The Christ Impulse from the 1st to the 20th century

This page is an aspect in the study of the nature of Christ, see Christ Module 2 - Nature of the Christ being

The Christ impulse works from the spiritual world in periods of about 800 years, from the higher spirit world (0-800), lower spirit world (800-1600) and currently from the astral world (1600-2400). (re: 1913-03-05-GA152 and Schema FMC00.376 and variant A). During this period, the Christ Impulse did intervene via what would be called today 'subconscious impulses' to influence how the map of Europe evolved.

From the 20th century onwards, Rudolf Steiner and Beinsa Douno proclaimed that Christ would be visible in astral form in the etheric - see topic page Christ in the etheric

Rudolf Steiner predicted this would take place from about the 1930s onwards, but also that the counterforces would act against this and (almost) predicted that a thirty years war could happen, just as took place in the 16th century to counter the rosecrucian impulse (see History and more specifically Jacob Boehme#Note 1 - Historical perspective - waves and counterwaves). Other counterforce effects are the Sorat impulse around 1998 (3x666) and the incarnation of Ahriman.

This timeline description is continued on: Christ in the future cultural ages and next epochs.

Aspects

period of first 8 centuries upto about 800: Christ working from the higher spirit world into the physical world
- age of the intellectual soul
- example of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 between Maxentius and Constantin
  - coverage: 1915-02-19-GA159, 1915-02-21-GA159, 1915-05-18-GA159
- Scotus Erigena as final stage and transition of this period around 850
period between 800 to 1600 AD: Christ Impulse working from the lower spirit world into the physical world
- this period includes the transition from the intellectual to the consciousness soul
- People look to approach their souls to the Christ Impulse with and in various forms and presentations. Thought shows itself to be inappropriate and all considerations unfruitful. Neither the crusades nor all attempts to prove God succeed in bringing about an inner lively connection of the soul.
- example of the Maid of Orleans or Joan of Arc (1412-1431) and her role in the Hundred Years' war between the kindoms of France and England between 1337-1453, specifically the battle of Reims in 1429
  - the historical importance of why this intervention was necessary, what the danger was otherwise, is given in 1916-03-28-GA167 below
  - her revelations in the form of images, like people will have in the sixth cultural age (1910-12-28-GA126)
  - this influence as a form of modern transformed sybilline revelation (1914-01-02-GA149), for sibyls see Three pre-MoG interventions of Christ
  - the Maid of Orleans as an example of the thirteen holy nights, she was born on 6th January 1412 and had experienced during thirteen days a special state of sleep since Christmas 1411 (1915-01-30-GA161, 1915-01-31-GA159)
  - coverage: 1910-12-29-GA126, 1915-01-31-GA159, 1915-02-19-GA159, 1915-03-13-GA159, 1915-05-13-GA159, 1915-05-18-GA159
period 1600 onwards to current: Christ Impulse working from the astral world
- example: wandering jews - characters that appeared manifold in the 15th and 16th centuries across Europe, witnessing that they experienced the Christ walk the Earth during the time of the Mystery of Golgotha
  - Ahasver, or Ahasueris, the Wandering Jew
    - is an image or symbol for the fate of those who are not interested in further development, the Christ or spiritual science, who want everything to remain as is, because they choose not to be open with their will to the necessary evolution and development (1915-11-01-GA254, see also 1908-05-16-GA102 and the 'sixteen paths of perdition' on Human races#Note .5B1.5D - The sixteen paths of perdition, 1907-05-15-GA104A)
    - Ahasver is also a legendary character that appears in art and cultures across the world since the middle ages, see eg wikipedia page
      - a (long) poem by Julius Mosen about a legendary figure of a Jerusalem shoemaker who, taunting Christ on the way to the Crucifixion, was told by Him to “go on forever till I return.” (partly read in 1915-11-01-GA254)
      - a psychological novel 'Ahasver' by Robert Jaffe (1900), with Emil Zlotnicki as the main character (commented on in 1900-09-01-GA031)
      - a poem by Goethe 'Der Ewige Jude' (1773-4) (referenced in 1910-11-04-GA115)
    - Christ and Ahasuerus (1922-03-24-GA211 (and 1922-03-21-GA211)): Ahasuerus as "the polar opposite of Christ Jesus" .. and the legend "which describes an actual reality" as "this being actually roams the Earth wandering from one ethnic group to another, with as one of his tasks to prevent the Jewish faith from dying out"
- from 20th century onwards: 'Christ in the etheric'

Inspirational quotes

1915-02-21-GA159, about historical events related to the Christ Impulse (the submarine quote)

The impulse lives in the subconsciousness, as if ships go on the sea, but the important matters take place in submarines.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.082 shows (linking into schema FMC00.047), the evolving relationship Man will have (or be able to develop) with the Christ

Schema FMC00.239 shows the archangelic rulers of approx 354 periods for the current cultural age (plus and minus a cultural age). See also Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods for more info on the 354 period.

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

Lecture coverage and references

1907-05-15-GA104A

When we look to the great leaders of humankind who are our pathfinders, we look to them as leaders who will show us how to go beyond the evolution of races in order to dwell in bodies that are more perfect in the future. The fact that a human being can say: I want to stay where I am! is expressed in a legend that has lived for a long time and found various explanations. However, it is really only explained by Theosophy. Think of the pathfinder whom we call Christ Jesus, the one who points to the passage in the Apocalypse we have just discussed. It is the passage he most often refers to, the place where he speaks of the overcoming of death.
When you find human souls sitting along the way who are not interested in evolving, what do they experience? They must again and again be born in the same race because they have rejected the signal from the redeemer. This tragedy is expressed in the Ahasuerus legend; Ahasuerus, “the wandering Jew,” created his own destiny because he had pushed the redeemer away from himself.
We must, then, distinguish between the evolution of the soul and the evolution of races; and we are shown how souls climb ever higher. But we are also shown how races sink deeper and deeper in a terrible way. We have now explained how present day evolution is described in the seven letters. We think of the letters as directed to the seven communities of our earth.

