Sunday, April 12, 2015

Lecture: Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman

Lecture: Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman: (The Russian, however, looks little at himself after his death.) Through all this, Western European man is exposed to the Ahriman influence because his ether body has been infected by materialistic thinking.

Lecture: Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman: Representatives of these parties uttered, with great fervor, endless variations of absolutely meaningless phrases. It was terrifying to see the Lucifer seduction at work.

Lecture: Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman: World War I was the earthly expression of a struggle between luciferic forces in the East and Ahriman forces in the West, and it was Central Europe's destiny to mediate between these forces.

Lecture: Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman: Therefore, St. John's midsummer-day was in ancient ages the most propitious time to raise the soul to the spiritual level.

If the soul does not consciously seek initiation as delineated in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, but becomes saturated with the Christ impulse as if by way of natural initiation, then the most favorable period for this process is from December 25 to January 6. We can understand this clearly by realizing that for occult knowledge it is evident that the earth is not only what geologists describe. Geologists conceive the earth's components as being similar to the skeleton of man. Yet the spiritual also belongs to our earth whose aura has been permeated by Christ. During the day's twenty-four hours, this earth sleeps and is awake just as we are. We must familiarize ourselves with the fact that the state of wakefulness on earth occurs during the winter, and the state of sleep during the summer. The earth spirit is most awake in these twelve or thirteen days from Christmas to the Epiphany. In ancient ages when, as you know from the various presentations in my lecture series, human beings elevated themselves to a sort of dreamlike clairvoyance to reach a spiritual understanding of the world, in those ages the most favorable time for this process was summer. Thus, it is quite natural that whoever wants to elevate himself to spiritual heights by means of a more dreamlike clairvoyance will have an easier time of it during the summer, when the earth is asleep. Therefore, St. John's midsummer-day was in ancient ages the most propitious time to raise the soul to the spiritual level. The old way of spiritual interaction with the earth has been replaced by a more conscious elevation that can best be reached during the earth's wakefulness.