Cleansed phantom

Phantom

The phantom is the invisible form body of the human physical bodily principle, a purely spiritual structure with no mineral matter as content.

The phantom was created by the various contributing spiritual hierarchies starting from Old Saturn - see also Zodiac man - and evolved and adapted throughout with the incorporation of the different human bodily principles in the following planetary stages.

Polluted or corrupted phantom by the Luciferic infection

With the 'fall into matter' in the Lemurian epoch, the luciferic infection of certain formative forces into the human astral body caused external mineral matter to be attracted, thus penetrating the phantom and Man's invisible physical structure, and causing the balance between the bodily principles. One consequence was the appearance of the mineral-physical death process, the final step of a slow but continuous falling apart process of Man throughout life. The luciferic influence affected or 'infected' the phantom and form of Man.

Hence, physical-mineral Man as we perceive him with our senses on the physical plane consists of mineral matter woven into or filled into the phantom or invisible physical form body, worked by the etheric formative forces.

Preventive action: the Nathan soul or 'Adam sister soul'

The guiding powers who had foreseen this had catered for this, and to prevent that the entire etheric body would be infected by Luciferic influences, they separated part of the etheric body of Adam and kept it back in the spiritual world. This etheric body is the pure soul or clean higher self (see Man's higher triad) with which we are again to be united.

The Christ Impulse - MoG and resurrection

The 'Nathan soul' is the first Adam's 'sister-soul' and part of primordial man Adam Kadmon, un-affected by 'the Fall', that incarnated in the Nathan-Jesus child and later merged with the Zarathustra-Jesus child to provide the lower bodies in which the Christ being would incarnate. See more on The two Jesus children.

"Through the fact that this etheric body of Adam for the first time was united with a physical human body, it became subject to the law that every spiritual thing that descends into matter is subject to: the law of duplication. As a seed is laid in the Earth that brings forth ears with many seeds, so too the body of Jesus was the womb of the Earth for the etheric body of Adam, the transit point for duplication, and these reproduced etheric bodies are waiting for us." (1909-12-07-GA266A)

Future process for humanity

In a "mystical Christological process" analoguous to the multiplication of cells (1911-10-11-GA131), the human beings that give (and will give) rise to their cleansed phantom or resurrection body, are connected to the first pure phantom of the Christ.

The Christ becomes like a "group soul for humanity" (1911-09-21-GA130), unifying these souls at the end of the Earth planetary stage and at the transition to Future Jupiter.

Aspects

cases of adepts demonstrating the process of resurrection
- two cases are mentioned in Yogananda's 'Autobiography of a yogi' (see below). No information is given on potential other appearances to or meetings with non-initiates.
  - Sri Yukteswar reported that, right after his death in 1895, his master Lahiri Mahasaya appeared in his resurrection body to three different advanced initiates or masters in different cities. (Specifically to: 1/ Swami Keshabananda, an "advanced disciple"; 2/ the "saintly" Panchanon Bhattacharya; 3/ Swami Pranabananda, the "saint with two bodies").
  - Yogananda reports that, after his death in 1936, Sri Yukteswar appeared twice to two different people, and describes extensively his own experience of meeting him again after his death.

Illustrations

Lecture coverage and references

Key references

what the MoG means for the resurrection body for Man, in a more technical description (1911-10-11-GA131 and 1909-12-07-GA266A)
Luciferic influence
- implies that death lives in Man, and Man creates elementals of death (1914-07-01-GA155 )
- how it 'infected' the ether body (1915-12-28-GA165)
Christ-Jesus - baptism and MoG (1911-10-12-GA131)
Christ as a Cosmic I and group soul of humanity (1911-09-21-GA130)

Lecture extracts

Bible - Paul, first epistle to the Corinthians 15:54-55.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption,
and this mortal shall have put on immortality,
then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

1905-06-05-GA093

.. describes what happens to the etheric body after death, and also about as clear as one can explain the immortality of Man, though not physical immortality, but etheric.

Only that etheric body which has been built up from within is a living body, that stays eternally. This is the etheric body of the Chela [the candidate for initiation] — and that does not dissolve after death. If you see a modern civilised man die, you may see the etheric body for a while, but then it dissolves. With the Chela it remains. The renunciation of the Spirit World by the Chela consists in the fact that the Chela stays on the astral plane and there makes use of his etheric body. With ordinary human beings a new etheric body has to be formed at each rebirth; the ability to create a new one is attained in Devachan. The etheric body which the Chela has built up from within will never be lost again; whereas that which is made by cosmic wisdom from elsewhere indeed dissolves itself again.