1908-05-16-GA102

on Ahasueris, the Wandering Jew

An important legend sets before us what Man must experience who descends too deeply into the temporary, transitory nature of the one incarnation. If we think of an extreme case, we can imagine it like this:
‘What is it to me that I should carry over something to later incarnations? I live in this incarnation, I like it, it suits me very well. I am not concerned with what I am supposed to make of it.’
Where does this thought lead? It leads to a Man who sits at the wayside when a great leader of humanity passes by. He rejects the ideas of the leader of humanity; he repulses him and thinks:
‘I will know nothing of thee, who wouldst guide the kernel of my being into future incarnations where mankind will be outwardly more perfect. I wish to remain united with my present form.’
A Man who thrusts from him such a Llader of mankind will appear again in the same form. And if this attitude hardens, then he shall also thrust from him the leader in the next incarnation. He will appear again and again as the same figure. ...
Those who listen to the great leader of humanity will preserve the soul with its eternal life-kernel. Mankind will have gone forward but they too will appear in an ever-progressive form. He, however, who thrusts the Leader of humanity from him must reappear again and again in the same form. This is the legend of Ahasueris who has thrust from himself the Christ, the leader of humanity.

1910-12-28-GA126

In the fifth cultural age we are in a position only to set about giving a certain stamp to everything we acquire from outer impressions and from working on them — a stamp which will imbue everything with an impetus in the upward direction. In this respect we are in truth living in a period of transition, and if you recall what was said yesterday about the spiritual power working in the Maid of Orleans, you will see that there was already in operation in her something that takes the opposite direction to that of the influences of higher powers in the pre-Grecian epoch. When, let us say, a man belonging to the ancient Persian culture received the influence of a super-sensible Power which used him as its instrument, this Power worked into and took effect in the very kernel of his being, and the Man beheld and experienced what this spiritual being inspired into him. When the Man of our time enters into relation with such spiritual powers, he can carry upwards what he experiences in the physical world through the work of his I and the impressions it receives; he can give it all an upward orientation.
Hence in personalities such as the Maid of Orleans, the revelations, the manifestations of those spiritual powers who desire to speak to her, take place, to be sure, in the sphere to which she reaches, but something spreads itself in front of these revelations, without actually detracting from their reality but giving them a particular form — the form arising from what the I experiences here in the physical world. In other words: the Maid of Orleans had revelations, but she could not behold them with the direct vision of the people of ancient times; the mental pictures she had known in the physical world — pictures of the Virgin Mary, of the Archangel Michael, arising from her Christian conceptions — interposed themselves between her own I-hood and the objective spiritual Powers.
There we have an example of how in spiritual matters we must distinguish between the objectivity of a revelation and the objectivity of a content of consciousness. The Maid of Orleans saw the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael in the form of a certain picture. We must not conceive these pictures to be the spiritual reality itself; nor must we ascribe direct objectivity to the form they take. But to say that they are mere invention would be nonsense.
Revelations from the spiritual world did indeed come to the Maid of Orleans, revelations which in the sixth cultural age — and not until then — Man will be able to see in the form in which they should be seen in the Postatlantean epoch. But although the Maid of Orleans did not see this true form, it did come down towards her. She brought the religious conceptions of her day to meet these revelations, clothed them as it were in this imagery; her world of mental images was evoked by the spiritual power. The revelation is therefore to be regarded as objective.
Even if in our time someone can show that subjective elements make their way into a revelation from the spiritual world, even if we cannot regard the actual picture which the person in question forms for himself as objective, even if it is only a veil — we must not for that reason assert that the objective revelations themselves are veils. They are objective; but their content is conjured forth from the soul. We must distinguish between the objectivity of that content and the objectivity of the facts which come from the spiritual world. — I am obliged to stress this point because in this domain mistakes are made by those who acknowledge the reality of the spiritual world as well as by our opponents — contrasting mistakes, it is true, but of very common occurrence.
The Maid of Orleans is therefore a personality already working entirely in the spirit of our own epoch, when everything that we can produce on the foundation of our outer impressions must be directed upward to the spiritual.
But what does this mean when we apply it to our own culture and civilisation?
It means this: We may direct our attention, naïvely to begin with, to our environment, but if we stop at that, if we have eyes for the outer impressions only, then we are not fulfilling our bounden obligation. We fulfil it only when we are conscious that these impressions must be related to the spiritual powers behind them. When we pursue science in the manner of academic scholarship, we are not fulfilling our obligation. We must regard everything that we can learn about the laws of natural phenomena and the laws of the manifestations of the life of soul as though it were a language which is to lead us to a revelation of the divine-spiritual. When we are conscious that all physical, chemical, biological, physiological, psychological laws must be related to something spiritual that is revealing itself to us, then we are fulfilling our obligation.
...
This letter [by Percival de Boulainvilliers] was written by one who knew the Maid and was in close contact with the King. It is indeed amazing when one discovers all these things on purely occult grounds and with occult means of proof — for they are indeed to be found in the Akasha Chronicle — and then sees how, in cases like this, actual historical documents can also be produced. In short, it seems almost madness to doubt what was working through the Maid of Orleans.
And when we also take into consideration the fact that through her deeds the whole history of modern time assumed a different aspect, this gives us the right to say that here, verified by documentary evidence, we can see the direct intervention of the super-sensible worlds. When the spiritual researcher goes further and seeks in his own way for the one who was the real Inspirer of the Maid of Orleans, he finds something very remarkable as he investigates the successive epochs of time. He finds that the same Spirit who worked through the Maid of Orleans as his instrument at that time had inspired — in a quite different form, a quite different way — another personality who was a philosopher at the Court of Charles the Bald. This was Scotus Erigena, through whose philosophical and theological ideas in an earlier period Europe had been so deeply influenced. And so we see that the same powers work in different times in a different way through human beings who are their instruments; that there is continuity, an onflowing stream of happenings in what we call history.

