Christ on Old Moon
Aspects
- Temptation of Christ by Lucifer
Illustrations
Lecture coverage and references
1912-06-12-GA137
discusses the 'real' Temptation of Christ by Lucifer on Old Moon
What is it we are able to experience by means of physical consciousness?
Everything in our surroundings that is present to our senses, all the objects of Earth existence.
What can we experience by means of the second consciousness?
Leaving on one side for the moment the example we brought forward, the story of the Temptation, we find that by means of the first stage of a higher kind of consciousness, something further than the objects of the senses can be discovered. You will find it described in Outline of Esoteric Science in the part where the Old Moon is spoken of, that condition of Earth which preceded our present Earth. This Old Moon condition is no longer in existence, it has to be described by means of a consciousness that can function without an object present to hand. The Old Moon condition of our Earth is in the higher worlds. It is present in the higher worlds, preserved, as you have often heard me tell, in the Akashic Record. So that for the first consciousness of a higher kind we have, besides the Story of the Temptation, all the processes that can be said to have relation to the Old Moon. Everything connected with the old Moon is capable of being described by this consciousness.
And now I want to draw your attention to something else. There is deep significance in the fact that from among the many kinds of experience man acquires through the first higher consciousness, I chose the story of the Temptation. For when we direct the same consciousness to the Old Moon, we find there a repetition of the story of the Temptation. (I say a repetition, but naturally it took place long before!) It is really so.
We learn how Christ already on Old Moon overcame Lucifer, and in the scene that is given us in the Gospels we have to see, as it were, a recurrence of the fact that Christ attained to victory over Lucifer.
On Earth Christ repels Lucifer from the outset. This is because on Old Moon, when He was Himself less highly evolved — for Christ also undergoes evolution — He had repelled, through the uttermost devotion of His Being to Highest Powers, all the attacks of Lucifer which at that time still meant something to Him.
Already on old Moon Lucifer approached Christ. On Earth he was no longer dangerous to Him: on Earth Christ repels Lucifer at once. On Old Moon, however, Christ had to exert all the forces at His disposal in order to repel Lucifer. This is then the added experience that comes to us when we cast back the gaze of higher consciousness into the remote time of Moon.
Discussion