1909-12-07-GA266A

in an esoteric lesson:

Now these guiding powers wanted to prevent the danger that the entire etheric body would also be permeated by Luciferic influences. For this reason they separated part of the etheric body of Adam and kept it back in the spiritual world. And this etheric body is the higher seif, with which we are again to be united. For only when we are united with this higher self are we a whole human being.
An esotericist should say, "Over there this higher self that actually belongs to me, awaits me in order to unite again with me; and in my meditation I should strive toward him with the utmost intensity. I should form myself into a chalice that can receive this higher self."
Paul, who was an initiate in these matters, used an entirely correct expression when he spoke of the 'old' and 'new' Adam.
This union of the etheric body that remained behind with a human being occurred for the first time back when Jesus of Nazareth was born, concerning whom Luke's Gospel reports. This boy Jesus received the etheric body of Adam.
The lofty, guiding, creating beings at that time had withheld from the human being the capacity for individual thought and individual language with this portion of the etheric body.
Of course human beings think, but it is not a thinking in which they individually produce, but which they take from the divine substance of thinking that flows through the world. Furthermore, human beings do not have an individual language; rather, lofty spiritual beings gave a common language to groups of people.
They are to acquire their own thinking, their own language only by uniting again with their higher etheric body. Since the capacity for language lies in this etheric body, the legend is understandable that tells us that the boy Jesus did not need to learn the language but rather spoke with his mother after his birth in a language that she understood.
Through the fact that this etheric body of Adam for the first time was united with a physical human body, it became subject to the law that every spiritual thing that descends into matter is subject to: the law of number, of duplication.
As a seed is laid in the Earth that brings forth ears with many seeds, so too the body of Jesus was the womb of the Earth for the etheric body of Adam, the transit point for duplication, and these reproduced etheric bodies are what are waiting for us.
And when we are immersed in our meditation so that our entire outer life disappears for us, so that we do not hear or see, then we will have achieved the feeling as though we had died in order to live again united with our higher self.

1911-09-21-GA130

The Christ-Individuality was on the Earth in the body of Jesus of Nazareth for three years only and does not come again in a physical body;

in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch He comes in an etheric body,

in the sixth epoch in an astral body,

and in the seventh in a mighty Cosmic I that is like a great Group-Soul of humanity.

1911-10-10-GA131

(SWCC)

for a longer extract, see: Human physical body#1911-10-10-GA131

But the more clairvoyance is developed in our time, the clearer will it be that the physical forces and substances laid aside (in death) are not the whole physical body, for its complete configuration could never derive from them alone. To these substances and forces there belongs something else, best called the ‘phantom’ of Man.
This phantom is the form-shape which as a spiritual texture works up the physical substances and forces so that they fill out the form which we encounter as the Man on the physical plane. … The phantom belongs to the physical body as its enduring part, a more important part than the external substances.
...
We know that the foundation, the germ, as it were, of this phantom of the physical body was laid down by the Thrones during the Old Saturn stage; during the Old Sun stage the Spirits of Wisdom (SoW) worked further upon it, the Spirits of Movement (SoM) during the Old Moon stage, and the Spirits of Form (SoF) during the Earth planetary stage.

1911-10-11-GA131

.. is the most important lecture, explaining the relationship between the Luciferic influence and the death of the physical body:

.. into the human organisation, in so far as it consists of physical body, etheric body, and astral body, the Luciferic influence penetrated, and the consequence was the disorganisation of the Phantom of the physical body. As we shall see, this is symbolically expressed in the Bible as the Fall, together with the fact, related in the Old Testament, that death followed the Fall. Death was indeed the result of the disorganisation of the phantom of the physical body. The outcome is that, when man goes through the gate of death, he has to see the dissolution of his physical body. This crumbling physical body, lacking the strength of the phantom, is indeed borne by man from birth to death. The crumbling away goes on all the time, and the decomposition, the death of the physical body, is only the final stage of a continuous process. For if the disintegration of the body — preceded by the disorganisation of the phantom — is not countered by processes of reconstruction, death finally ensues.

and the key paragraph with the 'cells multiplying' analogy:

Such question as this might be asked: If indeed Paul really believed that a spiritual body had risen, what has this spiritual body which had risen out of the grave to do with what every man now bears in himself?
This is not hard to understand: we need only consider the analogy offered by the coming into existence of a human individual.

As physical human being he begins from a single cell; a physical body consists entirely of cells which are all children of the original cell; all cells which compose a human body are traceable to the original cell.
Now imagine that, through what we may call a mystical Christological process, man acquires a body quite other than the one he has gradually acquired in his downward evolution.
Then think of each of these new bodies as having an intimate connection with the pure phantom that rose from the grave, somewhat as the human cells of the physical body are connected with the original cell. That is, we must think of the Phantom as multiplying itself, as does the cell which gives rise to the physical body. So, in the evolution which follows the Event of Golgotha, every man can inwardly acquire something which is spiritually descended from the phantom which rose from the grave, just as — to echo Paul — the ordinary body which falls into dissolution is descended from Adam.

