We are deep in the midst of Easter-Tide during this evocative year of the ‘Paradox’. And so our spiritual scientific research experiment continues.
Our 1st esoteric Ascension came right after May Day.
I had the honor of presenting ‘Climbing Jacobs Ladder’, an Ascension festival of the Hierarchies & of the Elements, in Ann Arbor; standing where Dr. Ernst Katz often spoke, in the Rudolf Steiner House – headquarters for the Anthroposophical Society of America.
Every year, when the earth begins to breathe out in the springtime, the mystery of the Ascension of Christ, Who is the Spirit of the Earth, is renewed.
Along with the rescuing of our etheric body, the fulfillment of the secret promise of the Ascension is the 2nd coming!
And at the moment of the Ascension the true meaning of death as a birth into the spiritual world, was made manifest. For when the Risen Christ returned ‘to sit at the right hand of the Father’, He became the bridge, revealing the secret that the human soul can reach the highest sphere of the Father Ground of the World, where Christ derived the forces for His Resurrection Body – & where our future stage of Spirit Man, is derived.
Ascension also provides the opportunity for The Holy Spirit, who illuminates the individual ego-consciousness, to be able to appear in earthly evolution at Whitsun; flashing in thru this opened gate, to pour into earth existence the truth of the Mystery of Golgotha & the Ascension in full wisdom.
But in order for this to happen Christ had to Ascend. Steiner tells us, ’Then after 10 days He sent the Holy Spirit- that divine Being of the Trinity that does not overpower, but enhances the individual ego of human beings.’
So now the Christ impulse can enter human souls thru the mediation of the Holy Spirit, enabling us to retain our “I” in freedom.
How lyrically profound that our esoteric Whitsun comes today on Mother’s Day! A true acknowledgement of the Divine Sophia, & an advancement away from family ties into a conscious community freely connected thru the Holy Spirit, to Christ.
In the East, Whitsun or Pentecost is called Trinity Sunday, since with the completion of the 3 parts of the moveable feasts of Easter-Tide, we have been brought into contact with the 3 persons of the godhead. We receive the Resurrection forces thru The Son; at Ascension we gain access to the sphere of The father; & at Pentecost we receive the Holy Spirit.
In truth, dear friends, we can recognize 3 Whitsun events in history.
The 1st experience, occurred on the evening after the Resurrection.
‘Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’ ~ John 20:21
Forgiveness is the 1st step in building a conscious community.
This 1st Whitsun was recorded only by John. Thru the 1st Christian initiation, Lazarus, who became John, ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, was, along with Mary the Mother of Jesus, & the earthly bearer of the Divine Sophia forces, were the only conscious witnesses to the Mystery of Golgotha. The rest of the apostles would stay in a dream state until Pentecost 50 days later.
The 2nd event is described in the Acts of the Apostles 2:1-4 –
‘When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all together with one accord in the upper room. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were gathered. Then there appeared to them tongues of fire, like flames which divided until they came to rest on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with foreign tongues, each uttering what the spirit gave them to say’.
The Holy Spirit descends 1st to their heads, & then penetrates into their hearts, so that the larynx could be opened to speak the language of the heart, uniting them in a new community.
Rudolf Steiner tells us in his ‘Philosophy of Spiritual Activity’: ‘Only because human individuals are one spirit can they also enjoy life side by side. The free person lives in confidence that the other free person belongs with them to a spiritual world and in their intentions will meet with them’.
In 1907 Steiner created a Whitsun congress in Munich as a new Rosicrucian impulse, displaying the 7 seals of St. John’s Apocalypse, a representation of the 7 stages of Christian initiation.
This Whitsun spirit came alive again for the 3rd time in history at the founding of the Christmas Conference, with the laying of the Foundation Stone of Love into the hearts of those connected with the Anthroposophical movement.
Just like the Grail Mystery of old, the experience of the Holy Spirit in the image of a dove appears above the chalice. And now thru the process of etherizing our blood, it rises as an etheric stream from the heart to the head, a reversal of the Whitsun experience.
One of our most important tasks is to consciously unite these 2 opposite streams. The Foundation Stone with its mantric expression is the key, in which the individual & social principles are united harmoniously.
