Listen to the “I Think Speech” Podcast for Easter Sunday
The 7th Stage of Christian Initiation: The Resurrection is the consequence of the journey into hell. It is a sublime experience achieved through sacrifice. At this stage the initiate acquires the power of healing. The tremendous responsibility attached to this power may be characterized by the saying: “The creative word issues from the soul aflame.”
This 7th stage of Christian Initiation correlates to the 7th layer of the inner earth called Earth Mirror or Mirror Earth. It is even more sensitive to human influences than the Fire Earth above it.
It is like a prism which decomposes everything reflected in it and brings to expression its polar counterpart. “It reflects as reversed morality all that is good.”
It is up to human beings to transform the forces of this layer into moral healing forces. When humanity has advanced enough to engender the highest sacrifice, (the mystic Death) then everything that is not moral in this Mirror Earth will be overcome, and transformed into right relationship.
The 7th Beatitude shows us the way: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
The Sermon on the Mount now rises to the Spirit-Self. Here humanity no longer works alone; at this stage of evolution we must appeal to the Divine Spiritual Worlds, which, thru Christ, have been brought into connection with the Earth.
In former times strife & disharmony entered humanity thru the false ego, as it still does today — but in the future, Peace will be poured out over the Earth thru the Christ-Impulse. And those who take up this Impulse from the Being of Love, will become the founders of this Peace Concord, which in the future will gradually develop as Spirit-Self.
We can become the ‘children of God’, in a renewed sense, when we consciously bring the Spirit into the world, thru a purified astral body. “Blessed are they who bring peace — or harmony into the world; for they shall be the children of God!”
This completes the picture of the 7-fold human being.
Not until the distant future will humanity be able to develop the higher members which correlate to the 8th - 9th – & 10th stages. Steiner didn’t name the last ones as part of the Christian Initiation - they are referred to in his lectures on esoteric Rosicrucianism - corresponding to the innermost layers of the interior earth.
And so, in following the life of Christ, it seems right to align the 8th stage with Ascension (connected with the 2nd stage related to the etheric) and the 9th with Whitsun or Pentecost (a heightened development of the 1st stage related to the physical body).
I will speak to this in my last post on this topic tomorrow before heading off to meet my Rosicrucian colleagues to do a working in the Mysteria Mystica Americana Lodge, & to prepare for our Eclipse Convergence in the Heart of Totality – Dallas Texas
The stages of Rosicrucian Initiation:
1. Study - Physical body
2. Imaginative Cognition - Etheric body
3. Inspired knowledge, or reading the Occult Script- Astral body
4. Preparation of the Philosopher's Stone - Sentient Soul
5. Correspondence between Macrocosm and Microcosm - Mind Soul
6. Living into the Macrocosm - Consciousness Soul
7. Divine Bliss - Spirit-Self
8. Ascension - Life-Spirit
9. Pentecost - Spirit-Human
10. The ‘New Jerusalem’ the Earth as a Sun. Shambhalla
What has been shared this Holy Week is not meant to be a comprehensive account of the Rosicrucian training. Perhaps it can serve as an elementary indication of the stages, a clue to the way. The Modern Rosicrucian path is a sound method for our present age, facilitating our ability to penetrate into the higher mysteries, so that we may work into the future.
Spiritual Science must be applied in the world to further the highest evolution of humanity. It is the instrument thru which we can labor creatively for a future civilization based on Love & Freedom. If we tread this path in a moral way, it becomes the best educator of altruism thru being the destroyer of selfish desire.
Spiritual development is needed by humankind now more than ever. An earnest, step by step striving for Goodness, Beauty & Truth, leads to genuine fraternity. We can reach this goal only after we cultivate our own inner development in the noblest, purest way. Then it acts as a seed hallowing humanity.
The New Mysteries of Spiritual Science are not only a great ideal, it is an actual force - which we permeate ourselves with – so that we may become a fit vessel for the welling forth of Love’s Wisdom, working directly into all aspects of life.
~hag
Have u ever compared steiner with a classic christian mystical text like theresa of avilas interior castle. Her notions of progress dont seem to track with this picture.
Easter is the Soul Calendar's turning point,
and verses 52 & 1 mirror each other
more than any other pair.
HOLY WEEK
When drawn from depths of soul
the spirit is communing with the beauty
arising from the spring-life's cosmic harmony,
then streaming from the heaven's vast expanse
life's force invigorates the human body
and powerfully binds
the spirit's being to the human presence.
EASTER
When streaming from the cosmic spheres
the sun to human sense is speaking
and joy from depths of soul
is with the light as one in seeing,
then drawn from sheath of self
thoughts rise to far horizons
and dimly bind
the human being to the spirit's presence.