Chapter Nine~ Rudolf Steiner’s Fifth Gospel in Story Form
To warm and cheer readers for Winter 2023, the first book I edited
The Zarathrustra-Ego had withdrawn from Jesus of Nazareth at the conversation with Mary, his stepmother. Over the eighteen years it had lived in and as him, the whole of Nathan-Jesus had become so transformed, it could now receive into itself the extract of the Macrocosm. Had he not been permeated by Zarathrustra up to the thirtieth year, the eyes of Nathan-Jesus would not have been capable of enduring the substance of the Christ. His hands would not have been capable of holding onto this substance and expressing it in deeds of the Christ. Jesus had to be prepared and expanded through the Individuality of Zarathrustra. On the way to the Jordan, he was again as he had been, when he was twelve years old, but now with an added depth and breadth of humanity. Jesus of Nazareth’s inmost nature comprised all the blessings of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. A momentous destiny awaited him, a destiny altogether different from any others baptized by John in the Jordan.
Who was John the Baptist? He was like many others who had been initiated. He had received teachings as well as personal indications of the coming Christ. In many of the ancient Mysteries, Christ Jesus was not an unknown being. All the mysteries pointed to the One who was to come. For this reason the ancient initiates were called prophets because they prophesied something which was to come.
To understand John the Baptist we have to think of the character of the spiritual life from which John issued. It is, of course, the world of ancient Hebrew culture. He appears previously as the Old Testament personalities Phineas and as the Prophet Elijah or Elias. What were the essential features of this culture?
The change in the path to the supersensible
A justly famous lecture of Dr. Steiner’s has this title. The following insights are entirely his. He says far too little notice is taken of the different shadings of the term “God” today. For instance, after nearly two thousand years under the influence of the Christ Impulse, humanity now rightly looks upwards once again as it travels the path of ascent. Because we today reframe material concerns with spiritual intention, it is thought ancient peoples must have also looked upwards for spiritual inspiration.
On the contrary, before the advent of Christ, humanity was on the path of descent. Because of this, prior to the coming of Christ Jesus, to find the authentic Spirit in their time, humanity delved downward, ever deeper into material conditions. Prior to the Christ they did another thing. They faced away from the solid Earth, looked back into amorphous starry dreams. This was true — except for the ancient Hebrews. In other religions, such as the ancient Hindus, men felt, ‘We must look away from the Earth, look out into the Cosmos. We revere and worship what has its origin in the Cosmos.’ This characterized all approaches to Spirit before Golgotha — except for the ancient Hebrews.
A diagram Rudolf Steiner drew on more than one occasion goes right here. It depicts visually human evolution and its turning point in the Earthly portion. In words, it is a steep parabola coming down from the left. At the bottom, it touches down on the sphere of the Earth, at a tiny cross; then, arcs back upwards steeply to the right.
This entire arc is how Dr. Steiner represents the evolutionary path of humanity as a whole.
The left hand, downward arc represents humanity descending from starry realms down into dense physical matter.
The right hand upward arc represents humanity ascending from dense physical matter back into starry realms.
The cross at the bottom represents the Event of Golgotha, the turning point of humanity’s evolution.
The entire arc is an opportunity for us as eternal-immortal souls to experience both matter and spirit. A bias towards either greater materiality; or, greater “spirituality” is faulty. The downward arc is a path of detachment from our roots in starry realms. The downward arc is a gradual awakening to the circumstances and conditions of matter. It leads gradually to willingness to accept these conditions; along with, the lessons of awareness when confined to dense matter. If we are to be co-creators with God someday, such a tour of Creation can be highly educational.
The upward arc is a path of detachment from the circumstances and conditions of dense matter. Souls on the upward path are led gradually to wake up to the reality of invisible and intangible realities; as well, waking up to the eternal-immortal nature of awareness. The upward path is a waking up to the circumstances and conditions of spirit.
Progress for pre-Christian cultures lay in mastering the things of matter, planting feet on the Earth, mastering material affairs, self-confidence, learning to “stand my ground” as individual egos. All these are opportunities for establishing a sturdy vehicle for us as awareness, what Dr. Steiner called the “I am.” In other contexts, Dr. Steiner points to the ancient Sumerian culture as the preeminent example of a culture rightfully preoccupied with looking downwards, getting established in a physical-material environment and culture. Known pre-Christian cultures had the task, generally speaking, to develop the ways and means for individuals and society to establish themselves in the Earth environment and master its conditions.
