Pentecost

Pentecost or Whitsun is a Christian festival that falls on the seventh Sunday or the 49th day after Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ's disciples, and symbolizes the outpouring of the Spirit into Man: the becoming conscious of the human spirit, the highest goal of humanity.

In that sense it belongs together with Easter, and hence early Christians referred to the entire 50-day period beginning with Easter as Pentecost.

The picture of Pentecost, the sending of the Holy Spirit, is the permeation of the human spirit-and-soul, the I and astral body, with the power to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. It also symbolizes the possibility of imbuing Man's inner nature of spirit-and-soul with the Christ Impulse.

Aspects

• name
  • Pentecost became a more popular time for baptism than Easter in northern Europe, in England the feast was commonly called White Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun or Whitsuntide, for the special white garments worn by the newly baptized.
  • The term Pentecost comes from the Greek (pentēkostē, lit. 'fiftieth'), and appears in the (Koine) Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (Septuagint), where the festival of Shavuot is celebrated on the fiftieth day after Passover (Deuteronomy 16:10, Exodus 34:22). Hence the term was used in literature of Hellenistic Judaism by Philo of Alexandria and Josephus to refer to Shavuot, the Jewish Pentecost.
  • other names used include the Feast of Harvest, or the Feast of Weeks.
• symbols
  • the dove, representing the Holy Spirit that descended “like a dove” and hovered over Jesus when he was baptized
  • the flame, or tongue of fire, also represents the Holy Spirit: As the Apostles and other followers of Jesus had gathered to celebrate the feast of the summer harvest, a great wind was heard and what looked like flames appeared on the heads of the disciples and each began to speak in tongues.
• festival of flowers (1923-05-07-GA224), see also Christ Module 6 - Principle in image and story
  • Whitsun is pre-eminently a festival of flowers. If a Man has a true feeling for this Festival he will go out among the buds and blossoms opening under the influence of the sun .. The heart of Man as it opens may be symbolised by the flower opening itself to the sun; and what pours down from the sun, giving the flower the fertilising power it needs, may be symbolised by the tongues of fire descending.
• the connection how spiritual science is, can and will (have to) be a world pentecost for humanity after a phase of sorrow and suffering in the current materialistic times of a worldview based solely on mineral science. See 1923-05-17-GA226 below, or in other words see also the connection with:
  • Christ Module 15 - Study of Spiritual Science and the Mystery of Golgotha
  • Reverse ritual
• universal knowledge, wisdom, rising above opinions - link to the Sixth epoch (and development of the throat chakra)
• the freedom of the spirit: the link with Lucifer and Holy Spirit
• feast of the tabernacles (1904-05-23-GA093)
• the secret document (hidden in the Vatican) that contains the deep meaning of Pentecost (1904-05-23-GA093, see Sources of spiritual science#Note 4 - The secret document of which there are only two copies)
• understanding of the phase and delay between Easter and Pentecost, and the relation with Ascension - see also After the resurrection

Christ becoming spirit of the Earth

• see Schema FMC00.083 below, Planetary spirit, Schema FMC00.187 on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension and indirectly (approaching this from a different angle) Holy Supper symbolism - apostles#Note 2 - The Apostles and the Christ - Schema FMC00.430

Inspirational quotes

1904-05-23-GA093

When Man has become transfigured in the physical body, has offered it up again to the Spirit, he will be ripe to receive the outpouring of spiritual life, to experience what is called the ‘coming of the Holy Spirit’ .. Pentecost is the outpouring of the Spirit into Man. The highest goal of humanity is symbolically expressed by means of the Pentecost festival ... Pentecost can be looked upon as the symbol of the freeing of the human spirit, as the symbol of mankind's struggle for freedom, for consciousness of his own freedom.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.083: presents the earthly phases of the Christ being, with milestones during these Three years of Christ Jesus, mapping these to the equivalent phases of the current life of a human being on Earth.

Lecture coverage and references

There are some 10 RSL lectures about Pentecost with references listed below.

