Blood, Page Seventeen

The Etherization of the Blood

Before getting to the last of the three major Steiner references under this term blood, let us pause to take note of how they progressively reflect the scheme of the human being's outgoing and return, that is, the descent, redemption and reascent, the "parable" (actually in this sense, the allegory) of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15,11-32). While the boundaries between them are, of course, not completely distinct, overlapping one way or the other from time to time, OP dealt primarily with the aspect of the human being's embodiment (its physiology) and WSWS with its blood as the intermediary or midpoint between its double nature; as we are now to see the "etherization" represents the initiation of the reascent—the beginning of the departure from material embodiment. That Steiner considered the substance of OP, WSWS, and the lectures from The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric (RCE) and Wonders of the World (WW) cited in the "etherization" grouping below as being closely related to each other, and to his cycles on the Bible, seems obvious from their timing. As previously mentioned, all the cited OP, WSWS, RCE and WW lectures were given in 1911, and that year falls almost squarely in the middle of the time span (roughly 1908-1914) he devoted specifically, and seemingly primarily, to the Bible message.

The material in this section was also presented in The Burning Bush essay "Second Coming." Two preliminary observations should be made that pertain to the first WW quotation below:

1. Steiner speaks of an "impulse" that entered human evolution with the Mystery of Golgotha. He uses the term "impulse" to indicate the planting of the spiritual seed, for nothing ever happens on Earth that is not prefigured in the spiritual world ("As Above, So Below"). What is to become fruit starting in the twentieth century is based upon the impulse that entered Earth at the "turning point of time."

2. The reference to the human circulatory system as the "ether-world condensed" should not be considered to conflict with the assertion that the blood is also the manifestation and instrument of the Ego. They are two entirely different profiles. In respect to the four elements, the fluid blood (the "water" element) represents the etheric (cf. I-54 & I-80). On the other hand, in respect to the fourfold human being's components (see I-9), the blood represents the Ego (see I-14).

In WW, Lect. 8, Steiner says, "What really do the blood circulation and the heart mean to us? They are the ether-world condensed, they are the densified forces of the etheric world!… The important and mysterious feature of Earth evolution is not only that this densification took place, … but that as regards each of our systems of organs in Earth evolution an impulse entered [i.e., via the Christ] whereby what was once etheric and had become physical, is once more dissolved, is changed back again into the ether." It is most notable that the etheric, or life, body is represented by the blood, and that Moses saw that blood as being the "life" of all flesh. See Gen 9,4; Lev 17,11,14; see also the topical list of scriptures near the beginning of this essay.

Consider this passage from RCE, Lect. 9:

When a man stands in front of us today in his waking state and we observe him with the clairvoyant eye, certain rays of light are seen streaming continually from the heart toward the head. If we wish to sketch this schematically, we must draw the region of the heart here and show the continuous streamings from there to the brain, flowing in the head around the organ known in anatomy as the pineal gland.

These rays of light stream from the heart to the head and flow around the pineal gland. These streamings arise because human blood, which is a physical substance, is continually dissolving itself into etheric substance. In the region of the heart there is a continual transformation of the blood into this delicate etheric substance that streams upward toward the head and flows glimmeringly around the pineal gland. This process, the etherization of the blood, can be shown in the human being throughout his waking life. It is different now, however, in the sleeping human being. When a human being sleeps, the occult observer is able to see a continual streaming from outside into the brain and also in the reverse direction, from the brain to the heart. These streams, however, which in sleeping man come from outside, from cosmic space, from the macrocosm, and flow into the inner constitution of the physical and etheric bodies … reveal something remarkable when they are investigated. These rays vary greatly in different individuals. . . .

Moral qualities are revealed distinctly in the particular coloring of the streams that flow into human beings during sleep. . . . At the moment of waking or of going to sleep, a kind of struggle takes place in the region of the pineal gland between what streams down from above and what streams upward from below. When a man is awake, the intellectual element streams upward from below in the form of currents of light, and what is of moral-aesthetic nature streams downward from above. At the moment of waking or of going to sleep, these two currents meet, and in the man of low morality a violent struggle between the two streams takes place in the region of the pineal gland. In the man of high morality and an outstreaming intellectuality, a peaceful expansion of glimmering light appears in the region of the pineal gland. This gland is almost surrounded by a small sea of light in the moment between waking and sleeping. Moral nobility is revealed when a calm glow surrounds the pineal gland at these moments. In this way a man's moral character is reflected in him, and this calm glow of light often extends as far as the region of the heart. Two streams can therefore be perceived in man—one from the macrocosm, the other from the microcosm.

