Christ in the etheric

'Christ in the etheric' refers to what was also described as 'the Second Coming', and the appearance of Christ to humanity not in physical incarnate form, but in the etheric, from the 20th century onwards. Christian theology sometimes uses the greek term Parousia for this Second Coming.

Christ has been the spirit of the Earth since the Mystery of Golgotha, so the appearance in the etheric to humanity has to do both with the changed conditions of the zodiacal influences and consciousness of humanity, as that is a very individual experience and not - so to speak - for the whole of humanity at the same time.

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Another way to describe this is the gradual development of a new clairvoyance (1909-06-30-GA112) and karmic foresight.

This can be related to the gradual loosening of the etheric body from the physical body, this specifically for the human brain and the human heart. The intimate relationship between the human physical and etheric head changed since the 3th century BC, and this is now also happening since the 18th century with the intimate relationship between the human physical and etheric heart. Before these were a single entity, now the etheric heart can be excited to activity in an etheric way, and the two are no longer so inwardly dynamically bound together as before. (1919-04-05-GA190). See also Man's new organ.

It is part of a gradual but continuous transition and blossoming of new faculties in mankind that will gradually increase over the next centuries and millenia (see Schema FMC00.376). Schema FMC00.081 provides an overview of the faculties described how "an ever-increasing number of human beings in the twentieth century will be capable of perceiving the manifestation of the Etheric Christ — that is to say, Christ in the form of an Angel" (1913-05-02-GA152).

From a spiritual scientific perspective, the study modules on the Christ Impulse support one to develop an understanding of the Christ Impulse and the Mystery of Golgotha, which has to do with a fructification (Schema FMC00.468) by buddhi or life-spirit (Schema FMC00.481), see also Man's higher triad and the higher ethers (chemical and life ethers). This spiritual influence structurally affects Man's bodily principles and the spiritualization of humanity, and triggers the development of new faculties caused by the life forces flowing into the astral and etheric bodies.

Aspects

timing and faculties

• from the 1930 onwards, for a period of 500 years; but different timeframes are given, eg "in the next 3000 years" in 1911-08-18-GA129 and "in the course of the next three thousand years" in 1911-12-05-GA132. See table Schema FMC00.081 below for an overview. Mankind will develop natural clairvoyance after the end of the dark age (kali yoga) in 1899, and has about 2500 years to develop clairvoyant faculties. This leads into the sixth cultural age, see also FMC00.232 on Humanity is getting younger.
• the dangers that the new faculties and experiences (see Schema FMC00.081) go by unnoticed, not understood (1910-02-06-GA118, 1918-10-09-GA182 and Alfred Seeger in 'Further reading' section below)
• examples of reports, see Discussion Note 2 below.

various

• link between Christ in the etheric as an angel for human beings on Earth from 20th century onwards, and the extinction of consciousness in the spiritual worlds (and Christ as an angelic being) in the 19th century and specifically in the period 1841-1879 with the fight of Michael (1913-05-02-GA152). Coverage under: Christ in the etheric#Christ in period 1841-1879
• loosening of the etheric body
  • first base reference extract: Current fifth cultural age#1919-04-05-GA190
  • then add what is on: Man's new organ
  • and also: Christ Module 15 - Study of Spiritual Science and the Mystery of Golgotha#1908-05-13-GA102
• the German folk soul archangel has a special affinity with spiritual science, hence "in the Germanic North the best conditions are to be found for the comprehension of the Second Coming of Christ" (1910-06-17-GA121)
• in the fifth cultural age and the end of the 20th century, "Christ becomes the Lord of Karma for human evolution" (1911-10-07-GA131)

other

• Paul of Tarsus' Damascus experience
• experiences of the Christ light figure during Near Death Experiences (NDEs)
  • a most famous case is the one described by George G. Ritchie in 'Return from tomorrow' (1978), sparking further research by Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring, and others
  • beholding the Christ can only be attained outside the physical body (1917-08-14-GA176)
  • see more in Discussion Note 3 below.
• the theme of the false prophet or false messiah
• See also: Christ in the future cultural ages and next epoch

Inspirational quotes

1898 - Beinsa Douno

.. Christ is coming now to visit human minds and hearts. ... Christ is a manifestation of the Love of God .. and He will come as an inner Light in the minds and hearts of the people. ... The opening of the human minds and hearts and the reception of Christ from within – this will be ‘the Second Coming of Christ’ on Earth. ... If you are in harmony with Christ, your consciousness will wake up, you will see Him.

1909-06-04-GA109

.. in a comparatively short time from now, many individuals will become clairvoyant, but they would be able to see only unreality, not truth, in the spiritual world if they had not heard of what had already been investigated.

1909-06-30-GA112

the Christ-impulse brings something into the world which enables the human being to work upon the inner force which makes the blood pulsate in his veins. ... Through the spirit poured forth as the Christ-impulse, something flows into the body which otherwise can result only from physical and physiological evolution — through fire, an inner fire which expresses itself in the circulation of the blood. ... .. when Man opens himself to the power of the Christ-impulse, the experiences of his astral body are poured into the etheric body and clairvoyance ensues.

1910-02-08-GA116

we are approaching a time when new forces and capacities will be developed by humankind .. and these new forces and capacities must be understood. .. individuals will become capable of developing higher forces naturally, and what we know as the etheric body will become visible to them. A certain number of people will develop etheric clairvoyant powers.

1928-02 - Elisabeth Vreede (see below)

.. we find also a certain relationship between the Christ-filled gaseous and airy constituents of the Sun and the present air of the Earth. And we can understand how a second coming of the Christ 'in the clouds', in the element of air, is spoken of. It is not the ordinary external [physical] air that is meant, but that kind of etheric air that was present at the beginning of the Earth evolution.

1913-05-02-GA152

The angelic Being, who since the MoG has been the outer form assumed by Christ, suffered an extinction of consciousness in the course of the intervening nineteen centuries as a result of the opposing materialistic forces that had been brought into the spiritual worlds by materialistic human souls who had passed through the gate of death. This onset of unconsciousness in the spiritual worlds will lead to the resurrection of the Christ-consciousness in the souls of men on Earth between birth and death in the twentieth century.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.081 gives an overview of some of the expected faculties related to the appearance of 'Christ in the etheric' due to the arising new clairvoyance. As depicted in the GA191 BBD (see eg FMC00.013) this clairvoyance will be a mixture of wisdom with moral consciousness, hence the elements related to karma in the table below.

Note: table to be expanded with statements from other lectures like 1910-02-08-GA116

Schema FMC00.376 provides an overview of the Christ Impulse with its four main interventions in the development of humanity ('I' in red), how the Christ was observed by initiates in the current epoch ('O' in grey), how the Christ will manifest in the higher worlds in the next cultural ages ('M' in blue), and the workings of the Christ Impulse per period of 800 years '(W' in green). Lecture references are given as indication but not exhaustively, for these refer to the corresponding topic pages.

This 'includes' the Schemas Schema FMC00.082 and Schema FMC00.081 above, and provides a seamless connection to Schema FMC00.373A.

Schema FMC00.617: shows the progression of the faculties of the human 'I' along the evolution of Earth and Man's bodily principles and structural make up. The current Postatlantean epoch is characterized by the faculty of thinking as part of contemporary waking consciousness. However this intellectual logic or 'head thinking' with the human brain is slowly evolving, and in the future Man will develop 'heart thinking' that will transform the faculty of memory - see stages of clairvoyance. This essence of 1910-03-30-GA119 is complemented with various quotes from other lectures below.

Schema FMC00.617A: is a simplified reduced version of Schema FMC00.617, positioning the future evolution towards so-called heart-thinking with the future clairvoyant consciousness and transformed faculty of memory, versus the contemporary brain or head-thinking with current waking consciousness.

This schema positioning and lecture is central to and connects to various perspectives covered on multiple topic pages, such as: Christ in the etheric, Past life memories, Stages of clairvoyance, Development of the chakras, and the development of the future faculty of memory, and the Transition between 4th and 14th century, the Sixth epoch, and Future Jupiter.

Schema FMC00.591B: is a drawing by Valentin Tomberg, part of lectures held in 1939 in Rotterdam, published by Willi Seiss in the booklet 'The four sacrifices of Christ and the appearance of Christ in the etheric'. It is shared here because Tomberg uses the same visualization of Schema FMC00.591A, and because of the merit of the idea presented with the drawing on the right.

On the right, Tomberg uses this presentation to couple karmic pre-sentience (see Schema FMC00.081) and knowledge of previous lives (see Past life memories). Both are faculties of the 'new clairvoyance' referenced by and linked to 'Christ in the etheric'. Tomberg points out that in the future, the soul will naturally connect insight of 'guilt in the past' to presentience of 'karmic impact of future deeds', thus allowing for restoration of karmic balance.

