SURELY NO WORD or phrase is less understood, nor more critical to comprehension of the Bible story, than “I am.” Scripturally, we first encounter it in Ex 3 where God reveals to Moses that “I Am” is his “Name” (emphasis added):

(6) And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (13) Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” (14) God said to Moses, “I AM THE1 I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, [the]2 ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (15) God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: this is my name for ever, and thus [the] I am [is] to be remembered throughout all generations. . . .”

One cannot understand the Mystery of Golgotha without first coming to see that this passage discloses the Mosaic equivalent of the maxim that contemporaneously graced the portal through which every candidate for initiation into the ancient Mysteries had to pass, namely, “Know Thyself.” Moses himself had been initiated into the Mysteries of Egypt (Ex 2,3-10) and of Midian (Ex 2,15-22). (See “Mysteries,” as well as Christianity as Mystical Fact [(CMF)]). In this passage God has “hidden his face” (again, see “Mysteries”) for some three millennia now (e.g., Deut 32,20; Ps 13,1, etc.) By understanding this, one can see a clear parallel between the plaintive cry “How long, O Lord?” in Ps 13,1 and that in Is 6,11. One can also come to understand more clearly the role that Moses played, he whose glory Paul called a “Fading Splendor.”

This passage, “I AM THE I AM,” can be understood only when it is seen that Moses stood at the critical point in human evolution when the Ego was making its transition from group or tribal soul to individual soul. Moses himself was gifted with the ancient and atavistic clairvoyance, and could not bring himself fully into the era of the developing “I Am”; hence he could not fully recognize it in the wilderness (Ex 17,6; Num 20,11- 12; Deut 32; 1 Cor 10,4).

The transitional nature of the revelation is indicated by Ex 6,2-3:

(2) And God said to Moses, “[the] I am [is] the LORD. (3) [It, the] I [Am,] appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by my name [I Am, or] the LORD I did not make myself known to them.”

While heretofore the “name” that was pronounced has been considered to be “Yahweh,” it should now be realized that while it was indeed the Eloha Yahweh speaking, he here names himself by the “Name,” “I Am.” “I Am” is what Moses is instructed to call him in Ex 3,14, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘[the] I Am has sent me to you’.” The Elohim are the primary rulers of Earth evolution (see I-16). From Occult Science (OS) we know that the Eloha Yahweh went with the Moon when it separated from the Earth. As such he was a “moon God,” and there is much documentation of this in the Hebrew tradition; but in the service of the Christ he reflected the spiritual light of Christ so that the name “I Am” was his name as a representative of the Christ (see I-7). We know that the Christ multifariously identified himself as the “I Am” in John’s Gospel and that this name is identified in Revelation as that of the redeemed. We shall see that this is the name pointed to by Isaiah in the suffering servant passages (for Isaiah “saw his glory and spoke of him,” Jn 12,41). And with this Steiner-enabled understanding of God’s name it is also possible, as we shall see, to come to deep new insight into the meaning of Paul’s “Not I but Christ in me” (Gal 2,20) and to see that the proper preposition in Gal 1,16 is the more literal Greek in and not to.3

And Paul makes it clear that the name referred to in Ex 6,2-3 above, which also appeared incognito to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was the Christ, the “I Am” (1 Cor 10,1-4).

At this point, let us pause to reflect that there is a critical dual aspect to the name “I Am.” To correspond with the dual nature of Adam (see “First and Second Adam”) there must be a higher and a lower “I Am.” Inasmuch as all humanity is infected by the Fall (Gen 3), the lower “I Am” is unable by itself to raise its three bodies to a state of purity equivalent to that of their pre-Fall status. The astral body that was infected in the Garden has, over time, spread its ailment into the denser etheric body and the latter, in turn, into the physical body, so that all our “members” (Rom 7,22,23) carry within them the effects of the original sin (which occurred through the Luciferic influence before the Ego had entered into humanity). It is the task of the young Ego (Job 32,4-6) to overcome this Luciferic infection, but due to its immaturity that young Ego is not equal to the task of overcoming the deeply ingrained consequences of the infection in the older and denser bodies. From “The Nativity” we saw how the unsullied etheric body of Adam, the part held back by the heavenly powers from the densification of the first Adam, became the “provisional Ego” of the Nathan Jesus child, until at age twelve the Ego of the Solomon Jesus child (which had been that of ancient Zarathustra) entered into it, to be replaced at age “Thirty” by the descending Christ Spirit at “Baptism.” Its descent had been foreseen by the ancient Zarathustra in the Great Aura (“Ahura Mazda” or “Ormuzd”) of the Sun, also by the Hebrew “fathers” and by Moses and Isaiah. The Christ Spirit is the “I Am” which speaks out in John’s Gospel and in the Apocalypse, and it alone is strong enough to eventually cure the “Three Bodies” (“members”) of their deeply ingrained consequences of sin. In Rom 7,22, Paul says that his “inmost self” delights “in the law of God” but is unable by itself to effect the cure of his other “members.” But this “inmost self,” or “Ego,” which he correctly identifies as his “mind” (Rom 7,23, being the same as his “I” in verse 21), has a primeval relationship to that from which it sprang, namely, the Christ. It is for this reason that Paul can speak in both Gal 1,16 and 2,20 of the Christ (i.e., the “I Am”) in him. By coming to a recognition and acceptance of that Christ, the pure “I Am,” the human being’s own Ego joins unto itself the power of that higher primeval Ego and thereby is enabled to heal the ages of infection of its lower three bodies or “members.”

Here it is well to reflect upon the significance, of old, of one’s “name.” To this end, see “Name,” “Name Change” and “NT Names.” And for further light on the nature of the “I Am” see the meaning of “Bush.”

While “Bush” appears later herein, the other terms will not be available until later. Since they relate so closely to the “I Am,” a brief discussion of them at this point seems essential. Since the Middle Ages the significance of a “Name” has undergone such a change that in our modern time we have little understanding of it. Today’s human being looks out upon the world and sees in it merely a physical object in space and time. There is no tendency to think of it as existing other than in those confines, space and time. Any name given to it has no particular significance other than the fact that it is known by that name. If it is an orange, it is so only because that happens to be the name of the class of items to which it has been assigned. If it is a person, the name exists only because it was assigned at birth by the parents. The name itself has no reality apart from the person. This is so obvious that any suggestion otherwise borders on the ridiculous in the modern way of thinking.

And yet, it has not always been so. At a transitional point in human history (evolution), when this modern view began to arise, it was the center of an emotional philosophical debate known as Nominalism versus Realism. Plato and Aristotle were “realists” who saw in the name of an object something that transcended the object. For the orange, there was in the spiritual world a very real “Form” from which the tangible orange itself came into being. Moses also had this understanding. It can be found most vividly in the “after its kind” language in Gen 1,11,12,21,24,25. Throughout the time when the Bible was written this view prevailed. But this Platonic and Aristotelian conception was fading by the Middle Ages. Aquinas and other devout churchmen struggled to carry it forward, but the tendency was toward the “nominalist” idea that there was no metaphysically real existence in regard to the “Name” of an object or person. Insofar as it applied to human beings, the nominalist view seems to have been a natural development with the loss, over long periods, of the knowledge that the Ego, one’s “I Am,” has existed in prior lives and that its personality and its “Three Bodies” in the present life have been formed in the spiritual world as a result of these prior lives (see “Form”). The Middle Age churchmen held to the ancient understanding even though they had lost the knowledge of reincarnation. They clung to theological beliefs that had arisen earlier, without seeing the metaphysical reality behind them. See 8 Brit 753, “Nominalism,” which says “In the Middle Ages . . . Platonic and Aristotelian realisms were associated with orthodox religious belief.”