1910-12-29-GA126

Example Maid of Orleans
In this respect we are in truth living in a period of transition, and if you recall what was said yesterday about the spiritual Power working in the Maid of Orleans, you will see that there was already in Operation in her something that takes the opposite direction to that of the influences of higher Powers in the pre-Grecian epoch. When, let us say, a man belonging to the ancient Persian culture received the influence of a super-sensible Power which used him as its instrument, this Power worked into and took effect in the very kernel of his being, and the man beheld and experienced what this spiritual Being inspired into him.
When the man of our time enters into relation with such spiritual Powers, he can carry upwards what he experiences in the physical world through the work of his ego and the impressions it receives; he can give it all an upward orientation. Hence in personalities such as the Maid of Orleans, the revelations, the manifestations of those spiritual Powers who desire to speak to her, take place, to be sure, in the sphere to which she reaches, but something spreads itself in front of these revelations, without actually detracting from their reality but giving them a particular form — the form arising from what the ego experiences here in the physical world. In other words: the Maid of Orleans had revelations, but she could not behold them with the direct vision of the people of ancient times; the mental pictures she had known in the physical world — pictures of the Virgin Mary, of the Archangel Michael, arising from her Christian conceptions — interposed themselves between her own egohood and the objective spiritual Powers.
There we have an example of how in spiritual matters we must distinguish between the objectivity of a revelation and the objectivity of a content of consciousness.
The Maid of Orleans saw the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael in the form of a certain picture. We must not conceive these pictures to be the spiritual reality itself; nor must we ascribe direct objectivity to the form they take. But to say that they are mere invention would be nonsense. Revelations from the spiritual world did indeed come to the Maid of Orleans, revelations which in the sixth culture-epoch — and not und] then — man will be able to see in the form in which they should be seen in the Post-Atlantean epoch. But although the Maid of Orleans did not see this true form, it did come down towards her. She brought the religious conceptions of her day to meet these revelations, clothed them as it were in this imagery; her world of mental images was evoked by the spiritual Power. The revelation is therefore to be regarded as objective. Even if in our time someone can show that subjective elements make their way into a revelation from the spiritual world, even if we cannot regard the actual picture which the Person in question forms for himself as objective, even if it is only a veil — we must not for that reason assert that the objective revelations themselves are veils. They are objective; but their content is conjured forth from the soul. We must distinguish between the objectivity of that content and the objectivity of the facts which come from the spiritual world. — I am obliged to stress this point because in this domain mistakes are made by those who acknowledge the reality of the spiritual world as well as by our opponents — contrasting mistakes, it is true, but of very common occurrence.
The Maid of Orleans is therefore a personality already working entirely in the spirit of our own epoch, when everything that we can produce on the foundation of our outer impressions must be directed upward to the spiritual.
But what does this mean when we apply it to our own culture and civilisation?
It means this. — We may direct our attention, naïvely to begin with, to our environment, but if we stop at that, if we have eyes for the outer impressions only, then we are not fulfilling our bounden obligation. We fulfil it only when we are conscious that these impressions must be related to the spiritual Powers behind them. When we pursue science in the manner of academic scholarship, we are not fulfilling our obligation. We must regard everything that we can learn about the laws of natural phenomena and the laws of the manifestations of the life of soul as though it were a language which is to lead us to a revelation of the divine-spiritual. When we are conscious that all physical, chemical, biological, physiological, psychological laws must be related to something spiritual that is revealing itself to us, then we are fulfilling our obligation.
So it is in respect of the sciences of our time and so it is in respect of art.

1913-03-05-GA152

(not on rsarchive, extract freely translated)

In the period of 800 BC until our times, humanity consumes the last herited divine forces. Then a null-point takes place with the MoG, and it works into humanity. The stimulating powers of the Christ Impulse worked differently in the period after MoG, coming from different planes or worlds of consciousness.
Sketching this we can first consider the period of the first 800 years after Christ. In this period these powers worked from the higher spirit world. Human intelligence failed to understand (gnosis) the Christ Impulse as it worked in human facts and occurences (re Maxentius and Constantin). We still see a final stage and transition of this period with the work of Scotus Erigena around 850. In his system of thought, the Christ impuls is still working as a force radiating from the higher spirit world into the physical world.

In the period between 800 to 1600 AD, this impuls works from the lower spirit world into the physical world. People look to approach their souls to the Christ Impulse with and in various forms and presentations. Thought shows itself to be inappropriate and all considerations unfruitful. Neither the crusades nor all attempts to prove God succeed in bringing about an inner lively connection of the soul. At the transition to the next period stands the Maid of Orleans. Her soul experience reveals the Christ Impulse from the spirit world, and it is in this name she intervenes in shaping human history.

