The Damascus Event as the Second Coming

“…the miraculous, spiritualized fire, the Christ-light which was revealed to Paul on the road to Damascus in glorious divine revelation will appear to others in the etheric clouds. The greatest mystery of our time is the Second Coming of Christ – in the next age the Damascus Event will come to life…

When once human beings are able to immerse their gaze into Shamballa, they will be able to understand the Gospels – they will need a kind of Damascus Event.”

Rudolf Steiner, The Etherization of the Blood, GA 130

The first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles describes Christ’s Ascension: “and a cloud received him out of their sight.” As the disciples were looking up, two angels appeared and said, “the same Jesus, taken up from you into heaven, shall come again in the same way as you have seen him go.” This cloud of ascension is the etheric realm of the Earth. A spirit-land of life.

Starting in 1910, Rudolf Steiner initiated a series of lectures announcing the advent of Christ’s appearance in the sphere of the Earth’s etheric (life) body – essentially the Second Coming of Christ in the Etheric or the Land of Shamballa. This would begin around 1930 and continue for the next 2,500 years. At first, only a few people would be aware of this new deed of Christ. In time, more and more people – regardless of their religious affiliation – will be enlightened by witnessing Christ’s etheric manifestation as a living presence. Such Damascus Events are a birth of a new natural clairvoyance that will become the common experience of anyone who can look through the astral spiritualized fire and light at the miraculously divine Christ-Light.

Another way to experience Christ manifesting in the Life-body of the Earth, and the human being’s personal etheric body, is to encounter Christ as the Comforter. This has been documented many times in history when Christ Himself, appearing as a human being walks into the room and provides comfort and healing. Rudolf Steiner describes this second type of meeting Christ in the etheric realm in the following words:

“The Christ will become a living comforter. Many a human being will have this experience when sitting silent in his room, heavy-hearted and oppressed, not knowing which way to turn. The door will open, and the etheric Christ will appear and speak words of consolation to him. The Christ will become a living Comforter to humans. Many a time when people – even in considerable numbers – are sitting together, not knowing what to do, and waiting, they will see the Etheric Christ. He will Himself be there, will confer with them, will make His voice heard in such gatherings. These times are approaching, and this positive, constructive element will take real effect in the evolution of mankind.”  Rudolf Steiner, GA 130

The experience of Saul, who became Paul on the road to Damascus, can be experienced by other people since the 1930’s and will continually increase in numbers for the next 2,500 years until it becomes a common experience for awakened souls. Paul experienced a blinding light and the voice of Christ speaking to him as he was knocked to the ground. He remained blind for days until Ananias came to heal him in the name of Christ Jesus. Paul experienced a sudden illumination similar to an initiation, and then became etherically clairvoyant afterwards and could see Christ as a living being in the realm of the etheric body of the Earth. This type of initiation can, in our day, happen at any moment to a person who desires to rise to spiritual realms. This experience of illumination awakens a new type of clairvoyance in the person having the spiritual vision that opens the “spiritual eye” which can look into the spiritual world and bring forth the truth about the Living Christ’s appearance in the etheric realm.

The Damascus Event opens what Rudolf Steiner calls “etheric vision” which can witness the Christ’s Second Coming in the etheric realm (through the astral light) as an etheric Being of Light (angels), Music (archangels), and Word of Life (archai). This perception of Christ in the etheric realm is tantamount to the Second Coming of Christ in the etheric realm of the Earth and the human etheric body — called Shamballa (Earth’s etheric realm) or the Temple of Wisdom (human etheric body). Paul was the first person, who had not known Jesus directly, to experience Christ’s Second Coming in the etheric and understand that Christ could now be directly witnessed in the etheric realm as a living Being. This experience was similar to Moses seeing God in the burning bush and was a type of revelation for Paul, like Saint John’s revelation of the apocalypse, which is often seen as a description of the Second Coming of Christ.

Paul’s initiation on the road to Damascus was the third initiation Saul/Paul had undergone in his life. He was very familiar with the Hebrew and Greek forms of initiation which prepared him for the new initiation of Christ. That is why Saul/Paul did not believe Jesus was the Messiah and why he persecuted the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Paul had been taught that the great solar deity (Vishvakarman, Ahura Mazdao, the Word, the Logos) was in the spiritual world coming towards the Earth in the rays of the Sun, not incarnated on the Earth in a human body. But once Paul had received his initiation directly from Christ Jesus in a blinding flash, he could see that Christ had come down from the Sun and could now be seen in the aura of the Earth as Christ Jesus, the One who conquered death through the resurrection and ascension.

This mysterious etheric realm of life is called by Rudolf Steiner, the “realm of spiritual economy”, or the land of Shamballa, the etheric realm, the life body of the Earth, the human etheric body, the elemental kingdoms, elemental beings, and the etheric formative forces. It works through the ethers to live and breath in everything alive. 

Through Paul’s Damascus Event, he gained “etheric vision”, a new type of clairvoyance based upon seeing the etheric form of Christ through the astral light. Once etheric vision is established, direct knowledge and contact with Christ is possible and a Language of the Spirit can be learned for communication and communion with the Angels, Archangels, Archai, and Elohim. Each individual has the possibility of meeting Christ in His etheric form as a personal Second Coming of Christ, a revelation and initiation that opens new supersensible organs of perception developing etheric clairvoyance.