1911-10-12-GA131

gives a good description

.. the human Phantom, the primal form which draws into itself the material elements that fill out the physical body and are laid aside at death, had degenerated in the course of time up to the Mystery of Golgotha. At the beginning of human evolution it was intended that the Phantom should remain untouched by the material elements that man takes for his nutrition from the animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms.
But it did not remain untouched. For the Luciferic influence brought about a close connection between the Phantom and the forces which man absorbs through his earthly evolution; a connection particularly with the ashy constituents. The result was that the Phantom, while continuing to accompany man during his further evolution, was strongly drawn to these ashy constituents, and instead of adhering to the etheric body, it attached itself to these products of disintegration. Where the Luciferic influences had been kept away, as they were from the Nathan Jesus, no force of attraction arose between the Phantom and the material elements that had been taken into the bodily organism. Throughout the three years from the Baptism up to the Mystery of Golgotha, the Phantom remained untouched by these elements.
The human Phantom, according to its intended development through the Old Saturn, Old Sun, and Old Moon stages, should not have been attracted to the ashy constituents but only to the dissolving salt constituents, so that it would have taken the path of volatilisation in so far as the salt constituents dissolved. One can say that it would have dissolved and passed over, not into the earth but into the volatile constituents. The remarkable fact is that with the Baptism in Jordan and the entry of the Christ Individuality into the body of the Nathan Jesus, all connection of the Phantom with the ashy constituents was wiped out; only the connection with the salt constituents remained

1914-07-01-GA155

.. gives an essential aspect (read in full) because it shows how far the effect of the Luciferic influence had penetrated into Man, the fact that 'death that lives in Man means Man creates elementals of death

In GA131 I spoke of the human “phantom”. This is not the time for drawing the connecting thread between what is to be said here and what was said then about the human “phantom”, but such connecting threads do exist and you will perhaps find them for yourself. Today I have to present the matter from another side.
There is perpetually engendered in Man something that is also spiritual — the life in him. This is forever passing out into the world. Man projects an aura around him, an aura of rays whereby he continually enriches the earthly-spiritual element of the Earth. This earthly-spiritual element of the Earth, contains all the qualities, moral or otherwise, that man has acquired and bears within himself, for he sends it all out into his earthly environment. Clairvoyant sight perceives how man sends out his moral, intellectual and aesthetic aura into the world, and how this aura continues to live as earthly spirit in the spirituality of the Earth. As a comet draws its tail through the Cosmos, so does man draw through the whole of earthly life the spiritual aura which he projects. This spiritual aura is held together, phantom-like, during a man's life, but at the same time it rays out into the world his moral and intellectual properties of soul.
When in our occult studies we go back to the times before the Mystery of Golgotha, we find that the men of those days simply radiated this phantom-like entity, which contained their moral qualities, into the external world, into the external spiritual aura of the Earth. But humanity developed in the course of the Earth's existence, and just at the epoch where the Mystery of Golgotha came to pass, a certain stage had been reached in the evolution of this phantom-like entity.
In earlier times it was much more evanescent; by the time of the Mystery of Golgotha it had become denser, had more form; and into this phantom-like entity there was now mingled, as a fundamental characteristic, the death which man develops in himself by killing the ray of light that enters into his eye, and so on, as I have explained. These Earth-spirit entities which radiate from man are like a stillborn child, because he imparts his death to them.
If Christ had not come upon Earth, then, during the sojourn of their souls in earthly bodies, human beings could have continuously rayed out entities with the impress of death upon them. And with this impress of death there would have been bound up the moral qualities of man of which we spoke yesterday; objective guilt and objective sin. They would have lain within it.
Let us suppose that the Christ had not come. What would have happened in the evolution of the Earth?
From the time in which the Mystery of Golgotha would otherwise have taken place, men would have spiritually created dense forms to which they had imparted death. And these dense forms would have become the very things that had to pass over to the Jupiter stage with the Earth. Man would have imparted death to the Earth. A dead Earth would have given birth to a dead Jupiter.
It could not have been otherwise, because if the Mystery of Golgotha had not come about, man would not have been able to permeate the radiations he gives out with the essences of the Music of the Spheres and the Cosmic Life. These essences would not have been there; they would not have flowed into the human radiations; but Christ brought them back through the Mystery of Golgotha. And when there is a fulfillment of the words, “Not I, but Christ in me”, when we bring about a relationship to Christ within ourselves, that which rays out from us and would otherwise be dead, is made living. Because we bear death within us, the living Christ has to permeate us, in order that He may give life to the spiritual Earth-being that we leave behind us.

