The Nathan Jesus and the Guardian of the Threshold – archetypal experiences at the Gate of Death

In the first part, I concentrated on describing the nature of the lower Guardian of the Threshold by gathering specific guidelines from Rudolf Steiner that help one form a healthy image of this being before the experience. Additionally, I have explained in detail how one can prepare oneself for this meeting through Anthroposophic exercises and biography work. In our striving to understand more about the being of the Guardian, we must remember two important things: firstly, that the Guardian is not oneself but an Archangel that triggers the most intimate experience of oneself; secondly, that the Guardian is not the Double, but he often clothes himself in experience as the Double. This must be very clearly understood and carried into the spiritual memory. By doing so, the disciple of Anthroposophia knows that the being that stays in front of them beyond the senses when they are ready to meet him in whatever form he takes is a lofty being and the only one to decide their righteous entrance to the spiritual realm. It is only possible if one undergoes the specific exercises Rudolf Steiner indicated in GA10, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, and extended throughout his entire work. 

The following description of the Guardian offered by Rudolf Steiner helps me summarize best the main ideas offered in the first part, upon which I will build the second part of my considerations:

“Here we stand at the boundary between the life of the senses and spiritual life, confronted not by a system of concepts but by a reality that only works super-sensibly, and as concretely and livingly as a human being. This is the Guardian of the Threshold. He is there as a concrete and real being. When we learn to know him, we know he belongs to those beings who, to a certain extent, have taken part in life since primeval times on earth, but who have not gone through what one experiences as a being of soul. This is the being who, in the mystery play, The Guardian of the Threshold, is meant to be expressed dramatically in the words:

Thou knowest well, who has been Guardian

 Of this realm’s threshold since the world began,

 What beings need to cross the threshold o’er

 Who to thy time and to thy kind belong…

This “to thy time and to thy kind” is something that proceeds indeed, from the very essence of the matter. Of other times and other kinds are the men, the beings, who since primeval times have in a certain sense separated themselves from the path of humanity on earth, and in each of these we meet a being of whom we may say, “I have a being before me who experiences and lives through a great deal in the world, but he does not concern himself with all the love and grief and pain that can be experienced on earth, nor yet with the failings and immorality there. He neither knows nor wishes to know anything of what has taken place up to now in the depths of man’s nature.” Christian tradition expresses this in the words: “When confronted by the mystery of man’s becoming, such beings veiled their faces.” A whole world is expressed in this contrast between such beings and human beings.

Now a feeling arises as immediately as does the feeling we have on meeting a fair-haired man, that “he has fair hair.” There comes this feeling: In passing through various earthly culture, I have naturally acquired faults, but I must get back again to my original state; I must retrace my steps on earth, and this being can show me the way just because he does not possess my faults. One has before one a being who stands there majestically as an actual reproach, but at the same time spurring one on toward all that one is not. The being shows one this most vividly, and one can feel one’s own being completely filled with the knowledge of what he is and what he is not. There one stands before this living reproach. This being belongs to the rank of archangels. The meeting actually takes place, and has the effect of suddenly revealing to us what we have become as earthly man in sensory existence. This is direct self-knowledge in the truest and broadest sense. You see yourself as you are; you also see yourself as you ought to become!

But it is not always fit for man to see himself thus. Today I have only spoken of the world of concept and idea that has to be discarded. But much else must be laid aside. When we reach the Guardian of the Threshold, we must really lay aside all that we know of ourselves, but we must still retain something to carry on with us. That is the chief thing. This knowledge that we have to leave everything behind at the threshold is an inner experience in itself to which one must have attained, and the preparation for this stage of clairvoyance must consist in schooling ourselves to bear what would otherwise be full of terror and fear. With proper schooling we need not speak of danger because such a schooling does away with danger. Powers of endurance must be attained through due preparation; they are the fundamental force necessary for all further experience. In ordinary life man is not capable of enduring all that he must endure when standing before the Guardian of the Threshold.