Since Golgotha, progress for humanity is about “waking up.” Since Golgotha, the main lesson is no longer about coming to Earth, establishing and sustaining ourselves physically. The main lesson is acknowledging and claiming of the “I am” the Christ brought and using it to master the intangibles passed thru in a less conscious state, on the downward arc of human evolution.
Clear as this scheme may be here, the language remains novel and unfamiliar. Invisibles are things of the Spirit. Dr. Steiner emphasized schooling in Imagination, Intuition and Inspiration as part of healthy K-12 education now. If his scheme of human evolution is indeed the case, where is evidence visible around us now? Two thousand years after Golgotha, it is difficult today, to find a religion or spiritual path which does not value truly human values; such as, integrity, honesty, empathy, forgiveness and love.
In great contrast to such modern ideas, the ancient Hebrews said, ‘We worship the one true God. He is connected with the Earth.’ To the Hebrews Jahve was an Earth spirit. Consider the various miraculous phenomena depicted in the Old Testament. When the Red Sea parted, the pillar of fire, and other Old Testament miracles are investigated clairvoyantly, Dr. Steiner says they are at cause, all Earth phenomena. For humanity at this time, at its stage, identifying with solid matter represented a definite step forward in the strengthening of the conscious “I am.”
The conscious “I am” (awareness) was gradually being awakened thru establishing relationship with Jehovah. This exerted a concentrating, pulling-together, focussing, downward-thrusting influence on the Jewish people. To the ancient Hebrews, it was heathen to worship the sun, lightning, wind and stars — forces looking away from the physical Earth. In Old Testament times, the Jewish people symbolized what came from the starry realms above, as the Serpent of Paradise.
According to Dr. Steiner, the Jews, and not only the Jews, were endowed with capacities enabling them to worship the Spirit of the Earth to strengthen the conscious self, what Internal Family Systems calls “healthy Self-leadership.” Today we sometimes call this coherent self-accountability and self-responsibility. In earlier times, new potentials were accessed thru delving backwards into heredity. As the Christ event came nearer, fewer and fewer benefits could be gained by an individual by looking backwards. Exploring heredity as a path, ancestor worship, was gradually exhausted; it was no longer timely for humanity.
Prior to the Mystery of Golgotha it was possible in contemplation, to backtrack in contemplation and visualization to the faculties of spiritual wakefulness, possessed by one’s ancestors. One did this by meditating on one’s inner blood and heart forces. Progress along spiritual lines was bound up with physical heredity, an earthly law exclusively. So greater spiritual awakening was dependent in a certain way upon hereditary conditions. In certain ancient Mysteries, therefore it was a true and right principle to allow an office to pass from father to son. Many people today (circa 1900) believe they inherit their faculties from their forefathers, but it is less and less so in reality. Goethe was one among countless others whose genius was not transmitted to his descendants.
In a sense we may call the Earth Evolution, the evolution of a more-conscious-here-and-now awareness (the “I am”). In the evolution of Earth humanity, this capacity for healthy self-awareness — including taking full responsibility for our choices and actions — developed only over time.
If an Old Testament person wished to express this in words, they would say: ‘My awareness reaches up to the Father of my tribe, to Abraham. We, I, and Abraham, are one. A common individuality encompasses my Tribe. I only feel safe in spiritual encounters, when I feel myself resting within my whole folk-substance. In my veins flows the same blood which flowed in the veins of Abraham.’ This person felt Father Abraham as the root from which every new Abrahamite springs.
This suggests how the ancient times are to be distinguished from the new. In ancient times, man spoke truly when he said: “If I seek for the power which ought to live in my soul and lead me to the heights, I must remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The faculties through which the heights of human existence are attained come down to me, through my line of heredity from these ancestors.”
The way of knowing one’s self before the Event of Palestine, always had something of a group-soul character. The Old Testament follower did not speak casually as we do today: “I am an individual.” Old Testament individuals experienced the folk or tribal soul as a kind of common psychic shelter, a common psychic refuge, from the slings and arrows of Earthly experience. He or she felt themself within the whole of their tribe; such as, the ancient Jewish people. Each looked up to the group-soul of the entire folk; then, back to Father Abraham. The individuality felt itself associated with the tribe: yet, never felt either itself, nor any other soul, fully as an individual. The follower of Old Testament prophets did not feel himself enclosed within his or her own individuality as we do today; especially, as we do since 1920.
