Table of Contents
Rudolf Steiner Press Audio reads a lecture on Christmas and the thirteen holy nights, and the calendar is Steiner’s claim. The lit tree is a recent sign of inner light when the outer sun is weakest. Early Christians, he says, did not fix Jesus’s birth on 25 December. For the first centuries, Epiphany on 6 January marked the Christ’s real birth, a descent into Jesus of Nazareth at the Jordan. That spirit, he says, had already met Moses and held him back until a body was ready. From the fourth century the feast moved thirteen days earlier onto a human birth, because a cosmic being present for only three years had become unthinkable. The child in Luke is, for him, a soul kept from earthly lives, through ages he calls Atlantean, until Palestine. Between the feasts a seer enters spiritual depths, faces Lucifer’s cost, and on the last night meets a Christ vision. He ends on inner peace as a force toward divine heights. This is his cycle, not a history of how Atlantis began.
Key points
- Steiner reads the Christmas tree as a sign of inner light in the darkest season.
- He says Epiphany, not Christmas Day, was the early festival of the Christ entering Jesus at the Jordan.
- He claims later Christianity moved the feast and remembered a human child instead of that cosmic descent.
- The thirteen nights are, in his account, a clairvoyant passage through spiritual depths toward a vision on 6 January.
- A Norwegian dream legend is his picture of that passage, and peace of soul is the power he says it can awaken.
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Short quotes
December the Epiphany was celebrated as a kind of birth Festival of the Christ
Rudolf Steiner, The thirteen holy nights
He says the January feast once marked the birth of the Christ. Watch at 4:01
earth Spirit the Christ descended into Jesus of Nazareth this birth of Christ was
Rudolf Steiner, The thirteen holy nights
The descent into Jesus at the Jordan is the event he wants remembered. Watch at 7:15
Clairvoyant faculties can feel himself penetrating into these spiritual depths during this period of the 13 days
Rudolf Steiner, The thirteen holy nights
Seers, he claims, enter spiritual depths through those thirteen days. Watch at 21:02
can find within ourselves the powers which bring peace to the soul true peace of soul is present only
Rudolf Steiner, The thirteen holy nights
Peace of soul is the power he says the festival can awaken. Watch at 28:03
Video by Rudolf Steiner Press Audio. Watch on YouTube.