1904-05-23-GA093

lecture with the title: Whitsuntide — Festival of the Liberation of the Human Spirit

quote A

The moment which we have to regard as the one in which spiritual life poured into the self-conscious human being is indicated precisely in the New Testament. It is alluded to in the profoundest of the Gospels the one which is misunderstood by today's theologians, the St. John's Gospel, when it speaks of the Feast of the Tabernacles which was attended by Jesus. The founder of Christianity there speaks of the outpouring of spiritual life with which humanity was to be endowed. It is a remarkable passage.

For the Feast of the Tabernacles, the people had to visit a spring from which water flowed. There followed a festival which intimated to Man that he should call to mind again his spiritual nature, his Deva and spiritual strivings. The water which flowed there was to remind him of the soul and spirit world.

After repeated refusals Jesus finally went up to the feast.

The following happened on the last day of the feast John 7, 37): ‘In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any Man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.’ Those who drank celebrated a feast in which the spiritual life was brought to recollection. But Jesus connected something else with it, as can be seen in the following words of St. John's Gospel: ‘He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)’.

Here the Pentecost mystery is indicated. It is intimated that Man has to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. When the moment arrives in which Man is able to kindle the spark of spiritual life within him, when the physiological nature of Man is able to attempt the ascent by means of its own forces, then will the Holy Spirit descend upon him and the time of spiritual awakening will be at hand.

quote B

Pentecost is one of the most important festivals and one of the most difficult to understand. For Christian consciousness it commemorates the coming of the Holy Ghost. This event is described as a miracle: the Holy Spirit was poured out over the apostles so that they started to speak in all manner of tongues. This means that they could enter into every heart and speak according to each one's understanding. That is one of the interpretations of Pentecost.

If we wish to reach a more fundamental understanding of it, we must go still deeper into the matter. Pentecost — as symbolic festival — is connected with the most profound mysteries, with the holiest spiritual qualities of humanity — that is why it is so difficult to talk about it. Today I should like at least to touch on just a few things.

[Vatican document - see also Luciferic beings and their influences#other and Sources of spiritual science#Note 4 - The secret document of which there are only two copies]

What the Pentecost Festival symbolises, the underlying principle from which it receives its deep inner meaning, is preserved in a single manuscript copy which is to be found in the Vatican Library, where it is guarded with the greatest care. To be sure, no mention is made of Pentecost in this manuscript, but it certainly tells of that for which Pentecost is only the outer symbol. Hardly anyone has seen this manuscript, unless he has been initiated into the deepest secrets of the Catholic Church, or has been able to read it in the astral light. One copy is possessed by a personality who has been very much misunderstood in the world, but who is beginning to interest today's historians. I could equally well have said ‘was possessed’ instead of ‘is possessed’, but it would thereby cause a lack of clarity. Therefore I say again: a copy is in the possession of the Count of St. Germain, who is the only existing source of information about it.

quote C

Herein lies what is truly Christian, and it also embodies the deeper mystery contained in the Pentecost Festival. Man lives primarily in his lower organism, in his consciousness imbued with desires. It is right that this is so, because it is only this consciousness which can provide him with awareness of his true goal, to attain freedom. He should not remain there, however, but must raise his I to the nature of a deva. He must develop the deva within him, bring it to birth so that it becomes a spirit of healing — a Holy Spirit. To that end he must consciously sacrifice his earthly body, he must experience that ‘dying and becoming’ so that he does not remain a ‘gloomy guest’ on this dark earth.

Thus the Easter mystery is only revealed in its fullness when taken together with the Pentecost mystery. We see the human I, exemplified in its divine representative, divesting itself of the lower I and dying in order to be completely transfigured in its physical nature and offered up again to the Godhead. Ascension is the symbol of this.

When Man has become transfigured in the physical body, has offered it up again to the Spirit, he will be ripe to receive the outpouring of spiritual life, to experience what is called the ‘coming of the Holy Spirit’ according to the explanation of One, who is mankind's greatest Representative. Therefore it is also said: ‘And there are three that bear witness in earth, [see also 1904-04-29] the Spirit, the water and the blood.’ Pentecost is the outpouring of the Spirit into Man.