The Guardian of the Threshold is there for a strange purpose. If it is not to be misunderstood, it has to be judged from the standpoint of the super-sensible world. In man, the activities of the super-sensible world are always at work, though he knows nothing of this. Whenever we think and feel and will, it always necessitates a certain activity of the, astral body and connection with the astral world. But man knows nothing of this; if he knew what his bodies really were he would not be able to bear it and would be stunned by it. So that when man meets this being without sufficient preparation, everything must be veiled from him, including the being. The being must draw a veil over the super-sensible world. He must do this for the protection of man who, while within the world of the senses, could not endure the sight. In this we really see a concept that, in the world of the senses, can only be judged morally, as the most direct ordering of nature. The protection of man from sight of the super-sensible world is the function of the Guardian of the Threshold. He must hold man back until he has completed the necessary preparation.” (GA138, 27.08.1912)

In this second part, in relation to the Guardian of the Threshold, I would like to refer to Rudolf Steiner’s most vulnerable and intimate communications, whose correct understanding bears tremendous importance for the entire fifth epoch and the right preparation of the sixth one. Rudolf Steiner brought these living communications from the Akasha Chronicle, and he had hoped that they would form in those who receive them a living corpus of knowledge known as “The Fifth Gospel”. The Fifth Gospel, as Rudolf Steiner tells us, was “the power which the Christ had become after the Mystery of Golgotha”, the resurrection power, and it was awakened in Christ Jesus’ disciples as a force of their hearts and minds at the first Pentecost, which acted in them as unaltered and direct cosmic love (see GA148, 03.10.1913). It is a living clairvoyant consciousness – a living being, a being of fiery clairvoyant consciousness, a being of cosmic love. This type of living clairvoyant consciousness could only work in the disciples back then as the power of their souls. However, this living clairvoyant consciousness that blossomed in the first disciples of the fourth epoch at the first Pentecost can blossom in each of those who revive it in their soul in the fifth epoch by the imaginative gates Rudolf Steiner carefully prepared in the series of lectures with the same name, The Fifth Gospel (GA148). We are now, in the fifth epoch, ready to behold also consciously what the first disciples lived as an active force of love. We are ready, but efforts must be made. Therefore, as disciples of Anthroposophia, we must understand the individuality of Rudolf Steiner not only as our beloved Teacher but also as the first true evangelist of the fifth epoch.
 
So, these living cosmic Christ-memories from the Akasha living record carry the Christ resurrection force and can form in us the Fifth Gospel, which will act in each of us as resurrected life. It will help us prepare the future of humankind in the same way it helped the first disciples of the fourth epoch at the first Pentecost prepare the fifth epoch. What does it mean, the reader might ask, that whoever revives and unfolds in them the Christ impulse through these living Christ-memories will afterwards teach in the world as the early disciples did? No, it doesn’t mean that, although it might not exclude it. It means that once a new living clairvoyant consciousness is developed and carried in such a way, it will gradually become natural for the new generations. It becomes a universal good, like inheriting something from one’s parents.

“Hitherto hath no one beheld God with his eyes. The once-born Son, who was in the bosom of the Universal-Father, has become the leader in this beholding.” (John 1:18)

The following considerations will focus on the three meetings that the Nathan Jesus had on his way to the Jordan. In order to follow my reflections, the reader should be well-acquainted with the content of The Fifth Gospel (GA148), especially the lectures from Munich, 08.12.1913 and 10.12.1913. Unfortunately, these lectures are often translated separately into English, likely due to publishers disregarding their value, believing that Rudolf Steiner was merely repeating himself. However, this is a materialistic view, symptomatic of our times, as the words of an initiate like Rudolf Steiner carry resurrected life forces, and his different descriptions of the same subject are as valuable as the information in itself. My observation when working not merely intellectually but imaginatively with Anthroposophic texts is that they open different gates to knowledge. I favoured these two lectures in particular because their description helps us form an objective image of the appearance, being and deeds of the Guardian of the Threshold, humanly and godly archetypal, as it stands in the eternal Akasha Record. From the beginning, I would like to notify the reader that everything I put in quotation marks and italics is Rudolf Steiner’s words/expressions as they are translated into English; everything else is my understanding and paraphrasing.

