Baptism of a Modern Initiate

Greetings dear friends on this anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s Baptism on 27 February in 1861 –

I have been pondering the mysterious Birth of Rudolf Steiner for quite a while. Last year a group of us held a 3 day vigil from 25-27 February to live into this mystery. Many folks argue that we should celebrate Steiner’s birthday on the 27th of February, his Baptism day. Steiner himself names the 27th as his date of birth in his autobiography.

When we think of the connection with the Christ impulse, we can compare the powerful working that happens in the 3 day vigil between Good Friday & Easter Sunday, with the birth of Steiner who was given up for dead at his birth – We can also see a link with how the Cosmic Christ entered into the vessel of Jesus of Nazareth at the Baptism –

Maybe Steiner’s entelechy needed the Baptism rite to fully commit to incarnation…?

On a mundane level, I have also thought, well maybe Steiner simply names his birth date as 27 February because that is what his official papers say – Or then again, perhaps it’s because by not divulging his true birth date he thought it might afford him protection against the adversarial agencies that could use the cosmic information in his natal chart to thwart his mission..?

Those who can read a person’s destiny written in the stars, are able to use those impulses for their own purposes – for or againist that person…

But then this year, because I work deeply with Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul, where we can see the connections between cosmic & earthly historical events, as well as birth & death dates of influential human beings who have shaped our evolution – last night it occurred to me:

27 February is a very auspicious day – perhaps Steiner uses this date for his birthday as a pointer & to a great mystery:

27 February is the death day of Mani (277) – the highest initiate; who “According to Rudolf Steiner, the Young Man of Nain, the son of a widow, whom Christ Jesus raised from the dead, became Mani, the founder of Manicheism, in his following incarnation, and will become the Maitreya Buddha in time to come…” to guide humanity thru Christic love to redeem evil… (from a recorded conversation with Christian Community priests Walter Klein and Emil Bock in 1924)

AND today is also the death day of Comte de St. Germain (1784), an incarnation of Christian Rosenkreuz, whose ‘tomb is opened every 100 years’ allowing the secret teachings of our highest evolution to be revealed so that they can become manifest in the world…

Could Steiner be revealing to us his profound connection with these 2 great servants of humanity?

It is true that those whose death day is the same as our birthday become our co-workers & mentors during that life.

Is that why he put 27 February as his birth date in his autobiography…?

Ever pondering

~hag

27 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Waxing Bella Luna shines just a degree or two from Mars tonight, as shown above. Watch their separation change hour by hour. The Moon occults Mars for parts of the Arctic. Spot the big, bright, equilateral Winter Triangle in the south-southeast. Sirius is its brightest and lowest star. Betelgeuse is above Sirius by about two fists at arm’s length. Left of them shines Procyon.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated with added titles by Roy Sadler

LENT II
Joy Will Arise
v47
From worldwide womb
will rise the joy of growth,
enlivening the senses’ glory:
and may it find my strength of thought
defended by the strength of God,
the living bedrock of my being.

It was Steiner’s birthday last Saturday, but his birthday verse was not last week’s or this one. In 1861 Easter was early on March 31st. He was born on the day of the full moon in the week of v48, a very special birthday verse as I shall explain next week.
This is a quote from Eleanor Merry in her Calendar of the Soul Commentary, relevant to both v47 & 48, “When our thinking can unite with the light of the Sun, it becomes creative for the future. And when we can be quickened within by the same powers that quicken the outer world into life, then will joy infill our deeds, and they will be in harmony with the deeds of Cosmic Beings.

This is this week’s mirror verse.
ASCENSION
The Risen Self
v6
Arisen from my own persona
my real self appears
as revelation of the spheres
that in the powers of time and space
the world is showing me as paradigm
that is divine and everywhere portrays
the image in whose mirror I come true.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

(Interesting to note those who share a birthday with Steiner’s Baptism day: Constantine the Great, St. John Chrysostom, Mozart, Friedrich Schelling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Giuseppe Verdi – see below)

Constantine from BL Royal 19 E VI, f. 202 - PICRYL Public Domain Image

272 – Birthday of Constantine the Great, Roman emperor

File:John Chrysostom, St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church, Dayton,  Ohio.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