On the left, as a legend for the drawing on the right (interpretation added by editor to be compatible with FMC wiki nomenclature and Rudolf Steiner's teachings): the lower 'I' is the consciousness of the senses and the physical world (and the lower astral body); the higher 'I' is Man's higher triad, the spiritual future of Man constituted by the life-spirit (or budhi) and spirit-man (or atma) parts of the monad. In the middle would then be the consciousness soul and spirit self (manas) 'bridge' between the lower incarnate life and the future spiritual life of mankind. The 'I am' and conscience labels to this drawing are misleading (as happens with secondary sources), as conscience should not be coupled only and directly to the higher 'I', and the 'I am' and pure spiritual love certainly is the higher self (re budhi Schema FMC00.481). Rather, these higher spiritual faculties 'ripple through' to the lower principles of the spirit self and consciousness soul (for principle, see also below on Schema FMC00.431 and the corresponding lecture(s)).

Lecture coverage and references

Overview

The main GA volume for 'Christ in the etheric' is 1910-GA118.

The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric (1983) is a book bundling lectures on the theme, available online

Source extracts

Gospels

The references below may be read or interpreted in this context:

Matthew

²³ Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

²⁴ For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

...

²⁷ For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.

²⁸ For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

²⁹ Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

³⁰ And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

...

⁴² Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come.

⁴³ But understand this: If the homeowner had known in which watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.

⁴⁴ For this reason, you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect.

Mark 13

²⁶ “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

1898 - Beinsa Douno

quote: Beinsa Douno#1898

More info on the message known as 'a call to my people', an angelic prophetic message to Beinsa Douno of 1898-10-08, available in PDF form on

Beinsa Douno#References and further reading

1909-06-30-GA112

see: Baptism#1909-06-30-GA112

1910-01-12-GA117A and 1910-01-12-GA117A

(Stockholm) appear to be the first lectures, after tentative hint in esoteric lesson 1907-12-05.

• 1910-01-12-GA117A has only half a page of lecture notes. It mentions that Christ will re-appear in etheric form, refers to the Book fo Revelation (I will come, but take hold that you don't recognize me), and states that humanity has 2500 years to develop its clairvoyant faculties. It also mentions 1933 as the year by which the spiritual esoteric nature of the Gospels has to be recognized as a preparation to this, and that from 1933 people sent by schools of black magic will spread the message of a physical Christ.
• 1910-01-15-GA117A states that

  .. just as Christ once walked on Earth and was visible with physical eyes to a certain number of people, so will he become visible for all people in the astral world in the next period of time. This period will last about 500 years, from 1899 to 2500. In this period, men will start to rise to the spiritual world where He is, and all eyes will then be openen so the whole of humanity will understand and acknowledge the Christ. But we already have to start now to prepare people for this great event, just as John the Baptist .

1910-01-25-GA118

[regarding the Mystery of Golgotha] .. it was by no means universally realised that something of supreme importance had taken place: that the Divine Light had shone into the darkness of earth and that it was now possible for men to be brought safely through the Kali Yuga. The possibility of further evolution for humanity was ensured because there were certain souls who understood what was at stake at that point of time and knew what it signified that Christ had been upon earth.

If you were to transfer yourselves in thought to that time, you would realise that it was quite possible to live without knowing anything at all of the advent of Christ Jesus on the physical plane — it was quite possible to live on Earth without having any consciousness of this most momentous event.

[Christ in the etheric]

Would it not also be possible today for something of infinite importance to take place without men being aware of it? Might not our contemporaries fail to have the slightest inkling of the most important happening in the world at the present time?

It might well be so. For something of supreme importance is taking place, although it is perceptible only to the eyes of spirit. There is a great deal of talk about periods of transition; we ourselves are actually living in a very important one. And its importance lies in the fact that the Dark Age has run its course and a new age is beginning, when slowly and by degrees the souls of men will change and new faculties will be developed.

The fact that the vast majority of men are entirely unaware of this need not be a cause of surprise, for it was the same when the Christ Event took place at the beginning of our era. Kali Yuga came to an end in the year 1899 and we have now to live on into a new age. What is beginning is slowly preparing men for new faculties of soul.

The first indications of these new faculties will be noticeable in isolated souls comparatively soon now, and they will become more clearly apparent in the middle of the thirties of this century, approximately in the period between 1930 and 1940. The years 1933, 1935 and 1937 will be particularly important. Very special faculties will then reveal themselves in human beings as natural gifts. Great changes will take place during this period and biblical prophecies will be fulfilled. Everything will change for souls who are living on earth and also for those who are no longer in physical bodies. Whatever their realm of existence, souls are on the way to possessing entirely new faculties. Everything is changing — but the happening of supreme importance in our time is a deeply incisive transformation of the faculties of the human soul.

Kali Yuga is over and the souls of men are now beginning to develop new faculties. These faculties — because this is the purpose of the epoch — will of themselves draw forth from souls certain powers of clairvoyance which during Kali Yuga had necessarily to be submerged in the realm of the unconscious. A number of souls will experience the strange condition of having I-consciousness but at the same time the feeling of living in a world essentially different from the world known to their ordinary consciousness. The experience will be shadowy, like a divination, as though an operation had been performed on one born blind. ... Through what we call esoteric training these clairvoyant faculties will be attained in a far better form. But because human beings progress, they will appear in mankind in their very earliest beginnings, in their most elementary stages, through the natural process of evolution.

[Foresight of 20th century - see also 1917-09-25-GA176 on History]

But it might very easily happen — indeed, far more easily now than at any earlier time — that men would prove incapable of grasping this event of such supreme importance for humanity, incapable of realising that this denotes an actual glimpse into a spiritual world, although still shadowy and dim. There might, for example, be so much wickedness, so much materialism on the earth that the majority of men would show not the slightest understanding, and regard those who have this clairvoyance as lunatics, shutting them up in asylums together with those whose minds are obviously deranged. This point of time might pass men by without leaving a trace, although today we too are letting the call of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and of Christ Himself, again resound: A new epoch is at hand when the souls of men must take a step upward into the kingdoms of heaven.

The great event might very easily pass without being understood by men. ... If between the years 1930 and 1940 the materialists were to say triumphantly: True, there have been a number of fools but no sign whatever of the expected great event ... this would not in the least disprove what has been said. But if the materialists were to win the day and mankind were to overlook these happenings altogether, it would be a dire misfortune. Even if men should prove incapable of perceiving them, great things will come to pass.

One is that it will be possible for men to acquire the new faculty of perception in the etheric world — a certain number to begin with, and they will be followed by more and more others, for mankind will have 2.500 years during which to develop these faculties in greater and greater perfection.

This opportunity must not be missed. If it were, this would be a tragic misfortune and mankind would then be obliged to wait until a later epoch in order to retrieve the lost opportunity and subsequently to develop the new faculty. This faculty will consist in men being able to see in their environment something of the etheric world which hitherto they have not normally been able to see. Man now sees only the human physical body, but then he will be able to see the etheric body at least as a shadowy picture and also to perceive the connection between deeper happenings in the etheric world. He will have pictures and premonitions of happenings in the spiritual world and find that in three or four days’ time such happenings take place on the physical plane. We will see certain things in etheric pictures and know that to-morrow or in a few days’ time this or that will happen.

These faculties of the human soul will be transformed. And what is associated with this? The Being we call the Christ was once on earth in the flesh at the beginning of our era. He will never come again in a physical body, for that was a unique event and will not be repeated. But He will come again in an etheric form in the period indicated. Men will learn to perceive Christ inasmuch as through this etheric sight they will grow towards Him. He does not now descend as far as the physical body but only as far as the etheric body; men must therefore grow to the stage where He can be perceived. For Christ spoke truly when He said: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the days of earth.” He is present in our spiritual world ... and those especially blessed can always see Him in this spiritual, etheric world.

[Paul Damascus]

A man who was convinced with particular intensity through such perception, was Paul — in the vision at Damascus. But this etheric sight will develop in individual human beings as a natural faculty. In days to come it will be more and more possible for men to experience what Paul experienced at Damascus.

We are now able to grasp quite a different aspect of Spiritual Science. We realise that it is a preparation for the actual event of the new Appearance of Christ. Christ will appear again inasmuch as with their etheric sight men will raise themselves to Him. When this is understood, Spiritual Science is disclosed as the means of preparing men to recognise the return of Christ, in order that it shall not be their misfortune to overlook this event but that they shall be mature enough to grasp the great happening of the Second Coming of Christ. Men will become capable of seeing etheric bodies and among them, too, the etheric body of Christ; that is to say, they will grow into a world where Christ will be revealed to their newly awakened faculties.

It will then no longer be necessary to amass all kinds of documentary evidence to prove the existence of Christ; there will be eye-witnesses of the presence of the Living Christ, men who will know Him in His etheric body. And from this experience they will realise that this is the same Being who at the beginning of our era fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha, that He is indeed the Christ. Just as Paul at Damascus was convinced at the time: This is Christ! ... so there will be men whose experiences in the etheric world will convince them that in very truth Christ lives.

The supreme mystery of the age in which we are living is the Second Coming of Christ — that is its true nature. But the materialistic mind will in a certain sense appropriate this event. What has now been said — that all the data of genuine spiritual knowledge point to this age — will often be proclaimed in the years immediately ahead. But the materialistic mind corrupts everything to-day, and what will happen is that this kind of thinking will be quite incapable of conceiving that the souls of men must advance to the stage of etheric sight and therewith to vision of Christ in the etheric body.