Rudolf Steiner tells us that after the discussion with his mother, the Nathan Jesus emptied gradually as the I of Zarathustra was lifted to the Spirit. He, thus, remained with only three sheaths duly prepared by the great initiate, the astral, etheric, and physical bodies. Remaining in only three sheaths and without an I, although the most spiritualised and advanced human sheaths, the Nathan Jesus became a “strange being”, incomprehensible for those around him but driven by “something like a compulsion, which took the form of a powerful, cosmic impulse”. This strange impulse made him one day take the road to Jordan. 

When referring to the Solomonic Jesus and the first departure of the I of Zarathustra, Rudolf Steiner tells us that immediately after the departure of the great initiate, the boy “dried up”, “withered away, because he was actually egoless”, and died. Therefore, we must ask why didn’t this happen to the Nathan Jesus. What was this compulsion, the cosmic impulse that kept his corporealities together in that short period of time before the Baptism, which is the actual descending of the Christ? 

To answer this question, we need to follow the events through the imaginative portal opened through Rudolf Steiner’s communications: We can imagine the egoless Nathan Jesus walking on the road to Jordan. We can also look at the other side of the senses, where the Christ Being, the loftiest of Gods, was waiting to enter humanity. We must assume that the Gate of Death was largely open for Christ to enter if one can give this description. We already know that the Gate is the Guardian, a living being who is the Archangel who drew the curtain of senses after the expulsion from Paradise and hid away from humans. Thus, we can only assume that on the road to the Jordan River, the Guardian of the Threshold was the one talking through the Nathan Jesus, physically and cosmically, like never before. The lower Guardian of the Threshold has temporarily taken the place of the I of Zarathustra and safeguarding the body and soul of the being Christ would later incorporate. 

Let us take the first meeting with the two Essenes. According to Rudolf Steiner, Jesus had previously lived in their community and had met them before. However, after being emptied of his self-memory, he did not remember them, but the two Essenes remembered him. During this encounter, Jesus was seen as the same being of sublime, pure love, radiating infinite mild tenderness through his eyes, just as he always was. However, this time, when the two Essenes looked deeper into his eyes, they experienced an intimate reproach, which didn’t come from Jesus himself. The reproach could only be triggered by the most intimate self-experience, the Guardian of the Threshold himself: 

“Both Essenes saw in him [Jesus] an old acquaintance. They experienced Him such that they couldn’t look away from the tremendously mild glance of Jesus, intensified to infinity, as he now was. But then also, when they looked into these eyes, they felt at the same time a kind of reproach that didn’t come from Him. It was something like a power that welled up in their own souls, streamed forth into His eye, and streamed back, like mild moonlight, but as tremendous reproach to their own being, to what they were.” (GA148, 08.12.1913)

Dear friends, this is the specificity of the Archangel of the Gate, the Guardian. This really helps us understand the Guardian better in comparison to other spiritual beings: by his transparency and perfection, he triggers the most intimate experience of the self. In the beginning, this experience feels like an uncomfortable reproach, as it is meant to pull out one’s being from one’s earthy coverings. As mentioned in the first part, people who approach the Threshold in life start having the Guardian’s marks. This can also be visible from a very early age nowadays. You may have noticed people who make you feel uncomfortable in their presence, like they can see through you, although they don’t say anything. I have already defined these persons as Threshold personalities, although in a true sense, they are only human beings called to initiation or going through other processes that imply approaching the Gate of Death. The Essenes must have felt similarly when meeting Jesus; they recognised the old Jesus, but they felt for the first time uncomfortable in his presence. They asked him where he was going, and the Guardian replied:

“There, where souls of your kind don’t want to look, where the pain of humanity can find the rays of forgotten light!”