Christ the living Logos, permeates and gives life to the objective guilt and sin which detaches itself from us and is not carried further in our Karma, and because He gives it life, a living Earth will evolve into a living Jupiter. This is the outcome of the Mystery of Golgotha.

1915-12-28-GA165

.. also contains a discussion the effect of the Luciferic influence and how it 'infected' the ether body (SWCC)

.. at the beginning of earthly evolution, human beings were exposed to luciferic temptation. Consequently, their normal progress of evolution was changed. Thus we are faced, symbolically, with Adam cast out of paradise; his being is other than what it was destined to be before luciferic temptation.
How does this manifest?
Imagine that Lucifer had never approached humankind, and that human beings had lived without the luciferic impulse. In that case human beings would have lived in a different way in their ether body. When we pass through the portal of death, we first retain our ether body and then cast it off. Nevertheless, this ether body continues its existence, and as a result of luciferic temptation it carries the impressions of everything we do and think. .. In this etheric part left behind are the impressions of what the ether body had become as a result of thinking, feeling, and actions, in an inevitable accordance with luciferic temptation.
Now, when the human physical body enters this earth it is given over to the earthly elements, but the ether body remains connected with the earth. Thus the ether bodies of human beings are present in the atmosphere of the earth. And they are different from what they would have been had the luciferic temptation never taken place. ..
All that our ether body has become during earthly life has become more dry or wood-like than it would have become had the luciferic temptation not occurred. Imagine that the luciferic temptation had never taken place; after death, human beings would leave behind a far more rejuvenated ether body, a much “greener” ether body, as it were. Because of the luciferic temptation, human beings leave behind a far more dried-up ether body than would have otherwise been the case. This was expressed in the legend that tells us a dried-up Tree of Paradise arose from Adam's grave.
But what lives in the earth actually lived before the Mystery of Golgotha in the human ether body, infected by Lucifer. It was precisely this element into which the body of Jesus of Nazareth entered as a healer, or as a 'phantom', as I explained in my lectures at Karlsruhe. Imagine that Adam's grave — Adam surrendered as a physical body to the earthly elements. Arising from his grave is the dried-up ether body, the representative of the human past that was infected by Lucifer and remains intact after death. This is, at the same time, the tree upon which one may be crucified.
Such a crucifixion does take place when the 'phantom' of Jesus of Nazareth remains behind on earth after the Mystery of Golgotha, and through it unites with the earth. This is expressed in the legend that tells us this tree was handed down from generation to generation and became, in turn, the cross on Golgotha. This is a pictorial view that corresponds to the fact that, through the crucifixion, the phantom of Jesus of Nazareth united with what lived in the Earth etherically, as a totality of ether bodies infected by Lucifer. Those bodies were, of course, scattered, rarified, and dissolved, but they were nevertheless existent in the form of forces.

Yogananda - Autobiography Ch 36

from Chapter 36: 'Babaji's interest in the West' (SWCC)

The passing of Lahiri Mahasaya (1828-1895) in 1895 is described by his pupil Sri Yukteswar (1855-1936), himself the guru of Yogananda.

The previous Chapter 33 to 35 provide more information on Lahiri Mahayasi and his relation to Sri Guru Babaji.