John the Baptist felt it was his mission to point to the path which the Jews ought to follow, where their true strength lay.
4 John himself
Wore a garment of camel hair
With a leather belt around his waist
His food was locust beans and wild honey
Then all Jerusalem
Went out to him And all Judea
And all the neighborhood
Of the Jordan
6 And they were baptized
In the River Jordan (Matthew 3)
Seeing how the religion of the Jews had drifted from focusing into the Earth, he spoke the significant words; “You call yourselves children of Abraham! If you were Abrahams’s children you would know your God Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is a God of the Earth. Witness the how He formed the first man out of Earth.
“You are no longer children of Abraham. You have allowed yourself to be led astray by those who look upwards for their inspiration, to what belongs to the Serpent (Lucifer).” He said, “Ye are the brood of the Serpent.” He called them a “Generation of vipers.” By these John was doing more than merely heaping abuse. John’s personality saw this situation; and, through his fiery temperament, the only solution he saw possible was to reaffirm the old laws which once were workable.
The Baptist wished to bring home to men was there must be observance of what was written in the old Law and had been forgotten. So John gathered together and summarized in a powerful delivery, everything contained in the old Law. In this sense — and this sense only — are the words of John the Baptist to be understood.
When mankind’s knowledge can again embrace the true nature of the human being and how a person incarnates, people will also understand what happened at the Baptism of Jesus of Nazareth. Our age has, in certain quarters, more and more lost sight of the human being as a spiritual being. Our essential reality exists primarily beyond what our material senses tell us.
Mankind’s true nature is neither his visible physical body, nor his inner life of thinking, feeling and willing revealed through the body. Today we usually call our life of thinking, feeling and willing “personality.” The older word, “psyche” is also good. Dr. Steiner says St. Paul could still distinguish the body, psyche, and spirit man. [The Three Selves in Hawaiian Ho’oponopono will be a more clear model for many people] In his essential nature, the human being is a being of spirit, an eternal Soul, incarnating in various enveloping sheaths of denser material.
In Dr. Steiner’s model, the lowest and densest of these sheaths is the physical body, the chemical body or corpse. Interpenetrating this, mediating between our body and our psyche is the etheric or life-body. Next comes the astral body. It is characterized as the body of sensations. The personality is likewise only a sheath in which dwells an eternal soul. That is the real human being.
In his time, around 1900, Dr. Steiner used the terms “ego” and “soul” to mean fundamentally different things than we do today, since 1970. Where people use “soul” today to point to our immortal-eternal part, he used “ego” or “Ego.” Since the 1970s, “ego” now points to a quite mundane aspect of personality. “Soul” today is more often used to point to the eternal, undying aspect of human consciousness. In a few places to retain the character of his ideas, we preserve his original diction.
Many people went to the waters of the Jordan at a certain season of the year and shook their clothes in order that their sins might be cast to the fishes and carried away. Dr. Steiner reports people of the region continuing this practice even in the beginning of the twentieth century. John the Baptist witnessed this custom and knew it was adapted from the heathen peoples.
Today our etheric body is firmly joined with our physical body. In ancient times, the connection between etheric and physical bodies was less secure. Initiation in ancient times was based upon practices and exercises creating a withdrawal, an abnormal withdrawal in a certain respect, of the etheric from the physical body. John seized upon the potential of baptism to separate the etheric from the physical body in order to produce a spiritual experience.
In baptism the candidate was submerged in the waters of the Jordan until the connection between body, soul, and spirit was loosened as happens in death; the etheric body was separated for a short time from the physical body. Through the previous preparation, the soul and spirit were not so closely connected with the body as usual. In baptism the disciple beheld for a few moments the vast tableau usually experienced in the first days after death. In returning from this vision, the baptized person could make a new beginning and receive strength for their further life.
To make it a little clearer, we can say when the submersion was successful, it produced in the disciple the conviction: ‘I have spirit within me. I am not just a being in a physical-material body. This spirit within me is one with the spirit underlying all things.’ Further the disciple knew the Spirit he confronted was the same as Moses had perceived in the fire of the burning bush and in the lightning on Sinai as Jahve, “I am the I am.” All this was revealed to the person baptized by John.