The spiritual influence working from the higher spirit world gets lost in Man ever more. These forces become ever weaker, and the impulse now works from about 1600 into our times only from the astral world. In this period theology becomes ever more learned and abstract. The cosmic divine being of Christ is replaced slowly by the 'simple man of Nazareth'. Still, our time would have fallen into materialism a great deal more, and penetrated from this antichristian impuls even more, if it were not for the influence of the Christ Impulse in special ways from the astral world. In the 15th and 16th centuries strange stories appeared everywhere, that spread across the western world. Across the most varied places in all countries of Europe, Man appeared: very poorly clothed, calloused feet, very long hair .. that told the story that they where there when the Mystery of Golgotha appeared, and they had seen the Christ walk the Earth. However, as he passed their house, they had not shown respect or reverence but had insulted and scorned him. That is why since they had to go around without any rest or further development, as repentance. This is referred to as the 'eternal [or wandering] jew'. These men told their stories as from memory. They were taken up by people everywhere, were received by bishops and prelates. In these men an insight into the akasha chronicle lives, and these men could not do otherwise, then through their whole way of living, appear so as to witness the Christ event. Their other consciousness was clouded, but through the Impulse from the astral world they could have this view from experience. Through this, these men were saved from the antichristianity and materialism that was grabbing hold of humanity.

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

In this way, we see how the working of the Christ Impulse, rolling off in periods from 800 to 800 years, is related to the impulses from the spiritual world.
[reference to Steiner's books about the evolution of human 'I' consciousness in the same period]
[then follows the description of the nature of living thought for an understanding of the Christ - see Enlivened images and Christ Module 15 - Study of Spiritual Science and the Mystery of Golgotha

1914-01-02-GA149

[Sibyls - section added because Steiner describes the Maid of Orleans as transformation into modern sibyl]
Now let us try again to get our bearings with regard to developments that have taken their course below the surface of soul-life.
Yesterday we said that the force which emerged in the Sibyls had to be moderated; it had to be permeated by the Christ Impulse; and in this moderated form it had to reappear, so that it might become the bearer of spiritual culture in later times. Now let us ask: Was Parsifal — as Chrestien de Troyes calls him — able to perceive in himself something of the Christ Impulse at work in the depths of his soul?
If we look back once more at the primal character of the ancient Hebrew geology, one thing strikes us again and again. We shall grasp the spirit of this ancient Hebrew geology only if we realise that the whole of Hebrew antiquity tried with all its might to hold fast to the geological character of its revelations. I have shown how these revelations must be looked for, and can everywhere be traced, in the activities and spiritual mobility of the Earth. The Hebrew endeavour was to keep at bay the elemental activities that derive from the stars and served to stimulate spiritually the power of the Sibyls. The influence of the stars was justified in the astrology of the third Postatlantean age, for humanity then retained so much of the old ancestral spirituality that when men devoted their souls to the elements, they absorbed a good influence from the stars.
During the fourth Postatlantean age, the power of the stars receded in face of the elements which surround the Earth in the atmosphere and everywhere else. The influx of the elements was felt in such a way that anyone who understood the spirit of the age, especially as the fourth epoch advanced further and further, was constrained to say to himself: “Let us guard ourselves against the influence that plays into the elements from the stars: it produces something like the unlawful Sibylline forces.”
Through the Christ Impulse having poured itself out into the Earth's aura, the Sibylline forces were to be harmonised and rendered capable of again yielding lawful revelations. Never willingly did the true initiate of Hebrew antiquity look to the stars when he wished for a revelation of the spirit. He had vowed himself to the Jahve-god who belongs to the evolution of the Earth and (as I have shown in Occult Science) had become a moon god only in order to help the Earth forward.
In the moon festivals of the Jews it was made clear that the ‘Lord of the Earth’ shines down symbolically in his reflection from the moon. “But go no further” — that was the warning given by old Hebrew tradition to the pupil — “Go no further! Be content with what Jahve reveals in his moon symbol — go no further! The time has not yet come for drawing out of the elements anything more than is expressed in the moon symbol. Anything more would belong to the unlawful Sibylline forces.”
When all that has come over into Earth evolution from the Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon periods is grasped in its natural aspect, then we find it symbolised in the old Hebrew tradition through Eve. Eve - the vowels are never clearly pronounced! Add to it the sign for the divine Being of Hebrew antiquity who is the Ruler of Earth-history, and we have a form which is quite as valid as any other - Jehve-Jahve, the ruler of the Earth who has his symbol in the moon. If we bring this into conjunction with what has come over from the Moon period and with its outcome for Earth evolution, we have the Ruler of the Earth united with the Earth Mother, whose powers are a result of the Moon period ... Jahve! Hence out of Hebrew antiquity there emerges this mysterious connection of the Moon forces, which have left their remains in the moon known to astronomy and their human forces in the female element in human life. The connection of the Ruler of the Earth with the Moon Mother is given to us in the name Jahve. Now I should like to bring before you two facts which will perhaps indicate how, under the influence of the Christ Impulse, the Sibylline forces have been transformed in the subconscious depths of soul-life. [Maid of Orleans]
I want to touch on a manifestation to which I called attention three years ago — three years almost to the day — the transformation of a Sibyl under the influence of the Christ Impulse.
In the lectures printed under the title of 'Occult History: Personalities and Events in the Light of Spiritual Science' (GA126). I referred to the appearance of the Maid of Orleans. I pointed out how events of the greatest importance for the destiny of Europe in the subsequent era flowed from what the Maid of Orleans accomplished under the influence of her inspirations, fully permeated by the Christ Impulse, beginning in the autumn of 1428. From external history one can indeed learn that the destiny of Europe would have been very different if the Maid of Orleans had not appeared when she did, and only an entirely obsessed materialist, such as Anatole France, can deny that something mysterious came into history at that time.
I will not repeat here what can be read in history books; anyone who has listened to these lectures can see that something like a modern Sibyl emerged in the Maid of Orleans. It was the time — the fifteenth century — when the fifth post-Atlantean epoch begins; a time when the Christ Impulse had to emerge more and more from the subconscious depths of the soul. We can see in what a gentle, tender form, imbued with the noblest qualities of the human soul, the Sibylline power of the Maid of Orleans is revealed. I would like to take this opportunity of reading to you a letter written by a man who lived through these events, for it shows what an impression the Sibylline power of the Maid of Orleans made on those who had a heart and feeling for it. He was a man in the entourage of the King whom the Maid of Orleans liberated. After describing her achievements, he writes:
“This and much more has the Maid brought about, and with God's help she will accomplish still greater things. The girl is of appealing beauty and manly bearing; she speaks little and shows remarkable sagacity; when she speaks she has a pleasing, delicately feminine voice. She eats little and abstains from wine. She takes pleasure in fine horses and weapons and admires well-accoutered and noble men. To be obliged to meet and converse with large numbers of people is abhorrent to her; her tears often overflow; she loves a happy face, endures unheard of toil, and is so assiduous in the manipulation and bearing of weapons that she remains uninterruptedly for six days — day and night — in full armour. She says that the English have no right to France, and therefore — as she says — God has sent her to drive them out and conquer them, but only after previous warning. For the King she shows the deepest veneration; she says he is beloved by God, is under special protection, and will therefore be preserved. Of the Duke of Orleans, your nephew, she says that he will be delivered in a miraculous way, but only after a demand for his release has been made to the English who hold him prisoner.
With that, revered Duke, I bring my report to a conclusion. Still more wonderful things are happening and have happened than I can write of or describe to you in words. While I write this, the aforesaid Maid has already gone to the neighbourhood of the city of Rheims in Champagne, whither the King has hastily set off for his anointing and crowning under God's protection. Most respected and powerful Duke and greatly honoured master! I commend myself to you in all humility, while praying the Almighty to protect you and fulfil your desires. Written at Biteromis, the 21st day of June (in the year 1429).