Theologians today almost universally agree that names had greater significance in ancient than in modern times. But they have generally failed to articulate why this is so. It is all part of humanity’s “Fading Splendor.” When humanity comes to understand the human journey between death and rebirth, as discussed in “Karma and Reincarnation,” the metaphysical reality behind the individual human being will once again be seen. The “reality” behind the sensate world, seen by ancient humanity, will again be “seen, heard and understood” (Is 6,9-10). Then, for example, will the meaning of Luke’s emphasis upon the naming of the Baptist as “John” be understood (Lk 1,13,59-66).

The “Name” given to a person in the Bible is a description of the nature of the person at birth, describing the character and attributes of personality with which the person incarnated. A person who went through initiation into the Mysteries was said to have been “born again” (Jn 3,3), becoming a “New Man,” whereupon a “Name Change,” where appropriate, was given to indicate the person’s new character and attributes. Abram became Abraham; Jacob, Israel; Simon, Peter; and Saul, Paul. We will see other examples. It is this transformation, as described in Jn 11, “the raising of Lazarus from the dead,” that hides the reality of the “Name” of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see “Peter, James and John”).

In this light, one cannot pray “in his name” who is not acting in keeping with his (Christ’s) Being. The words themselves mean no more than the names given to children at their birth today. Whenever one truly prays “in his name,” the prayer is always heard (Jn 14,13-14). The term “unanswered prayer” is an oxymoron if it is really “in his name.” For total subservience to the Father’s will is always present when one is “in his name.” And it is only in this condition that one can become a “child of God” by “believing in his name” (Jn 1,12). Such belief is a matter of character, not mere verbal profession. The latter, without the former, is a fraud (1 Jn 1,6; 2,4; Mt 7,21).

Steiner called the Elohim (I-6), the beings called “God” in Gen 1, “Spirits of Form.” They created the etheric reality behind the tangible world, and from that reality came the perishable things and creatures we perceive on Earth. Ultimately there is more reality to the “Form(s)” than to their perishable offspring. The latter has even been called “maya,” illusion. The “Name” of something tangible is its higher reality in the etheric or spiritual world. With this, we can return to the “I Am.”

This matter of the “name” of God is another cogent demonstration that the documentary hypotheses4 of the Old Testament (and of the New) is the spurious offspring of the leading theology of the last two centuries. This is pointedly illustrated by the erroneous assumption that merely the awesome sounding “Yahweh” is the “name” intended by the Mosaic account rather than the mysterious phrase “I Am.” Later in this essay (following the discussion on the sound “AUM”), we will return to “Yahweh” to look strictly at its meaning absent the juxtaposition of the expository “I Am” in Ex 3,14. But for now, we must preliminarily pursue a somewhat different path of analysis.

Much confusion has arisen among the scholars by the statement in Ex 6,2-3 that such “name” was not known to or used by the Hebrews before the time of Moses. Yet, clearly the term “Yahweh” appears much earlier in the book of Genesis (162 times according to 1 ZC 74). It first appears in Gen 2,4b, and in Gen 4,26 we are told, “At that time [when Adam and Eve were bearing their children] men began to call upon the name of the LORD.”

In Barc’s Exodus, App. II, we read:

On the basis of certain phenomena in Genesis and especially on the apparently obvious interpretation of Exod. 6:1-3 . . . it has been widely held for nearly two centuries that the use of Yahweh for Israel’s God began in the time of Moses, even though this theory is in contradiction to Gen 4:26 and much of the usage of Genesis. This has in turn led to a variety of theories as to the origin of the name.

More extensively, in 1 AB 37-38, we read, in regard to Gen 4,26:

An acute problem is posed, lastly, by the laconic notice at the end of the chapter. The clause reads, “It was then that the name Yahweh began to be invoked”; not “the name of Yahweh,” since the emphasis is precisely on the personal name and not on its eventual substitute “the Lord.” But this statement is directly at variance with Exod iii 14 (E) and vi 3 (P), which indicate that the name Yahweh had not come into use until the time of Moses. Yet J employs this very name throughout Genesis; and the present passage ascribes the usage to very ancient practice.

To be sure, some critics would attribute vss 25-26 to P, in view of the fact that vs 25 speaks of “Adam” (instead of “the man”), as is P’s custom (see v 1ff.), aside from mentioning Elohim; cf. Noth, Uberlieferungsgeschichte..., p. 12, n. 26. In that case, however, the divergence from Exod vi 3 would be that much more perplexing. (There is, of course, nothing new in J’s use of Elohim; cf. ix 26f.) Everywhere else, each documentary source is consistent on this point; it is only their joint testimony that gives rise to difficulties. A plausible solution may be in sight, nevertheless. Even though J traced back the name Yahweh to the dim past, while E and P attributed the usage to Moses, both views may be justified depending on the point of vantage. The worship of Yahweh was in all likelihood confined at first to a small body of searchers under the aegis of J. When Moses set out to fashion a nation out of an amorphous conglomerate of sundry ethnic and tribal elements, he had to concentrate on three major features of nationhood; a territorial base, a body of laws, and a distinctive religion. The last was normative in more ways than one; it was necessarily the faith of the same forefathers who had already tied it to the Promised Land, with Yahweh as its fountainhead. To that extent, therefore, Yahweh revealed himself to Moses: and it is this personal revelation that both E and P celebrate. To J, however, who chronicled the progress within the inner circle of the patriarchal pioneers, the personal participation of Yahweh had been the dominant fact from the start.

Little can be said in this connection about the etymology of Yahweh. The fact that attempts to solve the problem are still being made all the time is proof that none of the preceding efforts has carried sufficient appeal. All such ventures start out with the Bible’s own explication in Exod iii 14. Yet that name gloss should not be adduced as a technical etymology. It is manifestly a case of symbolism no less than the instances in Gen ii 23, iv 1, xi 9, and many other passages. On this score, at any rate, the name of Yahweh is constantly taken in vain.

Perhaps the most unequivocal indication that the intended name of God was “I Am” and not “Yahweh” is to be found in Revelation. Not until Steiner expounded upon that mysterious book (in The Apocalypse of St. John [(ASJ)] and Reading the Pictures of the Apocalypse [(RPA)]), in the light of his basic anthroposophic teaching, was there any treatment that carried with it significant force of reason and clarity of meaning. The chart depicted in I-1 is taken from the ASJ lecture cycle, in which we learn for the first time (along with RPA) that the letters to the angels of the seven churches refer to the seven Cultural Eras in the present post-Atlantean Epoch (see I-25, I-19 and I-24). (We also see that the seven seals, trumpets and bowls of wrath deal with progressively subsequent stages in humanity’s evolution, reflected in I-1; see the Commentary.) Let us look, then, at these unequivocal passages (emphasis added):

Rev 2,17: “. . . To him who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it.”