Today it requires much more to create what we now call a “near death experience.” People today who are nearly drowned, or fall from a mountain, or are buried under bomb damage often describe how at the gate of death, they see the whole of their life before them in a mighty tableau. Past errors come to light together with hints of future destiny. Those who were baptized in the Jordan experienced this tableau to the highest degree of intensity. Their own sins and those of humanity appeared accusingly before them in menacing blackness. At the same time, the soul, freed from the body, beheld the glory of the approaching Christ.
In John’s baptism we have one of the last echoes of ancient initiation rites. In that time this could be performed because man’s bodily nature was still elastic and porous enough to allow the soul and spirit to continue again a balanced life within the body, in spite of having passed through a partial death. Human bodies have long since become so friable and brittle in their inmost structure that today, John’s baptism would no longer be possible without causing severe injury to health and balance of mind.
The baptism of a disciple of John was only the conclusion of a development taking place in the disciple through intensive spiritual training. John’s flaming words lived in his pupils for many weeks. Their hearts and minds received a twofold knowledge. First, they became aware of all the weaknesses and imperfections of their human nature through relentless self-knowledge. As well, they realized the imminent danger of the death of any self-concept beyond mere physical-material life. This threatened humanity more and more.
Second, the Baptist’s prophecy of the Messiah kindled a great hope in their hearts. Through his words, his hearers may often have felt the heavens bringing them the Messiah were close at hand. Their longing for personal healing grew into a prophetic knowledge of salvation for humanity. In the final act of baptism, this preparatory knowledge was brought to glorious fulfillment.
Then Jesus appeared from Galilee
Coming to John at the Jordan
To be baptized by him
John Was determined to prevent it
Saying to him
I myself need to be baptized by you
And yet you come to me?
Jesus answered him,
Allow it now as it is proper for us
To complete all that is needed (Matthew 3)
Christ Jesus and John the Baptist now come face to face. Christ stands before one who knows what it signifies to worship Abraham and the spirit of the Earth in the right way as of old. As we have said, formerly whatever knowledge was available to man through heredity, was transmitted from generation to generation by physical heredity. The last man who unfolded higher faculties from the soil of heredity is John the Baptist. This is why Christ says, he is “the greatest of those born of woman,” that is, born of bloodlines. Still the time had now come when what was meaningful was not the words, “I and Father Abraham are one.” It was now timely for humanity to start looking forward to the human being as having an eternal and immortal aspect present even before Father Abraham.
The Zarathrustra Soul, prior to the Baptism, saw the same situation in the spiritual affairs of mankind as John did. Out of his compassion and deep inwardness came Jesus of Nazareth. He threw his lot towards a very different conclusion than did John: to give over the solution of the problem to our Father in Heaven. John did not comprehend how the capacities for further spiritual awakening in humanity followed a natural course of being introduced, worked with consciously, digested, assimilated, become a part of humanity, were absorbed down into the sub- and unconscious, making way for a new evolutionary impulse. The Old Testament wisdom was no longer heeded. New spiritual food was called for. Humanity was through looking down into materiality for strengthening of the “I am.” Now humanity was to look up, become conscious of inflow from the Heavens. We can regard the Earth experience, as the theater in the Cosmos allotted to humanity, for our evolution into beings of more conscious awareness and loving.
Prior to Golgotha, each person kept the innermost core of his being intact, by inheriting his faculties from his forefathers through blood. John the Baptist wrote the last word of that epoch. Christ Jesus began writing the early deeds of the new one. Christ-Jesus came to say: ‘Up to now mankind has judged only according to flesh and blood relationships. Through blood, men have been conscious of resting in, being held within, a higher invisible union. Now it is given to believe in a still higher relationship, one reaching beyond blood ties. ‘Beyond the substance of Abraham binding the group-soul of the Jewish people together, one must now believe in a spiritual Father-substance in which, the eternal soul is rooted and has its home. Therefore in the Gospel of St. John, Christ Jesus emphasizes the words, ‘When my primal Ego looks backwards for its spiritual home, it traces itself not merely back to the Father-principle of Abraham, but back to being one with the pulse of the entire cosmos. On this my nature soars aloft. I and the Father are one!’
What was now meaningful was no longer the words, “I and Father Abraham are one.” Rather at every moment of time, there exists in the human being an Eternal, an immortal capacity, who was present in each of us, even before Father Abraham: ‘Believe in what lives within Me and within every human being, beyond Abraham. Believe in the life in Me. It is one with the very divine foundation of the world.’