1915-01-30-GA161

[Maid of Orleans and Olaf Asteson]
Where, then, did the Christ-Impulse really appear, in an important historic moment?
This, too, I have often indicated. In a peculiar kind of vision, the Christ-Impulse manifested itself in a shepherd maid — the Maid of Orleans. We must know what this signifies. It represents a kind of helping hand, held out by the super-sensible, the spiritual forces that worked into the feeling of man at a time when they could not yet work into human concepts. In Joan of Arc it is particularly interesting to see how this happened. Her inner being was opened, as it were. But it was not that part of her inner life which was bound to the physical body. It was the perception of her ethereal and astral being that was spiritually opened, so much so that we find in her case a true analogy to the events of Initiation.
Recently, you will remember, at an appropriate season we spoke of the story of Olaf Asteson, who slept through the days after Christmas and did not reawaken until the day of the Three Kings, the 6th of January. In this connection we remarked, that in the season when the outer physical rays of the Sun have the least power, the spiritual power enveloping the Earth is greatest. Therefore the Christmas Festival is rightly placed in the season when the darkness is physically greatest.
Then it is that illumination comes over the soul that is capable of illumination. Therefore, the legend tells, it was just in this season that Olaf Asteson attuned his inner life of soul, so that it was taken hold of by those forces which as spiritual light pass from the Sun into the aura of the Earth, at the time when the outer forces of the Sun are weakest. Until the 6th of January he really underwent an entry into the spiritual world.
The soul of the Maid of Orleans had to be kindled for a great historic mission. There had to be present in her soul the impulses that surge and weave their way throughout the world with the Christ-Impulse. They had to be there in her soul.
How should they enter her?
They could indeed have entered her, if at some time in her life she had undergone an experience similar to that of Olaf Asteson; if she had slept for the thirteen days after Christmas and had awakened on the 6th of January. And so indeed it was. Though she did not do so in the way of Olaf Asteson, still in a certain sense she underwent in sleep this time which is so favourable to Initiation. She underwent it in the last thirteen days of her embryonal life. She was borne by her mother, so as to pass through the Christmas season in the body of her mother in the last thirteen days of her embryo life. For she was born on the 6th January. That is the birthday of Joan of Arc. Thus she passed through the very time in which the spiritual forces weave and work most strongly in the Earth's aura.
Therefore we need not wonder, if even outer documents relate that on that 6 January 1412, the villagers ran hither and thither, feeling that something momentous had happened, — though what it was that happened on that 6th of January they did not know until a later time, when the Maid of Orleans fulfilled her mission. For one who penetrates into the spiritual facts, it is of great significance to find it recorded in our calendar of births that Joan of Arc was born on the 6th January.