Rev 3,12: He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God; never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

Rev 19,12-13: (12) His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself. (13) He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.

The church in Pergamum, to whose angel Rev 2,17 is addressed, is clearly identified to Moses’ Chaldo-Egyptian era. This we can see by its reference to the “hidden manna” (see “Manna”). And the “new name . . . which no one knows except him who receives it” is a clear reference to “the I Am,” for as Steiner often said in reference to the above passages, the only name that is known to no one but the one who receives it is “I Am.” There is simply no one else in all creation who could ever utter that name with reference to the one who carries it except that person alone. It is a clear reference to the Ego that the human being progressively receives during Earth evolution (see I-72). The “white stone” (2,17) is a contra-distinction to the original “stone tablets”—which referred not to actual rock, but to the nature of the human brain, which was developing, i.e., hardening, “rocklike,” as the natural result of the process of ever-increasing densification brought about by the Fall (Gen 3) whereby humanity was given access to the “tree of knowledge” but deprived of its prior access to the “tree of life.”

Only the “Second Adam” (see “First and Second Adam”) could give such a “white stone,” one that was unsullied, for the infection of the astral body, which occurred in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3), had the natural consequence of progressively sullying first the older etheric body and then even, in time, the still-older physical body. As the downward evolution of humanity continued, a “point of no return,” was reached, the “Right Time,” when it became necessary, if the abyss was to be avoided, for the highest spiritual power (the Christ) to sacrifice himself for the salvation of humanity. The Christ had to take on human form (Heb 2), so that all who called upon “his name” could be saved.

The “hidden manna” (2,17) is not physical food, nor was it in the time of Moses (again, see “Manna”), but rather “spiritual food” (1 Cor 10,3), nothing other than the first stage of enlightenment (see I-9 and I-35). Only with the “new name” (Rev 2,17, Ex 3,14 and 6,2-3) revealed to humanity through Moses does such Manna become possible. It would, indeed, only become possible for humanity in the true sense when the blood of Christ (Rev 19,13) had been shed. Why this is so becomes clearer as one gains understanding of the “etherization of the blood,” the continuous transformation, within all human beings, of the blood into a delicate etheric substance that streams from the heart upward into the head in the region of the pineal gland (see “Second Coming”). When one understands and takes to heart the Mystery of Golgotha, the etheric blood of Christ is incorporated into the process, and one’s own spiritual organ (first the pineal gland) begins to develop, eventually reaching the point of spiritual vision (“seeing,” the first stage of enlightenment or initiation). One can then “see” in the etheric world.

Rev 3,12 above has to do with the church at “Philadelphia,” the sixth post-Atlantean Cultural Era, which follows our own. In that era the “manas” or Manna state will be on center stage insofar as Earth evolution is concerned (although it will not be perfected until the Jupiter Condition of Consciousness—I-1). To this effect, see I-24, supplemented by I-25 and I-19. In the outgoing and return of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15,11-32), i.e., the human being in the Parable’s highest application, the seven-stage process (see I-1, I-2 and I-3) requires that each of the first three stages be recapitulated, in reverse order, in the last three. Thus, what was first revealed in the second Cultural Era (the Ancient Persian) must again appear in more perfect form in the sixth (the Philadelphian), and what was first revealed in the third (the Chaldo-Egyptian) must likewise reappear transformed in the fifth (our present Era). In the second, Zarathustra saw the descending Christ clearly, while in the third Moses was given the “new name” (Rev 2,17), “I Am,” but in his “Fading Splendor” he did not recognize it (the life-saving “Rock”) in the Wilderness. And we see in Rev 3,3, which describes our own fifth Cultural Era when the Second Coming of Christ has commenced with humanity spiritually sleeping, “If you will not awake, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you.” We fail, as did Moses, to recognize him upon his return. But in the sixth Era, Philadelphia, the clear (transformed) vision of Zarathustra returns, and we see in Rev 3,12 that the “new name,” i.e., the higher “I Am,” will be written on “those who conquer.”

With these things in mind, it is possible to come to an understanding of the importance of the Sacrament of Communion. Typically, when the bread is offered to the communicant, the priest will refer to it as “the bread of heaven.” When we begin to understand that “the I Am” is “the new name,” we can begin to see the significance of a thread that runs from “the Law” through the Prophets, the Gospels and Paul to the Revelation. We see it in the “I Am” passages. These have always commanded attention, without understanding, in John’s Gospel, but they have not generally been recognized as being connected elsewhere. When we go back to Ex 3 and finally recognize that, in God’s statement (3,6), “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, etc.” (emphasis added) we are being introduced to the “I Am” of Christ, the “Second Adam,” who, through, and only through, the understanding invitation of our own “I Am” can be conjoined to our very being in the process of perfection, then we can see that “I Am” is used with this meaning elsewhere in scripture.

When we see that the true meaning of the “I Am” was providentially cloaked in Ex 3 to “hide its face” from humanity’s cognition until two millennia after the passage of the Twelve (see “Twelve”), Lazarus/John, Paul, the Mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and some others (1 Cor 15,3-8), when the prophecy (1 Cor 14; cf. Ezek 33,23-33) of Steiner made it known upon the repassage through the new age of Abraham (also discussed in “Second Coming”), then we can begin to detect its presence in other hallowed passages.

The reader must understand the extreme nature of the stricture any writing of this high level must endure. So extensive is the revelation both of scripture and of Steiner’s teachings that one must enter into them long-term to gather their ever-increasing fruit. Each new insight adds gloss to every other. The character of the “I Am” or Ego pervades each such area. It is noteworthy that in the first series of Steiner’s Gospel lectures, The Gospel of St. John (GSJ), the sixth chapter is entitled, “The ‘I Am’.” As magnificent and essential as it is, it can only scope a small segment of the larger picture. It opens with the passage in Jn 3,3-5, moves through the creative process of the human being’s three bodies and Ego, and then expounds the meaning of the terms “son of man,” “serpent,” “manas” (Manna) and “buddhi.” Steiner himself did not, to my knowledge, ever attempt to point out all the Biblical usages of the term “I Am.” The range of revelation he had to pack within his one lifetime precluded total exposition in any one area or discipline; it remained to those who caught up his spirit to carry it further, and this he constantly urged as being demanded of us in our time. But he always gave the necessary tools for that task. It is with these that we look further below (but this is not to claim that he did not point, implicitly if not explicitly, on occasion, in many of these directions).

Let us look, for instance, at GSJ, Lect. 9. There Steiner tells us that just as in the case of Gal 1,16, the preposition used in Biblical translations of Jn 12,41 is in error by virtue of the failure of translators down through the ages to understand the descent of Christ and his appearance to those of old. The passage, which has reference to Is 6,10, should read as follows: “Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke with5 him.” Clearly one must use the term “with,” rather than “of” or “about,” in regard to the direct conversation in Is 6,8-13. But how can it be said that it was the Christ rather than Yahweh who is referred to by Isaiah as “the Lord?” At the outset, we have only Steiner’s word for it. Recall at the opening of the “Overview” how it was said that Steiner’s revelations on the Bible come from his direct perception in the spiritual world, and not from the content of the Bible itself. We find him stating this in the first lecture of the first cycle (GSJ) in his Gospel series. It remains only to test out what he said and see if it proves true (cf. Deut 18,21-22).