The Essenes were highly esteemed in those times, much like Hollywood celebrities are viewed today. Unlike today, where people often gain influence through notoriety, wealth, or status, the Essenes were revered for their spiritual advancement and holiness. Thus, the Essenes were disregarded when the one who spoke through Jesus gave the impression that they were no different from the profane people: “souls of your kind”, “forgotten light”.

What happened next is of incredible significance, and I need to warn the reader that for the following explanations, I may stand alone, as Rudolf Steiner let us free and did not explain these processes all the way, but we are today mature enough to penetrate the images from the Akasha he opens for us further on our own. Rudolf Steiner tells us that through specific techniques, the Essenes could expel Lucifer and Ahriman from their gates, from their enclosed community. The Nathan Jesus had previously seen how the weakened and famished Lucifer and Ahriman were obliged to look for nourishment elsewhere, at the expense of the rest of the community. Therefore, the Essenes were only concerned about their own purification, becoming holy, while the uninitiated community had to endure the attacks of the hungered Lucifer and Ahriman. But what does it mean that Lucifer and Ahriman withdrew from their gates? It means that a person undergoing Essene spiritual preparation could separate Lucifer and Ahriman in such a way that they expelled them from their sheaths until they remained totally without a Double! This was achieved without the participation of the Guardian of the Threshold, who is the sole authority in the process, so in a way, they could trick the Guardian of Threshold by not even reaching the Gate of Death. As the Essenes were healers, it is highly probable that they had knowledge of elementals, enabling them to use various techniques to expel Luciferic and Ahrimanic elementals from their communities or human sheaths when healing. We learn about this from the Guardian himself, whose cosmic voice was heard from Jesus’ mouth. He addressed them, saying: 

“What kind of souls are you? Where is your world? Why do you hide yourself behind illusory veils? Why does a fire burn without you that wasn’t ignited in my Father’s house?” (GA148, 08.12.1913)

The Guardian clearly sees that they don’t have a Double, which is typically a sign of initiation. However, they did not undergo the normal process of crossing the portal of death, so they were not recognized by the Guardian. Essentially, they were caught spiritually cheating, like pupils are caught at school with cheat sheets: “What kind of souls are you? Where is your world? Why do you hide yourself behind illusory veils?”. They triggered the initiation process but didn’t do it morally; the fire of will did not burn as taking responsibility for one’s karma and moral transformation but at the expense of other people. There is even more, Rudolf Steiner describes the Gate of Death in relation to the Father principle in GA112, 06.07.1909:

“Instead of the mirage of the senses, man should see everywhere and in all things the divine Father principle, of which all things and he himself are a part. The Father principle, then, does not appear in its true form. Because of the decline in human faculties, of which we have spoken, we see the Father principle veiled by delusion, by maya.

What do we find woven into this great delusion? Among all the phenomena we perceive, one stands out as essentially fundamental: death. Therefore we should tell ourselves that the outer objects confronting our senses are in reality the Father principle, are expressions of the divine-spiritual Father element. And since death is interwoven in the totality of the sense world, it is something that pertains to the divine-spiritual Father principle. Owing to the nature of man’s development the divine Father principle has become obscured for him by many a veil, and ultimately by the veil of death. What must man seek? The Father, the cosmic Father; and just as he must learn to think of every object as being in truth the Father, so he must come to feel that death, too, is the Father. And why does a false picture of the Father appear to us in the physical sense world? Why is it distorted into the grotesque image appearing to us so deceptively as death? Because the Lucifer-Ahriman principle has been infused into every phase of our life.”