1915-03-13-GA159

Now we may imagine what it means, actually, if such efforts are expected from the fifth culture-epoch. Let us put before our souls the way how the Christ Impulse has worked since the Mystery of Golgotha in humankind. If the Christ Impulse could have worked only by that what the human beings understood about this Christ Impulse in the course of the centuries, since the Mystery of Golgotha has taken place, then the Christ Impulse could have worked only a little among the human beings. But it is not such an impulse which has spoken only conceptually to the human understanding or to the feeling understanding, but it is a real impulse which flowed into the course of history with living forces. The external symbol of the blood flowing on Golgotha represents the living force flowing into the history of humankind.
We will try to get clear in our mind with the help of a historical event in which way this Christ Impulse has worked, without being understood already by human beings, in which way it has worked as a living driving force in the evolution of humankind. The fifth post-Atlantean culture-epoch has a vocation to make conscious the whole internal nature and being of the Christ Impulse. But that has already worked as a living force in the subconscious soul forces, before it became fully conscious in humankind. One of those figures the Christ Impulse selected to work through them, to work something significant is, for example — one could still give others — the figure of the Maid of Orleans. If we pursue the history of Europe up to the event that is connected with the personality of the Maid of Orleans, we must say, even if we look only externally at history: with that what she accomplished in those days when she struck back the English, in the midst of the French people rising up, — she did that really, — the map of Europe was arranged as it was just arranged gradually. Any other historical consideration is basically a fairy tale for the last centuries, in so far as it concerns the distribution of nations and states in Europe. It is something unconscious that the Christ Impulse as a living impulse with the help of the Maid of Orleans caused the distribution of the European nations and national forces in those days.
I may say: while the learnt people argued about a lot, already started to argue about the question whether one has to take the Communion in this or that form whether this or that has to be interpreted according to this or that formula, and while the learnt people showed that they were not yet able to comprehend the Christ Impulse, this impulse worked through the simple farmer girl, the Maid of Orleans, worked as a formative force in European history.
Because the effect of the Christ Impulse is just not dependent on the understanding which somebody shows for it. By his Michaelic representative the Christ Impulse worked in the Maid of Orleans. Now, however, the Maid of Orleans had to go through something that is similar to an initiation. We talk of initiation today and give the rules to the consciousness of the human being which I have collated in my book 'How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds'? But such an initiation of the Maid of Orleans is out of the question, of course. You can only talk about an initiation which was as it were a relic of the ancient initiation which took place more in the subconscious soul forces of the human beings. Now just these ancient initiations have reproduced like elementary forces up to the modern time. In old legends and fairy tales a lot is told: that this or that happened to this or that person by which he got the internal soul-force. That is why he has seen this or that of the spiritual world. Such matters should be only an indication of it, like without any help of the human being, by the effect of divine-spiritual forces permeating the world, certain human beings, who are suitable for that because of their karma, are natural initiates, by the place on which they are put by karma where the karma of humankind flows together with the personal karma.

1915-05-13-GA159

[Maid of Orleans]
From the most different sides one can show how in the subsoil of the consciousness that works which appears externally. I want to point, although most of the friends already know this example, once again to the fact that the whole map of Europe was determined towards the end of the Middle Ages by the Maid of Orleans who intervened in the war between England and France. Everybody who looks understanding at our external history has to recognise that the map of Europe would have turned out quite differently if at that time England had not been defeated by France because the Maid of Orleans intervened in the fight. But the Maid of Orleans was not a qualified strategist; she was no one who stood at the summit of education. She was a simple human child — a farmer girl. But the spirits of the higher hierarchies worked through her in the way as they had to work in this time. It has been absolutely necessary up to our time that these spirits worked in the subconscious because the human beings could not yet understand what must now be understood spiritual-scientifically.
The intervention of spiritual beings in the subconsciousness is often nicely expressed in legends. And rightly, not because of superstition, but because it really corresponds to facts, one set particular store by the time when the external world has withdrawn mostly from the year, the time from Christmas up to the sixth January. If one does not want to attain spiritual knowledge in the way, as we do today using the instructions given in How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, but in a more elementary way, one could be inspired in these thirteen nights. This is expressed, for example, very nicely in the Norwegian legend of Olaf Åsteson. This legend relates that Olaf Åsteson goes to the church before Christmas; that he falls asleep before the church and sleeps during thirteen nights. He wakes up at the Epiphany day and is really able to tell his experience. What he tells there figuratively in a clear, but primitive way corresponds to that we call the passage through the soul-world and the passage through the spirit-land. Olaf Åsteson experienced that in the time in which Christmas was rightly put. This makes it clear to us that the clairvoyance of a nature child could be developed best of all during these thirteen nights from Christmas till Epiphany.
Because the Maid of Orleans was such a nature child, one could assume that she would have experienced the world in these thirteen nights in a sort of dreamy state of which she spoke when she led the French army against the English that she would have been inspired in these thirteen nights. This happened in a peculiar way. Every human being experiences a sleeping state, a state when the senses do not yet speak, namely in the body of the mother, before he sees the physical earth light. This is still a kind of sleeping state, and the ripest state is that during the last thirteen days before birth. This is the great thing and fills our souls with such amazement: the Maid of Orleans is born on the sixth January. She went through the inspiration actually in the thirteen nights, but before she opened her eyes to the earth light. That is why the sixth January is noted as the birthday of the Maid of Orleans intentionally in our calendar. We have to understand that in its big world-historical connection; since it can say to us how mysterious the connections are in the world and how mysterious forces work in the world. Mysterious powers worked in those days on the sixth January, because people gathered in the little village where the Maid of Orleans was born in the morning; where the animals themselves behaved so wonderfully. On this sixth January, an inspiration could be finished. In thirteen nights a being could be inspired which was disposed by its own karma. Of course, not everybody who is born on the sixth January is disposed, but karma has to coincide with the other conditions.
I wanted to give this example of the Maid of Orleans which shows us so surely how subterranean powers intervene in the historical development. Indeed, the materialistic development of the following centuries came then. It is completely comprehensible that this had to consider such tips to historical backgrounds as insanity. This does not harm; even it does not harm at all if today people still look at this spiritual science like insanity. This spiritual science will be accepted finally.
...
[Maxentius vs Constantine]
I have sometimes given another example: when at a determining hour the army of Constantine marched against Rome, these were not also the generals who brought about the victory and defeated the five times stronger army of Maxentius who led his armies before the gates of Rome against Constantine. Constantine followed not his generals, but a dream that said to him, he should make his armies carry the monogram of Christ. Dreams and Sibylline oracles brought the armies together at a particular place and decided everything in those days. However, because Constantine was victorious, the map of Europe got its corresponding appearance. Who steered the events in those days taking place under the threshold of consciousness? It was the Christ Impulse, but the Christ Impulse, as it was real, not as human beings understood it.
We do not get to know the Christ Impulse listening to the squabbling of the theologians. The Christ Impulse did not work in that which the human beings accomplished consciously which the human beings understood; but it worked in joining together the events with Constantine and Maxentius, and later again with the Maid of Orleans. Also in this time one experiences something, even in little facts. You can compare the little thing with the big one sometimes.