A short time later the incomparable guru gave up his body in Benares. No longer need I seek him out in his little parlor; I find every day of my life blessed by his omnipresent guidance.
[Swami Keshabananda's (1830-1942) report]
1/ Years later, from the lips of Swami Keshabananda, an advanced disciple, I heard many wonderful details about the passing of Lahiri Mahasaya.
"A few days before my guru relinquished his body," Keshabananda told me, "he materialized himself before me as I sat in my hermitage at Hardwar. "'Come at once to Benares.' With these words Lahiri Mahasaya vanished.
"I entrained immediately for Benares. At my guru's home I found many disciples assembled. For hours that day the master expounded the Gita; then he addressed us simply.
"'I am going home.'
"Sobs of anguish broke out like an irresistible torrent.
"'Be comforted; I shall rise again.' After this utterance Lahiri Mahasaya thrice turned his body around in a circle, faced the north in his lotus posture, and gloriously entered the final maha- samadhi.
"Lahiri Mahasaya's beautiful body, so dear to the devotees, was cremated with solemn householder rites at Manikarnika Ghat by the holy Ganges," Keshabananda continued. "
The following day, at ten o'clock in the morning, while I was still in Benares, my room was suffused with a great light. Lo! before me stood the flesh and blood form of Lahiri Mahasaya! It looked exactly like his old body, except that it appeared younger and more radiant. My divine guru spoke to me.
"'Keshabananda,' he said, 'it is I. From the disintegrated atoms of my cremated body, I have resurrected a remodeled form. My householder work in the world is done; but I do not leave the Earth entirely. Henceforth I shall spend some time with Babaji in the Himalayas, and with Babaji in the cosmos.'
[editor: on the latter, see White Lodge#.5B2.5D - Sri Guru Babaji]
...
[Panchanon Bhattacharya's (1853-1919) report]
2/ Another disciple who was blessed by the sight of his resurrected guru was the saintly Panchanon Bhattacharya, founder of the Calcutta Arya Mission Institution. I visited Panchanon at his Calcutta home, and listened with delight to the story of his many years with the master. In conclusion, he told me of the most marvelous event in his life.
"Here in Calcutta," Panchanon said, "at ten o'clock of the morning which followed his cremation, Lahiri Mahasaya appeared before me in living glory."
[Swami Pranabananda's report]
3/ Swami Pranabananda, the "saint with two bodies," also confided to me the details of his own supernal experience.
"A few days before Lahiri Mahasaya left his body," Pranabananda told me at the time he visited my Ranchi school, "I received a letter from him, requesting me to come at once to Benares. I was delayed, however, and could not leave immediately. As I was in the midst of my travel preparations, about ten o'clock in the morning, I was suddenly overwhelmed with joy to see the shining figure of my guru.
"'Why hurry to Benares?' Lahiri Mahasaya said, smiling. 'You shall find me there no longer.'
"As the import of his words dawned on me, I sobbed broken-heartedly, believing that I was seeing him only in a vision.
"The master approached me comfortingly. 'Here, touch my flesh,' he said. 'I am living, as always. Do not lament; am I not with you forever?'"
[Conclusion]
From the lips of these three great disciples, a story of wondrous truth has emerged: At the morning hour of ten, on the day after the body of Lahiri Mahasaya had been consigned to the flames, the resurrected master, in a real but transfigured body, appeared before three disciples, each one in a different city.

Notes

for Swami Pranabananda, see Chapter 2 in the same book. Note Wikipedia and www.bharatsevashramsangha.org/ give birth year 1896 which is not possible if the above happened in 1895. Note that for various indian sages, the year of birth is unclear or not known (eg Sai Baba, Hazrat Babajan, etc). It is also not possible that his report takes place much later, as he links it to an event just before Lahiri's death which is 1895.
Interestingly and just one pointer in the context of this case of reincarnation, in that chapter, the same Swami Pranabananda states

"Lahiri Mahayasa .. was divinity itself in the form of flesh"

Yogananda - Autobiography Ch 43

from Chapter 43: 'The resurrection of Sri Yukteswar' (SWCC)

In the previous Chapter 42, Yogananda describes the 'Last days with my guru' and his death on 9 March 1936.

Below are two reports of 16 March and 19 June 1936 where Sri Yukteswar re-appeared in a 'resurrection body' after his death.

[First witness - Yogananda himself]
Sitting on my bed in the Bombay hotel at three o'clock in the afternoon of June 19, 1936 .. I was roused from my meditation by a beatific light. Before my open and astonished eyes, the whole room was transformed into a strange world, the sunlight transmuted into supernal splendor.
Waves of rapture engulfed me as I beheld the flesh and blood form of Sri Yukteswar!
"My son!" Master spoke tenderly, on his face an angel-bewitching smile.
For the first time in my life I did not kneel at his feet in greeting but instantly advanced to gather him hungrily in my arms. Moment of moments. The anguish of past months was toll I counted weightless against the torrential bliss now descending.
...
"My son, you may now comprehend more fully that I am resurrected by divine decree," Sri Yukteswar continued, "as a savior of astrally reincarnating souls coming back from the causal sphere, in particular, rather than of those astral beings who are coming up from the earth. Those from the earth, if they still retain vestiges of material karma, do not rise to the very high astral planets like Hiranyaloka.
...
"Angelic guru," I said, "your body looks exactly as it did when last I wept over it in the Puri ashram." [editor: at his death]
"O yes, my new body is a perfect copy of the old one. I materialize or dematerialize this form any time at will, much more frequently than I did while on Earth. By quick dematerialization, I now travel instantly by light express from planet to planet or, indeed, from astral to causal or to physical cosmos." My divine guru smiled. "Though you move about so fast these days, I had no difficulty in finding you at Bombay!"
"O Master, I was grieving so deeply about your death!"
"Ah, wherein did I die? Isn't there some contradiction?" Sri Yukteswar's eyes were twinkling with love and amusement.
"You were only dreaming on Earth; on that Earth you saw my dream-body," he went on. "Later you buried that dream-image. Now my finer fleshly body-which you behold and are even now embracing rather closely!-is resurrected on another finer dream-planet of God. Someday that finer dream-body and finer dream-planet will pass away; they too are not forever. All dream-bubbles must eventually burst at a final wakeful touch. Differentiate, my son Yogananda, between dreams and Reality!"
This idea of Vedantic resurrection struck me with wonder. I was ashamed that I had pitied Master when I had seen his lifeless body at Puri. I comprehended at last that my guru had always been fully awake in God, perceiving his own life and passing on Earth, and his present resurrection, as nothing more than relativities of divine ideas in the cosmic dream.
"I have now told you, Yogananda, the truths of my life, death, and resurrection. Grieve not for me; rather broadcast everywhere the story of my resurrection from the God-dreamed earth of men to another God-dreamed planet of astrally garbed souls! New hope will be infused into the hearts of misery-mad, death-fearing dreamers of the world."
[Second witness]
I was not the only one privileged to behold the resurrected guru. One of Sri Yukteswar's chelas was an aged woman, affectionately known as Ma (Mother), whose home was close to the Puri hermitage. Master had often stopped to chat with her during his morning walk.
On the evening of March 16, 1936, Ma arrived at the ashram and asked to see her guru.
"Why, Master died a week ago!" Swami Sebananda, now in charge of the Puri hermitage, looked at her sadly.
"That's impossible!" She smiled a little. "Perhaps you are just trying to protect the guru from insistent visitors?"
"No." Sebananda recounted details of the burial. "Come," he said, "I will take you to the front garden to Sri Yukteswarji's grave."
Ma shook her head. "There is no grave for him! This morning at ten o'clock he passed in his usual walk before my door! I talked to him for several minutes in the bright outdoors.
"'Come this evening to the ashram,' he said.
"I am here! Blessings pour on this old gray head! The deathless guru wanted me to understand in what transcendent body he had visited me this morning!"
The astounded Sebananda knelt before her.
"Ma," he said, "what a weight of grief you lift from my heart! He is risen!"