We have gained a larger understanding of the Guardian’s first words to the Essenes: He saw two human beings who didn’t initially leave a lasting impression on him. However, he soon realises they don’t have many Luciferic and Ahrimanic elementals with them (the Double), yet they hadn’t undergone initiation in a normal way by meeting him first. The Guardian doesn’t recognise them as candidates for initiation. They did not ignite the fire of the I at the Gate of Death because, in this context, “my Father’s house” literally means the Gate of Death: “Why does a fire burn without you that wasn’t ignited in my Father’s house?” The Guardian was righted to be severe. The Essenes were surprised firstly because the one speaking through Jesus was not the loving figure they had previously known, the one who has always looked upon them with infinite love and mildness, and secondly, because the Essene practices were so dogmatised, so normalised that the two weren’t even aware of the faults in them. It was simply the way they lived. The Guardian addressed their ignorant Luciferism further:

“You are like lambs who have gone astray, but I was the son of the shepherd from whom you fled. If you know me rightly, you’ll run away again. It’s been so long since you fled from me into the world.”

“You have the mark of the tempter on you! With his fire he has made your wool glistening. The hairs of this wool are offensive to my sight!”

“The tempter met you after your flight. He has permeated your soul with arrogance!”

The Essenes were so accustomed to their practices that they couldn’t even recognise Lucifer when the god of self-knowledge pointed him out to them. Although familiar with the lower Luciferic beings, they were strangers to the rarefied Lucifer, the cosmic Lucifer who acted as a tempter during the initiation process. One of the Essenes dared to ask about it, which is an important lesson to remember at the Gate of Death – we must overcome ourselves, push past the paralysis we feel, and ask questions to continue learning from the Guardian. The Guardian explained to them where the immorality was infiltrated:

“Indeed, you showed him [the tempter] the door, but he ran to the other people and overcame them. Thus, he’s not around you, but in the other people! You see him everywhere. Do you think you’ve lifted yourself up by showing him the door? You’ve remained only as high as you were. You only seem to have been raised up because you’ve denigrated the others. In the diminishing of the others, you’ve only seemed to rise.”

“Vain is your striving because your heart is empty; you have filled it with the spirit that deceptively hides its arrogance in the clothing of humility.”

In this passage, we learn that it is important to meet the lower Guardian both as individuals and as a community. The Guardian spoke to two representatives of the Essene order together, addressing a communal fault of the entire order in a common experience, clear as day. The Guardian planted newness in these two representatives, but it could have only come to fruition in another incarnation. The two Essenes began their initiation with the Guardian in that lifetime, but it continued in their next incarnation. However, they remained quiet about this until the end of their lives because the Essene order had truly encountered death on their way to Jordan.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the imaginative composition of the scene. The Guardian appears to the Essenes as a fata morgana, an after-image of what they had previously experienced. When the process of self-reflection began, the two Essenes no longer saw Jesus, whom they knew and loved, but an after-image of his face, gigantically magnified by the power of his reproach. The power of the Guardian is compelling, and one cannot retreat from the experience. Instead, one must experience his creative Word in the depth of one’s soul. His Word shakes one’s being like an incredible earthquake. 

The following two meetings of the Guardian in Jesus’s sheaths bearing the effects of Zarathustra differ substantially from the first meeting. For our study, these two meetings must be analysed together. But let us dive into the description:

Rudolf Steiner’s description of the two meetings, one with a desperate man, and another with a leper (GA148, 10.12.1909):

“When Jesus had gone on a ways, He encountered a man who made the impression of the deepest sorrow, of being oppressed. With a sunken head, and also with a physically depressed body, the person in question came towards Jesus. Then he perceived how that being, which I characterized the day before yesterday as Jesus at this time, spoke words to him that resounded as though from the deepest well of this being. This oppressed man heard that Jesus spoke: Whither has your soul led you? I knew you once millennia ago, many millennia ago; then you were different. This oppressed man felt compelled to say certain things in the face of this phenomenon, for we can’t designate as human such a being, who consisted only of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, with the after-effects of Zarathustra’s ego in these three sheaths. We can only call it a being. The person who found himself in despair felt compelled to say to this being: 