The highest goal of humanity is symbolically expressed by means of the Pentecost festival; that is, that mankind must progress once more from an intellectual to a spiritual life just as Prometheus was set free from his suffering by Heracles, so will mankind be set free by the power of the spirit. By descending into matter, mankind has attained self-consciousness. Through the fact that he ascends again, he will become a self-aware deva.

...

Thus Pentecost can be looked upon as the symbol of the freeing of the human spirit, as the great symbol of mankind's struggle for freedom, for consciousness of his own freedom.

If the Easter Festival is the festival of resurrection in nature, then the Pentecost Festival is the symbol of the becoming conscious of the human spirit, the festival of those who know and understand and — penetrated through and through by this — go in search of freedom.

1905-06-05-GA093

(in evo) is key lecture, it covers:

Link Pentecost with Luciferic Principle – festival of Prometheus and freedom

When the sun separated itself from the earth, the Word became entombed in the earth. It will be resurrected again when the earth has advanced as far as the Sixth epoch. Man will raise this Word from the dead, out of the earth; but first the spirit must live in him that will enable the Word to strike a chord in him. This was attained by the apostles at Pentecost.

In Light on the Path we find the words: ‘Acquire knowledge and you will have speech.’ Speech comes with true knowledge, which descends like the tongues of fire on the apostles at holy Pentecost.

When the inner Word comes, that is akin to the holy divine Word, and that sinks down into everything etheric, so as to make it come alive, then man will no longer speak out of himself but out of the divine Spirit. He is then the messenger of the Godhead and proclaims the inner Word of Godhead of his own free will.

Thus did the inner Word become alive in the apostles; thus did it spread its influence outwards from them. They proclaimed the fiery Word and were aware of their role as the messengers of the Godhead. Therefore the Holy Spirit hovered over them in the form of fiery tongues. They prepare humanity to receive the Logos. The great initiate, Christ Jesus, went on in advance. The Holy Spirit followed, fertilising the astral bodies so that they would become ripe for making their etheric bodies immortal. Once this has happened, then the Christ Principle will be drawn into humanity. This is what the initiates too had in mind when they said, somewhat as Heraclitus did: If, in escaping from the earthly, you ascend to free ether, with faith in immortality, you become an immortal spirit, free of death and of the physical.

Every single person will reach this point in the middle of the Sixth epoch. Today man is still vulnerable to death, in that his etheric body has still not attained immortality. Christianity contains the secret of how man can gradually develop himself towards the resurrection of the etheric body. This is where the third great festival is connected with the other two Christian festivals.

.. the Pentecost festival has infinite depths .. Man celebrates Pentecost best by making it clear to himself what deep truths have been implanted in this festival by the wise. And to celebrate a festival really means to unite oneself in spirit with the Cosmic Spirit

1923-05-07-GA224

for full extract see: Christ Module 16 - During sleep#1923-05-07-GA224

Whence does man acquire the power to receive the Christ Impulse into his nature of spirit-and-soul, into his ego and astral body? The answer is found in the Pentecost festival.

Through the Mystery of Golgotha the Christ Impulse has taken effect on the earth as a reality which is within the comprehension of spiritual cognition alone. No materialistic knowledge, no materialistic science can understand the Mystery of Golgotha. Hence the soul must acquire the power of spiritual cognition, of spiritual perception, of spiritual feeling, in order to be able to understand how, on Golgotha, the Christ Impulse was united with the impulses of the earth.

Christ Jesus fulfilled His Deed on Golgotha to the end that this union might take effect, fulfilled it in such a way that ten days after the event of the Ascension He sent man the possibility of imbuing also his inner nature of spirit-and-soul, his ego and astral body, with the Christ Impulse. The permeation of the human spirit-and-soul with the power to understand the Mystery of Golgotha is the sending of the Holy Spirit. This is the picture of the Pentecost festival, the festival of Pentecost. Christ fulfilled His Deed for all mankind. But to each human individual, in order that he may be able to understand this Deed, Christ sent the Spirit, in order that the individual being of spirit-and-soul may have access to the effects of the Deed that was accomplished for all men in common. Through the Spirit man must learn to experience the Christ Mystery inwardly, in spirit and in soul.

...