Materialistic thinking will conceive of this event as a descent of Christ in the flesh, as an incarnation in the flesh. A number of persons in their boundless arrogance will turn this to their own advantage and announce themselves to men as the reincarnated Christ. The near future may therefore bring false Christs, but anthroposophists should be so fully prepared for the spiritual life that they will not confuse the return of Christ in a spiritual body, perceptible only to higher vision, with a return in a physical body of flesh. This will be one of the most terrible temptations besetting mankind and to lead men past this temptation will be the :task of those who learn through Spiritual Science to rise in the true sense to an understanding of the Spirit, who try not to drag spirit down into matter but to ascend into the spiritual world themselves. Thus we may speak of the return of Christ and of the fact that we rise to Christ in the spiritual world through acquiring the faculty of etheric vision.

Christ is ever present, but He is in the spiritual world. We can reach Him when we rise into that world. All anthroposophical teaching should be transformed within us into an indomitable will not to allow this event to pass unnoticed but in the time that remains to us gradually to educate human beings who will be capable of developing these new faculties and therewith to unite anew with Christ. Otherwise, before such an opportunity could again arise, humanity would have to wait for long, long ages ... indeed, until a new incarnation of the Earth. If this event of the return of Christ were to be overlooked, the vision of Christ in the etheric body would be restricted to those who are willing to fit themselves for such an experience through esoteric training. But the really momentous fact of these faculties being acquired by humanity in general, by all men, of this great event being understood by means of faculties developing naturally in all men ... that would be impossible for long, long ages.

[Importance spiritual science]

Obviously, therefore, there is something in our age that justifies the existence and the work of Spiritual Science in the world. Its aim is not merely to satisfy theoretical needs or scientific curiosity. To prepare men for this great event, to prepare them to take their rightful place in the epoch in which they live and with clarity of understanding and knowledge to perceive what is actually present but may pass men by without being brought to fruition — such is the aim of Spiritual Science.

It will be of the utmost importance to recognise and understand this event of Christ's Appearance, for it will be followed by other events. Just as other happenings preceded the Christ Event in Palestine, so will those who prophetically foretold His coming follow Him after the time referred to, after He Himself has become visible to mankind again in the etheric body. The preparers of His coming will be recognisable in a new form to men who have experienced the new Christ Event. Those who lived on earth as Moses, Abraham and the Prophets will be recognisable once again. And it will be known that just as Abraham preceded Christ as a preparer, he also takes over the mission, after Christ's coming, of being a helper in His work. Thus a man who does not sleep through the event of supreme importance in the immediate future gladly finds his way into fellowship with all those who, as the Patriarchs, preceded the Christ Event; he allies himself with them. The whole choir of those to whose level we shall thus be able to rise is again revealed. The one who led mankind downwards to the physical plane appears again after Christ and leads men upwards again, unites them again with the spiritual worlds. [See the following lecture.]

Looking far back into the past we come .to that point of time in the evolution of humanity of which we say: from then onwards humanity descends farther and farther away from the spiritual world into the physical world. Although the following picture also has its material aspect, it can nevertheless be used here. In earlier times man was a companion of spiritual Beings and because his spirit lived in the spiritual world he was a son of the Gods. But the soul, descending ever more deeply into bodily incarnation, participated to a constantly increasing extent in the outer world. The son of the Gods within man took delight in the daughters of the earth, that is to say in those souls who were drawn to the physical world. This in turn means: the human spirit, in earlier times charged through and through with divine spirituality, sank down into physical materiality, became the spouse of the brain-bound intellect and by it was entangled in the web of the physical world of sense. And now the human spirit must re-ascend along the path by which the descent was once made and become again a son of the Gods. The human spirit which had become the son of man would perish in the physical world ifthis son of man were not to climb upwards again to the Divine Beings, to the light of the spiritual world, finding delight in times to come in the daughters of the Gods. It was necessary for the evolution of mankind that the sons of the Gods should unite with the daughters of men, with the souls who are fettered to the earth, in order that as the son of man the human spirit should learn to master the physical plane. But it is necessary that the human being of the future, the son of man, shall take delight in the daughters of the Gods, in the divine-spiritual light of wisdom with which he must unite in order then to grow upwards again into the world of the Gods.

The will of man must be fired by the divine wisdom, and the most powerful impulse for this will be if to those who have truly prepared themselves the sublime ether-form of Christ Jesus becomes perceptible. To a man in whom natural clairvoyance has developed this will be like a Second Coming of Christ Jesus, just as the etheric Christ appeared as a spiritual Being to Paul. Christ will appear again to men when they realise that they must use to this end the faculties with which evolution itself will equip the human soul.

Let us therefore use Spiritual Science not merely to satisfy our curiosity, but in such a way that it will make us worthier to fulfil the great tasks and missions devolving upon the human race.

Answer given by Dr. Steiner to questions asked in connection with the foregoing lecture

When light has been thrown, as it has been today, upon mysteries of a more intimate kind, let us not treat them as thoughtlessly as certain subjects are wont to be treated to-day, but realise that Anthroposophy must be for us something altogether different from a theory. The teaching has, of course, to be given; for how would it be possible to rise to thoughts such as have been voiced to-day if they could not be received in the form of teaching? The essence of this teaching, however, is that it does not remain as such but is re-moulded in the soul into qualities of heart and character, into an entirely different attitude of mind, making different men of us. The teaching should guide us how to make the right use of our incarnations so that in the course of them we can develop into something quite different.

I have tried not to say a word too much or too little and have therefore given only fleeting indications of matters of great moment. But What has been said is of significance not only for the souls who will be incarnated on the physical plane in the period from 1930 to 1940 but also for those who will then be in the spiritual world between death and a new birth; souls work down from the spiritual world into the world of the living, even though the latter may know nothing of it. Through the new Christ Event, this communion between souls who are incarnated here on the physical plane and souls already in the spiritual world will become an increasingly conscious communion. Active co-operation between human beings in incarnation and spiritual beings will then be possible; this should already have been indicated when it was said that the Prophets appear again among men on the earth.

You have therefore to conceive that when these great times arrive in the future there will be a more conscious mutual co-operation between men in the physical world and in the spiritual world. This is not possible to-day because of the absence of a common language. Here in the physical world the only words men use in their languages designate physical things and physical conditions. The world in which human beings live between death and a new birth is quite different from the world immediately surrounding us, and they speak a different language. The Dead can take in only what is spoken in the sense of Spiritual Science — nothing else. Therefore in Anthroposophy we are cultivating something that will be more and more intelligible to the Dead and we are speaking also for those who are living between death and a new birth.

Humanity is passing into a new era when the strength of the influences from the spiritual world will steadily increase. The great events of the immediate future will be perceptible in all worlds.

Those, too, who are living between death and a new birth will have new experiences as the result of the new Christ Event in the etheric world. But if they made no preparation in themselves while on earth, they would no more understand the event than would men incarnated on the earth, unless these had prepared themselves to respond in the right way. It is essential for all souls now incarnated — no matter whether they will then still be in physical incarnation or not — that through the assimilation of anthroposophical truths they should prepare themselves for these important future events. If they fail to receive into their earthly consciousness what Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science has to give, they will have to wait for a new incarnation in order to have the possibility here on earth of assimilating the corresponding teachings. For there are things that can be experienced and learnt only on earth.

Hence it is said that in the spiritual world there is, for example, no possibility of knowing death — and it was necessary for a God to descend into the physical world in order that He might die. Knowledge of what the Mystery of Golgotha is can be acquired in no other world in the way that is possible in the physical world. We have been led down into the physical world in order to acquire something that can be acquired only there. And Christ came down to humanity because it was only in the physical world that He could reveal to men — could enable them to experience in the Mystery of Golgotha — something that, having let its fruits ripen in the spiritual world, carries those fruits onward. But the seeds must be laid down and spread abroad in the physical world.

1910-02-08-GA116

We are now approaching a time when new forces and capacities will be developed by humankind, and these will be distinctly apparent in the first half of this present twentieth century. These new forces and capacities must be understood.

Particularly those individuals who have studied and understood anthroposophy must realize that such an uplifting of humanity toward the spiritual has again become possible.

During the important times that will follow 1930, single individuals will become capable of developing higher forces naturally, and what we know as the etheric body will become visible to them. A certain number of people will develop etheric clairvoyant powers.

Two things will then be possible.

• Either the materialism of our age will continue, in which case, when these forces are manifested, men will fail to understand that they lead into the spiritual worlds. They will then be wrongly understood and so suppressed. Should that occur, people speaking in a materialistic sense at the end of 1940 would be justified in saying, “Now see what fantastic prophets spoke at the beginning of the century. Nothing of what they foretold has been fulfilled.”
• If the new capacities do not appear, however, it would not contradict what must indeed be said now. It would only prove that people without the right understanding have choked these things in the bud and that they have missed something that humanity must possess if its further evolution is not to collapse into dissolution and decay.