‘I was granted high honors during my life, and always, when I rose up to new honors, I felt completely in my element, and often this feeling overcame me: What an extraordinary person you are that your fellow human beings raise you up so high, that you were able to get so far! What an extraordinary person you are! I was happy beyond all measure. But then it went quickly that I lost this happiness. It happened over a single night. And once when I fallen asleep, a dream came over me, and I brought into the dream the feeling that I was ashamed to dream such a thing. I dreamt that a being stood before me, who asked me: Who has made you so great? Who has brought you to such high honors? I was ashamed that such a question could be directed to me at all in a dream, because it was so clear to me that I was an extraordinary person, and of course I had achieved these great honors because of my great virtues. And as the being spoke to me, I was gripped in the dream by an ever increasing feeling of shame.’ 

So said this desperate person. 

And in the moment that the man had spoken this – so it stands in the Akashic Record – the apparition was again before him, representing Jesus of Nazareth, who at the same moment disappeared from before his eyes. Then the apparition dissolved, and the man was left to his destiny.

His drive led Jesus further. He met a leper and had to say to him: Whither has your soul been led? I saw you millennia ago, many millennia ago very differently. Yes, at that time you were different. The leper said: 

When he spoke thus, the skeleton stood there again and covered up Jesus, who disappeared and had to go on because of the drive that was residing in Him. The man also had to go on.”

We will analyse the imaginative composition, bringing together what was said about the Guardian in Part I. The desperate man meets his Luciferic Double, which has formed as a consequence of his falling into earthy temptations. Rudolf Steiner teaches us in a lecture often named Facing Karma (GA130, 08.02.1912) that joy is not a karmic consequence but an act of grace from the gods. Due to Luciferic temptation, the desperate man took the joy in his life as a sign of self-worth, thus attributing every accomplishment gained to himself. So what he experiences now torturing him is the consequence of his lack of humility, vanity. The Guardian, dressed as his own Luciferic Double, hunts him to his repentance. When the man learns the lesson of repentance, the Guardian shows his true face. It was he who appeared in vivid hunting dreams to instil repentance and self-transformation. In the fire of his karma flowing shame into his will, the desperate man learns that his oppressor was him, the Guardian, all along.

The leper man meets his Ahrimanic Double as a karmic consequence. This time, the consequence has its root in another incarnation. In a lecture commonly named The Astral World (GA94, 02.06.1906), Rudolf Steiner speaks about leprosy as a consequence of terror in a previous incarnation, as “the moral malady of fear in the astral world”. The being of terror takes the form of a skeleton (death) who offers him of a dim impression of the past, when in another incarnation he enjoyed his long luxurious life, most probably on the expense of others. The Guardian, now dressed as his own Ahrimanic Double, hunts him in his sufferance to a point where he also shows him his true Archangelic face. In the pustules of his leprosy, the leper learns that the repellent skeletal face of death was him, the Guardian, all along.

The reader can observe in Rudolf Steiner’s exact communication from the Akasha Record that the Guardian was not judgmental in these two meetings as he was when meeting the Essene. It is because meeting the Guardian as a result of deliberate spiritual training, as the Essenes did, is different from meeting the Guardian as a result of a karmic effect burning in the will. Lucifer and Ahriman, as parts of our Double, are living consequences of our karma. The Guardian teaches one to love one’s karma; the Guardian serves one’s karma. The Essenes, through their specific training, were not incorporating the effects of their karma but rather pushing them away selfishly to the rest of the population. It was the highest form of immorality. We can observe that the Guardian acknowledged both the desperate and the leper; he addresses them: “Whither has your soul led you? I knew you once millennia ago, many millennia ago; then you were different.” This means: I am following the consequences of your karma from before the falling from Paradise, when you were living purely amongst the Gods. 