Lifting out of the ‘me’ into the ‘we’, so that the spirit flame can enter & spread out thru us, to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference, where the reversed Whitsun, was born, the idea of taking the spirit that has flowed thru the head into the heart, transforming it into the wisdom of love to redeem our intelligence, & then give it back out as a gift to humanity.
Our work is to take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” a path leading from ‘Spirit Recalling’, to ‘Spirit Mindfulness’, to ‘Spirit Beholding.’
Blessings dear friends on this auspicious day
~hag xox
Hazel, I don’t understand where you say, ” the Luke Jesus [..] after he was incorporated into the body of the Matthew Jesus”. Rather, it was that the Zarathustra-Ego of the Matthew Jesus quit this child and incorporated into the Luke Jesus at the Passover when Jesus was twelve.
Visit to Jerusalem
41 Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42 And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast; 43 and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it, 44 but supposed Him to be in the caravan, and went a day’s journey; and they began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances. 45 When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for Him. 46 Then, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. 48 When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.” 49 And He said to them, “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them. 51 And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart.
52 And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
Luke 2: 41-52
This is where the Wisdom of Zarathustra passes over into the Nathan Jesus, and would reside their for eighteen years until the Baptism.
Yes, of course, i flipped them.
Hazel, a very excellent and inspiring essay coming this celestial Whitsunday.
In (John 19:25), we read: “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, His mother, and His mothers sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.” If we wish to understand this Gospel it is necessary to know who these three women are. We do not usually give two sisters the same name; neither was it the custom in former times. The passage we have quoted proves that, according to St. John’s Gospel, the mother of Jesus was not called Mary. If we search through the whole of this Gospel we nowhere find it said that the mother of Jesus was called Mary. In the scene of the Marriage of Cana, for example, Chapter 2, we only read, “the mother of Jesus was there.” In these words something important is indicated, something we only understand when we know how the writer of this Gospel uses his words. What does the expression “the mother of Jesus” mean?
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA100/English/LR1942/19071120p01.html
The diagram then indicates that these three standing below the cross represent:
Consciousness Soul = Mother of Jesus
Intellectual Soul = Mary of Cleophas
Sentient Soul = Mary Magdalene
Yet, in November 1907 Steiner had yet to reveal the existence of two Jesus children. The Mother of Jesus of Nazareth is never named ‘Mary’ in the Gospel of John. The mother of the Solomon Jesus is the Mary of the Gospel of Matthew, and Mary Magdalene is the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and follower of Christ-Jesus.
Based largely on further insights provided by “The Fifth Gospel”, Steiner reveals that the Mother of Jesus of Nazareth died when he was 12 years old, and lived in the spiritual worlds until returning just before the Baptism. She therein lived within the sheaths of her “sister-soul”, Mary, wife of Cleophas, who was the brother of Joseph the Carpenter.
Mary is the step-mother of Jesus, and brought six children into the home of the carpenter, who married her after her own husband’s death around the same time. When Joseph died when Jesus was 24 years of age, his brother, Cleophas, married her.
So, the incident below the Cross is one where the Mother has separated from her sister-soul, Mary, and awaits the new “Sonship”, which involves entering the household of Lazarus-John, which makes her the Astral Presence in the return of John the Baptist in the physical body of Lazarus. This act represents the true heart and soul of Johannine Christianity and its community, and is based on the last act of Christ in introducing the Mother to the Son, and the Son to the Mother.
Lazarus actually dies as the forerunner in death before the Mystery of Golgotha, the necessary human sacrifice before the death of the Son of God. This can be paralleled with the role of John the Baptist as the forerunner in life before the entry of Christ into earth evolution.
Greetings Dear Stephen –
My understanding is that when the Mother of the Luke Jesus died after he was incorporated into the body of the Matthew Jesus. She indeed came back in to the mother of the Matthew Jesus as stated in the 5th gospel right before the baptism. And as you mentioned when her husband the rich man from Bethlehem died, she married Joseph the carpenter.
i admit i have never known who Mary of Cleophas was.
your insights into the scene at the cross are expressed wonderfully. thank you