407 – Deathday of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his preaching & public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical & political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, & his ascetic sensibilities. The epithet Χρυσόστομος (Chrysostomos, anglicized as Chrysostom) means “golden-mouthed” in Greek & denotes his celebrated eloquence. Chrysostom was among the most prolific authors in the early Christian Church exceeded only by Augustine in the quantity of his surviving writings. John was born in Antioch in 349 to Greco-Syrian parents. His mother Anthusa as a pagan & his father was a high-ranking military officer. John’s father died soon after his birth & he was raised by his mother. As a result of his mother’s influential connections in the city, John began his education under the pagan teacher Libanius. From Libanius, John acquired the skills for a career in rhetoric, as well as a love of the Greek language & literature.

A late medieval legend relates that, when John Chrysostom was a hermit in the desert, he was approached by a royal princess in distress. The Saint, thinking she was a demon, at first refused to help her, but the princess convinced him that she was a Christian & would be devoured by wild beasts if she were not allowed to enter his cave. He therefore admitted her, carefully dividing the cave in two parts, one for each of them. In the morning she had given birth to a child she claimed was his. He then went to Rome to beg absolution, which was refused. Chrysostom made a vow that he would never rise from the ground until his sins were expiated, & for years he lived like a beast, crawling on all fours & feeding on wild grasses & roots. One day the princess reappeared, suckling the saint’s baby, who miraculously pronounced his sins forgiven. This last scene was very popular from the late 15th century onwards as a subject for engravers & artists.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1777 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 177… | Flickr

1756 – Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in full Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. A prolific & influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard & violin, he composed from the age of 5 & performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless & traveled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security.

Mozart’s physical appearance described him as “a remarkably small man, very thin and pale, with a profusion of fine, fair hair of which he was rather vain, except for his large intense eyes, he gave no signs of his genius.” His facial complexion was pitted, a reminder of his childhood case of smallpox. He loved elegant clothing. Of his voice his wife later wrote that it “was a tenor, rather soft in speaking and delicate in singing, but when anything excited him, or it became necessary to exert it, it was both powerful and energetic”.

Mozart usually worked long & hard, finishing compositions at a tremendous pace as deadlines approached. He often made sketches & drafts; unlike Beethoven’s these are mostly not preserved, as his wife sought to destroy them after his death.

Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world, & knew a great number & variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, & aristocrats, including some acquaintance with the Emperor Joseph II. He enjoyed billiards & dancing, & kept pets: a canary, a starling, a dog, & a horse for recreational riding. He had a startling fondness for scatological humor, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, & in his correspondence with his sister & parents. Mozart also wrote scatological music, a series of canons that he sang with his friends.

During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, & operas, & portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze & two sons. He composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, & choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, & his influence is profound on subsequent Western art music.

Friedrich von Schelling – Store norske leksikon

1775 – Birthday of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him between Johann Gottlieb Fichte, his mentor in his early years, & Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, his former university roommate, early friend, & later rival. Some later philosophers such as Martin Heidegger & Slavoj Žižek have shown interest in re-examining Schelling’s body of work. Quotes:

“Nature is visible Spirit; Spirit is invisible Nature.” (Ideen, “Introduction”)

“History as a whole is a progressive, gradually self-disclosing revelation of the Absolute.” (System of Transcendental Idealism, 1800)

“Has creation a final goal? And if so, why was it not reached at once? Why was the consummation not realized from the beginning? To these questions there is but one answer: Because God is Life, and not merely Being.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

“Only he who has tasted freedom can feel the desire to make over everything in its image, to spread it throughout the whole universe.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

“As there is nothing before or outside of God he must contain within himself the ground of his existence. All philosophies say this, but they speak of this ground as a mere concept without making it something real and actual.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

“God then has no beginning only insofar as there is no beginning of his beginning. The beginning in God is eternal beginning, that is, such a one as was beginning from all eternity, and still is, and also never ceases to be beginning.” (Quoted in Hartshorne & Reese, Philosophers Speak of God, Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1953, p. 237.)