Here lies the great responsibility of anthroposophy:  anthroposophy has sprung from a knowledge of the necessity of preparing for something to come that might otherwise be overlooked and suppressed.

1910-04-18-GA118

1910-05-10-GA118

quote A stresses the danger things pass by unnoticed or not understood

Something could certainly happen now that would crush the bud of these delicate faculties of soul. This danger exists when people will not listen to the teachings of spiritual science, when they close themselves to them. Then the persons in whom these faculties appear will be called fantastic and foolish and will be locked up in mental hospitals. Many will themselves believe that they have had hallucinations; others will be afraid to speak about them, dreading to be laughed at or ridiculed. All this can lead to destruction of the new faculties of soul. Clever and enlightened persons in that era — you can put “enlightened” in quotation marks — will then say, “Look here! People lived long ago who declared that in our age there would be individuals with special faculties of soul. Where are these people? We are not aware of them.” Nevertheless, the prophecy of spiritual science will have been fulfilled. Although everything could be stifled by the increasing power of materialism, one can expect from souls today an understanding for that freer and lighter age just beginning.

1910-06-03-GA118

1910-06-13

this is the only public lecture, in Kristiana Oslo, where Rudolf Steiner talks about Christ in the etheric

1910-06-17-GA121

longer extract for context on: Nerthus#1910-06-17-GA121

You will find all this wonderfully expressed in the pictures of this Germanic Scandinavian mythology. Those of you who will go more deeply into these things, will be gradually convinced that this is no fantasy; but that what has been implanted, inoculated into the thoughts and feelings of this northern people by means of these pictures, really comes from the schools of the Initiates. Thus a very great deal remained in the guiding archangel or folk-spirit of the North, of the old education through clairvoyant perception of that which may grow up in a soul which, in its development on the physical plane, connects itself on to a clairvoyant development.

Although outwardly it may seem different at the present day, yet the archangel of the Germanic North has within him this tendency, and this enables him to understand modern spiritual science especially well and to transform it in the manner corresponding to its national character.

Hence also you will see why I have said that in the Germanic North the best conditions are to be found for the comprehension of that which I could only indicate briefly in my open lecture on the Second Coming of Christ.

Spiritual research at the present time shows us that after Kali Yuga had run its course, which lasted for five thousand years (from about 3100 BC to 1899 AD), new capacities begin to develop in Man. These will at first appear in single individuals, in a few especially gifted ones only. It will come about, for instance, that persons will be able, through the natural evolution of their capacities, to see something of what is announced only by anthroposophy, by spiritual research.

1911-08-18-GA129

That will be the greatest event for the future history of the human soul. It is the event for which Spiritual Science must prepare, so that the soul may become capable of acquiring the etheric vision. In the next three thousand years it will lay hold of more and more souls, the next three thousand years will be devoted to kindling the forces in the human soul which will make it aware of the etheric wonders of Nature around it. It will begin to happen in our own century that one here and one there will see with their etheric souls the reappearing Christ, and within the next three thousand years more and more men will see Him. Then will come the fulfilment of the true oriental tradition, a tradition with which all true occultism is in agreement. At the end of three thousand years the Maitreya Buddha will descend, and will speak to humanity in a form which every human soul will understand, and will mediate the Christ-nature to man. That is the secret guarded by oriental mysticism, that about three thousand years after our time the Maitreya Buddha will appear. What can be added as the contribution of western culture is that the cosmic Individuality who has only once appeared in a human body will become ever more visible to the etheric vision of man; you will find this again emphasised in my Mystery Play, The Soul's Probation. The Soul's Probation. Thereby He will become a trusted friend of the human soul. Just as two thousand years ago the Buddha spoke of what was natural to the best human souls of his time, so in words which will thrill the soul, the Maitreya Buddha will be able to proclaim everywhere what today cannot be proclaimed publicly: the vision of the Christ in the etheric world which is to come. That is the greatest event of the twentieth century, this upward development of human nature towards what we may call the recurrence of the vision of St. Paul. In the vision at Damascus it came to one person only; in the future it will come little by little to all humanity, beginning in our own century.

1911-10-01-GA130

If this comes to pass, individuals will be able to receive and comprehend the event that has its beginning in the twentieth century: this event is the appearance of the Christ as an etheric being (in contrast to the physical christ of Palestine).

For we have now reached the point of time when the etheric Christ enters into the life of the Earth and will become visible.

At first to a small number of individuals through a form of natural clairvoyance. Then in the course of the next three thousand years, He will become visible to greater and greater numbers of people.

This will inevitably come to pass in the natural course of development. That it will come to pass is as true as were the achievements of electricity in the nineteenth century.

A number of individuals will see the Etheric Christ and will themselves experience the event that took place at Damascus.

But, this will depend upon such men learning to be alert to the moment when Christ draws near to them.

In only a few decades from now it will happen, particularly to those who are young - already preparation is being made for this - that some individual here or there has certain experiences. If he has sharpened his vision through having assimilated anthroposophy, he may become aware that suddenly someone has come near to help him, to make him alert to this or that. The truth is that Christ has come to him, although he believes that what he saw is a physical man. He will come to realise that what he saw was a super-sensible being, because it immediately vanishes. Many a human being will have this experience when sitting silent in his room, heavy-hearted and oppressed, not knowing which way to turn. The door will open, and the etheric Christ will appear and speak words of consolation to him. The Christ will become a living comforter to men. However strange it may as yet seem, it is true nevertheless that many a time when people - even in considerable numbers - are sitting together, not knowing what to do, and waiting, they will see the etheric Christ.

He will himself be there, will confer with them, will make his voice heard in such gatherings. These times are approaching, and the positive, constructive element now described will take real effect in the evolution of mankind.

No word shall be said here against the great advances made by culture in our day; these achievements are essential for the welfare and the freedom of men. But whatever can be gained in the way of outer progress in mastering the forces of nature, is something small and insignificant compared with the blessing bestowed upon the individual who experiences the awakening soul through Christ, the Christ who will now be operative in human culture and its concerns.

Men will thereby acquire forces that make for unification. In very truth Christ brings constructive forces into human culture and civilisation.

1911-11-18-GA130

(quote tbc)

Man is connected with the astral plane through his intellectuality, but he is only aware of it - and he can only make the right use of it - when he is clairvoyantly developed.

This will begin in the course of the twentieth century with an ever-increasing number of people. The progress will then only lie in the fact that people will have an increased intellectuality not only for themselves, but also to carry it up into the astral world. Through such intellectual clairvoyance, the etherically visible Christ can and will become accessible to those who have progressed in this sense.

...

The etherically visible Christ will become more and more clearly in the course of the next three millennia.

In the past, when Man was predominantly connected with the physical plane, Christ could not appear in any other way than physically embodied. In the present age of intellectuality he can only appear in etheric form.

from rsarchive

Intellectuality, then, is the chief spiritual characteristic of our age, but there is a difference between the way it comes to expression in the materialistic thinking of the world and in Spiritual Science. Man is connected through his intellect with the astral plane, but he will only be conscious of this—and he will only make the right use of it—when he has developed clairvoyance. This will begin in an ever-increasing number of human beings in the course of the twentieth century. Progress will only be made in this direction when men not only develop a heightened intellect for themselves but also lift it up into the astral world. The human being who has advanced to intellectual clairvoyance in this way can and will approach the etherically visible Christ more and more clearly in the course of the next three thousand years. In bygone times, however, when man was mainly connected with the physical plane, Christ could only appear in physical incarnation. In the present age of the intellect He can appear only in etheric form. Spiritual Science wishes to prepare mankind for this in such a way that it acquires a proper understanding and makes proper use of the clairvoyant faculties that are slowly appearing and will be used for vision later on, in the course of natural development. And this will ensure that in the second half of our intellectual age the Christ will be seen clairvoyantly in His etheric form.

The age of feeling will develop the soul further in a different respect, enabling it to enter the lower Devachanic world in a conscious way. Christ will appear as a form of light to a number of human beings in the lower Devachanic world, revealing Himself through sound, and from His astral body of light He will fill their receptive souls with the Word that was active in astral form in the beginning, as is expressed by John in the opening words of his Gospel.

In the age of morality a number of human beings will perceive the Christ revealing Himself from higher Devachan in His true Ego that surpasses all human egos in inconceivable greatness, and with such splendour that It can bestow on man the highest possible moral impulses. Such is the connection between the impulses of the different cultural epochs and the soul of man. From higher and ever higher worlds will come the forces that flow into man and become active within him.

1911-12-05-GA132

Among the many proofs of this fact which spiritual science is able to provide, is the following: That the event of Damascus will, in the course of the next three thousand years, as we have often said, be renewed for a sufficiently great number of mankind. This means, that capacities will be developed in man which will enable him to perceive the Christ as an etheric figure [by organs] on the astral plane, as Paul saw Him on the road to Damascus.