So what about Steiner’s assertion that what Isaiah saw was the Christ? When the order of the Hierarchies is recognized it becomes obvious. Paul spoke of these.6 In Eph 1,21, after listing “all rule and authority and power and dominion” (essentially the names of the threefold second Hierarchy (see I-6), he speaks of Christ as the one “above every name that is named.” Isaiah says “I saw the Lord [Christ] sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.” The Thrones are immediately above the second Hierarchy, being the third rank of the first Hierarchy. The Seraphim compose the highest rank of the first Hierarchy, and while Isaiah saw them “above” the Lord, the Lord was sitting and they “stood.” But most significantly, with two of their six wings they covered their faces, and they flew calling out “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” The Seraphim would never have been portrayed thus if it were the Exusiai (Elohim, or Authorities7) he referred to as Lord, for the Exusiai constitute the sixth rank and the Seraphim the first in the Hierarchies. Yahweh was one of the seven Elohim.

Lazarus/John and Paul were the two who were initiated directly by Christ himself. In 1 Cor 10,4 (“They drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ”) Paul recognizes that Christ dealt directly with the people from the spiritual world before his Incarnation in the flesh. Similarly, in Jn 12,41 Lazarus/John recognized the action of Christ during Old Testament times. As we see below, Isaiah let the “I Am” passages ring out. Particularly in the suffering servant portions do we see the Christ. Consider Is 42,1, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations.” Could the event at the Baptism of Jesus of Nazareth, “my servant,” where the dove, “my Spirit,” descends upon him, be more precisely or beautifully expressed? Lazarus/John carries the “I Am” theme through his Gospel. In Jn 12,41 Lazarus/John recognized Isaiah as the one who, above all others, had seen the Christ in the spiritual world.

Steiner said “What ran through the Old Testament was like a prophecy,” indicating that it was the Logos, the Christ, who gave the “name” “I Am” to Moses on Mt. Sinai (Ex 3,14). We need not here denigrate the function of Yahweh, for the revelation of the Christ would seem to have come through him. But the name “I Am” that Christ spoke through Yahweh was uniquely that of the Christ, the higher “I Am.” The New Testament makes this abundantly clear, particularly in the Gospel and Apocalypse of Lazarus/John. We need only look at Is 44,1-8 to gather compelling evidence. In vs 2 we read “Thus says the Lord [Christ] who made you, who formed you from the womb.. . .” (see “The Nativity”). Then, compellingly, vs 6 reads “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, ‘I am the first and I am the last;...” (see also Is 41,4), and then vs 8b, “Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” Clearly, “the Alpha and the Omega,” the first and the last, is Christ (Rev 1,8; 21,6; 22,13). And can there be any doubt that the Christ is the Rock? See 1 Cor 10,4; also “Rock.” Steiner has delivered us from the effete interpretations of these passages in existing Bible commentaries. As we shall presently see, other passages in the Bible simply do not make sense unless the name “I Am” given to Moses was that of the Christ.

There is an intriguing sentence that runs through the Old Testament and bears a haunting similarity to the “I Am,” as though to reflect an upward looking of the lower toward the higher Ego, and an upward-lifting response thereto. It is “Here am I,” a mirror image of the higher counterpart, the “I Am.” It was spoken of old by Abraham (Gen 22,1,11), by Isaac (Gen 22,7), and by Jacob (Gen 31,11), all before the time of Moses. To none of them was the higher “I Am” revealed by such name. The significance of this is pointedly reflected in Jacob’s encounter with the angel of God in Gen 32,26-29 (emphasis added):

(26) Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (27) And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” (28) Then he said, “Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” (29) Then Jacob asked him, “Tell me, I pray, your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.

Though it was God with whom Jacob strove, and though he saw Him “face to face,” still it was yet not time for His name, the “I Am,” to be revealed—and it was not. Thus Yahweh, reflecting the Christ, could say in Ex 6,2-3 that though he had appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by his name “I Am” he did not then make himself known. The first appearance of the patriarchal trinity Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is at the conclusion of the book of Genesis (Gen 50,24) where Joseph speaks of his own “I am” dying, but no reference to the higher “I Am” is yet given. The first identification by Christ (through Yahweh) of his “Name” “I Am” comes in Ex 3,6 (emphasis added):

And he said, “[the] I Am [is] the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.8

And thereafter we find God speaking as the “I Am” throughout the Old Testament, e.g., in Ex 6,6,29 and 7,5, and again in Lev 26,44-45.

The “Here am I” passage appears again after Moses on the lips of Samuel (1 Sam 3,4-9), followed by the higher “I Am” speaking in vss 11-14. But nowhere in the Old Testament, outside of Ex 3 and 6, is the name “I Am” more clearly and profusely identified as that of the LORD than in the book of Isaiah. And no other prophet is looked to more extensively by the Evangelists than Isaiah as foreseeing and inscrutably describing the Christ. We see again the “Here am I” (Is 6,8), but this time we get an elaboration on it that, beyond all question,9 is a foreseeing and recognition of the “I Am” as the “Name” of the LORD.

The extent to which Isaiah portrays the “I Am” is reflected in the following passages therefrom (emphasis added; by now the reader should be able to see the meanings involved without the insertion of the implied parenthetical words heretofore added):

Is 6: (1) In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. (2) Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. (3) And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (4) And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. (5) And I said: “Woe is me! For I Am lost; for I Am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (6) Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal.. . . (7) And he touched my mouth, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven.” (8) And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I ! Send me.” (9) And he said, “Go and say to this people: ‘Hear and hear, but do not understand; see and see, but do not perceive.’ (10) Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” (11) Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without men, and the land is utterly desolate, (12) and the LORD removes men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. (13) And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains standing when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump.10

Deutero (and Trito) Isaiah

Is 41-52: [41](4) Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am He. . . . (8) But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; . . . (10) fear not, for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you.. .

[42](1) Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations. (5) Thus says God, the LORD, .. . (6) “I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations (7) to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. (8) I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to graven images. (9) Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” . . . (16) And I will lead the blind in a way that they know not, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.. . . (18) Hear, you deaf; and look, you blind, that you may see!11 (19) Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the LORD? . . .

[43](1) But now thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. (2) When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God.12 ... (5) Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; (6) I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, (7) every one who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. (8) Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! . . . (10) “You are my witnesses,” says the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He.... (11) I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. . . . (13) “I am God, and also henceforth I am He.... (15) I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.” . . . (18) “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. (19) Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert... (24) ... But you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities. (25) “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.. . .”

[44] (1) “But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! (2) Thus says the LORD who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. (3) For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring. (4) They shall spring up like grass amid waters, like willows by flowing streams. (5) This one will say, ‘I am the LORD’S,’ another will call himself by the name of Jacob and another will write on his hand, ‘The LORD’S,’ and surname himself by the name of Israel.” (6) Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. (7) Who is like me? . . . (8) Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.”

[45] (1) Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, . . . (2) “I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut asunder the bars of iron, (3) I will give you treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. (4) For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you, though you do not know me. (5) I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I gird you, though you do not know me, (6) . . . I am the LORD, and there is no other. (7) . . . I am the LORD, who do all these things. . . .” (18) “.. . I am the LORD, and there is no other. . . . (21) .. . Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the LORD? ....”