A Scientist's Mind, a Poet's Soul — The New Atlantis

1807 – Birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

File:Rudolf Steiner. .jpg - Wikimedia Commons

1861 – The emergency Baptism of Rudolf Steiner

Happy 200th, Giuseppe Verdi | Chicago Public Library

1901 – Deathday of Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi an Italian opera composer. Verdi was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, & developed a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera . In his early operas Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. An intensely private person, Verdi however did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements & as he became professionally successful was able to reduce his operatic workload & sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), & the operas Otello (1887) &Falstaff (1893). His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his ‘middle period’: Rigoletto, Il trovatore & La traviata.

1922 – A challenge to the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court

1939 – United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes violate property owners’ rights & are therefore illegal

2004 – The initial version of the John Jay Report, with details about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the United States, is released. The report determined that, during the period from 1950 to 2002, a total of 10,667 individuals had made allegations of child sexual abuse. Of these, the dioceses had been able to identify 6,700 unique accusations against 4,392 clergy over that period in the USA, which is about 4% of all 109,694 ordained clergy i.e. priests or deacons or members of religious orders, active in the USA during the time covered by the study. Roughly 4% of them were accused. However, of these 4392 accused, only 252 (5.7% of those accused or less than 0.1% of total clergy) were convicted. The number of alleged abuses increased in the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, declined in the 1980s, & by the 1990s had returned to the levels of the 1950s. In summary, over a 50-year period, out of more than 100,000 priests deacons & religious order clergy, 4,392 (~4.4%) were accused of sexual abuse, 252 (<0.26%) were convicted & 100 (<0.1%) sentenced to prison

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

32 thoughts on “Baptism of a Modern Initiate

  1. Hi Maverick,

    I was contemplating this recent comment of yours about colors, and the rainbow covenant, and your sense of sight class.

    https://reverseritual.com/baptism-of-a-modern-initiate/#comment-34661

    The flood that ended Atlantis can also be correlated to the recession of the great ice sheets, and the opening of the eye to a new world view. The Covenant of the Rainbow becomes an experience in the atmosphere of a world that now recognizes seasons and their variations.

    20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.

    22 “While the earth remains,
    Seedtime and harvest,
    And cold and heat,
    And summer and winter,
    And day and night
    Shall not cease.”

    1. Thanks Steve for the reminder of the covenant sign of the rainbow. Those great events have so much significance, if one has the time to look into them properly. Not many have been able to mine the depths of meaning in them in the same manner as Steiner did — he would have us notice every detail, and the richest gems seemed to be in the most minute details, and often in the most overlooked details. He was able to extract those for our benefit — just one of the many gifts he gave us. From his mentoring, others too carried on such insights. Emil Bock comes to mind as one who learned from Steiner, and you can probably think of others. Hazel too has a library full of them, I’m sure.

      1. I agree, many of the Christian Community Priests have really taken Anthroposophy in deeply, & people like Emil Bock are a good example of someone who was able to go further with Steiner’s insights.

        1. What drew my attention to the Covenant of the Rainbow is that when the flood began, Noah was 600 years old. When the flood ended, and it was possible to leave the Ark, Noah was 601 years old. In fact, it was the second month, on the 27th day, (February 27), that they exited the Ark to dry land again. Then, it says that Noah planted a vineyard and got drunk, and his youngest son, Ham, witnessed his nakedness, but his other two sons, Shem and Japheth, took care to put their father’s garment back on him without looking at his nakedness. Noah lives 350 more years and dies at the age of 950 years.

          https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+9&version=NASB1995

          So, what concerns me is how could Noah and Manu be one and the same? Manu, who is the Sun Oracle, and initiated the Primal Semites into Central Asia before the flood, seems unlikely to have taken on a human incarnation as the son of Lamech, which had completed the generations of Adam and Eve. From Genesis, chapter 5:

          28 Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son. 29 Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.” 30 Then Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters. 31 So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died.

          32 Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

          1. I know it’s easy for us to think that a great initiate doesn’t need to go thru trials of human experience. We like to think that once we achieve a high grade we just keep going up. I’m sure that in many cases this is true. But I also think that especially those that have not had much experience in the body often have to fall in a bit, look at Eaboni…But from what Steiner tells us in the Karmic Relationships lectures a human being goes up & down so as to have all experiences of being human…

            1. The mission of Gilgamesh wasn’t a failed mission as he returned to Uruk. He had gone westward in order to find the secret and truth of Immortality. And he found it in a little place in the Burgenland of Austria. Thus, the allusions to Rudolf Steiner, who crossed the frontier from Neudorfl, Hungary to Wiener-Neustadt, Austria over the seven years from 1872 to 1879. His father decided that he should attend a kind of Aristotelian-style school for his further education, and this was because he had shown so much interest for “all things mechanical and technological” since childhood.