At the end, please allow me to add from Rudolf Steiner’s hand notes the exact composition of the deeds of the Guardian of the Threshold united with the Nathan Jesus before the Baptism into Jordan, as read directly in the Akasha Record by the greatest initiate of our times:

“After he had conducted the conversation with his [step-]mother,
he felt himself driven by the Spirit
to the Jordan to Joh[n]. On the way he met
two Essenes, with whom he had often conducted
conversations. And he didn’t know them. But they
knew him very well.
“Where are you going?”
“To the place that souls of your sort
don’t want to look. – Where the pain of humanity can find
the forgotten light.”

His eyes – they were filled with love, but his love
had the effect as though it had been caught
doing something wrong –
“What kind of souls are you?
Where is your world? – Why do you veil
yourselves in deceptive shrouds? Why
does a fire burn within you that
was not lit in my father’s house[?]” –

And they didn’t understand what he said.
And they noticed that he didn’t recognize them.

Jesus o[f] N[azareth], they said, Don’t you know us?
“You are like lost sheep; but I was
the son of the shepherd, from whom you ran away. If
you recognize me rightly, you will run
away again. It has been so long since you
fled from me into the world[.]”

And they didn’t know what to make of him.
And he spoke further: “You have the tempter’s
mark upon you. With his fire he made your wool
shine and glisten – the hairs of this wool
shoot pains into my eyes. – The tempter met you
after your flight, and filled your souls with arrogance.”

Then one of the Essenes spoke and said:
“Didn’t we show the door to the tempter?
He no longer plays any part with us.”

And Jesus spoke: “Indeed you showed him the door; but he ran away
and came to the other people.
Thus he grins at you from all sides. You
do not raise yourselves up by denigrating others.
You only seem large
because you have made the others small.”

Then they were frightened. In that moment
it was to them as though he disappeared
before their eyes: in the distance, however,
they saw his gigantically
enlarged countenance – and heard
the words:
“Vain is your striving; because your heart
is empty, which you have filled with
the spirit that hides your pride deceptively
in the veil of modesty.”

And then for a long time they saw nothing;
when they had come to themselves again,
he had gone on his way – from them.
They didn’t convey what they had perceived
to the other Essenes, but rather were silent
about it their entire lives. –
Then he encountered someone who was distraught;
after J[esus] asked: What path has your soul brought
to you? I saw you eons ago,
then you were different –
This one spoke: I had attained high honors; whenever
I received an honor, I said: What an extraordinary
person you really are; your high virtues
raise you up above all other people; I was
happy; then there came to me when asleep
as though in a dream a question, that I never
would have posed when awake: for I felt in the dream
as though I was ashamed of myself for having
posed the question: “Who made you great[?]” Then
there stood before me a being, who said: “It was I
who raised you up, therefore you are mine – then
I had to flee: I wandered about, seeking and
not knowing what I sought.

When he had spoken thus, the being stood there again:
it concealed itself to J[esus] with its figure – he departed
from the one bearing sorrow.

Then along came a leper –
He said, after J[esus] asked him; the people
have shunned me –
once I stumbled through a forest at night;
a shining tree drew me to it – I stepped up
to it; there stood death before me in the form
of a skeleton – it said: I am you; I am feasting on you –

then I was afraid; but he spoke: why do you fear[?];
did you not once love me[?]; and I knew
that I never had loved him, then he was
transfigured into the most beautiful archangel – and
disappeared – I fell into a sleep and found myself
waking up in the morning by the tree – then
my leprosy became ever worse –

When he had spoken thus: the A[rch]A[ngel] appeared
covered up [the leper for] J[esus] – he disappeared.”

(This text belongs to a series of articles dedicated to the Guardian of the Threshold. To be continued with subjects such as: Dynamics between Lucifer and Ahriman, Lucifer decayed in Ahriman’s kingdom, Ahriman trapped in Lucifer’s kingdom, Lucifer and Ahriman’s gifts, The three beasts, The Asuras and the anti-Self.)

Alexandra Vasilache