1915-05-18-GA159

[Maxentius vs Constantine]
You will remember an important event from history when Constantine, son of Constantius Chlorus, defeated Maxentius and thus introduced Christianity externally into the mainstream of Western civilization. Constantine had to fight that important battle against Maxentius so that he could establish Christianity in his western empire as the official religion. Had this battle not taken place as it did, the entire map of Europe would have been different.
But this battle really was not decided by military skill, that is, not by the intellectual prowess available to people in those days, but by something entirely different.

Maxentius consulted the so-called Sibylline Books, the prophetic oracles of Rome, which guided him into leading his army out of the assured safety of Rome's walls into the open field, in order to confront Constantine's army.

Constantine, on the other hand, had a dream before the battle in which he was told, “If you approach Maxentius under the banner of the Mystery of Golgotha you will reach a great objective!” Indeed, Constantine carried the symbol of the Mystery of Golgotha — the cross — when he led his forces into battle, even though his army was three-fourths smaller than that of Maxentius.

Enthused by the power emanating from the Mystery of Golgotha, Constantine won that historical battle resulting in the external introduction of Christianity to Europe.
When we realize the extent to which people in those days understood the Christ impulse purely by intellectual means, it is not surprising to find that there ensued an endless theological quarrel. People argued whether or not Christ was consubstantial with the Lord in all eternity, and so on. Let us say this, that the degree of knowledge of the Christ impulse available to human beings in those days is not important, but rather the fact that the Christ impulse was present and that through his dream it guided Constantine to bring about what had to happen. What is important is the actuality of the Christ and His real and visibly active power. Only in the science of the spirit do we begin to understand what the Christ impulse is.
[Maid of Orleans]
Another historical event was the struggle between France and England. It changed the map of Europe in such a way that we can say that if France had not been victorious over England, all conditions and relationships would have become different.
But how did this victory happen?
It happened because the Christ impulse has worked itself into the subconscious of the soul up to the present time, when it is increasingly becoming a conscious force. So we can see in the evolution of the Western spirit how the Christ impulse seeks out in the souls of men those conditions by which it can become effective in some individuals. Legends have preserved for us the manner in which the Christ impulse can assert itself within the Western spiritual tradition. In part, these legends refer generally to ancient pagan ages, but they take us back to those heathen times in which an understanding of Christianity was beginning to germinate.

1915-11-01-GA254

is titled 'The Ashaver mystery'

The Mystery of Golgotha and the Christ Principle are intimately connected with the need to see spiritual reality in the world. Mere looking will never suffice even to understand the Mystery of Golgotha purely as an historical event.
The Mystery of Golgotha must be comprehended spiritually; and those who devote themselves to knowledge where everything is derived from outside and will not open their eyes to the new revelations of the Mystery of Golgotha which can ever and again flow to us, will not grasp the import of a poem sung by yet another voice in the middle of the 19th century concerning that which — ever changing yet ever present — holds good in earthly humanity since the Mystery of Golgotha. Let me read you a section of this poem which describes how one who cannot grasp the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha confronts this Mystery:
[Dr. Steiner now read part of the poem on Ahasver, or Ahasueris, the Wandering Jew, by Julius Mosen]
Here is another example of how a human soul feels impelled to give expression to what has come to pass. And now that we have let these pictures pass through our souls, let me remind you of something that I have already said here: that we must change our mode of perception if we are to look with true vision into the spiritual world. We must not believe that the spiritual world can be seen as we see the material world of sense. We must even accustom ourselves to different modes of expression. In the physical world we see trees, rivers, mountains. But of spiritual being we must say: they see us, they perceive us. To understand the Mystery of Golgotha truly, it is necessary to know this, because the Mystery of Golgotha can be understood only in the spiritual. But that is how we aspire to understand it.
The time must come when through a true understanding of the words “Not I, but Christ in me,” it will be possible to rise into the spiritual worlds with the right knowledge.
This epic poem “Ahasver” by Julius Mosen was published in the year 1838, and the fact that he was able to put the legend into such a form also indicates that the tragic destiny by which Mosen was overtaken profoundly affected him. He was bedridden nearly all his life, for his physical body was almost totally paralysed; this was precisely what enabled him to grasp such lofty ideas. We are reminded of the sinner in the novel “The Mahaguru” who, when he was already out of his mind, discovered the true nature of his art; and we are reminded, too, of the Count's wife in the Polish drama, who had to fall into a pathological state in order to find the connection with the spiritual world. It is the task of spiritual science today to help human beings to rise into the spiritual world in the healthy, normal state of consciousness. — All these things are signs of the task and of the value to be attached to the task of the spiritual-scientific movement. Compressed into a few brief words, this is the truth that can inspire us as a source of strength:
“The Mystery of Golgotha itself reveals that it must be understood spiritually, that we must seek for Christ as Spirit.”
And then we must also say: “Christ is seeing us, Christ is perceiving us.”
We will inscribe this deeply in our hearts, keep it constantly in our minds, and our conscience must be satisfied when, in presenting our spiritual-scientific knowledge, we are saying with inner sincerity: May Christ be a witness of what we promulgate as Spiritual Science. We believe that this may indeed be so - and it can inspire us as men were once inspired by the cry of Bernard of Clairvaux: “It is God's Will!” These words became deeds. May it be the same among us, for we may believe that we understand Christ truly when we live under the inspiration of the words: Christ knows us. And if you understand it aright, to a soul that sees our spiritual science in the true light, to a heart that feels it in its true light, I can impart no more esoteric saying than this: Christ is seeing us.
May these words live in our souls: “Christ is seeing us” - for so we may believe if we rightly understand spiritual science. Christ is seeing us.