But because this essence and meaning can be fully grasped by spiritual knowledge alone, not by material knowledge, it follows that the truth of the Whitsun festival can be grasped only when men realise that the sending of the Holy Spirit is the challenge to humanity more and more to achieve Spirit-knowledge, through which alone the Mystery of Golgotha can be understood.

That it must be understood — this is the challenge of the Whitsun Mystery.

...

Whitsun is pre-eminently a festival of flowers. If a man has a true feeling for this Festival he will go out among the buds and blossoms opening under the influence of the sun, under the etheric and astral influences — and he will perceive in the flower-decked earth the earthly image of what flows together in the picture of Christ's Ascension, and the descent of the tongues of fire upon the heads of the disciples which followed later.

The heart of man as it opens may be symbolised by the flower opening itself to the sun; and what pours down from the sun, giving the flower the fertilising power it needs, may be symbolised by the tongues of fire descending: upon the heads of the disciples.

Anthroposophy can work upon human hearts with the power that streams from an understanding of the festival times and from true contemplation of each festival season; it can help to evoke the mood-of-soul that conforms truly with these days of the Spring festivals

1923-05-17-GA226

is the lecture on World Pentecost that describes the link with spiritual science (another version of that lecture here). Here follows a shortened/truncated version with the key elements from the flow, and SWCC. This parsing is offered here to lay out the structure of the lecture.

This Mystery of Golgotha was understood very differently at the time in which it took place than was the case later, and in our day it must again be understood in a new way. The right understanding of this Mystery is the mission of Anthroposophy.

1/ The Mystery Schools are described, some 3-4000 years ago, when men had a different consciousness and was more aware about his life in the spiritual world before incarnation. There was a connection of soul-warmth in the devotion of men and their Sun worship which was quite customary then (ceremonies are described). It gave Man a knowledge of his immortality, through this connection with the spiritual worlds.

Every man was then aware that he had within him a soul and spirit-being that was sent down into earthly existence by divine powers. Men's consciousness of death was also entirely different at that time, and because they could look back in memory to a spiritual existence before life on earth, they also knew that that part of them which had lived before their life on earth continued after death.

..

Man looked on the sun as the greatest of all the stars, and of all the Beings belonging to the sun he called the greatest the great Sun-Spirit.

In the Mysteries men learnt that before they came to earth the great Sun Being gave to them the power by which they were able to enter the starry world again in the right way after death.The pupils of the Mysteries were told, and these repeated it again to others: It is the spiritual power of the Sun, the spiritual light which carries you beyond death, and this power you brought with you when at birth you entered earthly existence. Many prayers, many exalted teachings, came from the teachers in the Mysteries; and these were all in praise, in glorification, of the high Sun-Being, and gave instruction concerning Him.

Teachers in the Mysteries instructed their pupils, and these in turn told the rest of humanity that when man passed through the gate of death, he had first to penetrate the lower sphere of the stars and to meet with the lower Beings of the stars, and that then he might penetrate to the Sun. He could not, however, go beyond the Sun if the power of the Sun-Being was not given to him.

...

It was known to the initiated priests of the Mysteries that the great Sun-Being of whom they spoke to believers was the same Being of whom men would speak at a later day as the Christ. Before the time of the mystery of Golgotha people were told if they desired knowledge of the Christ that they must not seek Him on earth, but must rise to the Mysteries of the Sun, for only beyond the earth were the Mysteries of the Christ to be found.

It was comparatively easy for men to accept such a teaching, because they retained an instinctive recollection of the kingdom of Christ from which they had descended to earth.

..

When man is passing through death he goes forth into starry spaces and gradually comes to a place where he sees the stars from the other side: it is not seen as a physical globe but as a realm of Spiritual Beings. Before the MoG had taken place men beheld the Christ in the sun; they beheld Him from the other side in the time between death and birth.

In ancient times before MoG, the instructors in the Mysteries were able to recall this aspect of the Christ to their pupils; they were able to arouse in them the conception of what they had seen before they came to earth how they had seen the Sun from the other side.

