A few weeks ago a new book of mine was published, this one, “the lotus flowers and the apocalypse.” And I would like to present it today, yes, with a look at it. Normally one knows the apocalypse as the revelation of the end times. And in this sense such a book seems very topical, because we find the word apocalypse a lot in our time, we hear it a lot, we read it a lot, because in this desolate time in which we live it has the appearance that it is an end time.

But from the spiritual researcher Rudolf Steiner we know that the apocalypse is not only a revelation of the end time, in fact it is not that, it is a revelation of the development of humanity. And we can see this in a very large perspective, so that we trace the development of humanity as far back as possible and look as far as possible into the future. Rudolf Steiner did it in this way.

And he then held a series of lectures in Nürnberg and in it he revealed much of the secrets that lie in the apocalypse. And much later, that was in the last year of his life, he also gave a course for the priests of the Christian Community about the apocalypse, and in it he actually takes much more a smaller epoch in which we can now find ourselves again. In the past we have given a whole series of seminars in Switzerland and at some point the question came to me to also dare a seminar about the apocalypse.

We then dared that, together, with the whole group, and we did that twice, a large apocalypse and a small one. But while I was occupied with that, I discovered that in the more distant past I had also read a book about the apocalypse, truly as a book of initiation. I then found that again and on one day at that time I tried to reproduce it.

Now, in the present time, we then tried with a group to really live through this, what I had done then in one day and later somewhat more extensively, in a very intensive way. And that is that we can also experience the revelation of John as a book of initiation. And then, when we know initiation, then we know that it is connected with the development of the chakras, which rest in the soul, partly already formed, but waiting for the human being to decide out of freedom to further develop these chakras.

And thus one can find back in the apocalypse where this development of the lotus flowers is situated. So, we can in the apocalypse, when we follow this text meditatively, find that in three great stages the development toward the perfection of the lotus flowers, these are the chakras, is brought into development. And we then find that in the phase in the apocalypse in which the seals are opened, that we go a path toward the development of imagination.

That when the trumpets are sounded, which is more an experience of hearing, that this is the path toward inspiration. And that finally, when the love of God in the form of bowls of wrath is poured out over humanity, that we then have to do with the development of intuition. And with the help of Gnostic literature we can then learn to understand that the first stage, the stage of imagination, ultimately leads to the fact that the highest chakra, which is located in the crown, actually at the place of the epiphysis, that this chakra, when it is developed in the first stage, leads to the fact that one, and this is of course spoken pictorially, develops a diamond there.

The second phase leads to the fact that in the highest chakra the opening of the Ark of the Covenant takes place. We also find that back in the apocalypse. And ultimately the carrying out of the development toward the highest perfection of the highest chakra, this development leads to the fact that one finds the Holy Grail.

That is what I have tried to express with the help of my spiritual friends, in a much more extensive form of course, and we then brought that together in a book. Not only the transcripts, but also my author’s summaries and also some quotations, for example from “How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds” by Rudolf Steiner. These quotations are also in it, because it was important to me to make clear the connection with anthroposophy, that what I describe in this book is not a deviation from anthroposophy, but rather an approach to it, that in our inner development, when we seek initiation, we have a possibility there to understand, with the images of the apocalypse, how the lotus flowers in our soul can be brought into development.

And the wonderful thing is that there also arises an understanding for this mysterious force that is called kundalini. There exists from the time of Rudolf Steiner a book by Arthur Avalon, and he translated old oriental writings and also gives his own commentaries on them. And a translation about kundalini is as follows:

Above it shines the sleeping kundalini as fine as the fibers of the lotus stalk. It is the one that gives life to the world, and it covers the mouth of Brahma and does this entirely independently. Like the spiral of a shell, its radiant, serpent-like form goes three and a half times around the spinal cord, and its glory is like the glory of a very young, but strong lightning.

Its sweet speech sounds like the undifferentiated humming, like that of a swarm of bees that is completely in love. It produces a melodious poetry and all other compositions in prose or verses, in splendid sequences and other modes in all languages. It is that which illuminates all beings in the world through inhalation and exhalation.

It shines into the cavity of the root. It shines like a chain of radiant lights.

And Rudolf Steiner has more or less summarized this wonderful poetry into a philosophical-spiritual form, and he says: “At the moment of the awakening of kundalini, passive thinking becomes active, and the active will becomes passive. The moment of awakening can be characterized by the fact that the being receives an active, that is productive thinking, and a passive, that is receiving will.”

That is a formula for meditation. And so in this book I have tried as much as possible on the one hand to follow the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner, and on the other hand to find this awakening of kundalini back in the revelation of John.

It always remains an imperfect undertaking to do something like this, but on the other hand we have all experienced that this striving carries a kind of perfection within itself. Not the result, but the striving. In my novels I have often had the main characters, Johannes, say, yes how shall I say it: there is no perfection, no human perfection, only the striving for perfection can in a certain sense be perfect.

And thus we try to make our striving as perfect as possible, so that we will one day, completely at the end of the time of the great apocalypse, truly reach a kind of perfection.