Mystery of Golgotha
 

Hi I’ve been studying the Mystery of Golgotha per Steiner. It’s a little intense. I was wondering if anyone would care to simplify or share their interpretations?

Thank you
Elle

I haven't read Steiner for awhile, but I remember enjoying reading him. In the mean time I formed my own beliefs, but I can still appreciate the order that he had in his beliefs, and the way in which he expressed them.

Reading Steiner's Mystery of Golgotha (lecture of 1906) the idea that stroke me the most is that of Jesus' birth soul leaving his body at the age of 30, to leave room to a more highly evolved spirit, the Christ, to enter it. It is what some call "walk-in".

This lecture is a contextualization and interpretation of various events and symbols related to Jesus Christ.

Interesting.

I read that too, I’m not sure I interpreted it that way. Which is why I was curious as to others interpretations. That’s why interpretation was s subjective.

Thank you for your thoughts

The most important aspect of that event was the etherization of the physical planet. Jesus receives the Christ into him via John the Baptist. The cosmic force of the Christ is so intense that it burns out the body in three years. During that process it spiritually transforms the blood of Jesus' body. It etherizes the blood. At the crucifixion, that blood is spilled onto the earth, which begins the evolutionary process of the etherization or spiritualization of the planet. The earth receives Christ into it.

Steiner calls this the turning point of time. Physical creation, which arose out of Spirit, had reached a point where it had become too static and hardened. It was collapsing into itself. which threatened to cut short the process of human evolution. The mystery has to do with saving human evolution. The church has a different interpretation of that of course. They teach Christ/Jesus sacrificed and saved humanity. Yes and no. Not saved, so much as rescued the earth so that human spiritual evolution could continue. And that's where we are now; we are slowly becoming spiritualized. We are returning to Spirit even as we continue to evolve as a physical human race.

sometimes shiny bright things are a bit much. In some ways, dirt and mud is more honest.

I find 'importance' to be droll. mundane suits me better.

Anyway this story has a smooth surface, I couldn't find something he thought was more important than something else in this little essay. Guess it all goes together :smile: Although if I had to guess it has something to do with 'life'. But meanwhile he calls the life we know like 'death'.

That was interesting BTW, first time I'd ever heard anyone call out the science we know for what it is... I guess I knew instinctively when I was young that the more 'progress' I made in the endeavors of the world the worse off I'd be... had no idea what that meant at the time though lol!

ellespirit... see you in the PM room.

:smile:

This is a very interesting interpretation; thank you Baile for sharing that.

Hey you're welcome. That's my attempt at explaining Steiner's words. I don't hold many specific beliefs myself: soul, spirit, reincarnation, karma, that's about it. Religious-specific ideas and terminology is something I tend to stay away from. I just don't speak in those terms anymore. I say Universal Consciousness rather than Christ Consciousness, that sort of thing. Nevertheless I enjoy discussing these topics, it's still of great interest to me.

Hi Baile,
That interpretation actually makes sense to me! I know there are so many metaphors and so much symbolism that is left to interpretation, it is quite a dense topic.

It does beg the question though, how did John the Baptist have the cosmic force to transfer to Jesus?

When I first came across the term Mystery of Gologotha .. I thought it was an abstract concept, until I realised he was discussing the cosmic effect of the crucifixion. Some times the mind process on a simplistic level ....

See you in PM

I was a long-time follower of Steiner. I have read most of his many books and as German is my second language I read them all in the original. His many and diverse talents were never lost on me and I followed them all quite intensely. I used his biological-dynamic gardening programme with a lot of success. His essay on bees is fascinating. I (we) liked to watch the eurythmic dances performed in Dornach, Switzerland (the centre of the Steiner movement), where his paintings and sculptures are exhibited in the magnificent Goetheneum and visited whenever possible anthroposophical practising doctors. There is still a hospital specialising in cancer cures using mistletoe extract near Basel with some success.

But it was exactly his repeated 'returns' to the subject of Golgatha which put me off in the end. Sorry, but I do think he dragged this out of the depths of his subconscious to prove a point which was never really visible and seemed to me not to fit into his 'philosophies'. A sort of pandering to Christianity in my view.