The Return of the Christ in the Etheric: Difference between revisions

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{{GZ|When these great times come, men will also be able to work together more consciously in the physical and in the spiritual world. Today this is not possible because there is no common language. Humanity is thus growing into a time when the influences from the spiritual world are becoming ever greater. The great events of the coming time will make themselves felt in all worlds. People between death and new birth will also have new experiences in the other world as a result of the new Christ event in the etheric world. But they would then be just as unable to understand them if they had not prepared themselves for them on earth.|118|33}}
{{GZ|When these great times come, men will also be able to work together more consciously in the physical and in the spiritual world. Today this is not possible because there is no common language. Humanity is thus growing into a time when the influences from the spiritual world are becoming ever greater. The great events of the coming time will make themselves felt in all worlds. People between death and new birth will also have new experiences in the other world as a result of the new Christ event in the etheric world. But they would then be just as unable to understand them if they had not prepared themselves for them on earth.|118|33}}
== References in the New Testament to the Second Coming of Christ in the Etheric ==
{{Quote|And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.|{{B|Luke|21:27}}}}
{{Quote|And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.|{{B|Mark|13:26}}}}
{{Quote|Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.|{{B|Revelation|1:7}}}}


==Literature ==
==Literature ==

Revision as of 13:45, 10 November 2021

The return of the Christ in the etheric, which can be experienced from the early 20th century onwards, was discussed in great detail by Rudolf Steiner in many lectures. At His Second Coming, the Christ no longer appears in physical form, but in etheric form.

The etheric form of the Christ

Since the resurrection, the Christ shows Himself in etheric form. He now reveals himself through an angelic being and lived in this form invisibly connected with the earth at first. When, from the 16th century onwards, materialistic thinking became more and more prevalent and more and more people with this materialistic attitude passed through the gate of death, this "black sphere of materialism" spread more and more in the spiritual world close to the earth and threatened to shut the earth off completely from the cosmic-spiritual world. These dark forces were absorbed by the Christ as a great sacrificial act in the sense of the Manichaean principle in order to transform them. However, this caused a kind of "spiritual suffocation" in the angelic being through whom the Christ revealed himself, which led to the extinction of the consciousness of this angelic being. This sacrifice of the Christ occurred in the 19th century in the heyday of materialism, where at the same time Michael was wrestling with the Spirits of Darkness, and can be described as a second crucifixion, albeit in the etheric. But since then the Christ consciousness has been able to revive in the souls of men. This revival of the Christ consciousness in the souls of men forms the basis for a new clairvoyant consciousness of men from the 20th century onwards, and through this consciousness men will gradually begin to experience the etheric Christ (Lit.:GA 152, p. 45f). The Christ himself becomes the door in people's souls that leads into the spiritual world:

„I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.“

„After the ability of clairvoyance was largely lost in pre-Christian times, according to (Rudolf) Steiner, from the 20th century onwards the most advanced people will again have the possibility of perceiving in the etheric. For the religious sphere this means that from this time onwards a Damascus experience can also occur for them. They will then be able to see the risen Christ in the etheric circle of the earth.“ (Lit.: Adolf Baumann, p. 279)

„Let us understand this, my dear friends, and in our time the time has come when people will only be able to experience the continuation of the Mystery of Golgotha in a spiritual way. That is why I have also spoken of the spiritual-etheric reappearance of the Christ in the 20th century, and have presented it in the first Mystery. But this will be a spiritual experience, albeit a spiritual-mental experience, a spiritual experience.

Thus the Mystery of Golgotha is intimately connected with the necessary elevation of humanity to spirituality from our time onwards. Just as humanity must rise to a certain spirituality from our time onwards, it is equally true that it must understand from our time onwards that the Mystery of Golgotha can furthermore only be grasped in spirituality, that Christianity must essentially experience a spiritual continuation, not a historical continuation, in the external sense historical research or historical tradition. But it is only a question of not taking what I have just said in an abstract sense, of not believing that one has already done everything with a few concepts of grasping the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha, as is very often the case. No, one must approach these things in full concreteness; one must not only form ideas about the Christ and His work, but one must be able in a certain way to find the kingdom of Christ in our earthly kingdom. Christ has moved into the earthly kingdom, and one must be able to find his domain.“ (Lit.:GA 182, p. 25f)

This will be possible from 1930 onwards for the next 3,000 years, until about the year 5,000 A.D. a sufficient number of people will no longer need the Gospels, because they will have met the Christ in their own souls (Lit.:GA 130, p. 48f).

„Through the event of the baptism in the Jordan, when the Christ descended into the body of Jesus of Nazareth, and through the Mystery of Golgotha, humanity became able to see and experience the Christ later - in this millennium, from about 1930 onwards - in the etheric body. Christ only walked once on earth in a physical body, and this must be understood. The return of the Christ means to see the Christ supersensibly in the etheric body. Therefore, everyone who wants to follow the right course of development must acquire the ability to see with the spiritual eye. It would be no progress for humanity if Christ had to appear once more in the physical body. The next time he will reveal himself in the etheric body.“ (Lit.:GA 130, p. 77)

Repeatedly Rudolf Steiner emphasised that this was a renewal of the Damascus experience that Paul of Tarsus had anticipated as initiate early on as a "premature birth". He was already able to experience the Christ in ethereal form in the earthly astral world.

„Among the many proofs that could be given from occult science of this fact is this, for example, that the event of Damascus will be renewed, as we have often shown, in the course of the next three millennia for a sufficiently large number of men. That is to say, such abilities will develop in men that they will perceive the Christ on the astral plane as an etheric form, as was the case with Paul before Damascus. This event of perceiving the Christ through the higher faculties that will gradually develop in human beings in the course of the next three millennia will begin in our 20th century. From then on, these faculties will gradually emerge and develop in a sufficiently large number of people over the next three millennia. That is to say, a sufficiently large number of people will know, by looking into the higher worlds, that the Christ is a reality, that he lives, they will come to know him as he lives now. And they will not only come to know him as he now lives, but they will become convinced, just as Paul did, that he died and rose again. But the foundation for this cannot be laid in the higher worlds, it must be laid on the physical plane.“ (Lit.:GA 130, p. 89f)

„The first signs of these new abilities of the soul will appear relatively soon in individual souls, and they will show themselves more clearly in the middle of the thirties of our century, approximately in the period between 1930 and 1940. The years 1933, 1935 and 1937 will be particularly important. There very special abilities will show themselves in the human being as natural predispositions.“ (Lit.:GA 118, p. 25)

„When these great times come, men will also be able to work together more consciously in the physical and in the spiritual world. Today this is not possible because there is no common language. Humanity is thus growing into a time when the influences from the spiritual world are becoming ever greater. The great events of the coming time will make themselves felt in all worlds. People between death and new birth will also have new experiences in the other world as a result of the new Christ event in the etheric world. But they would then be just as unable to understand them if they had not prepared themselves for them on earth.“ (Lit.:GA 118, p. 33)

References in the New Testament to the Second Coming of Christ in the Etheric

„And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.“

„And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.“

„Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.“

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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