1916-03-28-GA167

Now, at the beginning of the 15h century something was threatening. What threatened to arise was a kind of confusion; the purely physical striving of the Britishdom threatened to be confused with a much more spiritual life, with a spiritual life which was fructified from ancient times. This took place when English dominion crossed over the channel into France.
The fact that a real separation occurred was effected from the spiritual world through the appearance of Joan of Arc who precisely from the spiritual world itself had to create order in the beginning of the 15th century.
The whole of external Western Europe depends, as we have said before, on this appearance of Joan of Arc.
At that time there was a complete separation between the French nature and the British nature.
This British being originally arose from the Angles and Saxons who had the occult sagas of Hengis and Horsa when they migrated over towards the British Isles. Now, at the time of Joan of Arc, this Anglo-Saxon layer was ruled by the Norman-Roman element and formed a lower caste. That particular British beingness which today is the superior, only happened since the 17th century, at the time when the French element was still working, and the Anglo-Saxons were the lower layer and the French spirit was the aristocratic spirit. They despised everything coming from the Angles and Saxons. For example, there was a very common expression in the 10th, 11th, 12th centuries used as a curse by the aristocracy still living in France in whom there still lived French Normanhood which went as follows: “God damn me to become an Englander”. This curse was often heard. You were not supposed to be an Englander if you wanted to be well regarded. However, this thing changed fundamentally after the separation occurred through Joan of Arc and then the Englander aspect began to develop.
There are many different processes playing about here and it would take too much time if I were to describe them completely, but deep spiritual forces held sway behind the civil war of the Red and the White Roses. But the important thing is that in the beginning of the 17th century, a certain soul incarnated in the British kingdom who did not work in a very significant way externally, but worked further and in a very stimulating way. This person incarnated in a British body in whom there was more French and Scottish blood working together and very little British blood. There actually proceeded from this soul that which gave the impulse not only for the external British spiritual life but also to the occult British life. Naturally there were certain intermediate processes which if described would cause us to go far off our theme which also formed this occult British spiritual life .

Discussion

Note 1 - Influences of the Christ Impulse in wars

Rudolf Steiner repeats two examples of 312 and 1429, rather than giving additional or more other illustrations. See also Wars.

1.1 - Battle of the Milvian bridge between Constantine and Maxentius (312)

decive because the victory of Constantine ended the persecutian of the Christians and established Christianity

1.1 - Joan of Arc

The fact that there is divine guidance does not mean one stands above earthly affairs as untoucheable or invincible. Joan of Arc's intervention was historically decisive, but she did not succeed in all endevours and was captured and executed.

Extract from wikipedia

By 1428, the English were laying siege to Orléans, one of the most heavily defended cities in Europe, with more cannons than the French. However one of the French cannons managed to kill the English commander, the Earl of Salisbury. The English force maintained several small fortresses around the city, concentrated in areas where the French could move supplies into the city. In 1429, Joan of Arc convinced the Dauphin to send her to the siege, saying she had received visions from God telling her to drive out the English. She raised the morale of the local troops and they attacked the English redoubts, forcing the English to lift the siege. At the same time, the French king had updated and enhanced his army and took advantage of the lack of common goal between allies. Inspired by Joan, the French took several English strong points on the Loire and then broke through English archers at Patay commanded by John Fastolf and John Talbot. This victory helped Joan to convince the Dauphin to march to Reims for his coronation as Charles VII. Although a number of other cities were opened to Charles in the march to Reims and after, Joan never managed to capture Paris, equally well defended as Orléans. She was captured during the siege of Compiègne by English allies, the Burgundian faction. Joan was transferred to the English, tried by an ecclesiastic court headed by the pro-English Pierre Cauchon, and executed.

Related pages

References and further reading

Maid of Orleans

Charlotte Blennerhassett: 'Die jungfrau von Orleans' (1905)
M.J. Krück von Poturzyn: Die Sendung des Mädchens Jeanne d'Arc' (1961) (also in NL 1963 as 'Jeanne d'Arc, de maagd van Orléans')
Helmut von Kügelgen:
- 'Das Mädchen Johanna : szenische Bilder aus ihren Erdenwirken'
- Christuswirken in Menschentaten : Rudolf Steiner über die Jungfrau von Orléans. Vom französischen und deutschen Volksgeist : Michael und die Aufgabe Johannas in einer Zeitenwende' (1975)
Friedrich Oberkogler: 'Friedrich Schiller : Die Jungfrau von Orleans ; eine Werkinterpretation auf geisteswissenschaftlicher Grundlage' (1986)
Joan M. Edmunds: 'The mission of Joan of Arc' (2008)

Ahasver, or the Wandering Jew

Robert Hamerling: 'Ahasver in Rom : eine Dichtung in sechs Gesängen : mit einem Epilog an die Kritiker' (1866)
Thomas Meyer: 'Der stümperhafte Gott. Ahasver und seine Spur in der Weltgeschichte' (2018)