Anthroposophia,

I discovered something that had far-reaching consequences for the entire development of the knowledge drama, namely, that the new anthroposophical Aristotelism could accomplish in the etheric body what the original Aristotelism accomplished in the physical body. In the etheric body it could merge with the imaginative Platonic forces, and help them to condense further, etherically speaking. What is more, this etheric concentration and condensation developed the forces of supersensible cognition beyond the Imaginative Soul. I discovered that in this way the forces of the Imaginative Soul, the spiritualized Consciousness Soul, were transformed.

Now, in the etheric human heart, Michael finds his dwelling place, and unites in the human heart with the indwelling ‘I’ of Christ. Heavenly-earthly fulfilment and joy are experienced when this meeting commences, to use rather trivial earthly words, because Michael and Christ were separated from each other after the Christ left the sun before the Mystery of Golgotha. Christ has lived on earth since Golgotha and Michael remained in the sun until the end of the nineteenth century, when he began his descent to earth to fulfil his role in his new age. When human beings meet the etheric Christ and receive the ‘I’ of Christ into their hearts through the light of the modern Grail, spiritual science, they invite Michael to dwell in the sun forces of their hearts as well, and the two cosmic sun beings meet again—on earth—for the first time since their separation.

I found myself facing this question at the beginning of my 20’, after the Christ experience, when I began to study anthroposophy. This question became my intensive concern: how does the etheric Christ enter anthroposophy? The new Damascus event, about which Rudolf Steiner spoke, was a fact of experience. But how can this be integrated with anthroposophy? The Christ experience without spiritual science, remains a personal experience. Anthroposophy without the Christ impulse remains lifeless body of knowledge. Both need each other. Therefore, I dedicate the first part of my spiritual life, unite wed them together.

‘The human being Anthroposophia’ is, therefore, the sister of the divine-human child born of the marriage of Christ and Sophia, officiated by Michael, as the high priest of Christ, actualized through the deeds of freedom and love inspired by the Philosophy of Freedom. We participate in this marriage, because the indwelling ‘I’ of Christ, active in our spiritualized ‘I’, is the elder brother of Anthroposophia, and both live together creatively and joyfully in so far as we make freedom and love real in our physical life. As Rudolf Steiner said to W. J. Stein in The Hague in 1922, ‘Anthroposophia is a human being. She is that human being, created out of the deed of freedom.’...

When we speak about the present Christ experience to the learned ‘Pharisees and doctors of spiritual science’, we find ourselves in the same situation of Paul, when he spoke to the Pharisees in Jerusalem and the philosophers in Athens. A century ago, modern spiritual science was given to humanity to prepare the Second Coming, as in the time of Christ’s first coming Jerusalem and Athens prepared the first coming. And yet, when we speak 2000 years after Paul about the modern Damascus event, a whole century after the death of Rudolf Steiner, we find very little understanding, not to mention fierce opposition. We realize that the living Christ is as unknown today as He was to the people of ancient Greek and Judea in the time of Jesus and Paul.

‘Out of the dark- gloomy foundations of the Cosmic mysteries, will come forth the figure of Christ Jesus, which will draw near to us and give us the strength and force in which we shall then live. The Christ will guide us, standing beside us as a brother, so that our hearts and souls may be strong enough to grow up to the necessary level of the tasks awaiting humanity in its further development.’

‘The secret of esoteric Christianity: the assimilation of death into life’, which was Paul’s most significant discovery 2000 years ago, is also the fundamental discovery made in the present etheric Christ experience. Overcoming the death forces inherent in our modern Ahrimanic intellect is indeed the starting point for the knowledge drama of the Second Coming, presented in chapter 5 of the New Experience of the Supersensible, outlined below. And the source of the forces of resurrection that make the overcoming of death possible, is found in the appearance, words, and deeds of the etheric Christ. Therefore, this is also the source of our search for a ‘Pauline method’ to bring the present Christ event into spiritual science. For this purpose, we must direct our observation, as Paul did, to the being of Christ Himself.

In the New Experience of the Supersensible we showed that the basic structure of the book is an expression of the two pillars of the modern Christ experience: the given Christ experience and the consciously developed Christ experience. The given experience is described in chapter 4 and the consciously developed experience is described in chapter 5, in what we called the knowledge drama of the Second Coming.

The 2nd edition of The New Experience of the Supersensible becomes much bigger than I thought, so I decided to write a shorter prelude, to introduce it in a more accessible way. This I plan to do in my next book, "The Three Meetings, Christ, Michael, Anthroposophia". The passages below is from Chapter 4: The Meeting with the Etheric Christ, part I: The Given Christ Experience. It tries to describe an important aspect of this meeting, in which a new state of consciousness is formed: Spiritual self-consciousness.