1917-02-06-GA175

Christ's approach already perceptible for initiate from 1909 onwards on astral plan, becoming accessible for humanity as supersensible experience from 1930 onwards

We have indicated that this twentieth century must bring to humanity the Vision of the etheric Christ. Just as it truly happened — as we have often said — that at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha Christ walked among men in a physical form, in one known part of the earth, so will the etheric Christ walk among men in the twentieth century, the whole earth over. This event must not pass unobserved by humanity, for that would be sinning against the salvation of the world. Humanity must have its attention roused, so that a sufficient number of persons may be ready really to see the Christ Who will come and Who must be seen.

Now, such an event as this cannot come quite suddenly, even as the event of Golgotha did not come suddenly but was prepared for during thirty-three years. The point of time when the event is to occur — this time spiritually — is very near and will have a like significance for man as the event of Golgotha on the physical plane. Hence, if you consider the facts alluded to above, you will not find it difficult to believe me when I say that He is already present in the form in which He will be seen in the great moment of evolution in the twentieth century, that the great moment is being now prepared. You will not consider it incredible, when I say that moment is now being prepared. Yes, we may say that although humanity seems as regards its present actions far from being permeated with the Christ-Spirit on the physical plane, yet if men's souls will but open themselves to Him, the Christ, Who is now approaching, is very near. The occultist is able to point out that since the year 1909 or thereabouts what is to come is being distinctly and perceptibly prepared for, that since the year 1909 we are inwardly living in a very special time. It is possible today, if we do but seek Him, to be very near to Christ, to find Him in a quite different way than has been hitherto possible.

...

We are living at a time when this must be understood. Many such things in human evolution announce themselves through contrasts. In our own age something great and significant is announced by a great contrast. For with the coming Christ, with the presence of Christ, will come the time when men will learn to enquire of Him, not only concerning their souls, but concerning their immortal part on earth. Christ is not merely a Ruler of men, but their Brother, Who, particularly in the near future, wishes to be consulted on all the details of life. In anything we undertake today we act in the opposite way. Events seem to be accomplished today, in which men appear to be as far removed as possible from any appeal to Christ.

We must ask ourselves this question: Who is there today who stops to enquire: ‘What would Christ Jesus say to what is now taking place?’ Who puts such a question to himself? Many say they do, but it would be sacrilegious to believe that they put the question in the form in which it is put here, addressing it directly to Christ Himself. Yet the time must come and cannot be far distant, when men's souls will, in their immortal part, ask of Christ, when they think of undertaking something: ‘Ought we to do this or not?’ Then human souls will see Christ standing by them as the beloved Companion and they will not only obtain consolation and strength from the Christ-Being, but will also receive instruction from Him as to what is to be done.

1917-08-14-GA176

The true and therefore effective Christ impulse can in our time be presented by no other means than spiritual science.

For spiritual science is concerned with spiritual perception which is attained outside the body and therefore where the possibility exists of beholding again the Christ in his true form. As long as one is within the body the eye can indeed behold colors but it cannot behold itself.

When one betakes oneself out of the body in spiritual perception one beholds the impulse of Christ through the Christ impulse itself; just as when one sees oneself from the outside one sees the eye.

What Man can find in spiritual science he cannot find in any historical account to be a description of Christ in his spiritual form. Just as spiritual science can describe a faculty of sight which is on a level higher than that of the eye, so it can describe the Christ impulse through which the spiritual world becomes visible. It is therefore possible to attain insight into the Christ impulse, but insight does not prevent attacks from Ahriman.

1919-04-05-GA190

for full long extract: Current fifth cultural age#1919-04-05-GA190

for context also see: The human heart#1919-04-05-GA190

note on this lecture in book E. Vreede (mission)

In this lecture Rudolf Steiner speaks of the former inner, dynamic connection between the human etheric head and the physical head which still existed during the period when Greek culture was at its prime.

"Since the third century B.C. the inner connection between the etheric head of man and the physical head has come to an end. But a close inner connection was always preserved between man's physical heart and his etheric heart. Since the year 1721, however, this connection has been progressively loosened. . . . By the year 2100, approximately, man's physical heart will have been entirely freed from its etheric part."

As time goes on, something similar happens in the case of other organs. The disconnection of the heart  "has a very significant result in man's evolution".

The increasing scientific materialism is mentioned in connection with the processes taking place in Man's organic system.

As long as the natural connection existed, a relation to spiritual worlds and the spiritual forces behind Nature was always maintained. What had formerly been a natural endowment must today be sought for along different paths.

"This etheric heart that has been released from the physical heart will acquire its true relationship to the spiritual world if the individual concerned seeks for spiritual knowledge, for spiritual thoughts with an anthroposophical orientation."

Belief by itself, "which will develop only a naïve relationship of feeling to the spiritual world—such belief materialises the heart of humanity, leads to materialistic culture in a domain usually unrecognised." ...

"This belief must be saturated and spiritualised by authentic conceptions of the spiritual world and it is an Ahrimanic trick to instil into people in the epoch of confusion : do not ever try to develop vision of the spiritual world but keep to belief."

1928-02 - Elisabeth Vreede - On Astronomy, Essay Letter 6 of Year 1

To depicts the below, see eg FMC00.006A (beginning of the Earth evolution) and FMC00.194 (Old Sun stage) on Spectrum of elements and ethers. More info, as the accompanying text to these schemas on ao Separation of Sun#1908-03-16-GA102 and Separation of Sun#1910-09-12-GA123

When the sun withdrew from the Earth it took with it .. the various [higher] ethers (life ether, sound ether) .. but also a more material substance, namely the air. Already during the Old Sun stage of evolution, the Christ being had united himself with this element of air, even though this - at that time comparatively substantial element was not adapted to his lofty nature.

...

Therefore when the Sun separated from the Earth, he had to clothe himself with what was then the densest substance, the air, in order to incorporate it into the Sun, so that later, on Golgotha, the sacrifice that once more drew the Sun and Earth together really could take place.

...

Thus .. we find also a certain relationship between the Christ-filled gaseous and airy constituents of the Sun and the present air of the Earth. And we can understand how a second coming of the Christ 'in the clouds', in the element of air, is spoken of. It is not the ordinary external [physical] air that is meant, but that kind of etheric air that was present at the beginning of the Earth evolution.

1939 - Valentin Tomberg

This expresses the significance that the etheric return is meant to have for the human organization namely, a permanent connection of upper and lower worlds in the consciousness of man, a connection that is made possible through the "force of memory" referred to.

This awakening of memory means the possibility of recognizing karma. Rudolf Steiner expected that karmic clairvoyance would begin at the beginning of the 30's of the 20th century — first in a small number of people and then in more. In what does it consist?

Our schematic account of the emergence of the manas-organization can help us to answer this question. We can understand it if we seek the aid of a diagram.

[editor: see Schema FMC00.591B]

Imagine the following: up here, the stream of the spiritual world; it descends; on the other hand, the lower 'I' of man is looking back into the past.

Out of the beholding in advance, of the future in the spiritual world, and the retrospective beholding of something that happened on the earth in the past, a connection of the two points can be found.

Let us suppose that the human being discovers something from the past through the memory-stream by means of his lower "eye", and, through his upper "eye", reads from the point corresponding to it in the future. Then he inquires into what has to happen on earth as a karmic event.

One can say that we have here to do with the building up of a certain figure, whereby one looks up into a future element, and the location can be found in time and space where it can be realized in practice as a karmic outcome of the past. This will come about as a faculty and not as a sleight of hand. But it will also have its various stages of clarity, as it will be a faculty, not a mere skill.

One can understand from this concept of karmic clairvoyance that human beings will to an increasing degree know what they do within the stream of the karmic process. They will experience karma in such a way that they will be able to livingly experience and recognize how something in the past is always bound up with something of the future. It will be knowledge, not of the general theory of karma, but of concrete karmic configurations in particular cases. The importance for humanity of the etheric return of Christ Jesus will lie in the attainment of this faculty.

1946 - Hans Heltofe

see below, 'Note [2] - References to experience reports'

The Danish writer Hans Heltofe tells about his experiences in a German Gestapo prison in the chronicle of the Copenhagen newspaper 'Morgenbladet'. This was ao reproduced in the pamphlet Gib Acht [Watch Out], No. 5 from August 15, 1946 and the extract (not in full) here is quoted from 'Die Christengemeinschaft' [The Christian Community], Volume 20, No. 5/6 of May-June 1948 where Wilhelm Kelber gathered several experiences. The story is also quoted by Sonja Berger and others. (see 'Further reading' section below)

In a musty cellar, five hundred prisoners of all nationalities are engaged in weaving mats. An overseer enters and beats a Russian to death for a trivial reason, continuing to beat on the lifeless, bloody lump. We prisoners felt every beat on our own body. […]

“It is enough,” cried a Polish prisoner beside himself. “It is enough,” all of us repeated in a dull voice. […]

At the same moment, Jesus entered the cellar. I do not belong to the Church and had never seen Jesus before. And yet, I knew him and realized that the others recognized him as well. […] His whole impression simply went beyond our usual conceptual world. The only thing that is clear to me today is that this Jesus was a something that I cannot describe and yet an ordinary person at the same time. And although I stand outside the Church, I have to say, “It was the very greatest thing that we have ever experienced and can ever experience.”

