The Seven Initiations by Rudolph Steiner

Lecture extract by Rudolph Steiner on 26 February, 1906

''The Washing of Feet is the first stage of the Christian Initiation.

The second stage of Christian Initiation is the scourging and smiting. One must bear calmly what formerly hurt one - to take upon oneself the suffering of the world. The strength aquired by the soul is symbolized as scourging and real blows. Then one day one feels a sort of prickling or stinging all over the body - a sign that one has stood the test. This is a real experience that a person goes through when he follows this path.

The third stage is the crowning with thorns. Changes take place in the brain, something that later becomes noticable in the waking state.

The fourth stage is the crucifixion. Through this the person learns to feel his own body as a foreign object, something like a piece of wood. Physically the stigmata appear. In the case of certain saints this is no myth.It indicates that they have reached the fourth stage.

The fifth stage is the mystical death.

When a person has gone through this fifth station to can progress to the sixth stage, the burial and resurrection. Everything pertaining to this planet becomes the body of the Christian Mystic. He feels as though the whole Earth was part of him. He has ceased to be a separate being.

The seventh stage is known as the Ascension into Heaven. It signifies that he is completely taken up into the spiritual world.

The gospel of St John is a description of the Christian Initiations. He who takes it as an account of an external happening does not understand it. It can only be comprehended if one has lived through it inwardly.''

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