Christ, the J-Curve and the Right Time

In order to have an adequate basis for understanding where we stand in the human evolutionary process, we must digress to review some of what has been said in this larger work. My "General Introduction" to The Burning Bush began by pointing out how Christ summarized the entire Bible story, from humanity's start in the spiritual world until its return thereto, in Luke's parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15,11-32). Throughout The Burning Bush I tried to bring out a theme that underlaid all of Steiner's teachings, namely, that the human being, and all creation as its incident, descended gradually over very long evolutionary stages from the spiritual world in a process of solidification from the rarest form of matter into its present highly densified condition, and that the escape from this condition and reascent back into the spiritual world is taking place now, also over very long evolutionary periods, made possible by the Incarnation of Christ at just the "right time," when humanity had reached a point beyond which it could not go and hope ever to be able to reascend into its original home.⁵⁴

Take note of the schematics portrayed in I-1 and I-2. The position of Earth evolution is detailed as the fourth Condition of Consciousness with three preceding and three to follow, all as a part of the long human journey. In order to portray the mineral-physical stage of Earth evolution (i.e., the Physical Condition of Form in the Mineral Condition of Life), we must drop down on those charts to the two lower series of seven stages, called Evolutionary Epochs and Cultural Ages, respectively. We are at present in the fifth Great (or Evolutionary) Epoch, called the post-Atlantean. Within it, we are in the fifth Cultural Age, called European. Each such Age corresponds with the period of a zodiacal sign of 2,160 years (one-twelfth of the period of 25,920 years it takes the Sun to go through all twelve signs).⁵⁵ The Noah account is the Bible's description of the passage from the Atlantean Epoch to our present post-Atlantean Epoch. It occurred about the time the last great ice age ended, with the melting ice and the condensing mists. ("Nephilim" in Gen 6,4 means "mist people," nephos being "cloud" in Greek). The condensation of the enveloping mists permits the first appearance of a "rainbow" in Gen 9,13, as the Sun could begin to be seen. Archaeology shows us that the first appearance of civilization in the rest of the Earth begins as life on Atlantis was becoming more hazardous up to and through its final cataclysmic submergence around ten to twelve thousand years ago. Atlanteans emigrated both to the east and west, but the dominant cultural influence was that of Noah, or the one known as "Manu" who founded the Ancient Indian culture of the first Cultural Age.⁵⁶

The point of greatest density among the Great Evolutionary Epochs would seem to be the Atlantean, the lowest point on the curve. However, Steiner has indicated that there is a lag in effect. In economic language it is called a "J-Curve," where an impulse calculated to bring a change of direction actually causes an increase in the original direction for a time before the reverse sets in. It is a reflection of what happens with the influence of our heavenly bodies. For instance, the Sun reaches its winter solstice around December 21. Theoretically, days should begin then to warm, but actually they keep getting colder till winter is more than half gone. The same is true with the summer solstice around June 21, when things should begin to cool down, but they don't until the summer is over half gone. We shall see this is true of the influence of zodiacal signs also. The deepest point of human incarnation (densification) has come in our present Great Epoch, the post-Atlantean by reason of this type of lag.

And since this lag throws the deepest point into our present Cultural Era, we see the same phenomenon when we break our post-Atlantean Epoch down into its seven Cultural Eras. The low point on the parabola of the post-Atlantean Epoch came in the Greco-Roman Era. That was the "right time." And just as there was a further densification from the Atlantean to the post-Atlantean, so also does the J-Curve effect show a further densification from the Greco-Roman Era to our present Era. We are approximately the same distance into our present Era as was the "right time" of Christ's Incarnation in the Greco-Roman. The J-Curve must soon swing rapidly in the opposite direction, at least for that portion of humanity that is to come within the one hundred forty-four thousand (Rev 7,4; 14,1,3; 6,11; 7,9).