[46] (3) “Hearken to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb; (4) even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. . . . (8) “Remember this and consider, recall it to mind, you transgressors, (9) remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me....”

[47] (10) You felt secure in your wickedness, you said, “No one sees me”; your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” (11) But evil shall come upon you, for which you cannot atone. . . .

[48] (12) “Hearken to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am He, I am the first, and I am the last.... ” (17) Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go....”

[49] (1) . . . The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. . . . (5) And now the LORD says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD, and my God has become my strength: .. . (22) Thus says the Lord God: “. . . (23) . . . Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.” ... (25) Surely, thus says the LORD: “... (26) ... Then all flesh shall know that I am the LORD your Savior. . . .”

[51] (12) “I, I am he that comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, (13) and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker?. . . (15) For I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the LORD of hosts is his name. (16) And I have put my words in your mouth, .. . saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”. . .

[52] (1) Awake, awake, . . . (2) Shake yourself from the dust, arise. . . . (3) For thus says the LORD: “.. . (6) Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I.” . . .

[54] (8) In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the LORD, your Redeemer. . . .

[56] (4) For thus says the LORD: “. . . (5) I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which shall not be cut off....”

[58] (6) “Is not this the fast that I choose? . . . (7) Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (8) Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily. . . . (9) Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am....”

[60] (1) Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you....(14) ... they shall call you the City of the LORD,13 the Zion of the HOLY One of Israel.... (16) ... and you shall know that I, the LORD, am your Savior.... (22) ... “I am the LORD....”

[62] (2) The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the LORD will give....

[63] (1) . . . “It is I, announcing vindication, mighty to save.” . . .

[65] (1) I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here am I, here am I,” to a nation that did not call on my name. (2) I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; . . . (5) who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am set apart from you.” . . .

[66] (18) For I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and shall see my glory. . . . (22) “For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, says the LORD; so shall your descendants and your name remain....”

It is most significant that it was Lazarus/John who both noted that Isaiah had seen and spoken with the Christ (Jn 12,41) and identifies him as the “I Am.” And John’s Gospel extensively characterizes Christ as the “I Am” (see I-72):

Passage Character of the “I Am” Jn 6,35,41,48,51 Bread of Life Jn 8,12 and 9,5 Light of the World Jn 10,7,9 Door Jn 10,11,14 Good Shepherd Jn 11,25 Resurrection Jn 11,25 and 14,6 Life Jn 14,6 Way Jn 14,6 Truth Jn 15,1,5 Vine

Several more Johannine “I Am” passages deserve notation, including:

Jn 8,23 and 17,14,16 Not of this world Jn 8,58 Before Abraham Jn 10,36 Son of God Jn 13,13 Teacher Jn 13,13 Lord Jn 13,33 With you Jn 14,10,20 In the Father and the Father in me Jn 18,37 A king

In each of the synoptic Gospels, the adoption of Jesus of Nazareth as “Son of God,” upon exit of the Zarathustra Ego and entry of the Christ Spirit into him at Baptism,14 is pronounced by the Father as follows (emphasis added):

Mt 3,16-17: (16) And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; (17) and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Mk 1,10-11: (10) And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; (11) and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”

Lk 3,21-22: (21) . . . and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, (22) and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”

These take on added meaning in conjunction with Ps 2,7, Is 42,1, Jn 1,12 and Rom 8,23.

The more human beings take the Christ “I Am” into their own Ego, and thereby transform the lower three bodies into the higher three states (see I-9), the greater the enhancement of their consciousness. When that consciousness extends beyond the gates of birth and death, then one dwells always in the Kingdom, having overcome death and the river Lethe’s oblivion (Jn 1,12; Job 38,17). It is then that the three loaves (lower bodies) are fully leavened and one dwells in full consciousness in the Kingdom (Mt 13,33). The Ego, or “I Am,” is after all a matter of consciousness. We see in I-1 that there are to be a total of seven Conditions of Consciousness, of which Earth evolution is the fourth, the one in which the Ego is added to the older three bodies (members) in the human being’s evolution and becomes their ruler, i.e., the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (cf. Is 11,6d, “and a little child shall lead them”; also Job 32,4,6). The powerful significance of this has yet to dawn upon the bulk of humanity, from which the “Face of God,” and the meaning of his “Name,” thus remains “hidden.”

Steiner had a great deal to say about primeval sounds, the origin of speech and the meaning of words. We cannot explore all that now, but we do note that long ago in humanity’s evolution the meanings of the relatively few sounds were uniformly understood (Gen 11,1, probably mirrored in Acts 2,1-13). In one of his significant works on the subject, Speech and Drama (SD), a nineteen-lecture cycle, Steiner speaks in Lect. 1 of certain primeval sounds which have a haunting similarity to the sound of the “I Am.” Here I refer to the Oriental meditation mantra AUM. Because of the relation between consciousness and the “I Am,” the following extract seems pertinent:

Suppose now we want to express what is contained in O. In O we have the confluence of A and U; it is where waking up and falling asleep meet. O is thus the moment either of falling asleep or of awaking. When the Oriental teacher wanted his pupils to be neither asleep nor awake, but to make for that boundary between sleeping and waking where so much can be experienced, he would direct them to speak the syllable OM. In this way he led them to the life that is between waking and sleeping.

For, anyone who keeps repeating continually the syllable OM will experience what it means to be between the condition of being awake and the condition of being asleep. A teaching like this comes from a time when the speech organism was still understood.

And now let us see how it was when a teacher in the Mysteries wanted to take his pupils further. He would say to himself: The O arises through the U wanting to go to the A and the A at the same time wanting to go to the U. So, after I have taught the pupil how to stand between sleeping and waking in the OM, if I want now to lead him on a step further, then instead of getting him to speak the O straight out, I must let the O arise in him through his speaking AOUM. Instead of OM, he is now to say AOUM. In this way the pupil creates the OM, brings it to being. He has reached a higher stage. OM with the O separated into A and U gives the required stillness to the more advanced pupil. Whereas the less advanced pupil has to be taken straight to the boundary condition between sleep and waking, the more advanced has to pass from A (falling asleep) to U (waking up), building the transition for himself. Being then between the two, he has within him the moment of experience that holds both.

It is not, perhaps, extending our contemplation too far if we suspect that in ancient times what came over “from the east” (Gen 11,2) carried with it, as the seminal “I Am,” an awareness of the enhanced consciousness relating to the “AOUM.”

We must now consider, as earlier promised, the meaning of the awe-inspiring “Yahweh” standing alone without the “I Am” appendage of Ex 3,14. Having looked at the “I Am” itself in its Biblical context, we are now in a better position to return to the meaning of this ancient sound as it emerged in humanity’s consciousness out of the mists of time. All Bible scholars know that its Hebrew origin was expressed in the equivalent of the Greek Tetragrammaton, literally “four letters,” YHWH, which, by extrusion through the Germanic tongue became also known as JHVH. The vowels of the Greek Adonai and the Hebrew Elohim, alternative names for God, were inserted so that we have “Yahweh,” or the Germanized “Jehovah.” (See WNWD.) While our New Testament came to us in Greek form, the Old Testament is available in both Hebrew (primarily the “Masoretic Text”) and Greek (the “Septuagint”). Ironically, the Greek is the older of the two Old Testament texts in terms of when they were physically created, having been written down before the time of Christ, whereas the Hebrew did not come into written form until after Christ. (See WNWD and 14 Brit 780 at 786 “Biblical Literature; Old Testament Canon, Texts and Versions”). The foregoing applies to the known documents at the time our basic existing translations were made, and ignores the highly important discoveries of ancient texts in the twentieth century. The Greek word for “YHWH,” or “Yahweh,” is “Kyrios.” These are the words that appear in our present translations as “Lord.”

