The Voice of Mary
Last year in another e-group we studied the Steiner's lectures on the Gospel of John and everyone who participated took a lecture to which he/she wrote a summary in the form of an essay. Below is part of what I wrote (slightly revised) in response to the 9th. lecture of Steiner's lecture cycle on the Gospel of John. The work of Emil Bock on the genealogies contributed to this essay also.
In the following I relate that I have often thought that within the first two chapters of the Luke Gospel there may be a deeply hidden and obscure mystery that Steiner has brought to our attention in some of his lectures. He spoke of the future when the human voice will become an organ that will someday be an organ of reproduction. When I read the first two chapters of the Luke Gospel I notice abundant references to the _voices_ of angels and humans. Interestingly, all of these verses are in relation to the birth of John the Baptist and more specifically to the birth of Jesus. Moreover, there are two very significant verses that direct our attention to Mary and her voice. I am proposing that there may be the possibility that the writer of the Luke Gospel may have been alluding to this mystery of the human voice and its future potential as an organ of reproduction and that Mary to some degree may have had already attained that ability.
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In this 9th. lecture Steiner asks a very profound question : "Who was the father (of Jesus)" ?
He applies this question specifically to not only the Gospel of John but
especially to the Gospel of Luke. Why? Steiner refers to Gabriel's Annunciation to Mary
when Gabriel proclaims:
". . . the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall
overshadow thee; therefore also, the Holy One which shall be born of thee shall be called the
_Son of God_." (Luke 1:35)
Quoting Steiner from this lecture he says,
"Even in the Gospel of St. Luke it is pointed
out that the, "father of Jesus is the Holy Spirit. This must be taken
literally . . ."
However, Steiner in his own lectures on the Gospel of St. Luke
makes it clear that Jesus was conceived normally and that it was not a
'miraculous conception'. He says that Joseph was the father of Jesus. There
seems to be a contradiction until we look at two small but very important
passages in the Gospel of Luke.
These passages make significant references to the 'VOICE' of Mary. In the early
chapters of the Luke Gospel (chapters 1& 2) great emphasis is placed
upon some form of vocal expression. The _voice_ (i.e. Mary's voice, Gabriel's Annunciations,
the angel 'announcing' to the shepherds, and even the loss of Zachary's voice) is a prominent
component of these early chapters. When we examine Mary's role,
however, there are two passages that are very significant.
They are:
Luke 1:41-42: "And it came to pass, when Elizabeth _heard the greeting_ of Mary, that the babe in her
womb leapt. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and cried out with a loud voice . ."
and when Elizabeth speaks to Mary:
Luke 1:44:"For behold, the moment that the _sound of thy greeting_ came to my ear the babe in my womb leapt for joy."
We know from Steiner's lecture cycle on the Gospel of Luke that Mary's visit to Elizabeth
ignited the EGO-I AM of John the Baptist within the fetus while in the womb of Elizabeth.
In lecture five of the Steiner's Luke Gospel cycle Steiner had said, ". . .and the embryo that in other cases is quickened by its own EGO was here quickened through the medium of the 'other' embryo."
In lecture six we read, " A human body of great perfection had to be made available, one that could only be produced through part of the etheric substance of ADAM - untouched by all earthly influences - being united with the etheric body of this Jesus-child. This etheric substance was imbued with the forces that had worked upon Earth evolution before the Fall and now in the Jesus-child, their power was immeasurably enhanced. This made it possible for the mysterious influence referred to in the lecture yesterday to be exercised by the mother of the Nathan Jesus upon the mother of the Baptist --- that is to say upon John himself before he was born."
It was both the presence of Mary and the Nathan soul within the womb of Mary that quickened the EGO-I AM of John. However,we also know from Anthroposophy that the human voice in the future will be an organ for bringing new life into being. It was Mary who carried with her the 'pure' etheric substance within her. This pure, 'virginal', etheric substance can be referred to as the Eternal Feminine. It was this virginal, etheric, life-forming substance that worked through Mary and through the etheric forming-forces of her voice that shaped the perfected body that would hold the Christ Being; the LOGOS/WORLD-WORD.
The perfected body of the Nathan/Luke Jesus was a microcosm of the Earth itself and its history and also its future. The Earth went a long time before Christ took it up as His own physical body. The body of Jesus also lived most of its years before it too took up the Christ within it. The body of Jesus was transformed after death, was resurrected and ascended to higher realms as will the Earth and humanity in Christ.
For Mary of the Luke Gospel the Power of the Holy Spirit, that is
the Spirit-Self (Manas) aspect of the transfigured astral body, has
given to her the beginning stages of a capacity to bring life into being
through the power of her 'spiritualized' voice. While in the womb of Mary,the
body of Jesus was being worked upon in a very special way by the life giving
forces of her 'spiritualized larynx' which in turn would give this body much of what was
necessary to be the eventual vehicle for the incarnation of the Logos; the
Christ.