This J-Curve phenomenon is yet another corroboration of what was said in The Burning Bush (pp. 133-136), that reincarnation was not to be taught in exoteric Christianity for two thousand years (see also the Epilogue in The Incredible Births of Jesus). The greatest of all impulses on Earth, the Christ Event, could change the overall downward direction of humanity only as its power could be assimilated into and appropriated by the broader human consciousness as the latter moved from Ram to Pisces, from the Cultural Age of the Lamb of God to the Cultural Age of the fishes (see I-19). We will see this more fully when we get to the "feedings" of the "four thousand" and the "five thousand," metaphors for the fourth and fifth Cultural Ages, respectively.⁵⁸ The widespread appearance of "sign of the fish" bumper stickers in our day may well be a spontaneous, though unwitting, manifestation of the arrival of the appropriate time in Pisces (the heavenly "sign-of-the-fish") for humanity to recognize the reality and grace in the higher "law" of the Father God, the law of karma (see the many citations and discussions of Mt 5,17 in The Burning Bush).

The J-Curve effect also applies in the relation of the zodiacal signs to the Cultural Eras on Earth. Chart I-19 shows that there is a time lag of twelve hundred years (actually 1,199) from the Zodiacal Ages to the Cultural Ages.⁵⁹ If we study that chart, we can see a clear connection between Cultural Ages and their respective symbols. The two most obvious, of course, are the Ages of Taurus and Aries. Figures of the bull prevailed during the Chaldo-Egyptian Era. All Bible students will be aware of this and of the findings of archaeology that overwhelmingly support it. And the relationship of Aries to the Era of Christ, the Lamb of God, is beyond question. The historical age goes back only to the Chaldo-Egyptian, but Steiner has revealed the nature of the two earlier Ages and they fit precisely with their zodiacal symbols. Ancient India represents a complete break (the Noah break) from Atlantis, and the intertwined spirals of Cancer (the Crab) mean precisely that (see I-81). The Ancient Persian is the age of the first Zarathustra, he who saw the Ahura Mazda, the descending Christ, in the Sun sphere. He saw a duality of light and darkness, characterizing the latter domain as that of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman).⁶⁰ This duality bears a relationship to the later twin falsities of Lucifer ("light-bearer") and Ahriman (see I-32). Clearly, the idea of the Twins, Gemini, is apparent. Christ's mission on Earth was forward-looking (Promethean). Its ubiquitous fish symbolism (probably none more powerfully symbolic than Jn 21) meant that it was looking ahead to what would come into the consciousness of human beings in the present Cultural Age of Pisces (A.D. 1414-3574). Again we note the "feedings" of the five thousand and the four thousand (the fourth and fifth being the Cultural Age of Christ and our present Cultural Age, respectively).⁶¹ Christ's words in Jn 16,12 ("I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now") are a different way of saying the same thing. Human consciousness had yet to evolve further.

Let us return to the parabola above that portrays the seven Cultural Eras. If we visualize that on a Cartesian chart where the vertical coordinates represent spiritual progress (densification/rarefication) and the horizontal coordinates the passage of time, we can see that spiritual progress was very slow in the Greco-Roman Era, slower than at any time before or since. Who could argue that in fact this has been the case. The many centuries that slid off into the "dark ages" of medieval Europe can hardly be compared with those since the Renaissance. And who can but marvel at the acceleration of pace in the twentieth century? Unfortunately, evil and materiality have veiled the second coming from human vision (see The Burning Bush). In many respects, however, we must see in this a replay of the Greco-Roman Era and the conditions that prevailed at the time of Christ. In that Era humanity did not recognize the Christ in the physical body. Now Christ has come in the etheric body and humanity again fails to recognize. It has not prepared itself, and the Christ has returned in the way he said he would, as a "thief in the night."⁶²

This speeding up of spiritual development, the end of the J-Curve effect, must now take hold, for it would seem that this is what Christ spoke of in his so-called "Little Apocalypse" passage: "And if those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened" (Mt 24,22). These words pertain more to the later Cultural Eras, when human beings will give up their sexuality and begin to reproduce through the larynx by their "word," in the image of the Father ("Alas for those who are with child and for those who give suck in those days"; Mt 24,19 and Lk 21,23; 23,29). However, the tendency toward this begins by a sharp upturn in the parabola as we can see above.