Before we relate this more precisely to the blood of Christ, let us see also the parallel remarks on this process from WW, Lect. 8:

For clairvoyant sight something streams continuously out of our heart—our heart, the outcome of our blood circulation. If you see clairvoyantly the blood pulsating through the human body, then you also see how this blood becomes rarefied again in the heart, how in its finest elements-not in its coarser, but in its finer parts-it is dissolved and returns to the etheric form. Just as the blood has gradually been formed in the ether, so in the human body of the present day we have the reverse process. The blood becomes etherized, and streams of ether flow continuously from the heart towards the head, so that we see the etheric body built up in an opposite direction by way of the blood. Thus what crystallized out from the etheric during the early part of Lemuria to form the human blood circulation [again, Gen 4,10] and the heart we now see returning [see Rev 19,13] to the etheric form and streaming in the human etheric body towards the brain. . . . [He here relates this process also to our thinking.] These etheric currents are indirectly related to a delicate and important part of the human brain called the pineal gland. They continuously lave the pineal gland, which becomes luminous and its movements as physical brain-organ respond in harmony with these etheric currents emanating from the heart. . . . So you see we have not only a process within the Earth which leads to solidification, but also a reverse process of rarefaction.

Continuing from RCE, Lect. 9:

Just as in the region of the human heart the blood is continually being transformed into etheric substance, so a similar process takes place in the macrocosm. We understand this when we turn our eyes to the Mystery of Golgotha, to the moment when the blood flowed from the wounds of Jesus Christ. This blood must not be regarded simply as chemical substance, but by reason of all that has been described as the nature of Jesus of Nazareth, it must be recognized as something altogether unique. When it flowed from His wounds and into the earth, a substance was imparted to our earth which, in uniting with it, constituted an event of the greatest possible significance for all future ages of the earth, and it could take place only once. What happened with this blood in the ages that followed? Nothing different from what otherwise takes place in the heart of man. In the course of earthly evolution, this blood passed through a process of "etherization." Just as our blood streams upward from the heart as ether, so, since the Mystery of Golgotha, the etherized blood of Christ Jesus has lived in the ether of the earth. The etheric body of the earth is permeated by what the blood that flowed on Golgotha became. This is important. If what has thus come to pass through Christ Jesus had not taken place, man's condition on the earth could only have been as previously described. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, however, there has existed the continuous possibility for the activity of the etheric blood of Christ to flow together with the streamings from below upward, from heart to head.

Because the etherized blood of Jesus of Nazareth is present in the etheric body of the earth, it accompanies the etherized human blood streaming upward from the heart to the brain, so that not only do these streams that I described earlier meet in man, but the human bloodstream unites with the bloodstream of Christ Jesus. A union of these two streams can come about, however, only if man is able to unfold true understanding of what is contained in the Christ impulse. Otherwise, there can be no union; the two streams then mutually repel each other, thrust each other away. In every age of earthly evolution, we must acquire understanding in the form suitable for that epoch. At the time when Christ Jesus lived on earth, preceding events could be rightly understood by those who came to His forerunner, John, and were baptized by him. . . . The evolution of humanity progresses, however, and in our present age it is important that man should learn to understand that the knowledge contained in spiritual science must be received and gradually be able so to fire the streams flowing from heart to brain that anthroposophy can be understood. If this comes to pass, individuals will be able to comprehend the event that has its beginning in the twentieth century: the appearance of the etheric Christ in contradistinction to the physical Christ of Palestine.

We have now reached the moment in time when the etheric Christ enters into the life of the earth and will become visible, at first to a small number of people, through a natural clairvoyance. Then in the course of the next 3,000 years, He will become visible to greater and greater numbers of people.

Blood, Page 16

Blood, Page 18