              Now, for clarification, it is possible to show that Utnapishtim, as the Hierophant Priest of this little colony of the latter-day Hibernian Mysteries that Gilgamesh found, was actually Xiusthros, which translates as Zarathustra.

              When Gilgamesh received the modified initiation via the plant of renown, and knowing that he had a whole culture to serve, protect, and save, he was given this as a means to return to Uruk as an initiate. Yet, just before entering Uruk on his return, he found out that evil forces had been foisted on Uruk in his absence; the forces of Istar, the Babylonian goddess that ruled with synthetic-chemical forces. Thus, his anger caused him to have his initiation obliterated. It remained only as a memory, and this was enabled by Eabani, who had fully engaged the Hibernian Mystery. Thus, the Epic of Gilgamesh was born. Gilgamesh would build a circumferential wall around his beloved Uruk for the protection of his people. Eabani would write the Epic as a matter of Initiation Science. The loss becomes the gain in the overall scheme of things.

              Zeruane Akarene was broken into when Gilgamesh returned to Uruk with the modified initiation. His anger became the clarion call of the Epics, which refer to times of transition. His building the wall around Uruk was a spatial dimension. Eabani responded with the time dimension, which preserved the remembrance of the entire experience in going westward. The Mysteries first receive conscious recognition here.

              1. If you read the epic it says quite clearly that Utnapishtim or Xiusthros was the patriarch who servived the flood.
                Steiner in his commnetary names Utnapishtim or Xiusthros as Noah = Manu

              2. The commentary in World History in the Light of Anthroposophy says:

                “This is the Sumerian name Ziusudra used by Berossus, priest of Bel in Babylon, who wrote a history of Babylon and Chaldea in Greek around 280 B.C. based on the archives of the Temple in Babylon. In cuneiform script it is Utnapishtim.”

                https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA233/English/RSP1977/19231226d01.html

                There is no mention of Noah, or Manu. As previously indicated, Noah was 950 years old when he died, and Manu is known for initiating the Primal Semites from the region of present-day Ireland into the region of inner Asia, c. 9000 BC, when the Sun was in the sign of Leo, which culminated the last period of the Satya Yuga of Atlantis before the flood. The Epic of Gilgamesh can be traced to the beginning of the Third Cultural epoch, c. 2900 BC, which is two thousand years after Zarathustra became the leader of the Ancient Persian Cultural epoch, c. 5000 BC. At the midpoint of the 3rd Cultural epoch, Zarathustra’s two students reincarnated as Moses and Hermes Trismegistus, c. 1400 BC.

  2. Thank you for another wonderful conversation. Illuminating the complex relationships in the legacy of cosmic intelligence in human beings that has culminated in the wisdom of anthroposophy brought about through the ages is truly amazing to fathom.

  3. Dear Hazel, you write that Mani is the future Maitreya Buddha. Where did you get that from? I can’t find it in Rudolf Steiner. Such things are very serious after all. Please give sources if you write such things and they are not from Rudolf Steiner. There are, as we know, many claims and speculations from many sides. Often we do not know exactly what these authors want to say with their “findings”, what they aim at. So again the request to you, Hazel, give the sources for all statements about incarnations conscientiously.

    1. “According to Rudolf Steiner, the Young Man of Nain, the son of a widow, whom Christ Jesus raised from the dead, became Mani, the founder of Manicheism, in his following incarnation, and will become the Maitreya Buddha…” (from a recorded conversation with Christian Community priests Walter Klein and Emil Bock in 1924).

      1. “There are various kinds of Initiation. In one kind, immediately after the process has been completed, knowledge of the higher worlds flashes up in the aspirant and the laws and happenings of the spiritual world are revealed to him. In another kind of Initiation it is only a seed that is implanted into the soul, and the individual has to wait until the next incarnation for the seed to bear fruit; only then does he become an Initiate in the real sense.