2/ Mankind lost this consciousness and memory of pre-earthly spiritual life, and 800 BC only very few people had still kept such knowledge. Teachers could not arouse the same in men, and this is where the fear of death really arose and had a major impact on the experience of fate of humanity and its immortality. 3/ Then the MoG came, it is described that up to then only Man had this experience of death:

All those beings that are higher than man, the Angels, Archangels, Archai, etc., up to the most exalted of the divine Beings in the spiritual world, experience metamorphosis only. They are not born, neither do they die. Thus it was said in the Mysteries: Man alone knows birth and death. The Gods do not know death, they only know metamorphosis.

As men were no longer able to reach up to the Christ, the Christ came to them on the earth. Because of this it was necessary that as God He should experience that which Gods had never experienced before — birth and death. Christ in the soul of a man, Jesus of Nazareth, experienced birth and death. This means: For the first time a God passed through human death.

The most essential thing in the Mystery of Golgotha is that it is not merely something that concerns humanity; it is also a concern of the Gods. The Gods decreed: One of us, the high Sun-spirit Himself, has to unite His destiny so closely with that of mankind that He must pass through birth and death.

and that few people at the time of the MoG realized that Christ was that same Sun spirit who had come down to earth. 4/ However upto the 4th century the knowledge still existed.

Up to the fourth century after Christ it was always known that the Christ Who was the great Sun-Spirit and the Christ Who dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth were the same. This was known until the fourth century. Our feelings are profoundly stirred when, by means of Spiritual Science, we are able to hear how the men of the early Christian centuries prayed: Thanks be to the Christ for having come down to us on earth from spiritual worlds, otherwise we would have been separated from Him.

5/ From the 4th century onwards the situation changed dramatically.

After the fourth century had passed people were no longer able to grasp the fact that the high Sun-Being and also the Christ was that same Divinity Who secures immortality to us as men. From the fourth century until our own age men had only the external words of the Gospels, which relate historically that the Mystery of Golgotha had indeed taken place, but the effect of the words of the Gospels still worked so powerfully throughout the centuries that through them men were able to unite their hearts with that great event.

6/ And this has persisted and grown worse with the advent of natural science from the 15th century onwards.

We confront an age to-day, however, in which men, having learned so much of the secrets of nature, would have become entirely estranged from the words of the Gospels if a new path to the Christ had not been opened up.

7/ Now spiritual science is introduced as a new and necessary path, and beautiful descriptions follows to 'live ourselves into' again what truly happened.

Anthroposophy has facilitated the entrance of men on this path by leading them back to a knowledge of the spiritual world.

For the Christ event, let me tell you, is only to be comprehended spiritually — as a spiritual fact. Those who do not understand the Christ event as a spiritual fact do not in any way understand it.

By means of anthroposophical knowledge we can carry ourselves back to the times when Jesus Christ walked in Palestine and experienced His earthly destiny.

Now is a pivotal turning point in this lecture, as Steiner now maps what happened to humanity (as described above), to the rhythm and main festivals in the Christian year. 8/ Sorrow of loss enters .. and this suffering phase is pivotal:

The power that came to the Disciples and Apostles when the Christ appeared to them in His spiritual body in order to teach them was gradually lost to them. A time came in the lives of these men when they said: We have beheld Him, and now behold Him no more. He came down to us from heaven to earth. Where is He gone?

This point of time when the Disciples believed that they had lost the presence of the Christ is preserved for us in the festival of the Ascension. In the consciousness of the Disciples the fact was registered that the high Sun-Spirit Who had walked the earth as Jesus of Nazareth had once more withdrawn from them. When they experienced this a sorrow came over them with which no sorrow that is experienced on earth can be compared.

In the olden Mysteries, during the celebration of the Sun-Cult, when the image of the God was laid within the earth in order that in three days it might be raised again, great sorrow for the God was felt in the souls of those who took part in the celebrations.

