Unifying Humanity Spiritually: Through the Christ Impuls

Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner #CW 165

by Rudolf Steiner, Christian von Arnim (Translation)

13 lectures, various cities, Dec. 19, 1915 – Jan. 16, 1916 (CW 165) “Fundamentally, all of spiritual science ultimately aims to understand human beings in their essence, in their tasks and endeavors―in their necessary endeavors in the course of development.” ― Rudolf Steiner In the midst of the division and destruction of World War I, Rudolf Steiner speaks of the spiritual unification of all human beings. Rather than preaching a traditional morality, however, he states esoteric facts as he perceives them, based on spiritual-scientific research. These observations relate to the powerful universal impulse of Christ―a healing spiritual force that works through the various nations and races, irrespective of creed or color―as a source of potential unity. Rudolf Steiner describes this impulse as the central core of human evolution. It allows for a conscious and newly acquired connection between all human beings, in the context of the continuing diversification and fragmentation of the human race. The central motif in these lectures relates to the appearance of Christ on Earth―knowledge of his historical incarnation, as well as Christ’s manifestation in the present and future periods of human development. Rudolf Steiner creates an arc from the pre-Christian mysteries through Gnosticism and the older studies of the early Church Fathers, to Scholasticism and Neo-Scholasticism. After ancient faculties of clairvoyance had begun to fade, he explains, people could no longer see beyond the world of outer appearances, and direct perceptions of Christ were therefore no longer possible. Therefore, the question arose as to how limitations on human knowledge could be overcome―a question that remains pertinent today. Steiner asserts that only a transformation of thinking, enabling a living and conscious inner conceptual life, can allow a true understanding of the relationship between the earthly Jesus and the cosmic Christ. Such living thinking leads in turn to direct experience. Other topics in this volume include the birth date of the “two Jesus children”; the wisdom of Gnostic teachings; the provenance of the Cross; the mysteries of the Christmas festival; insights into ancient Christmas plays, and reflections on individual consciousness of karma in the future. This volume is a translation from German of Die geistige Vereinigung der Menschheit durch den Christus-Impuls (GA 165).

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

Author also wrote under the name Rudolph Steiner.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...


Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,  differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.