        The Initiation of the young man of Nain was of this kind. His soul was transformed by the event in Palestine but he was not yet conscious of having risen into the higher worlds. It was not until his next incarnation that the forces laid in his soul at that earlier time came to fruition. In an exoteric lecture names cannot now be given; all that is possible is an indication to the effect that the Individuality awakened by Christ in the young man of Nain subsequently appeared as a great teacher of religion; in later time a new teacher of Christianity arose, equipped with the powers implanted into his soul in a previous incarnation.

        Thus Christ provided for the subsequent appearance of an Individuality able to bring Christianity to a further stage of development. Moreover the mission of the Individuality who had been awakened in the young man of Nain is destined to permeate Christianity later on, and to an ever-increasing extent, with the teachings of Karma and Reincarnation — teachings which when Christ was on Earth could not be proclaimed explicitly as wisdom, because the human soul had first to receive them into the life of feeling.”

        https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA114/English/RSP1964/19090926p01.html

        Could Mani’s teaching, Manichaeism, be considered a version of Christianity?

        1. Thank you for bringing in this very infomative quote. many clues here about the future.

          Yes, the renewal of Manichaeism That The Maitreya Buddha will bring is completely Christ centered – the proof that Love is all prevailing.

          1. “There is a fourth individuality named in history behind whom for those who have the proper comprehension, much lies hidden — an individuality still higher and more powerful than Skythianos, than Buddha or than Zarathustra. This individuality is Manes, and those who see more in Manichaeism than is usually the case know him to be a very high messenger of Christ. It is said that a few centuries after Christ had lived on the earth, there was held one of the greatest assemblies of the spiritual world connected with the earth that ever took place, and that there Manes gathered round him three mighty personalities of the fourth century after Christ.”

            https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA113/English/RSPC1940/19090831p01.html

              1. It is this lecture in particular that caused Rudolf Steiner to first perceive not one, but two Jesus boys. Thus, it forms the catalyst for the Gospel of Luke lectures, coming just days after this lecture was given on 31 August 1909. When Manes held the supersensible council in the 4th century, c. 333 AD, which was less than a hundred years after his own martyrdom on the site of the future Academy of Gondhishapur, he appeared in Avatar form as the Ego Bearer. Also appearing were: Zarathustra as the Astral Body Bearer; Gautama Buddha as the Etheric Body Bearer; and Scythianos as the Physical Body Bearer. Thus, the four Avatars meeting for the purpose of seeing what was needed for the future, after the destruction of the original Manichaean System of Spiritual Science. As such, they decided on reformulating the system along the lines of a more interior and secretive work, and called it: The System of the Rosy Cross. This was to protect it against the brutal treatment of its former incarnation, which had culminated with the torture and death of Manes over a period of 28 days, c. 277 AD.

                Manichaeism was an extremely important and influential religion, and the pinnacle of Gnostic Doctrine. Then, it was destroyed, “root and branch”. Why? Obviously, for the sake of orthodoxy, and the rule of authority. So, Mani had a nifty idea to go underground, and create a more secretive system in which Christianity would be nurtured as a natural consequence. And, it would last for some 1500 years, until Rudolf Steiner was called to crystallize it as Anthroposophical Spiritual Science. Remember, Manes initiated Christian Rosenkreutz, who is the reincarnated Lazarus.

              2. Yes, These are important connections.
                This is what lead me to beleive that Steiner had to almost die on 25 Feb. so that he could be Baptised on 27 Feb. the death day of Mani & St. G (CR)

              3. For Mani to be in the role of Avatar of the Ego would presuppose a very lofty Being, don’t you think? As the story goes, the young man of Nain was awakened and returned to his mother. His awakening was a seed-force for a future incarnation in which the initiation would become outwardly manifested.

                Could Manes be related to the Great Sun Oracle described here?

                https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA109/English/AP1986/19090121p01.html

                “The Principle of Spiritual Economy in Connection with Questions of Reincarnation: An Aspect of the Spiritual Guidance of Mankind”

              4. Hi Hazel, I can’t help but think of Noah, when you wrote: “Yes, Mani was the Great Sun Oracle who took the migrations North after the flood.”