.. and the importance of suffering is described, as it gives birth to something higher. See also Christ Module 4 - Mystery of the Blood where this is described in detail; how suffering is a process of destruction of the lower by the side of a creating process of the higher (1906-11-08-GA055)

All truly great knowledge, my dear friends, is born out of sorrow and pain. When by those means of knowledge, which Anthroposophical Spiritual Science describes, an entrance into the higher worlds is sought, the goal can only be reached by passing through pain. Without having suffered, suffered much, and through suffering become free from the depression of pain, one cannot know the spiritual world. During the time indicated by the ten days following the Ascension the Disciples suffered dreadfully, for the Christ was withdrawn from their sight. And out of this infinite pain and sadness sprang that which we know as Pentecost. After that the Christ had been lost to their outward instinctive clairvoyance, the Disciples found Him again, through suffering and sorrow, in their inner being, in their perceptions and inner experiences.

and this suffering can and has to be extended, and Steiner compares apostle Paul's initial fight against Christianity with what we see in the world of materialistic mineral science today.

Men would have believed more and more only in the existence of material things. They would have said: The Sun is a material thing; the stars are material also. For mankind had utterly forgotten that they themselves had sprung from a pre-earthly existence, from the spiritual realm of the stars. Such a materialistic type of thought as asserts “all is matter,” can endure only for a time. If, for instance, all men for a hundred years were to believe that everything was only matter they would lose the inner power of the spirit within them; they would become as if crippled — as if ill.

9/ From this contextual perspective, of the current materialistic worldview, is describes that one should not look at Christianity as the religion we see in the Western world today, as contrasted with other religions in other cultures and regions on earth. True Christianity can not be exoteric (as in religions, or what is told by missionaries) but can only be esoteric Christianity hence spiritual science.

.. in the future what we call knowledge will be much more important for humanity than has been the case until now. The necessity will arise ever more and more in human evolution that men should acquire a certain knowledge of spiritual Beings, and of spiritual life.

Such a knowledge, as will lead all men to the spiritual world, is the goal towards which anthroposophical investigation strives.

.. with the help of Spiritual Science, we are able to see in the Mystery of Pentecost that the Mystery of Golgotha had taken the place of the ancient Sun-Myth Mystery.

Through this knowledge, the Christ can again be known, but in such a manner that when anyone has true anthroposophy he will be able to represent the Christ in a way that will be comprehensible to all men.

and it is described how the Sun shines for everyone on earth, and this affects every human being on Earth, irrespective of culture or belief. In other words, it is unifying. 10/ And here follows the statement:

Anthroposophy seeks to show that the Being who

• before the Mystery of Golgotha could only be reached by instinctive super-sensible faculties
• can since that event be reached by the powers of understanding, which can be developed by man on the earth itself.

..

What the disciples experienced as the Mystery of Pentecost will be experienced ever anew. People will feel that the Christ Himself has come down to earth — a power is dawning in our hearts, they will say, that assures immortality to man.

as anthroposophy or spiritual science is elaborated upon

We must also learn through Spiritual Science to see spirit in everything material, spirit behind the solid stone, the plant, and man; spirit behind the clouds and the stars, spirit behind the sun. When through the substance we find the spirit in its reality, we also open our human soul to the voice of Christ, Who speaks to us if we will but hear Him. Anthroposophy can tell of the spirit behind all nature.

Hence it also ventures to speak of spirit in all the historical earthly events of humanity, and of how the Earth first acquired “meaning” through the Mystery of Golgotha. That which imparted meaning to the earth before the Mystery of Golgotha was on the sun, since that time it has been united with the earth itself.

Anthroposophy presents this to humanity as an everlasting Pentecostal mystery, and when, prepared by Anthroposophy, men again seek out the spiritual world, they will find it in a way that is needful for the present age, and they will also truly find the Christ as ever present with them. If in this age men do not turn to spiritual knowledge the Christ will be lost to them.

Up till now Christianity did not lay stress on understanding. Christ died for all men; He did not disown them. If men reject Him to-day with their understanding, their intelligence — then they disown the Christ.

..

People often speak of anthroposophy as if it were an enemy of Christianity. If you really enter into the spirit of anthroposophy you will find that precisely what it does do is to open the ears, the hearts, the souls of men once more to the Mystery of Christ.

We might indeed consider the destiny of anthroposophy to be the same as that of Christianity; for this, however, it is necessary that men should not at the present day merely look towards the dead words that tell of the Christ, but that they turn to a knowledge which leads them to the light in which the living Christ Himself dwells, looking not to the historic Christ Who lived on earth some hundreds of years ago, but to the living Christ, Who now, and in all future times, lives among men on earth, because from their God He has become their divine Brother.