Discussion

Note 1 - On the process of resurrection

The references above can be concatenated and linked with key reference statements from other topic pages, to understand how Christ is really the group soul of humanity, and how any human being that is purified to the full becomes 'resurrected', just as Christ-Jesus was the first to do so. This understanding is required to understand reports of the most advanced human adepts reaching this state, see the case of Lahiri Mahasaya above. But more importantly, it shows the ultimate future goal of mankind .. to go through initiation and purification and connect with the Second Adam and Christ as the group soul of humanity, that will be what is left at the end of the Earth planetary stage of evolution. That is what Christ means when stating to be with us until the end of times. That Christ group soul will be the seed and center for the next solar system and planet Future Jupiter.

Starting with 1915-12-28-GA165 we learn that

the purified ether body or phantom united with the Earth ether and the totality of ether bodies of humanity with their luciferic infection.

The 1911-10-11-GA131 lecture than adds that

Christ Jesus' phantom was like the 'initializing cell' that affects the others around it.

.

Nothing more is said about this 'mystical Christological process'. However, we can get inspired by the 1904-11-09-GA089 lecture studied in Christ Module 7 and the 'creation of a new center' to understand what is said in 1906-09-13-GA091 (also on that topic page):

Christ was and is flowing his life into the world and streaming into each person, giving Man his power, so Man can experience his true I and find the center to live in his [Christ's] I. .. the more people unite with the Christ, the more they will be free and divine .. in the center of the world. The human I is the key to the center of this world. It is the spark or flame that connects Man with this central force of the world. .. and when the whole of humanity has become an expression of the Christ, then that will represent the transition to a new step in world development. Then all powers that were in the world have been put out and used, and now these life forces can be involved in something new in the center of the world and a plan for a new cosmos.

When reading the previous and next paragraphs, keep the image of Schema FMC00.189 in mind.

The following comes from 1914-07-16-GA155 on Transition between Earth and Future Jupiter. For further study, see also the quote from that same lecture 1914-07-16-GA155 on Unification#Group Soul of humanity

Because Christ unites them all — Christ who belongs to all mankind in the present and in the future — the remains of the single incarnations are all compressed together. Every human soul lives in successive incarnations. From each incarnation certain relics or remains are left, as we have described. Further incarnations will leave other remains, and so on, up to the end of the Earth period. If these relics are permeated by Christ, they are compressed together. Compress what is rarefied and you will get density. Spirit also becomes dense, and so our collective Earth-incarnations are united into a spiritual body. This body belongs to us; we need it because we evolve onwards to Future Jupiter, and it will be the starting-point of our embodiment on Future Jupiter. At the end of the Earth period we shall stand there with the soul — whatever the particular karma of the soul may be — and we shall stand there before our earthly relics which have been gathered together by Christ, and we shall have to unite with them in order to pass over with them to Future Jupiter.

And all the above tied together is what is meant, when a condensed statement is given as in 1911-09-21-GA130 (also on Unification#Group Soul of humanity).