In a few words, what Steiner reveals to us, in an analysis similar to that of “AUM” above, is that “Yahweh” is completely synonymous with “I Am.” While this obviously reconciles any element of contention as to which “name” was intended in Ex 3,14, and thus could clearly obviate much of the foregoing discussion, it is well that we see both angles. Steiner takes up the meaning of “Yahweh” in (BKM), Lects. 4 and 11, where he focuses upon Is 40,3:

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Also Mk 1,3:

“the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight—”

He stresses that in order to understand these passages one must ponder the meaning of the two words “Wilderness” and “Lord.” “Wilderness” means “loneliness,” or “aloneness,” or “solitude,” or “the desolation of the soul.”15 It is only in that condition that the “I Am” exists and can be recognized; thus those who seek the “I Am” invariably go into a “Wilderness” to do so. Steiner also points out that the term “messenger,” as used in Mk 1,2 and intended by Isaiah, means a specific announcing angel16 who was to work through John the Baptist. Let us see Steiner’s own words from Lect. 11:

Such an event in the history of humanity actually took place when the Individuality who had lived in Elijah was reborn as John the Baptist. An Angel entered into the soul of John the Baptist in that incarnation, using his bodily nature and also his soul to accomplish what no human being could have accomplished. In John the Baptist there lived an Angel whose mission was to herald in advance the Egohood that was to be present in its fullness in Jesus of Nazareth. It is of the greatest importance to realize that John the Baptist was maya and that an Angel, a Messenger, was living in him. This is indeed what the Greek says: Lo, I send my Messenger. The Messenger is an Angel. But nobody pays attention to what is actually said here. A deep mystery, enacted in the Baptist and foretold by Isaiah, is indicated. Isaiah foretold that the future John the Baptist would be maya—in reality he was to be the vehicle for the Angel, the Messenger who was to proclaim what man will become if he takes the Christ Impulse into himself. Angels announce in advance what man will later become. The passage in question might therefore be translated: Lo, the bestower of Egohood sends his Messenger (Angel) before you to whom Egohood is to be given.

Let us now see if we can discover the meaning of the third sentence. We must first try to picture the conditions prevailing in man’s inner life when the astral body had gradually lost the power to send out its forces like feelers and to see clairvoyantly into the divine-spiritual world. Formerly, when the astral body was activated, man was able to look into that world, but this faculty was disappearing and darkness spreading within him. He had once been able to expand his astral body over all the beings of the spiritual world, but now he was inwardly desolate, inwardly isolated—the Greek word is epnuoc. At that time the human soul lived in isolation, in desolation. This is what the Greek text tells us: Lo, a voice seems to speak in the desolation of the soul—call it “wilderness” of the soul if you like—when the astral body can no longer expand into the divine-spiritual world. Hear the cry in the wilderness, in the desolation of the soul!

What is it that is being proclaimed in advance? First of all we must be clear about the meaning of the word Kyrios, when it was used in Hebrew but also still in Greek in reference to manifestations of the soul and spirit. To translate it simply as “the Lord,” with the usual connotation, is sheer nonsense. In ancient times everyone using the word Kyrios knew perfectly well that its meaning was connected with the development of man’s soul-life and its mysteries. In the astral body, as we know, are the forces of thinking, feeling and willing; the soul thinks, feels and wills. These are the three forces working in the soul but they are actually its servants. In earlier times man was under their domination and he obeyed them, but as his evolution progressed these forces were to become the servants of the Kyrios, the Ruler, the Lord—in short, of the “I.” Used in relation to the soul, the word Kyrios actually meant the “I.” At this stage it would no longer be true to say: “The Divine-Spiritual thinks, feels and wills in me,” but rather: “I think, I feel, I will.” The passage should be rendered more or less as follows.—Prepare yourselves, you human souls, to move along those paths that will awaken the Kyrios, the powerful “I” within you; listen to the cry in the solitude of the soul. Make ready the path (or way) of the “I,” the Lord of the soul. Open the way for his forces so that he may no longer be the slave but the Ruler of thinking, feeling and willing. Lo, the power that is the “I” sends his Angel before you, the Angel who is to give you the possibility of understanding the cry in the solitude of the astral soul. Prepare the paths of the “I,” open the way for the forces of the “I.”—Such is the meaning of these significant words of the prophet Isaiah; they point to the greatest of all events in the evolution of humanity. You will now understand the sense in which he speaks about the future John the Baptist, indicating how man’s soul in its solitude longs for the coming of its Lord and Ruler, the “I.” Such is the real meaning of this passage and in this sense it is to be understood.

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[Before returning to the text it is important to realize who the angelic “messenger” working through John the Baptist was. When Steiner said the messenger was an angel, it is as though he sensed that the revelation of angelic activity alone was a sufficient leap for his hearers at that moment. But we should not now stop there, for he elsewhere revealed that the messenger was more exalted than would be implied by the hierarchical designation “angel.” We are really speaking of the angel who was to succeed the Archangel Michael, chief among the Archangels, the one related to the Sun (see I-19, especially its last three paragraphs), and Folk-Spirit of the Hebrew people. The student will garner more from this revelation after reading about Elijah in “Widow’s Son” below, especially its fn 15 dealing with this “angel.” See also Occult Science and Occult Development (OSOD), Lect. 2, May 2, 1913, also found in the anthology The Archangel Michael (ARCHM) under the title, “Michael, The Messenger of Christ.”

Aside from Gabriel, Michael is the only Archangel mentioned in the canon (Dan 10,13,21; 12 1; Jude 1,9; Rev 12,7). We see in I-19 that there are seven archangelic regencies, each of something over three hundred years, in each Cultural Age of twenty one hundred and sixty (2,160) years (or one twelfth of a Cosmic Year, the period it takes the Sun to travel around the full Zodiac). Steiner tells us that it was not unusual in esoteric writings such as the Bible for a “day” to mean a year, and perhaps a “year,” in turn, might mean a century (cf. I-65). It is thus curious that in speaking of Michael, Daniel refers to twenty-one days (Dan 10,13). And just after the blowing of the seventh “Trumpet” in Rev 11,15, we find the cosmic events described in Rev 12,7 where Michael appears fighting with the dragon. We will see below that each Trumpet was also associated with a 2,160-year period in a future Cultural Age. Steiner tells us that the number “one thousand two hundred and sixty days” in Rev 11,3 and 12,6 resulted from a transposition in copying whereby two thousand one hundred sixty (2,160) was incorrectly written as one thousand two hundred sixty (1,260). See Lect. 14, Sept. 18, 1924, of the cycle The Apocalypse (APOC-CC).