And now the following happened simultaneously with the entrance of Jesus: The musty cellar room was completely transformed. [… A] hue of light red and blue settled over the cellar, and with it, a sphere spread out giving one the feeling of peace. […] The space to the ceiling seemed so big to me that one could have built a whole barn in it. […] Jesus did not look at us. […] He only looked at the battered man at his feet. His face radiated a love that cannot be expressed in words. […] He leaned over the Russian and gently kissed his bloody, swollen cheek.

Christ in period 1841-1879

1911-10-07-GA131

Just as on the physical plane in Palestine, at the beginning of our era, an event occurred in which the most important part was taken by Christ Himself — an event which has its significance for the whole of humanity — so in the course of the twentieth century, towards the end of the twentieth century, a significant event will again take place, not in the physical world, but in the world we usually call the world of the etheric.

And this event will have as fundamental a significance for the evolution of humanity as the event of Palestine had at the beginning of our era. Just as we must say that for Christ Himself the event of Golgotha had a significance that with this very event a God died, a God overcame death — we will speak later concerning the way this is to be understood; the deed had not happened before and it is an accomplished fact which will not happen again — so an event of profound significance will take place in the etheric world. And the occurrence of this event, an event connected with the Christ Himself, will make it possible for men to learn to see the Christ, to look upon Him.

What is this event? It consists in the fact that a certain office in the Cosmos, connected with the evolution of humanity in the twentieth century, passes over in a heightened form to the Christ.

Occult clairvoyant research tells us that in our epoch Christ becomes the Lord of Karma for human evolution. This event marks the beginning of something that we find intimated also in the New Testament: He will come again to separate, or to bring about the crisis for, the living and the dead. Only, according to occult research, this is not to be understood as though it were a single event for all time which takes place on the physical plane. It is connected with the whole future evolution of humanity. And whereas Christianity and Christian evolution were hitherto a kind of preparation, we now have the significant fact that Christ becomes the Lord of Karma, so that in the future it will rest with Him to decide what our karmic account is, how our credit and debit in life are related.

1913-02-08-GA265

(machine translation)

All those who, in an important time like ours, turned against what they could have achieved as a spiritual movement, who - no matter how clever they were in and of themselves - still refused to take up the spiritual, who thus gave themselves entirely to materialism, they also, after their death, turned against everything spiritual and developed a certain hatred there, which they then threw back into the physical world as a force (or forces). This has actually always been the case since the 16th century, and these hatreds make themselves felt in the physical world and have their effects there. The worlds are not separate, they permeate each other.

The new thing that will now gradually reveal itself to Man is a memory or repetition of what Paul experienced at Damascus. He saw the etheric form of the Christ. That this will now become visible to us is because a new Mystery of Gogotha has taken place in the etheric world. What took place here in the physical world at the crucifixion, as a result of the hatred of people who did not understand, has now been repeated on the etheric plane because of the hatred of people who entered the etheric world as materialists after death.

Consider again how at the Mystery of Golgotha a cross was erected of dead wood from which hung the body of the Christ. And then we see that wood of the cross in the etheric world as budding, budding wood, green, living wood, charred by the flames of hatred and on which alone appear the seven blooming roses, representing the sevenfold nature of the Christ, then there we have the image of the second Mystery of Golgotha, which has now taken place in the etheric world.

And through this dying, this second dying of the Christ, it has become possible for us to behold that etheric body. The condensation, the dead part of the etheric body of the Christ Jesus will be seen by men.

1913-05-02-GA152

quote A

Hence life appears to us to be something which here on the earth is inaccessible to science, and just as life is inaccessible to human knowledge so is death to the true knowledge that is attained in the super-sensible worlds. In the super-sensible worlds there is no death — we can die only on the earth, in the physical world — and none of the Beings of an hierarchical rank higher than that of man have any knowledge of death; they know only different states of consciousness. Their consciousness can for a time be so diminished that it resembles our earthly condition of sleep, but it can wake out of this sleep. There is no death in the spiritual worlds, there is only change of consciousness; and the greatest fear by which man is possessed — the fear of death — cannot be felt by one who has risen into the super-sensible worlds after death. The moment he passes through the gates of death his condition is one of intense sensibility, but he can only exist in either a clear or a dimmed state of consciousness. That a human being in the super-sensible world could be dead would be inconceivable.

There is no death for any of the Beings belonging to the higher Hierarchies, with the one exception of Christ. But in order that a super-sensible Being such as Christ should be able to pass through death, He must first have descended to the Earth. And the fact of immeasurable significance in the Mystery of Golgotha is that a Being who in the realm of His own will could never have experienced death, should have descended to the earth in order to undergo an experience connected inherently with Man. Thereby that inner bond was created between earthly mankind and Christ, in that this Being passed through death in order to share this destiny with Man. As I have already emphasised, that death was of the greatest possible importance, above all for the present evolutionary period of the Earth. A Being of unique nature who until then was only cosmic, was united with the earth's evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha, through Christ's death. At the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, He entered into the very process of the earth's evolution. This had not been the case before that event, for He then belonged to the cosmos alone; but through the Mystery of Golgotha, He descended out of the cosmos and was incorporated on earth. Since then, He lives on the earth, is united with the earth in such a way that He lives within the souls' of men and with them experiences life on the earth.

Thus the whole period before the Mystery of Golgotha was only a time of preparation in the evolution of the earth. The Mystery of Golgotha imparted to the earth its meaning and purpose.

When the Mystery of Golgotha took place the earthly body of Jesus of Nazareth was given over to the elements of the earth, and from that time onwards Christ has been united with the spiritual sphere of the earth and lives within it.

...

Let us remember what has been said — that in the invisible worlds there is no death. Christ Himself, because He descended to our world, passed through a death similar to that of human beings. When He again became a spiritual Being, He still retained the remembrance of His death; but as a Being of the rank of the Angels in which He continued to manifest Himself outwardly, He could experience only a diminution of consciousness.

Through that which since the 16th century had become necessary for the evolution of the earth, namely the triumph of science at higher and higher levels, something which has significance also for the invisible worlds entered into the whole evolution of mankind. With the triumph of science, materialistic and agnostic sentiments of greater intensity than hitherto arose in mankind. In earlier times too there had been materialistic tendencies but not the intense materialism that has prevailed since the sixteenth century. More and more, as men passed into the spiritual worlds through the gate of death, they bore with them the outcome of their materialistic ideas on the earth. After the sixteenth century more and more seeds of earthly materialism were carried over, and these seeds developed in a particular way.

Christ came into the old Hebrew race and was led to His death within it. The angelic Being, who since then has been the outer form assumed by Christ, suffered an extinction of consciousness in the course of the intervening nineteen centuries as a result of the opposing materialistic forces that had been brought into the spiritual worlds by materialistic human souls who had passed through the gate of death.

This onset of unconsciousness in the spiritual worlds will lead to the resurrection of the Christ-consciousness in the souls of men on Earth between birth and death in the twentieth century.

In a certain sense it may therefore be said that from the twentieth century onwards, what has been lost by mankind in the way of consciousness will arise again for clairvoyant vision. At first only a few, and then an ever-increasing number of human beings in the twentieth century will be capable of perceiving the manifestation of the Etheric Christ — that is to say, Christ in the form of an Angel. It was for the sake of humanity that there was what may be called an extinction of consciousness in the worlds immediately above our earthly world, in which Christ has been visible in the period between the Mystery of Golgotha and the present day.

quote B

Thus the Christ-consciousness may be united with the earthly consciousness of men from our time on into the future; for the dying of the Christ-consciousness in the sphere of the Angels in the nineteenth century signifies the resurrection of the direct consciousness of Christ — that is to say, Christ's life will be felt in the souls of men more and more as a direct personal experience from the twentieth century onwards.

Just as the few who once were able to read the signs of the times and in contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha were able to realise that Christ had descended from the spiritual worlds to live on the Earth and undergo death in order that through His death the substances incorporated into Him might pass into the earth, so are we able to perceive that in certain worlds lying immediately behind our own a sort of spiritual death, a suspension of consciousness, took place. This was a renewal of the Mystery of Golgotha, in order to bring about an awakening of the previously hidden Christ-consciousness within the souls of men on the Earth.

Since the Mystery of Golgotha many human beings have been able to proclaim the Name of Christ, and from this twentieth century onwards an ever-increasing number will be able to make known the knowledge of the Christ that is given in Anthroposophy. Out of their own experience they will be able to proclaim Him.

Twice already Christ has been crucified: once physically, in the physical world at the beginning of our era, and a second time spiritually, in the nineteenth century, in the way described above.

It could be said that mankind experienced the resurrection of His body in that former time and will experience the resurrection of His consciousness from the twentieth century onwards.

1913-05-20-GA152

For what was it that really happened then? It has often been described.