If the Earth is a “classroom” and Christ Jesus is the teacher, then human beings are given the opportunity to reach into and acquire full self-awareness and Self-leadership. This is the gift of these teachings. The entire downward arc of human evolution was a preparation for, and leads to, this greater Self-awareness. The Christ gave the impulse, making it possible for every human being — individually — to experience the “I AM.” Only a powerful impulse could have carried humanity forward with such a mighty bound.
Naturally this radical shift in the authority by which persons claim legitimate connection with one another, confused those used to basing authority and position on bloodline lineage. “Thou callest upon thy own “I am” but we call upon [our collective] Father Abraham. In this way we feel the power justifying our actions as self-conscious beings. How will we feel our strength, if we do not immerse ourselves in the substance of a common soul, reaching back to Father Abraham?”
Christ Jesus might well have replied, ‘The individual’s feeling of oneness with your ancestral blood-Father now has to become independent. No longer should the blood relationship be a guarantee of membership in this society. Rather one’s “family” should be based on experience of the pure Spiritual Father-Principle in whom all are included.’ This is the transition from the Old Testament to the New: the capacity to hold the conscious “I am” individually; and then, celebrate it collectively.
The capacity to hold the conscious “I am” is, like every other capacity, a two-edged sword. Pir Vilayat Khan of the Sufi Order in the West suggests how to distinguish when the “I am” drifts away from union with the Father. As soon as you attribute the slightest prestige to the ego, then the “I am” is colored by the personal “I.” Your light becomes the Luciferian light of pride. Lucifer is defined further below in the story of the Temptation.
On the path of ascent, progress in human evolution occurs when a person’s inner awareness gradually becomes independent of the factors of heredity. On the path of ascent, spiritual awakening becomes increasingly an affair of the individual “I am.” The significance of the meeting of Christ and John the Baptist is a message to the human soul. No longer is humanity to prepare to receive the “I” and the revelation of the Spirit through reading starry script, nor through the forces behind lightning and thunder, nor through external factors of heredity, but through the Spirit itself as it is experienced within each person uniquely.
Dr. Steiner then asks, how can we draw near to Christ? How to understand Him? How can we make our life of feeling worthy to receive Him? By learning to speak with the same ardor, the same depth of feeling, as the ancient Hebrews did, when they said: “I look up to Abraham, the primal father, when I seek the foundation of all which is valuable in me.” Today with the same intensity of feeling we must look upwards to the Being who quickens us spiritually, to the Christ. When we ascribe all our capacities and gifts, all that makes us truly human, not to any earthly power, but to Christ, then we enter into living relationship with Him.
Just as Jews in ancient times spoke of being carried by death into Abraham’s bosom, we can truly express the nature of the Mystery of Golgotha when we add to the ancient saying, “Out of God we are born,” the new saying, “In Christ we die.” In olden times we felt we returned to Abraham’s bosom. In our time, “Into Christ we die (surrender).” Not Abraham but Christ is now the Wayshower for human evolution.
The Holy Spirit
Descended on him
In visible form
As a dove
And a voice came out of the heaven
You are my son
The beloved
Today have I brought you to birth (Luke 3:22)
When Jesus of Nazareth came to John, he encountered in the immediate neighborhood many of those who had been transformed through the Baptist’s spiritual training and the final act of baptism. Now Jesus came to bow to the effect of the Baptist’s flaming words, and was baptized. It was outwardly a quiet and peaceful scene, as Jesus submitted and was submerged beneath the waters of Jordan. Nothing special happened. But in supersensible perception, the flame of the Spirit flashed from Earth to Heaven. The heavens opened; the broken link between heaven and Earth was forged anew. Those whose souls could see the flash, experienced its immensity toned down to the tender image of a dove.
Inwardly, the cosmic drama of a new beginning for humanity occurred. The curve of the downward arc of humanity into matter was complete. Humanity now set its foot on the upward arc to reunite with Spirit. One man deeply prepared, was raised in soul and spirit to experience an immense tableau, reflecting the past and anticipating the future. This time, instead of the human personality, purified and exalted, returning to the body, the soul took leave of the Earth. In returning to the body, it bore with it and brought into embodiment the Individuality of the Messiah so long awaited by humanity. The soul, as a pure sacrificial vessel offered to heaven, received into itself a divine Being. When the Baptism took place, the Christ was received into the inmost nature of this soul. The saying used later by St. Paul, “Not I, but Christ in me,” was realized in this silent soul-act of Jesus.