Why do I belabor the point of this two-millennia period? It is not impertinent, even though supported by the observations in “Karma and Reincarnation” above, to wonder about Steiner’s assertion that karma and reincarnation were not to be taught exoterically by the Church for two thousand years; and that the “Second Coming” would start to be witnessed by some among humanity after two thousand years. The point at issue bears upon this query. The Archangel Michael is the one in charge of administering the divine intelligence, intelligence that enables direct perception of spiritual reality. The heavenly battle caused the dragon, the deceiving Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces (2 Th 2,1-11), to be thrown down to earth to do battle there against the child who was born and the rest of the woman’s offspring (Rev 12,7-13). That battle would rage for the three and a half Cultural Eras left in the post-Atlantean Epoch (see I-1), esoterically called “a time, and times and half a time” (Rev 12,14), though this esoteric phrase may refer to the larger cycles and recurring battles between these adversaries as well. The “woman” is the heavenly Anthroposophia (I-18), the divine wisdom, the most holy virgin, and the child is the Christ delivered to Earth. What is important for us to realize is that the last regency of Michael before the birth of the Christ child was during the period when Greek philosophy culminated in Plato and Aristotle and then through the latter’s pupil prepared the world for Paul’s evangelization (I-19). Michael, the Sun Archangel, would not again reign until the period of three-hundred-plus years beginning in 1879. The former Folk-Spirit of the Hebrew people, the Archangel who had indwelt Elijah and then as the “messenger” (Mk 1,2; Is 40,3) speaking through John the Baptist had prepared the way for Christ in the flesh, has become the guiding spiritual force in preparing humanity to recognize Christ in the etheric world. The former Archangel became an Archai (Time Spirit) in 1879, and was succeeded as Archangel by the former guardian angel of the Buddha (again, see fn 15 in “Widow’s Son”). That combination becomes enormously powerful working together now in the first Michaelic regency since the Christian era began. This makes it possible for human intelligence to begin to rise to the level of recognizing the Christ in the etheric world, and to perceive the spiritual reality of karma and reincarnation, through the development of a new organ of spiritual perception as discussed in “Second Coming.” This could not happen for two thousand years from the Incarnation, i.e., until after 1879.]

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You may ask, Even if the above be true, how is it that “Yahweh” appears as “Lord” as far back in the Biblical account as Gen 2? Though it is not, indeed cannot be, seen on the basis of traditional theology as it has come down to us before (and even since) Steiner, the answer is actually quite simple in the light of anthroposophy. As we know, the entirety of the Pentateuch account is ascribed to Moses, who came into his spiritual vision as a result of his prior initiations and the revelation to him on Mt. Sinai, which included that of the “I Am.” Thus, Moses, recognizing the prior existence of the “I Am,” albeit unknown to human beings before Seth (Gen 4,26), and not called by such name until Moses himself (Ex 6,3), could go back and ascribe to “Yahweh,” the “Lord,” those prior acts performed by him. In its simplest form, this can perhaps best be seen in I-16 where we see that the Elohim (Exusiai) are the rulers of Earth evolution. Yahweh-Eloha was the only one who descended to, and took up abode in, the Moon sphere (the other six staying in the Sun sphere); thus he was the hierarchical being charged with the entirety of Earth evolution. We see from OS, the Commentary on Genesis, and “Alpha and Omega > Creation and Apocalypse” (Vol. 2, “What Is Man?”), that the portion of the creation account represented by Gen 1,1-2,4a took place prior to a point in the Lemurian Evolutionary Epoch of Earth evolution (see I-1 through I-4). At that point, the development of the first three Elements (Fire, Air and Water, as represented in Gen 1,2) as well as the human being’s “Three Bodies” (physical, etheric and astral), had already been prepared during Earth’s first three Evolutionary Epochs (Polarian, Hyperborean and Lemurian), though in far less dense condition than now, and as yet without “Form,” as indicated in Gen 1,1 and 2,4b-5. Inasmuch as the Elohim (Exusiai) are the “Spirits of Form” (I-6), it is they who take over at the point where everything but “Form” had been accomplished, as indicated in Gen 1,1 and 2,4b-5. It is at this point that the Yahweh-Eloha comes into the picture at Gen 2,4b to stay. The reflection by the Moon of the light of the Sun is simply a manifestation on the physical level of the higher spiritual reflection by Yahweh-Eloha of the Christ who had descended by then far enough to take up abode in the Sun sphere (see “As Above, So Below). The true “I Am” was approaching, but could not enter into the human being until there was “Form” and the time was right (see “Right Time”). All of this was preparatory for the primary purpose of Earth evolution, namely, the infusion of the Ego, the “I Am,” into the previously existing “bodies” as summarized in I-14.

The newcomer to anthroposophy will, of course, have much wrestling to do with the above until he or she is able to assimilate the basic tenets of Spiritual Science (i.e., Occult Science). Only the above brief summary can be given here. But when, with the necessary spiritual toil, that basic knowledge is taken into one’s soul by one who is karmically ready (and I am certain there are vast numbers of human beings presently at that point—if they are willing to devote themselves in this incarnation to it), then all distinction between “Lord” (“Yahweh”) and the higher Ego (“I Am”) disappears, and Ex 3,14 (when translated “I AM the I AM”) is seen as a perfect expression of the spiritual reality. Until Steiner, there was, to use lawyer language, “a distinction without a difference.”

The recent ABD follows the commendable practice of giving the etymological meaning of the Biblical terms it expounds. Notably, by contrast, in regard to “Yahweh” it says (6 ABD 1011), “The meaning of the name is unknown.” Steiner takes us back to the origins implicit in Gen 11,1 and Acts 2,8, and shows us that depth of soul-meaning (understanding) carried by the primeval sound thereof.

It is not a matter of indifference, but of salvific necessity, that a sufficient portion of humanity come to see the above-disclosed anthroposophical insight that the “I Am” is the “Name” of God. There is an immense tendency, anchored in the group-soul roots from which humanity has evolved, for human beings to coalesce into groupings for mutual support. And groups, to various degrees politically powerful, have a great ability to persecute those who go into the “Wilderness” of spiritual loneliness. But the prophets all went there, as did the Christ himself, and it is to those who do that the future of Christianity belongs (Mt 5,10-11), for there is where the “I Am” is found.