                And then we have in GA94, VIII. Evolution of Man and Solar System:

                “Religious documents may be viewed from four aspects. 1) By taking them naïvely and literally. 2) From the standpoint of science which considers itself far cleverer than the authors of these documents. 3) From the standpoint of an allegorical-symbolic interpretation (which may be very clever, but is in many cases quite arbitrary). 4) From the occult standpoint, by taking the things described in the characteristic language of such documents again in their exact meaning, thus reaching again a literal understanding of the words. For example, Noah’s rainbow, it’s not a symbol, but it expresses the fact that a rainbow could only arise after the descent of Atlantis and the receding of the mists. There could be no rainbow in the ancient Atlantean epoch. Noah (“Bringer of Peace”) should be looked upon as the leader (the Manu) whose task was that of guiding the peoples out of the sinking Atlantis. It was at this moment that the rainbow first arose.”

                So we know that sunshine and rain will produce the effect of the rainbow – given there is someone to witness it. It is interesting that Steiner calls it ‘Noah’s Rainbow’… and also Noah as being looked upon as – The Manu (leader).

              5. Manu was also called Utnapishtim (Noah in the Bible) who served as a teacher to Gilgamesh (Wegman) after the death of Enkidu/Eabani (Steiner)

              6. Just to build on what you were saying about the rainbow Kyle, our study group was just looking at the sense of sight in our 12 Senses study last week, and we were talking about the purpose of color. We talked a bit about Goethe’s research into color. Someone said that the purpose of color was to remind us that we’re human beings (don’t know if it was Goethe, or Steiner, that said that) — by seeing things in color. Colors, Soesman said, reveal the inner nature of something. Perhaps one of the consequences of living in the mists of Atlantis was that we were losing our appreciation of ourselves as human beings; we were lowering ourselves to the realm of the animal kingdom maybe? It’s all part of the evolutionary process, till we’re where we’re at today — being consciousness souls, we’re reminded that we, humanity, are the “religion of the gods”, as Steiner said. Colors, and the rainbow, remind us of how special we are to them — “It’s a wonderful life.”

              7. I have always been struck but the idea that color is a sacrifice of the planetary beings.
                A real gift to us.
                Yes, it’s all part of our evolution – I see the mists of Avalon as representing the fostering of the formation of the etheric body

              8. The Sun Oracle Manu is known for having led the Primal Semites to the East before the flood. This is how the European and Asiatic nations became populated before the flood. A kind of magnetic center was set up that encouraged departure, sooner than later.

                Utnapishtim is the Sumerian name of the Hierophant priest in the Hibernian mystery colony that Gilgamesh found in the area of Austria, and also know as Xisuthrus in Steiner’s course, “World History in the Light of Anthroposophy”. This name is a transliteration of Zarathustra, and not Manu. It was an incarnation of Zarathustra that led this Hibernian mystery. Manu, on the other hand, is the great Sun Oracle, who initiated the Primal Semites, formed the 7 Holy Rishi’s, and prepared the incarnation of
                Zarathustra in the ancient Persian Cultural Epoch, c. 5000 BC.

                As such, Gilgamesh and Eabani can be correlated to the first two students of Zarathustra, who first learned of the system of Zeruane Akarene, which was transmitted to Zarathustra by Ahura Mazdao. Thus, Gilgamesh and Eabani represent an interim incarnation of these two before their more well-known, and historically relevant incarnations as Moses and Hermes Trismegistus, at the midpoint of the Third Cultural Epoch, c. 1400 BC.

                Zarathustra would go on to incarnate at the 28th generation of Abraham, c. 586 BC, as the Chaldean mystery teacher, Ashpenaz, who taught certain selected Sons of Israel; as well, Pythagoras. Herein, he was Zarathas, or Nazarathos, which fulfills the prophecy which says: “And he shall be a Nazarene”. The Solomon Jesus comes next.

              9. Sorry i can’t site the reference but Steiner himself tells us that Utnapishtim/Xisuthrus/Noah was Mani not Zarestrustra.
                But yes these great initiates all work together

              10. “So, Gilgamesh set forth upon his wanderings. And they had for him a result that was of very great significance. He came to a region that is nearly the same as we now call Burgenland, a district much talked of in recent times and concerning which there has been a good deal of contention as to whether it should belong to Hungary or not. The whole social conditions of the country have of course greatly changed since those far off times. Gilgamesh came thither and found there an ancient Mystery — the High Priest of the Mystery is called Xisuthros (5) in the Epic — an ancient Mystery that was a genuine successor, as it were, of the old Atlantean Mysteries; only, of course, in a changed form, as must of necessity be the case after so long a time had elapsed.”