.. through anthroposophy we desire to seek the way to the living Christ. Let us feel that in each anthroposophist the mystery of the first Pentecost may be renewed — that the knowledge of the Christ may dawn in his heart, that he may feel himself enwarmed and enlightened through the flaming tongues of universal Christ-like knowledge.

May our way to that which is spiritual, through anthroposophy, be at the same time our way to Christ through the Spirit.

If a handful of men earnestly make this knowledge their own, the Mystery of Pentecost will take root ever more firmly among them at the present time and still more so in the future.

Then that will come which is so badly required for the healing and health of humanity, then it will be possible for the Spirit to speak to a new human understanding, the Spirit that heals the sickness of the souls of men — the Spirit sent by Christ. Then will come that of which humanity has so great a need — the Pentecost of the World.

1924-06-04-GA236

include the quote by Christ-Jesus that he came from Time

Now we may draw near to a still further realisation. We look out into the far Cosmos which goes out beyond earthly reality, even as the Earth with its physical substance and forces goes down beneath cosmic reality. As in the Physical the Earth has a sub-cosmic element, so in Spirit-Selfhood the Cosmos has a super-earthly element.

Physical science speaks of a movement of the Sun; and it can do so, for within the spatial picture of the cosmos which surrounds us, we perceive by certain phenomena that the Sun is in movement. But that is only an image of the true Sun-movement — an image cast into Space. If we are speaking of the real Sun it is nonsense to say that the Sun moves in space; for space itself is being radiated out by the Sun. The Sun not only radiates the light; the Sun creates the Space itself.

And the movement of the Sun is only a spatial movement within this created space. Outside of space it is a movement in time. What seems apparent to us — namely, that the Sun is speeding on towards the constellation of Hercules — is only a spatial image of the time-evolution of the Sun-Being.

To His intimate disciples Christ spoke these words:

“Behold the life of the Earth; it is related to the life of the Cosmos. When you look out on the Earth and the surrounding Cosmos, it is the Father whose life permeates this Universe. ³ The Father-God is the God of Space.

But I make known to you that I have come to you from the Sun, from Time — Time that receives Man only when he dies. I have brought you myself from out of Time. ⁴

If you receive me, you receive Time, and you will not be held spell-bound in Space. But you find the transition from the one trinity — physical, etheric and astral — to the other trinity, which leads from the etheric and astral to spirit-selfhood. Spirit-selfhood is not to be found in the earthly world, just as the Earthly-physical is not to be found in the Cosmos.

But I bring you the message of it, for I am from the Sun.”

The Sun has indeed a threefold aspect.

• If one lives within the Sun and looks down from the Sun to the Earth, one beholds the physical, etheric and astral.
• One may also gaze on that which is within the Sun itself. Then one still sees the physical so long as one remembers the Earth or gazes down towards the Earth.
• But if one looks away from the Earth one beholds on the other side the spirit-selfhood.

Thus one swings backwards and forwards between the physical and the nature of the spirit-self.

Only the etheric and astral in between are permanent. As you look out into the great Universe, the Earthly vanishes away, and you have the etheric, the astral and the spirit-selfhood. This is what you behold when you come into the Sun-Time between death and a new birth.

Related pages

• Christ Module 15 - Study of Spiritual Science and the Mystery of Golgotha
• Christ Module 5 - Initiation and spiritualization
• Christ Module 17 - The experience of the year

References and further reading

• Friedrich Benesch: 'Whitsun: community in the age of individualism' (1979 in EN, original in DE 1976 as 'Pfingsten heute ; Gemeinschaft im Zeichen des Individualismus' and in NL as 'Gemeenschapszin en individualisme : Pinksteren in deze tijd')
• Vereniging voor Vrije Opvoedkunst Den Haag: 'Pinksteren' (1987)
• Hilmar Moore and René Querido: 'Behold, I make all things new : towards a world pentecost' (1989)

• Richard Leviton: 'The imagination of Pentecost : Rudolf Steiner and contemporary spirituality' (1994)