The Christ descended from the super-sensible worlds into the world in which He has since lived as a hidden Force — a Force however which will make itself manifest from this century onwards. He descended out of a world in which there is no death, into the world of death, and He — this Force — has united Himself with the Earth; from being a cosmic Force He has become a Force of the Earth. He went through death, in order to come to life in Earth existence, in order to be within the Earth world. And all through the centuries there has come to expression in souls which were filled with this Impulse the striving of mankind to understand Him. But the nearer evolution approached the close of the Gabriel Age, the more this understanding receded, until today just where there should be understanding, it is sadly lacking, and materialism prevails not only in modern science but consequently in Theology too. The real understanding of the Christ Impulse has grown less and less.

Materialism has seized upon men's souls and deeply ensconced itself in them. Materialism became in many respects the fundamental impulse of the epoch which has just elapsed. Countless souls died during that epoch who went through the gate of death with a materialistic outlook. For such numbers of souls to go through the gate of death with a materialistic outlook would have been impossible in earlier ages. These souls then lived in the spiritual world between death and a new birth without knowing anything of the world, in which they lived.

A Being came towards them; they perceived Him in that world. They had to perceive Him because this Being had united Himself with the Earth, although for the present He rules invisibly in physical Earth existence.

And the exertions of these souls who had gone through the gate of death succeeded — we cannot express it otherwise — in driving the Christ out of the spiritual world. The Christ has had to experience a renewal of the Mystery of Golgotha, although not in the same magnitude as before. At that time He went through death; now He had to undergo banishment from His existence in the spiritual world.

And thus there was fulfilled in Him the eternal law of the spiritual world, — that what disappears for the higher spiritual world arises anew in the lower world.

If it is possible in the 20th century for souls to evolve to an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, then it is due to this Event .. that Christ, through a conspiracy of materialistic souls, has been driven out of the spiritual worlds, and transferred into the sense world, into the world of Man, so that even in this world of the senses a new understanding for the Christ can begin. Hence, too, Christ is still more nearly and intimately united with the destiny of men on Earth. And while in the past Man could look up to Jahve or Jehovah and know that He was the Being who sent out Michael to prepare the way for the transition from the Jehovah Age to the Christ Age, — while in earlier ages it was Jehovah who sent Michael, it is now the Christ who sends us Michael.

This is the new and important fact which we must transform into a feeling. As formerly Man could speak of Jehovah-Michael, the Leader of the age, so now we can speak the Christ-Michael. Michael has been exalted to a higher stage — from Folk Spirit to Time Spirit, inasmuch as from being the Messenger of Jehovah (or Jaahve) he has become the Messenger of Christ. And so when we speak of a right understanding of the Michael Impulse in our age, we are speaking of a right understanding of the Christ Impulse

1918-10-09-GA182

And what if this should happen after all? What if humanity on earth should persist in sleeping through the momentous spiritual revelation of the future?

If this were to happen in respect of the freedom of the religious life, for example, if men were to sleep through the repetition of the Mystery of Golgotha on the etheric plane, the reappearance of the etheric Christ, or other matters as well, then the Angels would have to try different means of achieving what the pictures they weave in the astral body of man are intended to achieve. If men do not allow this to be achieved in the astral body while they are awake, the Angels would, in this case, endeavour to fulfill their aims through their sleeping bodies. Therefore what the Angels could not achieve, because in their waking life men slept through it, would be achieved with the help of the physical and etheric bodies of men during actual sleep. It is there that the Angels would seek forces required for the fulfillment of what could not be achieved through men in their wideawake consciousness when the souls were within the etheric and physical bodies in the waking state. It would be achieved by means of the etheric and physical bodies in the sleeping state, when human beings who ought to be awake to what is going on were outside these bodies with their Ego and astral body.

Here lies the great danger for the age of the Spiritual Soul. This is what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third millennium begins with the year 2000, so it is only a short time ahead of us. It might still happen that the aim of the Angels in their work would have to be achieved by means of the sleeping bodies of men — instead of through men wideawake. The Angels might still be compelled to withdraw their whole work from the astral body and to submerge it in the etheric body in order to bring it to fulfillment. But then, in his real being, man would have no part in it. It would have to be performed in the etheric body while man himself was not there, just because if he were there in the waking state, he would obstruct it.

1918-10-25-GA185

That is indeed an unpleasant truth! One can accept the fact that in the fourth post-Atlantean age Man was familiar with birth and death as an inner experience and then perceived them in the cosmos as I pointed out in my lectures on the Immaculate Conception and the Resurrection, and the Mystery of Golgotha. Therefore mankind of the fourth post-Atlantean age is brought face to face with the phenomenon of the birth and death of Christ Jesus because birth and death were of vital importance in this age.

Today when Christ is destined to appear again in the etheric body, when a kind of Mystery of Golgotha is to be experienced anew, evil will have a significance akin to that of birth and death for the fourth post-Atlantean age!

In the fourth cultural age the Christ impulse was born out of the forces of death for the salvation of mankind. We can say that we owe the new impulse that permeated mankind to the event on Golgotha. Thus by a strange paradox mankind is led to a renewed experience of the Mystery of Golgotha in the fifth age through the forces of evil. Through the experience of evil it will be possible for the Christ to appear again, just as He appeared in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch through the experience of death.

In order to understand this — we have already given here and there a few indications of the Mystery of Evil — we must now say a few words about the relationship between the Mystery of Evil and the Mystery of Golgotha. This relationship will be the subject of our next lecture.

Discussion

Note 1 - Regarding Christ in the etheric

1 - How to understand what is meant when Rudolf Steiner lectured on 'seeing Christ in the etheric'?

To initialize one's frame of understanding, first study the links given with the reference by Vreede above.

Then, some schemas can be used to approach this question.

• On the one hand, this points to the new faculty of emerging clairvoyance. This is a latent faculty that will be developing naturally in the centuries and millenia to come, see Schema FMC00.013. It is to be distinguished from the old innate natural clairvoyance (eg of the Atlantean epoch and upto the ancient Indian cultural age in the current epoch) whereby Man was guided by spiritual beings unconsciously.
• On the other hand, there is a clear Christ Impulse link to the resurrected Christ-Jesus and the Damascus experience by Paul of Tarsus.

Schema FMC00.081 (above) shows nine different elements, and with reference to the numbers in that table:

• Numbers 2, 3 and 5 can be related to emerging clairvoyance.
• Numbers 1 and 6 are clearly Christ-Jesus related.

The above has to be linked or seen in context of what is described under Man's new organ: "this organ will develop in the future to faculties of clairvoyance and memory of earlier incarnations (Past life memories)."

Schema FMC00.376 can be held against Schema FMC00.013, whereby it is interesting to zoom into the period of 800 years and remember the extract from 1913-03-05-GA152 on Christ in the future cultural ages and next epochs

.. from 2400 AD onwards, an age will follow where the forces towards an understanding of the Christ will only come from the Earth. In this age Christ will work from the physical plane into men. In our times the precursors herald that which will be substantial after 2400: the Christ will reveal himself on the physical plane in etheric form.

2 - How can a human Christ-Jesus like figure appear as an etheric projection everywhere on Earth to people individually?

Some angles to approach this:

• The Damascus experience of Paul of Tarsus is described as seeing the glimpse of the Krishna impulse or Adam sister soul.
• The figure of the resurrected Christ-Jesus appeared after the Mystery of Golgotha: what exactly did that appearance consist of. It was not the physical body, but a densified etheric rendering of the resurrection body or cleansed phantom of Jesus. This Jesus body also is the body of the incarnated Adam sister soul in the Nathan Jesus. See Schema FMC00.080 (and/or link to Schema FMC00.043 on The two Jesus Children)
• Rudolf Steiner uses more explicit wordings in certain lectures, describing the fact that Christ-Jesus in the astral world can be perceived in the etheric (to be added)

Note 2 - References to experience reports

In the section above, one example is given from the second world war (by the Danish writer Hans Heltofe).

This note provides an overview of major reference works for experience reports.

1/ 1948: Kelber

'Die Christengemeinschaft' [The Christian Community], Volume 20, No. 5/6 of May-June 1948 gathers examples. This is reproduced in the 1991 Stöckli book (p248-258) Kelber gives the following examples:

• via Otto Palmer in 1947, report published in Sep 1946 in 'Berliner Heften für geistiges Leben' about an experience in Jan 1943 in Berlin
• Joy Snell: 'Von Dienste der Engel im Diesseits und Jenseits'
• Hans Heltofe (see above)
• Carl Fr. Moerk in 'Brevier eines Heimkehrers aus russicher Gefangenschaft' (1947)
• Heinrich Vogel in the Berlin newspaper 'Neue Zeit' of 1947-11-19

2/ 1975: Hillerdal and Gustafsson

The most well known book about such experiences is the one by Gunnar Hillerdal and Berndt Gustafsson (see 'Further reading' section below).