In Steiner's lecture cycle 'Occult Signs and Symbols' he states:
"At present the larynx is at the beginning of its development, but in times to come it will
be transformed into a spiritualized organ of reproduction."
"As men in the future will be able to call people into being through their speaking, so it
was that the forerunner of mankind, the gods, were gifted with an organ with
which they expressed all things that are around us today."
However, he went on to say that when humans achieve this ability the planet "will consist of fiery matter" and humans
will call forth humans of fiery form. The voice of Mary acting upon
the body of Jesus may have been the prefiguration of this future capacity of our
future selves. The same voice that gives us the ability to
address oneself as "I AM" will in the future bring forth life itself as
the Logos (WORD) creates life now.
Returning to Luke 1:35 (above) which in part reads,
". . . the Holy One which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."
The phrase 'Son of God' or more specifically the term 'Son' is often a reference
to any EGO-I AM. If we look at Mary as a figure that is a personification or
archetypal picture of the human soul we have the image of the human soul
giving birth to the 'Son of God' within the soul. That is, the soul gives birth to
the EGO-I AM. The EGO-I AM then is born to which it gradually develops over
time in a sequence of physical earthly incarnations. It is the HUMAN EGO-I AM
to which Luke is more specifically referring when he gives us the genealogy of
Jesus in his Gospel (i.e.Jesus. . .as was supposed the _SON_ of Joseph, the _SON_ of Heli, etc.,).
Luke's genealogy is purposely placed immediately _AFTER_ the Baptism in
the Jordan when the Christ at that point in time (which is the "turning point of time"
as Steiner refers to it) had incarnated into the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Not only do the words of the Gospel give us insight into deeper mysteries but the construction of the Gospel reveals deeper truths also. The reference to the genealogy that is placed after the incarnation of Christ ( the Baptism in the Jordan) within a human form shows us what this incarnation into human flesh and soul will eventually lead us.
It is Christ that brings our EGO-I AM (the 'SON' of our soul) along in its on-going development and it is
here that Luke wishes to show that when Christ entered a human form and
soul He brought with Him the 'First Principle' from which every human
EGO-I AM can draw its life and begin its ascension. In the Luke Gospel we
are given a genealogy that ascends all the way back to ADAM, then to
God. What we are given here is a clear distinction between the genealogy of Luke and
that of Matthew. In the Luke Gospel the physical genealogy and blood-line
is not so much the issue as the body of Jesus in the Luke Gospel is more
of a creation of the forces of Mary's spiritualized 'voice' once
the physical conception has been consummated. In the Matthew Gospel,
however, we have the word 'begot' throughout the entire genealogy. This is a
much stronger form of description of physically passing on the blood-line than
what the Luke Gospel uses.
Here in the Matthew Gospel we see that the
actual physicality of a descending genealogy is emphasized in passing on
the blood-line. The blood-line is in a descending order which is
significant because it also alludes to us that here we see the
eventual path of the EGO-I AM descending deeply into matter. It is also a
genealogy that places much importance on past human 'history'. The Matthew genealogy is the
genealogy of Zarathustra ( whose name means: radiant star). In Luke we are given a genealogy
that looks to the 'future' though conversely it returns us to ADAM. It returns us to ADAM in one sense in that
it wishes to draw our attention to the time when we had a devachanic consciousness.
However, what was missing in our earliest stages of development was the capacity to stand within the
spiritual realms with one's own individuated "I" consciousness. Our
consciousness then was really nothing more than the consciousness of higher
spiritual beings permeating our own souls. We had no
true individuated "I" consciousness.
Only by gradually descending further into matter (The Fall; alluded to in the Matthew genealogy)
did we then develop an individuated consciousness because we moved further and
further from the spiritual realms as we moved deeper within matter and consequently
deeper within our own selves. We were then ready to slowly receive and develop our own EGO-I AM.
The ascending genealogy of the Luke Gospel therefore uses the term
'SON' all throughout until it returns to God. Again, Luke places it after the
Baptism in the Jordan because with Christ now
here on earth the human EGO-I AM over future eons ascends back to God; that is,
it ascends consciously to higher realms. Also the earth is then spiritualized and ascends back to the spiritual
worlds. With this ascending genealogy Luke therefore shows us that as our
consciousness ascends back to its former spiritually-endowed, devachanic capacity we will
'also' have with it an individuated, awakened, Christ-filled, ascended
EGO-I AM consciousness which is to be attained in full
freedom. We will then have achieved the EGO-I AM endowed ADAM
consciousness which reaches up to God and the spiritual worlds.
Rick Distasi
(December 2001)