The Christ .. [becomes] in the seventh epoch .. a mighty 'Cosmic I' that is like a great Group Soul of humanity.

This note is intended to group quotes and schema, so as to allow the earnest student to study the various relevant topic pages, and then focus on the concatenated excerpts, holding these in one's mind for meditation and contemplation, in order to build an imaginative insight.

Commentary

1 - The understanding of this process provides us with a very different perspective (B) than the one based on faith alone (A), that considers the resurrection of Christ-Jesus after the MoG. In the latter case (A), the resurrection is like the key event of Christianity, and it is related to a God descending into Man .. both are exceptional and mind boggling. So although it is stated that this was done for the whole of humanity, still that is not described in any detail, it is left open totally to faith.

Now the process as explained by Rudolf Steiner in spiritual scientific terms, enables one to relate to this on the basis of an (extremely basic, but still), an understanding - to some degree. From a spiritual scientific point of view, it is therefore quite logical that human beings that advance through initiation to adept stage, have purified their lower bodies to the extent that the resurrection also becomes a reality. For this, the lowest level of the physical body has to be completely purified (brought into balance). See for example Note [2] below.

2 - It is therefore interesting to link what is said in theosophy and anthroposophy about the white lodge, the masters or bodhisattvas, and the stages of adepthood for human beings .. to what is known about the Indian sages. A central point of departure for this can be Sri Guru Babji (see White Lodge#.5B2.5D - Sri Guru Babaji). Beyond all teachers of humanity known in Western cultures, it is reasonable and likely to assume that he is only known directly and in contact with the highest level of adepts on Earth. Hence we can explore the people through whom we get reports on him from direct experiences, and who appeared to be his direct pupils, or in his direct circle. Whereas in the rest of the world individuals most probably exists with similar high levels of spiritual maturity (but they blend in anonymously), India has a culture of sages where some of these sages are or have become publicly known.

This therefore adds perspective to position the statements about the resurrection above. It is different whether we only have a single case of the wonder of the resurrection by Christ-Jesus, or whether we can begin to see and accept that this is something that becomes a reality for the most advanced human beings.

When writing 'human beings' that is, with the caviat or disclaimer, that one never knows the origin of the spirit that incarnates (and whether they are truly part of the regular mainstream humanity). To explain what is meant by that, consider:

Steiner's remark about Vulcan beings incarnating Planets hosting beings at various stages of evolution#.5B1.5D - The excerpt of 1921-05-13-GA204), and more eg on Vulcan#Alice Bailey
see Schema FMC00.313 on Three classes of Buddhas and the fact that (in the past and up to the current epoch) the highest level of leadership of humanity where not yet human beings from regular mainstream humanity, but higher beings that incarnate and work through human bodies.

Note 2 - Additional perspectives

2.1 - Adept mastery of the purified physical body

The below adds a different angle of perspective, by way of illustration of the spiritual nature of the physical body, and what is possible once one has control over it. The 'magical' capabilities described relate to how the adept who arrives at this level of purification and control over the physical body has already joined the second Adam stream of Christ. Becoming invisible to our physical senses and waking consciousness, requires full mastery over the mineral-filled physical body, in other words it may be regarded as a measure for the cleansed phantom. Similarly so for the capability of immaterializing and materializing one's physical body, which can be regarded as filling the invisible spiritual structure of the physical body with mineral matter.

the book Initiation into Hermetics (IIH) by Franz Bardo n is a guide for the development of the different bodies in an initiation process in ten steps. At the end of the guide, some magical capabilities are described that are 'technically' possible once all the bodies were purified and a person has gained total control not just over the astral but also over the etheric and physical body. This includes becoming invisible and raising from the dead. Bardon refers to initiates who were known to demonstrate this in the course of history, but without giving names.
It is known and described that certain masters were able to materialize and immaterialize their physical bodies: Apollonius of Tyana is one such master, also certain Indian Masters, and apparently also Beinsa Douno. Also Daskalos describes this, as does Sri M (about Sri Guru Babaji). This just to confirm and state this ability.

2.2 - Ponderings on resurrection

Introduction

The starting point of this note is the following premise. What follows is a hypothesis by author DL.

The Mystery of Golgotha is such a cosmic event in the evolution of our solar system, that one can consider that Christ-Jesus was not 'alone' in this story we know from the Gospels, but he was surrounded by advanced beings, and the event fits into a plan with many different perspectives. That this is the case is already clear from what is described on the pages of the different modules on the Christ and MoG on this site, as well as other topic pages such as Occult atom, Three classes of Buddhas, White Lodge, Spiritual guidance of mankind, etc.

