiences itself as the voice of conscience, the voice of one crying in solitude that speaks to us about the mysterium of guilt and atonement. Thus what is the cognitive impulse? It is the voice of one crying in solitude that has become conscious of itself, the John the Baptist principle in our knowledge! It is also incumbent upon us, by hearkening to this voice of the inner John the Baptist, to change our ways and to expect from the future what through our guilt has been lost in the past. Thus we experience in this process of becoming self-conscious of the usually unconsciously active knowledge impulse as it were an inner testament revolution in the field of self-knowledge.
And now we also want to address our third question. When we now want to ask ourselves the question what means must be applied in order to awaken the truth, we will then see that these means are diametrically opposed to the causes. When namely the deletion of the truth in our nature was caused by the power of our Luciferic self-affirmation, the awakening of that same truth can only be attained when these causes are removed by an opposing power.
Instead of self-affirmation, Man is to practice self-sacrifice, if he is willing to awaken the deleted truth. Just as at the beginning of his path of self-knowledge he was allowed to say to himself, “Not the Logos, but I in me”, in the future, at the end of his path of self-knowledge he is to say to himself, “Not I, but the Logos in me”. And just as self-affirmation takes place gradually and in stages, self-sacrifice is likewise to take place gradually and in stages. As we have already mentioned, the gaining of Man’s independence shows three stages: Firstly Man conquers the independence of his willing, the ability to act willfully, secondly Man conquers the ability to feel independently, which is expressed in the ability to speak and thirdly Man also makes his thought life independent and becomes in this way the creator of this thought world. The same three stages must be stridden through by us on the path of self-sacrifice in an reverse order, namely: the stage relinquishing our personal thinking, the stage of relinquishing our personal feeling and the stage of relinquishing our personal willing.[1] The nature of these three stages can be expressed in three sayings:
May not my thoughts shine through me, but the thinking of the Logos.
May not my feelings warm me up, but the life of the Logos.
May not my will empower me, but the will of the Logos.
Only when all three supplications are fulfilled, can the Logos arise in us. The first supplication refers to our soul, Eve, who by taking possession of the selfless thinking of the Logos, tempts Adam, the spirit in us and draws him from the higher regions downwards with her into corporeality. But now the soul, Eve, must change her ways; instead of tempting Adam, the spirit, she is to give back his innocence to him. She is, as it were, to receive and give birth to him from above and bring him up in innocence. And that is precisely what the nature of occult schooling consists of, namely that the soul change her ways, becoming unselfish and altruistic in the pursuit of knowledge and giving birth to the higher principle. And this newborn higher principle must become a unified whole with the earthly I-ness and to universalize its personal guilt through its personal innocence, so that also the second supplication may be fulfilled. “May not my feeling warm me up, but the life of the Logos.”
These are the means by which a resurrection of the truth in Man is to be attained. And these means can be exemplified in living symbols, just as we have already done with respect to the causes of our guilt. Yet this time, we must not take the symbols from the Old but from the New Testament. Let us to begin with ask how we must name the soul inclined to self-sacrifice, a soul facing heaven and that does not receive from below, like Eve, but from above; a soul willing to conceive and give birth spiritually, just as she earlier as Eve gave birth and suffered from the pains of childbirth. Truly, such a soul that receives spiritually is no longer Eve but the bearer of the divine truth, Sophia.
And who is this innocent spirit that is to be born from the virginal soul, Sophia and to be brought up in innocence? It will be right when we designate it as the principle of the New Adam, as the principle of the Nathan Jesus. And exactly in the way that the Nathan Jesus behaves towards the Salomon Jesus, does the newborn spirituality of the New Adam behave toward the purified personal will of the earthly I-ness. The innocent part of our spiritual nature born from Sophia must voluntarily unite itself with the guilt-ridden I-ness transfigured through the suffering of the earthly experience. The high principle of the Nathan Jesus must supplement in us the highest results of the earthly knowledge that can be designated as the principle of the Salomon Jesus. And this Nathan Jesus principle born from the purified soul, Sophia and ridden with the innocence of the knowledge must through the self-reflection of the spiritual baptism be dedicated to a resurrectionary mission. Only then can the third supplication be fulfilled as well. And only then does the Logos reveal Himself in Man not only as Knowledge of the Truth (Sophia) and not only as Life of the Truth (Nathan Jesus) but as the Truth Itself in Its Own essence. Only then does the Logos reveal Himself as Christ, as the One Who resurrected the annihilated phantom, as the One resurrected in the phantom.
Thus utters the Logos in this stage of self-knowledge in Man His eternal Name and in this way does the encounter with Christ take place.
However, this encounter with Christ can only then take place when our spirit, purified through the sufferings of knowledge, offers its supreme sacrifice and like the spirit of Zarathustra before the baptism dies in Christo, fulfilling the words, “Not I but Christ in me”.
In this way, we convince ourselves, by enlivening our abstract notion in the field of human epistemology that the whole history of the world is repeated in microcosm. In the self-knowledge of every human being the Old Adam and Eve, Lucifer, John the Baptist, Sophia, the Nathan and the Salomon Jesus and finally the Risen One can be beheld. And because that is so, it must also be understandable why we can so wholly intuitively comprehend the profound mysteries of the historic process and can even independently substantiate them. But now the soul, Eve, must change her ways; instead of tempting Adam, the spirit, she is to give back his innocence to him. She is, as it were, to receive and give birth to him from above and bring him up in innocence. And that is precisely what the nature of occult schooling consists of, namely that the soul change her ways, becoming unselfish and altruistic in the pursuit of knowledge and giving birth to the higher principle. And this newborn higher principle must become a unified whole with the earthly I-ness and to universalize its personal guilt through its personal innocence, so that also the second supplication may be fulfilled. “May not my feeling warm me up, but the life of the Logos.”
