The
most obvious objection to this is that there is no physical evidence for
the life of Jesus. The only contemporary reference is one by Josephus,
and he is a discredited witness, as even this has been conclusively
proven a much later interpolation. Steiner makes a virtue of the lack
of physical evidence, with the questionable argument that it was
intentional, so that we would believe in it only for spiritual,
not materialistic, reasons.
To another obvious question--what of all the people,
including initiates, who lived before this event—are they
“saved”? He answers that they will still have to come to terms with it
in future lives. The implication is that pre-Christian initiates have
not merely a second-class, but a luciferic initiation, since he says all
pre-Christian culture was luciferic. That some of them are supposed to
have finished with reincarnation and gone on to other spheres does not
seem to be adequately dealt with. He is here also laying the foundation
for what becomes the exclusivity and arrogance of his later claim that
also today, only those who recognize his version of the Mystery of
Golgotha
can be having a Christian, i.e. “advanced” initiation.
(He
speaks of two opposite forms of evil, and the Christ path as that of
balance between them. Lucifer on the one hand inspires all mysticism,
enthusiasm and the arts, but on the other entices us into a premature
spirituality, which leads us into an airy world of illusion. Ahriman
influences us to become too cold, logical, materialistic and technical.
These ideas can be useful if the two influences again were not dragged
down into personal, anthropomorphic form.)
Another question is scale, or proportion. One must presume
that when he speaks of “the cosmos”, he is referring only to our solar
system, although it is rare that he is that explicit. Still, according
to theosophy, it takes a vast length of time—seven planetary evolutions,
each with their seven globes, each of which has seven rounds, and on
each appearance of a globe, the equivalent of seven successive
root-races, each with their seven sub-races. And he is saying that the
one important moment in that whole process is a single incarnation in a
certain year in a little country in the Middle East? It is actually
absurd. And whether the “Turning Point of Time” actually happened
depended on a chain of actions by certain individuals, any one of whom
could have messed up the whole thing by omitting to do something.
Nature, or the cosmos, does not work like that. A tree
produces thousands of seeds so that one or two may root and grow. A
race or a culture produces thousands, or millions, of bodies so that
people incarnating in them can develop a new capacity or quality, and
imprint it into humanity’s genetic possibilities. But did anything
like that happen? In fact, yes.
Egyptian culture gets a poor showing in anthroposophy. Perhaps it had
to be downplayed so that Steiner could portray them as oppressors and
build up the Jews as the people chosen to prepare the Incarnation, as
happens in the Old Testament. Or perhaps he was so obsessed by the
supposed Ahrimanic role played by the Arabs in the sixth to tenth
centuries A.D. that this obscured his clairvoyant vision of the
extraordinary Egyptian culture behind it. For his book Egyptian
Myths and Mysteries offers scarcely anything more than could have
been gleaned from the scholarly books of the day.
For at least four thousand years, a magnificent civilization
flourished along
the
banks of the Nile.
A happy and well-cared-for population of some twenty-five million people
lived a life in harmony with the cycles of nature. Their writings show
a people who loved life. They were ruled by real initiates who embodied
the awareness of all their people, worked for their welfare, and hence
were loved and respected by them. Modern writers project their own
prejudices onto them, and fantasize that the common people must have
felt oppressed by such an all-powerful ruler. On the contrary, they
felt protected by him, and were.
Not only the pharaohs were initiates, but all the leading
priests. All of life was a celebration of thanksgiving to Amon-Ra, and
a preparation to enter the spiritual world after death. There were no
skeptics; the spirit was an evident fact embodied in the priests, as
also in the sun, moon and stars, in the rhythms of the seasons and in
the nature around them.
The
temples were also Mystery Schools, for which neophytes would be
hand-picked by clairvoyant scribes who would periodically visit all the
villages for the purpose. The candidates would be schooled for many
years and gradually trained to take part in the great ritual of Isis and
Osiris. What it led up to was for each man to experience himself as an
Osiris. In the myth, he would impregnate his wife Isis from the
spiritual world and she would bring forth their son Horus, or Jesus.
After
death, as shown in the Book of the Dead, the initiate would be addressed
as Osiris Ptolemy (or whatever his name was) and would move triumphantly
though the various tests to take his place in Amenti (heaven). Through
the centuries, more and more people went through the temple training, so
that eventually there were not just thousands, but millions of people
celebrating a daily ritual wherein they realized a Christ-consciousness.
If we
need to postulate a historical “Incarnation” moment, this was it. If
the objection is made that it would have to have been in the 4th
Post-Atlantean Age, not the 3rd --as Steiner designates
the Egyptian time--the answer is that this was something else Steiner
got wrong. One might excuse him this however, as it is one of the
“blinds” H.P.B. put into The Secret Doctrine, waiting for a time
when more could be given out directly.
But
what of the many accounts of clairvoyants who claim to have seen scenes
from Jesus’ life in the Akashic Record, such as Elisabeth von
Konnersreuth or Edgar Cayce, one may ask? A small group of determined
people with the requisite powers of concentration can create a thought
form of such strength that others can see it. When other people believe
in it, their own thoughts and feelings further strengthen the
thought-form, until it begins to take on a life of its own. Imagine how
powerful it becomes when millions have spent their lives envisaging
these scenes!
