Guided study approach to Christ

Introduction

This provides an explanation about the proposed study approach to the Christ Impulse and the Mystery of Golgotha, using Study Modules.

Our approach is to provide a guided pathway, and this website is a tool along your study and learning journey. By pointing you to the right lectures in an overall logically structured framework, you will not loose your way but be able to build your insights continuously, and always come back to this site as a reference.
The goal is to 'initialize' our base understanding, so we have a foundation to build on. In the next phases we can then continuously extend the territory covered by adding perspectives to shed light on the so-many aspects of the Mystery of Golgotha and the Christ Impulse. As we learn through the process, the interrelationships will become clearer.
However, please appreciate this is a process that takes its time and riping. It is not because this is a website, that you can click your way around and get away with quick insights. You will have to do your own soul work by letting the study and contemplation work in and upon yourself.

Because we need to start somewhere as a first step in our intended comprehensive approach, we choose a selection of five key lectures as the best introduction to the Mystery of Golgotha (MoG). And these are for you to study.

In the next four steps we propose some 'homework' to study these "top lectures" in a specific order. This will provide a base foundation and for further study work. The proposal is that you make a logical mindmap for yourself while studying the first top three lectures, so as to have an overview for yourself of the main angles of perspectives covered.

As with a concrete foundation for a building, the quality and depth of this soul work is crucial and it is a requirement to invest in this and not rush it. Take not days but weeks, or even months. Go back to the lectures and your notes again and again. Rather than rushing ahead, use the contents of these five lectures to incubate your mind and soul. It will pay off.

Preparatory self-study

Step 1: the two central lectures

If there is one place to start, if we were to select one single lecture only about the Mystery of Golgotha, it would be 1906-12-02-GA097. Hence this is the first lecture for you to study and make your own logical structured mindmap.

The second lecture 1907-04-01-GA096 is also a reference lecture for the MoG. Together these two lectures represent an excellent starting point.

Now how to proceed? Quite practically the proposal is that you first read this page which briefly describes the intended process. Then, study the first lecture, slowly, 'parse' its contents, and draw your own high level synthetic chema (try to stick to one page) .. so you have your own schema drawing representing the structure of the various aspects covered.

Study materials

1/ There are at least three known versions of this first study lecture in the English language:

the translation by Anna Meuss in the GA097 book volume, and
the one on rsarchive (Anthroposophic News Sheets of 12 and 19 May 1946), and
the 1998 book version by James Hindes (also called The Christian Mystery, but not the full GA volume). This book is available online in audio version here.

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2/ Given the first two, as well as the additional three lectures, so the five main lectures for initializing the study process were published in volumes GA096 and GA097, it is very much worthwhile to purchase these volumes.

Below, from left to right, the base books: volumes GA096 and GA097 (both by Completion Press, with the Anna Meuss translation), and The Christian Mystery (by Anthroposophic Press, selected lectures, Hindes translation). If you are serious about this work, we strongly recommend, to buy all three volumes as they are much worth it and contain many additional lectures that are 'must-study' if one wants to broaden and deepen one's understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha.

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3/ Nevertheless, in order to facilitate online study and 'get started' rightaway, these two first lectures 1906-12-02-GA097 and 1907-04-01-GA096 are made available below as free download in PDF form:

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4/ For those interested to dig a little deeper, the original German lecture transcripts are available from Steinerdatenbank. These are the files from the Rudolf Steiner Archive, used by the GA project. The files of the Uranos archive are sometimes included (not sure if this is always the case). For the first lecture, six files are available, mainly typoscripts but also one hand-written. It just gives an extra touch to the connection of what we are studying here.

(PS update - unfortunately Uranos archive seems no longer online in 2020)

(PS update 2024 - steinerdatenbank also ceased operations and assets have been taken over by the anthrowiki initiative that is working to make the database available again)

5/ Given the importance of the five selected main lectures (two in step 1 and three additional ones in step 2 below), we include the following reference for Lectures 2 and 3. The book below is an in-depth study of these lectures, based on the original lecture notes, and a thorough comparison with edits in the GA. The page link includes PDF downloads of original source materials.

www.rudolfsteinerausgaben.com/Auferstehung-des-Christentums

Resurrection of Christianity
Lectures II.1 (Berlin, March 25, 1907) and II.2 (Berlin, April 1, 1907) are based on the postscript by J. Haase written in old German script. Surprisingly, the text version of the first edition (1912) is identical to that of J. Haase, as he wrote it down in 1908.
The later version of the complete edition (GA) represents a strong expansion or editing of the original text. This is illustrated by means of text comparisons.

Step 2: the three extra lectures

The second step is to read and study three complementary lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in this same timeframe, lectures that enrich the image from Step 1. Again, please parse their contents for yourself so you are able to cluster logical subtopics.

Lecture 3 is 1907-03-25-GA096. This is a preparatory lecture that preceded 1907-04-01-GA096 that you just studied (see Step 1).

Lecture 4 and 5 are 1907-03-07-GA097 and 1907-03-08-GA097, these are additional flanker' lectures.

With these two main and three supportive lectures you have now laid a foundation for further study. We will use the logical mind-map of the territory covered by these five lectures to go into much more detail on each aspect on this site.

Step 3: synthesis

The next step is to make a synthesis of what you learned from the above five lectures, by merging the mind-maps, as the various logical perspectives or topics overlap and touch one another. It is important you go through this process and create your own pencil study notes.

Done? Congratulations! You are now ready for the journey of exploring the most startling and mind-boggling mystery in the history of humanity, and the most pivotal event in the history of the solar system evolution.

Conclusion and next steps

The following link and page gives an example working version of the reference schema for the above lectures, which outlines the proposed segmentation in logical Study Modules consisting of clustered topics.

The idea of the mind-map approach is that it allows us to segment the huge scope into Study Modules, and go from the raw material (lecture texts) to a more structured non-sequential approach that can be extended to a full website in support of your study process. Each module will deepen your understanding by adding inputs from other lectures. The underlying website can be navigated and explored with direct links during your individual study process.

We recommend that before starting this process, you pull together for yourself the contents of what you learned on each of the seven sections. Make notes, preferably hand written on paper, and study the sections from 1 to 7 so you are clear and have a personal foundation for these seven Study Modules. That allows one to keep a clear structure and frame, as you will notice that all topics are obviously related and intertwined, as you go down various roads and study threads to develop a base understanding of the many topics covered on many dozens of dedicated wiki topic pages.