What mystery is unfolding when we follow the great cosmic laws of karma & reincarnation..? Today on this anniversary of the beheading of John the Baptist - let us reverently finger the pearls strung on the necklace of this powerful individuality –
Affecting human evolution as Adam Kadmon - the first man; the Prophet Elijah; John the Baptizer; the painter Raphael; & the poet Novalis – as revealed by the Spiritual Science of Rudolf Steiner.
“Elijah was destined to be one of the ruling figures in the régime inaugurated by Moses. There had to be Individualities who were not wholly contained in the human personality; one part of their being was in the earthly personality and the other in the spiritual world. Elijah was an Individuality of this nature….He must therefore be called a personality ‘filled with the Spirit’. A figure such as Elijah could not possibly be brought into existence through the normal forces by which other men are placed in the world…Other forces had to intervene, concerned with the part of the Individuality that reached into the spiritual world…Hence when such Individualities are incarnated, they appear as men who are ‘inspired’, ‘impelled by the Spirit’. They appear as ecstatic personalities whose utterances far surpass anything that might issue from their normal intelligence. The man who lived as ‘Elijah’ was an outstanding example of this. The words uttered by his mouth, and the actions performed by his hands, did not proceed only from the part of his being actually present in his personality; they were manifestations of divine-spiritual Beings in the background.
When this Individuality was born again, he was to unite with the body of the child born to Zacharias and Elisabeth, called John. We know from the Gospel itself that John the Baptist is to be regarded as the reborn Elijah…
Under the influence of the visit of the Luke ‘Mary’, the Ego of John the Baptist awoke into activity. The Nirmanakaya (astral-body) of Buddha was here working upon the Ego of the former Elijah — now the Ego of John the Baptist — wakening it, and penetrating him right into the physical substance.” ~Rudolf Steiner, from The Gospel of St. Luke
“If we pass on to the sixth chapter of Mark we hear fully described how King Herod had John the Baptist beheaded. The tortured conscience of Herod arouses a strange foreboding in him. When he hears all that has occurred through Christ Jesus he says, “John, whom I beheaded, has been restored to life!” Herod feels that, though the physical personality of John had gone away, he is now all the more present! He feels that his atmosphere, his spirituality — which was none other than the spirituality of Elijah, is still there. His tormented conscience causes him to be aware that John the Baptist, that is, Elijah, is still there… I will now call your attention to one thing more. I have several times pointed out how this spirit of Elijah or John, continued to act in such a way as to impress its impulses into world history. I have often mentioned that the soul of Elijah-John appeared again in the painter Raphael.
This is one of those facts that call attention to the metamorphoses of souls…Can we not feel that the aura that hovered round Elijah-John is also present in Raphael? That in Raphael there were such similarities to these two others that we could even say that this element was too great to be able to enter into a single personality, but hovered round it, so that the revelations received by this personality seemed like an illumination that inspired his art. Such was indeed the case with Raphael!” ~Rudolf Steiner, Gospel of Mark: Lecture 3
After the beheading of John the Baptist, the angelic illumination that guides him, worked thru him now wholly from the spiritual worlds, becoming like a protective aura around the 12 disciples of Christ Jesus - like a midnight Sun - especially inspiring Lazarus, the ‘rich young merchant’, brother of Martha & Mary Magdalene, who, after becoming incorporated into by John the Baptist during his time in the Underworld, is called forth from the tomb by JC, in the first Christian Initiation – taking the title of ‘John’ - to became ‘John the Evangelist’. This is an example of how karmic relationships work – we all influence each other – for better or for worse.
“The truth is, my dear friends, this earthly personality of Raphael was completely yielded up and was only present through what Lazarus-John gave to this soul to be poured out into colour and line for all humankind. Such was the life of this being. And it was so, that this Raphael life could only be, as it were, absolved in another life of thirty years — in Novalis. And so we see Raphael die young, Novalis die young — one being, who came forth from Elijah-John, appearing before humankind in two different forms, preparing through art, and through poetry, the true Michael-mood of soul, sent down by the Michael-stream as messenger to humanity on Earth. And now we behold the wonderful artistic power of Raphael come to life again in Novalis, in poetry that stirs and enraptures the heart. All that through Raphael was given to human eyes to see — of this could human hearts now drink deep, when it came again in the poerty of Novalis.
His beloved dies in her youth. He is himself still young. What is he going to do with his life now that she has died? He asks himself. He wants to pass over already now into the super-sensible, to lead again the Raphael life, not quite touching the Earth, but living out in poetry his magic idealism. He would fain not let himself be fully touched by Earth life. When we read the “Fragments” of Novalis, and give ourselves up to the life that flows so abundantly in them, we can discover the secret of the deep impression they make on us. Whatever we have before us in immediate sense-reality, whatever the eye can see and recognise as beautiful — all this, through the magic idealism that lives in the soul of Novalis, appears in his poetry with a well-nigh heavenly splendour. The meanest and simplest material thing — with the magic idealism of his poetry, he can make it live again in all its spiritual light and glory as the divine Sophia. And so we see in Novalis a radiant and splendid forerunner of that Michael-stream which is now to lead you all, my dear friends, while you live; and then again, after you have gone through the gate of death, you will find in the spiritual super-sensible worlds all those others — among them also the being of whom I have been speaking to you today — all those with whom you are to prepare the work that shall be accomplished at the end of the century, and that shall lead humankind past the great crisis in which it is involved”.~ The Last Address given by Rudolf Steiner -The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis - Michaelmas Eve, 1924
~RaphaelRUDOLF STEINER'S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL - translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler - v21 I feel a strange new strengthening, fruit-bearing power of becoming;
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Friday, 29 August 2025
the Beheading
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