                Note 5: This is the Sumerian name Ziusudra used by Berossus, priest of Bel in Babylon, who wrote a history of Babylon and Chaldea in Greek around 280 B.C. based on the archives of the Temple in Babylon. In cuneiform script it is Utnapishtim.

                https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA233/English/RSP1977/19231226d01.html

  4. Rudolf Steiner’s birth can be likened to the fate of the first-born child of David and Bathsheba. That child died after seven days, but in this incarnation, the parents saw the need to solicit the emergency baptism, which was the custom when a new born baby was lingering and about to die. It obviously worked because the higher powers working in Baptisms are the ones who compel the life on Earth to become manifest for the duration, come what may.

    I, too, believe that there is a relation between the deaths of both Mani, and Count St. Germain, in the equation of the life of Rudolf Steiner. We know, by Rudolf Steiner’s own words, that Mani initiated Christian Rosenkreutz in 1459, ref. Barr Document, Sept, 1907. And, it has been generally confirmed that Count St. Germain, who lived through the first eight decades of the 18th century as a very mysterious figure, and claimed to have been present at the Marriage in Cana when Christ walked the Earth, died on February 27, 1784, which is 77 years before the birth of Rudolf Steiner.

    As well, we know that Lazarus, who lived at the time of Christ, reincarnated as Christian Rosenkreutz in the 13th century. So, Saint Germain seems to be acknowledging that he remembers being there when the Marriage in Cana occurred. And, if he remembers that event, then Lazarus was a disciple from the beginning of the three years that Christ walked the Earth in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. The so-called “rich young ruler” was left wanting, and that is final. He is just another example of a lost opportunity when it comes down to “serving two masters”, and choosing mammon instead of salvation.

  5. “Maybe Steiner’s entelechy needed the Baptism rite to fully commit to incarnation…?”

    I have heard of instances when a soul (entelechy) made a decision, in the first few days usually, that they wouldn’t be able to accomplish their intended destiny in the atmosphere of the parents they’d chosen to be their parents. There’s one I’m particularly aware of where, due to the father’s drinking problems, the girl decided within a few days to leave this world.

    Have you found, in your studies of Steiner’s biographies, did he ever give us any info on his mother? I’ve heard a few references to his father, but never his mother. If there’s something in the revised Biography you wrote for a recent blog, I still have that on my laptop, so can have a look — haven’t read it yet.

    1. Here is an informative article from last year on Steiner’s ancestry. It gives evidence that Steiner’s mother had two sisters, and one of them killed herself in order to appear in etheric form to the little boy when he lived in Pottschach, Hungary, c. 1869.

      https://dasgoetheanum.com/rudolf-steiners-familie-i-die-verwandtschaft/

      In his autobiography, Rudolf Steiner notes in a few places how much his mother was a dutiful and loving person, and he would visit her and his father when they retired to Horn, after he became known and famous in a way. I have always wondered how disappointed his father was in his son not becoming a railway engineer, which was the intention in sending him to the Realschule in Weiner-Neustadt, Austria, for his secondary education, c. 1872-1879. We know that even then, he had other designs on what his mission on Earth was to be.

      1. Thank you Steve – the article was most helpful. More detail than I needed; probably too many names for me to try and discern them all, but I have a better idea now of who his mother was.

        1. Hi Maverick,

          The focus of this article, which I have just read again, is on the first occult experience that Rudolf Steiner had when he was a little boy living in Pottschach, and his mother’s next older sister, Anna Maria, came to him in a vision at the railway station. She had committed suicide at the age of about 45, and came to the little boy in her etheric body in order to ask him to help her now and later. It was this event that became the catalyst for Rudolf Steiner looking outward for the first time. The Being of Anthroposophy begins here. The mystery has remained as to who might this aunt have been in a former incarnation of relevance to the little boy. They had never met. He did get to know her husband, and their only child; a son, Heinrich, who lived a long life.

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