3/ 1991: Stöckli and authors, less know, however represents the most extensive coverage work on this topic

Hans Peter van Manen: 'Das Damaskus-Ereignis' (Vol 3) mentions:

• the remarkable story of the Indian Sundar Singh in the 1920s (with references to Söderblom and Michael Biehl)
• Louis de Jong (1914-2005) in Volume 8 of 'The Kingdom of the Netherlands During World War I (in NL: 'Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog'), contains reference to Christ visions in concentration camps
• Laurens van der Post in 'The night of the new moon' - an experience in a japanese prisoner camp in juli 1945
• comparing with the story of the french blind Jacques Lusseyran about Buchenwald concentration camp: 'And there was light'

Furthermore:

• Simone Weil (1909-1943) 's account in letters found after her death, where she talks about the period 1937-42, is covered by
  • Heinz Zimmermann: 'Wege zur Christus-Erfahrung' (Vol 3)
  • Barbara Nordmeyer: Christus-Erfahrung im 20 Jahrhundert - Simone Weil (Vol 1)
    

4/ Various other

However other books exist with stories of very personal experiences that people had, and are brought up in this context. The Siegwart Knijpenga book is an example.

More such stories exist and are referenced though in the context of 'Christ in the etheric' experiences. Below follow unqualified references:

• Willem Brandt: 'De kaars, acht verhalen rond de kersttijd' (1977), the story ‘En de duisternis heeft het niet begrepen'

Note 3 - Christ experiences during NDEs (Near Death Experiences)

See also: Near Death Experiences (NDEs)

In the 1991 books (see 'Further reading' section below) NDEs are mentioned by various authors.

1/ by Ernst Suter-Schaltenbrand: 'Das Lichtwesen aus der Sicht der Geisteswissenschaft' (Vol 1, p 262-273) also mentioning the work of Kenneth Ring and

• George G. Ritchie (1923-2007): 'Return from tomorrow' (1978)
  • this is a very influential book by an American psychiatrist that became a bestseller translated in many languages. Ritchie's experience (at age 20 in 1943) was actually the one that inspired Raymond Moody when they met in 1965 at the University of Virginia. This triggered Moody's research and publication of his worldwide bestseller on NDEs 'Life After Life' (1975).

Rudolf Steiner explains in his lectures (1911-10-07-GA131) that after death, at the entry of the astral world and kamaloka, a deceased soul previously encountered a human figure in the form of Moses, and that since the MoG this figure is now the Christ-Jesus figure.

The observation is made that the Christ figure of light then appears in the short period of near-death, say upto a maximum of 30 minutes in hospital reanimation circumstances. Hence, that this does not relate to the experience after laying off the etheric body, since that is typically in a period of say one to three days.

Though also various lectures by Rudolf Steiner are discussed in the context of NDEs (specifically 1917-08-28-GA176 and 1911-10-07-GA131), it appears the short excerpt from 1917-08-14-GA176 (see above) comes closest to what happens during an NDE.

2/ Hans Peter van Manen: 'Das Damaskus-Ereignis' (Vol 3, p 188-191) discusses Moody's work, and especially the appearance of the 'light being', that in some cases takes on human form, and relates moral questions of life purpose to the life memory panorama view. Of the many such reports, those of a Christian education/religion identify the light being experience with Christ. The key is that the experience changes is life-changing, leading to more earnest motivation for bringing positive change in the world. Which, as van Manen points out, is kind of an un-deniable sign so related with Paul's Damaskus experience.

Van Manen focuses on 1911-10-07-GA131 (and 1911-10-14-GA131) and compares with Moody, and tends to conclude that the light being experience stands at the interface with, and rings the start of the kamaloko moral judgement stage.

References: on the 'light being' in anthroposophical literature, ao:

• Arnold Zeindler in Das Goetheanum 1977-05-15, p 160 about Moody's book
• Gunda and Walter Bühler in Was in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft vorgeht' of 1977-09-04 and 11
• Benno Wolkowicz in Das Goetheanum 1978-04-30

Commentary

It is a recurrent characteristics of a large number of NDEs that the experience includes an encounter with a figure of light which proves transformative as related to one's moral and meaningfull contribution to the world and others and who the individual human being stands in the world.

Why and how is the link made with Christ in the etheric? The individual going through a near-death experience is disconnected from the senses and normal daytime waking consciousness. Hence the experiences take place in what during daytime waking consciousness would be called the subconscious, say an astral experience not using the senses of the physical body that gives us our waking consciousness. So who is having the experience? Structurally, imagine it is the I and the lower and higher astral body, so the manas or spirit-self member of the higher self.

For a visual, refer to Schema FMC00.132 on Structure of Man between death and a new birth.

Now consider Schema FMC00.023 and Schema FMC00.023B on Three meetings to see how the connection that takes place may indeed be related to one's spirit self and life spirit, or a connection at angelic and archangelic level.

Parenthesis: at this point it may be interesting, for the sake of building context, to branch off and suggest to read:

• What takes place as we sleep#1918-10-09-GA182 in context of the other lectures on the topic page Third Hierarchy#The work of the angels.
• Three meetings#1919-09-13-GA193

Related pages

• Christ in the future cultural ages and next epochs
• Christ Module 19 - experiencing the Christ
• Christ Module 2 - Nature of the Christ being

References and further reading

• Arthur Schult: 'Das Damaskuserlebnis des Apostels Paulus und die Gegenwart Christi' (1961)
• Eberhard Kurras: 'Ontmoetingen met Christus.' (1976)
• 'Das ätherische Christus-Wirken (Christuswirken) : eine geisteswissenschaftliche Aufgabenstellung' (1991 by Thomas Stöckli)
  • Part 1: various authors: 'Vom Christus Wirken in der Gegenwart, Studiengrundlagen'
    • Wilhelm Kelber: 'Die Wiederkehr des natürlichen Hellsehens und die Wiederkunft Christi' (p 248-258)
    • Ernst Suter-Schaltenbrand: 'Das Lichtwesen aus der Sicht der Geisteswissenschaft' (p 262-273)
    • Alfred Seeger: Damit das neue Christus-Ereignis nicht unbemerkt bleibe (p 274-277)
    • Barbara Nordmeyer: Christus-Erfahrung im 20 Jahrhundert - Simone Weil (p 278-284)
  • Part 2: Harold Giersch: 'Rudolf Steiner über die Wiederkunft Christi, Leitfaden durch die Schriften und Vorträge mit allen Hinweisen
  • Part 3: various authors 'Wege zur Christus Erfahrung' (Christuserfahrung) (various authors commenting on Steiner's statements and various reported experiences)
    • Hans Peter van Manen: 'Das Damaskus-Ereignis' (Vol 3, p 188-191)

• Hans-Werner Schroeder: The second coming of Christ (1993), in DE: 'Von der Wiederkunft Christi heute' (1991), in NL 2000 as 'Over de wederkomst van Christus'
• Peter Tradowsky: 'Ere the Century Closes' (1995)
• Thomas Stöckli: Fragen zum ätherischen Christuswirken in der Gegenwart (answers to questions by Johannes Greiner, published 2010)
• Hans Peter van Manen: 'Wiederkunft und Heimsuchung: Von der Wiederkunft Christi und dem Kommen des Antichrist' (2011)
• Corinna und Ralf Gleide: 'Die neue Leuchtkraft der Erde: Anthroposophie und die Wiederkunft des Christus im Ätherischen' (2012)
• Lorenzo Ravagli: online article (2017)

About Christ experiences

• Various reports in 'Die Christengemeinschaft', eg 2-Feb-1947, May-June 1948, etc (some in Sonja Berger: 'Der Weg der Christus Wesenheit')
  • one example is given above under References
• Gunnar Hillerdal and Berndt Gustafsson: 'We experienced Christ' (2016 EN edition, original 1975 in SE, translated in many languages)
  • in DE 1979 as 'Sie erlebten Christus - Berichte aus einer Untersuchung des Religionssoziologischen Instituts, Stockholm'
  • in NL as 'Christuservaringen heden. Authentieke ervaringen van tijdgenoten'
  • in FI as 'He näkivät Jeesuksen : aikamme Kristus-kokemuksia'
• Wolfgang Garvelmann: Ich bin bei euch: Christuserfahrung heute (2002)
• Siegwart Knijpenga: 'Grenservaringen - Christuservaringen' (2012)
• Charlotte Rørth: 'Vi mødte Jesus: Og hvad kommer det andre ved?' (2017) and 'Die Frau, die nicht an Gott glaubte und Jesus traf' (2018 in DE)

Various unqualified

• Beredene Jocelyn, John Jocelyn: 'The Nature of the Second Coming of Christ' (1955)
• Valentin Tomberg: 'The four sacrifices of Christ and the appearance of Christ in the etheric' (2016 in EN) (lectures held in 1939, published by Willi Seiss)
• Jesaiah Ben Aharon: The New Experience of the Supersensible: the Knowledge Drama of the Second Coming (1995 in EN, also in DE as 'Die neue Erfahrung des Übersinnlichen - Die anthroposofische Erkenntnissdramatik der Wiederkunft')
  • triggered by a personal experience in 1975 when the author was 20 years old
• Sergei O. Prokofieff: 'The Appearance of Christ in the Etheric: Spiritual-Scientific Aspects of the Second Coming' (2012)
• Friedrich Benesch: 'De Hemelvaart van Christus als werkelijkheid.'