Steiner brings this effectively to our attention in The EGO, The God Within and the The God of External Revelation (EGO),17 Lect. 1:

It is now the task of the anthroposophical way of thinking .. . that we learn to speak a language, which is really not merely understood by the human soul so long as it is in a physical body, but understood also when this soul is no longer bound to the instrument of the physical brain; for instance, either by a soul still in the body, but able to perceive spiritually, or by a soul gone through the gate of death. And that is the essential! If we bring forward those ideas which explain the world, which explain the human being, then that is a speech which cannot merely be understood here in the physical world, but also by those who are no longer incarnated in physical bodies, but live between death and a new birth. Yes, what is spoken on our anthroposophical basis is heard and understood by the so-called dead. [Cf. Gen 11,1-9 and Acts 2,1-11.] There they are fully one with us on a basis where the same speech is spoken. There we speak to all human beings. Because in a certain connection, it is chance whether a human soul is in a body of flesh, or in the condition between death and a new birth. And we learn through anthroposophy a speech comprehensible to all human beings, whether they are in the one or other condition. Thus we speak a speech within the field of anthroposophy which is spoken also for the so-called dead. We really contact the innermost kernel of man, the innermost being of man, through what we cultivate in a real sense in anthroposophical considerations, even if they appear apparently abstract. We penetrate into the soul of man. And because we penetrate to the soul of man, we liberate man from all group-soulness, i.e., man becomes in this way more and more capable of really grasping himself in his ego, his “I.” And that is the characteristic, that those who come to anthroposophy today .. . appear in comparison with others who remain far from it, as if through anthroposophical thoughts, their ego would crystallize as a spiritual being, which is then carried through the gate of death. With the others, in that place where the I-being is, which remains there— which is now there in the body, and which remains after death— there is a hollow space, a nothingness. Everything else which one can take up as ideas today, will become more and more worthless for the real kernel of man’s soul-being. The central point of man’s being is grasped through what we take up as anthroposophical thoughts. That crystallizes a spiritual substance in man; he takes that with him after death, and with that he perceives in the spiritual world. He sees and hears with it in the spiritual world, with it he penetrates that darkness which otherwise exists for man in the spiritual world. And thereby it is brought about that when through these anthroposophical thoughts and way of thinking man develops this “I” in him today, which now stands in connection with all the world wisdom we can acquire—he develops it—he carries it over also into his next incarnation. Then he is born with this now developed “I,” and he remembers himself in this developed “I” [and thus is liberated from the futile perspective set out in the Bible in Eccles 1,9-11 and 3,11]. That is the deeper task of the anthroposophical movement today, to send over to their next incarnation a number of human beings with an ego in which they remember themselves as an individual ego. They will be the human beings who form the kernel of the next period of civilization. [Here he is speaking of the Age of Philadelphia, Rev 3,7-13; see also I-24, I-25 and I-19.] These people who have been well prepared through the anthroposophical spiritual movement, to remember their individual “I,” will be spread over the whole earth [see “East, West, North & South”; also Is 43,5-7 and the gathering of the “elect” from the “four winds,” Mt 24,31 and Mk 13,27.] These individual people will be scattered over the whole earth, and within the whole earth sphere will be the kernel of humanity, who will be essential for the sixth period of civilization. And so it will be the case among these people, that they will know themselves as those who in their previous incarnation strove together for the individual “I.”

This is the right cultivation of that soul-faculty of which we have spoken. This soul-faculty so develops, that not only those just described will have this memory. More and more human beings will have this memory of their former incarnation—in spite of their not having developed the “I.” But they will not remember an individual “I,” because they have not developed it, but they will remember the group-ego, in which they have remained. Thus people will exist, who in this incarnation have cared for the development of their individual “I”—they will remember themselves as independent individualities, they will look back and say: You were this or the other. Those who have not developed the individuality will be unable to remember this individuality.

Do not think that through mere visionary clairvoyance one acquires the faculty of remembering the previous ego. Humanity was once clairvoyant. If mere clairvoyance sufficed, then all would remember, for all were clairvoyant. It is not merely a matter of being clairvoyant—humanity will already be clairvoyant in the future—it is a matter of having cultivated the ego in this incarnation, or not. If one has not cultivated it, it is not there as an inner human being; one looks back, and remembers as a group-ego, what one had in common. So that these people will say: Yes, I was there, but I have not freed myself. These people will then experience that as their FALL, as a new Fall of mankind, as a falling back into conscious connection with the group-soul. That will be something terrible for the sixth period of time; to be unable to look back to oneself as an individuality, to be hemmed in by not being able to transcend the group-soulness. If one will express it strongly, one could say: The whole earth with all it produces (this holds at least as an image) will belong to those who now cultivate their individuality18; those, however, who do not develop their individual “I,” will be obliged to join on to a certain group, from which they will be directed as to how they should think, feel, will, and act. That will be felt as a fall, a falling back, in the future humanity.

So we should regard the anthroposophical movement, the spiritual life, not as mere theory, but as something which is given us in the present, because it prepares what is necessary for the future of mankind.

If we grasp ourselves aright in that point where we are now, whence we have come from out the past, and then look a little into the future, then we must say: Now the time is come where man begins to develop the human faculty of remembering backwards. It is only a question of our developing it aright, i.e., that we train in us an individual “I”; for only what we have created in our own soul can we remember. If we have not created it, then there only remains to us a fettering memory of a group-ego, and we feel it as a kind of falling down into a group of higher animality [the germ of eventual beasthood; see “Mark of the Beast;” something of an earlier similar memory is seemingly portrayed in Gen 6,19-7,3, as to which see also “Wild Animals”]. Even if the human group-souls are finer and higher than the animal, yet they are but group-souls. Humanity of an early age did not feel that as a fall, because they were intended to develop from group-soulness to the individual soul. If they are now held back, they fall consciously into it, and that will be the oppressive feeling in the future of those who do not take this step aright, either now or in a later incarnation [but failure to avail of existing opportunity limits future spiritual capacity; see “Talents”]. They will experience the fall into group-soulness.

The real task of anthroposophy is to give the right impulse. We must thus grasp it within human life. If we keep in mind that the sixth period of time is that of the first complete conquest of the racial idea, then we must be clear, that it would be fantastic to think that even the sixth “race” starts from one point on the earth and develops like the earlier races. Progress is made by ever-new progressive methods of evolution appearing. By progress we do not mean that what was valid as ideas for earlier times should also hold for the future. If we do not see this, the idea of progress will not be quite clear to us. We will as it were fall again and again into the error of saying: So and so many rounds, globes, races, etc., and it all goes on revolving round again and again in the same manner [cf. Eccles 1,9-11]. One cannot see why this wheel of rounds, globes, races, etc. should always revolve again. It is a question of seeing that the word “race” is a term only having validity for a certain time. This idea no longer has any meaning for the sixth period. Races have only in themselves the elements which have remained from the Atlantean age.

In the future, that which speaks to the depths of man’s soul will express itself more and more in the external nature of man; and that which man on the one side as a quite individual being has acquired, and yet, again experiences unindividually, will express itself by working out even to the human countenance; so that the individuality of man—not the group-soulness—will be inscribed for him on his countenance [see “Forehead” as well as “Mark of the Beast”]. That will constitute human manifoldness. Everything will be acquired individually, in spite of its being there through the overcoming of individuality. And we will not meet groups among those who are seized of the ego, but the individual will express itself externally. That will form the distinction between human beings. There will be such as have acquired their egoity; they will indeed be there over the whole earth with the most manifold countenances, but one will recognize through their variety how the individual ego expresses itself even into the gesture. Whereas among those who have not developed the individuality, the group-soulness will come to expression by their countenance receiving the imprint of the group-soulness, i.e., they will fall into categories similar to each other. That will be the external physiognomy of our earth: a possibility will be prepared for the individuality to carry in itself an external sign, and for the group-soulness to carry in itself its external sign.

This is the meaning of earthly evolution, that man acquires more and more the power of expressing externally his inner being. There exists an ancient script in which the greatest ideal for the evolution of the “I,” the Christ Jesus, is characterized by the saying: When the two become one, when the external becomes like the inner, then man has attained the Christ nature in himself. That is the meaning of a certain passage in the so-called Egyptian Gospel.19 One comprehends such passages out of anthroposopical wisdom.