These are the means by which a resurrection of the truth in Man is to be attained. And these means can be exemplified in living symbols, just as we have already done with respect to the causes of our guilt. Yet this time, we must not take the symbols from the Old but from the New Testament. Let us to begin with ask how we must name the soul inclined to self-sacrifice, a soul facing heaven and that does not receive from below, like Eve, but from above; a soul willing to conceive and give birth spiritually, just as she earlier as Eve gave birth and suffered from the earthly pains of childbirth. Truly, such a soul that receives spiritually is no longer Eve but the bearer of the divine truth, Sophia.
And who is this innocent spirit that is to be born from the virginal soul, Sophia and to be brought up in innocence? It will be right when we designate it as the principle of the New Adam, as the principle of the Nathan Jesus. And exactly in the way that the Nathan Jesus behaves towards the Solomon Jesus, does the newborn spirituality of the New Adam behave toward the purified personal will of the earthly I-ness. The innocent part of our spiritual nature born from Sophia must voluntarily unite itself with the guilt-ridden I-ness transfigured through the suffering of the earthly experience. The high principle of the Nathan Jesus must supplement in us the highest results of the earthly knowledge that can be designated as the principle of the Solomon Jesus. And this Nathan Jesus principle born from the purified soul, Sophia and ridden with the innocence of the knowledge must through the self-reflection of the spiritual baptism be dedicated to a resurrectionary mission. Only then can the third supplication be fulfilled as well. And only then does the Logos reveal Himself in Man not only as Knowledge of the Truth (Sophia) and not only as the Life of the Truth (Nathan Jesus), but as the Truth Itself in Its Own essence. Only then does the Logos reveal Himself as Christ, as the One Who resurrected the annihilated phantom, as the One resurrected in the phantom.
Thus utters the Logos in this stage of self-knowledge in Man His eternal Name and in this way does the encounter with Christ take place.
However, this encounter with Christ can only then take place when our spirit, purified through the sufferings of knowledge, offers its supreme sacrifice and like the spirit of Zarathustra before the baptism dies in Christo, fulfilling the words, “Not I but Christ in me”.
In this way, we convince ourselves, by enlivening our abstract notion in the field of human epistemology that the whole history of the world is repeated in microcosm. In the self-knowledge of every human being the Old Adam and Eve, Lucifer, John the Baptist, Sophia, the Nathan and the Salomon Jesus and finally the Risen One can be beheld. And because that is so, it must also be understandable why we can so wholly intuitively comprehend the profound mysteries of the historic process and can even independently substantiate them.
Here only one example shall be given that can, however, show us in which way we can through our self-knowledge fathom the mysteries of world history. Above, it was mentioned that also in the realm of human knowledge both Jesus principles must play a part, the principle of the Nathan and the principle of the Solomon Jesus. In self-knowledge, this union of the two Jesus principles is explainable, in the sense that they are both two halves of one and the same being, namely of the human spirit. And the sense of this union is that the innocent Jesus principle gives the Solomon Jesus principle its universality and at the same time takes the earthly destiny of this Solomon principle upon itself.
If what takes place in world history, can now be found in microcosm in self-knowledge, then we must assume that the same reasons are at the bottom of the union of the two evangelical Jesus children. Upon immersing ourselves in this question, we light upon a mystery that also relates to the Solomon Jesus child. We know that the Salomon Jesus was destined to become the earthly bearer of the Christ being. To this end, however, he had to appear as a representative of the whole human race. But this was only possible on the condition that he took the whole karma of mankind upon himself. He had to feel guilty for this karma of mankind. Now we know however that the Nathan Jesus did not possess any karma at all. That is why he could as such bear no responsibility for the karma of the human race. And precisely for that reason he had to connect himself with the I of Zarathustra, to take the Zarathustra individuality upon himself, for by connecting himself with the Zarathustra individuality, he burdened himself with the whole guilt of mankind. And here the great Zarathustra mystery is revealed to us. The absorption of the Zarathustra individuality by the Nathan Jesus could never make the latter responsible for the karma of mankind, if Zarathustra were not the founder of the karma of mankind. But who is the founder of the karma of mankind? It is Adam.
And the individuality of Zarathustra is no one else than that of the first and greatest man of the human race, the founder of the karma of mankind, Adam.
Now it will also appear understandable how and why the union of the two Jesus children came about. Never could they have formed a union, if they were not from the beginning two halves of one and the same being, namely of the homogeneous Adam being.
From this example, we see how in a miraculous way self-knowledge illuminates world history for us. All mysteries are inscribed in our own knowledge potential. In us too the mystery of the Fall of Man takes place at every moment; in us too the mystery of the New Testament can take place at every moment.
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[1] See also Valentin Tomberg’s “Anthroposophical Meditations on the New Testament” in Christ and Sophia where the threefold sacrifice in connection with the Lord’s Prayer is explained.
Good work!
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