In former times when people strove to look upward to the Christ, they could only do so by gazing up at the physical sun and its forces. Therein dwelt the Christ. But now the Christ extended Himself into the spiritual Aura of the Earth. Prior to this, only initiates could perceive Him. These few — and they were few indeed — could then make themselves “Children of God.” They had developed higher spiritual organs of perception and could “see” the Christ. Previously no one ever saw God with physical eyes; God remained invisible. So in order for all humanity to perceive the living God in the way most of them were perceiving — with earthly senses — the Christ, had to appear in the flesh. He took on physical form for the salvation of every soul. “The Word became flesh” and God became an historical fact.
The first thirty years of the life of Jesus are a human biography. Within it Providence has woven in magnificent threads and patterns, an epitome of the whole history of humanity up to that time. The three short years between the Baptism and the Mystery of Golgotha are more than a human biography. They contain the progressive miracle of the incarnation of the Christ in the man, Jesus of Nazareth. What took place at the Baptism was the actual birth into the physical world of the Christ Being. This was known or at least clearly felt in the early Christian centuries. The Christmas festival was not kept on December twenty-fifth, the birthday of one of the Jesus children, but on January sixth, the day of the Baptism in the Jordan: “This is my beloved Son, this day have I begotten Him” (Acts 13:33, Hebrews 1:5, 5:5). This was the begetting, the conceiving, of Christ into the sphere of Earth.
A unique being was now living on the Earth, a Being who until now had never lived in a human body, a Being free of all Earthly antecedents. Of the Earth, this Being knew only what had been garnered in the experience of Jesus of Nazareth. The Christ Being sank into this body, into what it had come to be in its life of thirty years. It was forsaking the sphere of the Spirit, in order to extend Itself into humanity on Earth. Only from such an identification with earthly evolution might He lead humanity on to further stages of the Impulse now bestowed.
Dr. Steiner says the human being is destined for self-aware acts of loving service on Earth. Humanity must then have a wayshower for this journey, a leader who stands before him and can be perceived. Zarathrustra prophesied the physical coming of a Being of Love who would walk the Earth. How could this occur? It could only take place because the Being of Divine Love in the Logos became a person of flesh whom men and women could see physically. Because humanity had developed to the condition of outer physical perceptions, the Logos had to Himself become a material Being. The figure of Jesus of Nazareth in whom the Christ or Logos was incarnated, brought into human life and history what had previously only streamed down upon the Earth from the Sun. “The Logos had become flesh.”
Dr. Steiner claims for three years a life which neither engendered nor was conditioned by karma was lived on Earth. There lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth a Spirit who lived without any earthly karma in His soul. Because of this, all the experiences undergone by Christ were fundamentally different from those we undergo as human beings. If we suffer, we know on some level our suffering has its basis in our past actions. Somehow we allowed, promoted or created our own suffering. It was not the same with the Christ Spirit. For three years he lived without becoming involved in karma, the one and only earthly life to which karma does not apply. So when He suffered, without any karmic reason, the universe resounded with the drama of His truly undeserved suffering, the suffering of guiltlessness!
Before the Baptism in the Jordan, the Christ Being did not belong to the Earth sphere. From the world beyond the Earth, from super-physical spheres He came down. His experiences between the Baptism and Pentecost were necessary in order for Christ, the heavenly Being, might grow into Christ the earthly Being as well.
The appearance alone of an embodiment of a cosmic father would have been asymmetrical. Another transformation arose to reflect cosmic harmonies. The immortal part of the younger Nathan-Mary descended from the spiritual world, and entered the older Solomon-mother. Her soul had been unlocked. According to the Fifth Gospel, at the Baptism. An exalted spiritual power now entered into the soul of Mary. Through the spiritual Being who since then had lived in her, she had become the bearer of the virgin Mother-soul of the world, the complement to the father-principle in Christ Jesus. Because of this “marriage,” the older mother was then called in the Bible the “Blessed” Mary. Emil Bock suggests below how this marriage of cosmic Father and Mother principles appearing in the flesh together was celebrated by lofty divine spiritual Beings at the marriage at Cana.
