"Christ is verily the
Light which leads out of error and sin, the Light which enables
man to find the way upwards. And now let us ask ourselves: What
was it that was lost to man in that he descended from the spiritual
world, was ensnared in desires and passions under the influence
of Lucifer, and then, under Ahriman's influence, in error, illusion
and lying in the earthly world? - He lost direct vision of the
spiritual world, he lost understanding of the spiritual world."
- "The Deed of Christ and the Opposing
Spiritual Powers Lucifer, Ahriman, Mephistopheles, Asuras",
Berlin, 22. March 1909 (GA 107)
Recall to your minds that
because the Luciferic Spirits slipped into his astral body, man
has come down into the world of sense, thereby falling prey to
the evil but also acquiring the possibility of self-conscious
freedom. Lucifer is in very truth present in the being of man,
has drawn him down to the earth, has ensnared him in earthly
existence; inasmuch as the passions and desires contained in
the astral body had first been led by Lucifer into the earthly
realm, Ahriman too was able to invade the astral body - in the
intellectual soul. Christ appeared, and with Him the force which
can bear man upwards again into the spiritual world. But now,
if he so wills, man can come to know Christ, he can gather all
wisdom to this end. What does he achieve thereby? Something of
untold moment! When a man knows Christ, when he absorbs the wisdom
which begets insight into what Christ truly is, then he redeems
himself and the Luciferic Beings through this knowledge
of Christ. Were man merely to say: I am content with the fact
that Christ appeared and to allow myself to be redeemed by Him
unconsciously - then he would contribute nothing to the redemption
of the Luciferic Beings. These Luciferic Beings who have brought
man freedom. also make it possible for him, if he so wills, to
turn it to account in order to understand Christ. Then the Luciferic
Spirits are cleansed and purified in the fire of Christianity
and the wrong done to the earth by them is changed into blessing.
Freedom has been attained; but it will also be carried into the
spiritual sphere as a blessing. That man is capable of this,
that he is capable of understanding Christ, that Lucifer, resurrected
in a new form, can unite with Christ as the good Spirit - this,
as prophecy still, was told by Christ Himself to those around
Him, when He said: "Ye shall be illumined by the new Spirit,
by the Holy Spirit!" This "Holy Spirit" is none
other than the Spirit through whom man can apprehend what Christ
has wrought. Christ desired not merely to work, but also to be
apprehended, to be understood. Therefore the sending of the Spirit
by whom men are inspired, the sending of the "Holy Spirit",
is implicit in Christianity.
In the spiritual sense, Whitsuntide
belongs inseparably to Easter. This "Holy Spirit" is
none other than the Lucifer-Spirit, ressurected now in higher
higher, purer glory - the Spirit of independent understanding,
wisdom-inwoven. Christ Himself foretold that this Spirit would
come to men after Him, and in the light of this Spirit their
labors must proceed. What is it that works onward in the light
of this Spirit? The world-stream of spiritual science, if rightly
conceived! What is this spiritual science? It is the wisdom of
the Spirit, the wisdom that lifts into the full light of consciousness
that in Christianity which would otherwise remain in the unconscious.
The torch of the resurrected Lucifer, the Lucifer now
transformed into the good, blazons the way for Christ.
Lucifer is the bearer of the Light - Christ is
the Light! As the word itself denotes, Lucifer is the "Bearer
of the Light". that is what the spiritual scientific movement
should be, that is implicit in it.
- ibid
So we see how Powers work
together in the world, how everything that appears to oppose
the progress of mankind subsequently turns out to be a blessing.
We realize, too, that in the Post-Atlantean epoch - from age
to age - the Spirit who has brought man freedom will appear again
in a new form; Luciferus, the sovereign Bearer of Light,
will be redeemed. For everything in the great World Plan is good
and the evil endures only for a season. Therefore he alone believes
in eternity of the evil who confounds the temporal with the eternal;
he who does not rise from the temporal to the eternal can never
understand the evil.
- ibid