We can contemplate the following elements:

1 - the fact that key personalities in the Gospels are described as higher beings, see The two Jesus children#2. A remarkable statement by Daskalos where Daskalos states that Mary, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist were carriers of an archai
2 - the twelve apostles, for a first entry to exploration see eg the statements here: Holy Supper symbolism - apostles#The twelve apostles as members of the etheric body of Christ
3 - the event with Saul/Paul and his experience on the road to Damascus of Christ in the etheric, some 1900 years ahead of the rest of humanity. Daskalos states Paul corresponds to Master Hilarion and is a great master. So here again not just your average human being.
4 - Franciscus of Assisi is described by Rudolf Steiner (or this can be read as) a test case re context principle of spiritual economy - more on Colchis Mysteries. I believe this is important as a secret of spiritualization .. this will happen at a grand scale, it is a huge lever, but does not get any attention or considerations. There are millions, uncounteable copies of the etheric and astral bodies and I's of Christ waiting and ready to be incorporated for those who make it through, it's like tailwind in sailing.

With that context, the story of Apollonius of Tyana may trigger a train of thoughts that is interesting to ponder over.

DRAFT NOTES FROM EMAIL EXCHANGE - to be worked

We transform the three lower bodies, in sequence .. the last physical body is the hardest to purify and transform .. when it is purified things are possible like becoming invisible etc

re your notes below .. I know, but I follow Bardon which is more advanced that the RS way which is like a ramp up to Bardon whose book is initiation on steroids, the direct way

is it so that if a human being did the purification of the three lower bodies before MoG, that he could not reach the resurrection body, whereas afterwards that was the case? if so, then exactly what is the difference and how come, what happened before MoG then in that case?

hypothesis: the fact Christ became spirit of the Earth means the chemical and life ethers stream out from the planetary spirit of the Earth, whereas before this was not the case (they had left with the departure of the Sun). This is chewing gum from the mind, speculative .. but it's still intriguing to try and relate that macroscopic phenomenum to Man's individual constitution and how it works there.

If one follows that reasoning, one might ponder that the transformation of etheric and physical bodies was not fully possible before MoG, that it required MoG to allow this full transformation. But that would imply that initiation before MoG was actually quite more limited, much more limited. And indeed if one reads RS that seems to be what he says, people could be brought to experience astral and mental worlds, but through the trick-process (you know imprint of astral to etheric). Now the apparent contradiction occurs with positioning the concept of sun heroes, see Schema FMC00.481

Unless .. and this might well be .. that all those sun heroes were not men of the normal humanity but somehow more advanced beings, as RS explains on Three classes of Buddhas

so to come full circle, this train of thoughts may find its closure on descriptions of the Father impulse (see Mysteries of the Spirit, the Son and the Father#Note 2 - About the Father impulse). RS explains that only in the current fifth age we have the first humans reaching adept level, and the first human manu will be in the sixth epoch.

within that frame came my 'anecdote' that I found it interesting that it is said/written about Apollonius that he appeared after his death again. Was this a case of resurrection or not, one can find unqualified stuff on the internet, but very little useful info to allow any decent qualification. It was just a thought that had occured in the context of the above.

If the band of the White Lodge tested cases such as Saul/Paul and Franciscus, then it would not be far fetched that also one of the most advanced adepts with the most purified three lower bodies (magic power demonstrated by his miracles, eg raising from the death) .. could also 'test' about a century after MoG that the resurrection works.

Another way into this reasoning is that one can ponder over the fact why there would not be mention of any case examples besides Christ-Jesus alone. In that context the example of Lahiri in Yogananda's book also fits that pondering ..

It is said that Apollonius of Tyana appeared after his death, Steiner said he was a high adept

Could it be he was the first case to ‘test’ the resurrection after Christ? Or that we have such case instance here?

with totally purified bodies, that is what is told of lahiri mahasaya and sri yukteswar (see quotes on this wiki topic page)

Now many thoughts or questions can follow from this:

Questions
- does resurrection also apply for the ‘three classes of buddhas’? does that make any sense, or does it only for 'fully humans'?
- so even 'fully purified human beings' could not resurrect before the christ impulse? If so, where does the technical change lie exactly? life and chemical ethers on Earth .. but even then
Considerations
- paul of tarsus was also a very high being who was two millenia ahead of 'christ in the etheric' .. so one could think that around the christ impulse much more happened to ‘test and validate’ major changes
  - for example I always read the story of franciscus of assissi as such clear example of testing christophori and Principle of spiritual economy, see topic page Colchis Mysteries

Related pages

References and further reading

Maximilian Rebholz: essays on resurrection and phantom body
Max Hoffmeister: The Resurrection Corporeality: A Contribution to Understanding Christ Jesus (unpublished translation by FMC project), original: Die Auferstehungsleiblichkeit Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Christus Jesus (1992)