Man will ascend to a cognition of the spiritual world and will see the physical world permeated by a new “country,” or new realm – the etheric. Humanity’s physical environment will present a totally different aspect over the next 2,500 years through the addition of an etheric realm, which indeed is already here now but which many will learn to perceive. Christ came in the physical realm only once through the Mystery of Golgotha — the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now Christ comes to those who can rise up to Him in the etheric realm. In the far future, Christ will also be found redeeming the astral realm of the Earth in the Sixth Cultural Epoch, the Russian Age of Civilization that will be seeded by the Second Coming of Christ for the next 2,500 years. In that age, Christ will become a companion of the awakened ones and will walk beside them as a friend and guide.

Through the vision of the Damascus Event, a new clairvoyance is awakened that can see into unseen realms that birth life throughout the etheric realms. This land has been known for thousands of years as the Land of Shamballa where the Temple of Wisdom rejuvenates anyone who goes there seeking wisdom and love — the Living Christ. This land was known by initiates of the past and at one time was much more accessible but now has withdrawn from the sight of humans. Shamballa, or New Jerusalem, can be entered today by those who, as initiates, go there from time to time to be strengthened and re-enlivened with courage and fortitude.

Everyone in our time can develop the selfless wisdom, fiery love, and moral strength that it takes to make it to the Land of Shamballa where the perfected bodies of all the saints, great teachers, buddhas and bodhisattvas exist in perfected forms that are models for striving humans to emulate. This realm is where the celestial “mansions” of good souls are being built with Christ as the foundation stone. This is the New Jerusalem that Saint John spoke about in this book of revelations that is built by the true believers who preach the Eternal Gospel and sing the new song. Attaining Shamballa, witnessing the Second Coming, is the same as putting on your “white tunic” and returning to your home at the foot of the throne of the divine as one of the chosen. This personal rising into the “third heaven” can happen to anyone, at any time, if they have developed the moral and spiritual prerequisites. It can also happen when one of the faithful is about to lose hope and give up on life — then Christ walks in and dispels their fears and doubts and comforts them with His wisdom and love.

Part of the preparation for ascension into the etheric is a strengthened consciousness and a sense of responsibility toward spiritual perception. Studying spiritual science will open the aspirant to the Language of the Spirit and morally prepare them for developing the supersensible organs necessary to witness the living beings in the etheric realm and the human ether body. With holy wonder for the many gifts, deeds, and sacrifices of Christ; awe for the divine creative power of the Father God; and reverence for the ever present help of the spiritual world that comes from the  comforter, the Holy Spirit of Christ, and the wisdom of Sophia we have the ability in our time to rise to refined realms where life is burgeoning ever anew through the gifts of the spirit – a New Jerusalem. We too can attain the light of spiritual illumination which fell on Saul/Paul in the Damascus Event to create the first witness of the Second Coming of Christ and the revelation of Christ’s newest gift of redeeming the etheric life-bodies of the Earth and humanity.

Rudolf Steiner on the Damascus Event

GA 116. The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness – Correspondences Between the Microcosm and the Macrocosm

That is true; it will return to earth! And the guide thereto will be He [Christ] Whom men will see, when, through the vision of the Event of Damascus, they reach the Land of Shamballa. ‘Shamballa’ – for so this Land is called – has withdrawn from the sight of man. It can only be entered today by those who, as Initiates, go there from time to time to be strengthened.

GA 116. The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness – The Sermon on the Mount

Instead of acquiring clear notions of the fact that men must grow up as regards their capacities so that a great number, and finally all, might experience the Event of Damascus – that is: might experience the Christ in the atmosphere around the earth, and see Him in His etheric body – it was believed that Christ would descend again in a physical body, for the materialistic satisfaction of those who refuse to believe in the spirit, and who will not believe what St. Paul saw in the Event of Damascus: that Christ is in the Earth-atmosphere and that He is always there! ‘I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!’ Those who develop the methods of clairvoyant vision into the Spiritual world will find what, could not be found there in the pre-Christian time: the Christ in His etheric body. That is the important progress in the evolution of humanity; before the first half of our century has elapsed, those faculties by means of which the event of Damascus becomes a personal experience, will develop naturally as it were, and men will see the Christ in His etheric body. He will not descend into flesh, but man will ascend when he has acquired understanding of the spirit.

GA 130. The Etherization of the Blood, October 1, 1911, Basel

Then in the course of the next three thousand years, He [Christ] will become visible to greater and greater numbers of people. This will inevitably come to pass in the natural course of development. A number of individuals will see the Etheric Christ and will themselves experience the event that took place at Damascus. But this will depend upon such men learning to be alert to the moment when Christ draws near to them. In only a few decades from now it will happen, particularly to those who are young – already preparation is being made for this – that some individual here or there has certain experiences. If he has sharpened his vision through having assimilated Anthroposophy, he may become aware that suddenly someone has come near to help him, to make him alert to this or that. The truth is that Christ has come to him, although he believes that what he saw is a physical man. He will come to realize that what he saw was a super-sensible being, because it immediately vanishes. Many a human being will have this experience when sitting silent in his room, heavy-hearted and oppressed, not knowing which way to turn. The door will open, and the etheric Christ will appear and speak words of consolation to him. The Christ will become a living Comforter to men. However strange it may as yet seem, it is true nevertheless that many a time when people – even in considerable numbers – are sitting together, not knowing what to do, and waiting, they will see the Etheric Christ. He will Himself be there, will confer with them, will make His voice heard in such gatherings. These times are approaching, and the positive, constructive element now described will take real effect in the evolution of mankind.

GA 118. True Nature of the Second Coming – The Event of Christ’s Appearance in the Etheric World

A man who was convinced with particular intensity through such perception, was Paul – in the vision at Damascus. But this etheric sight will develop in individual human beings as a natural faculty. In days to come it will be more and more possible for men to experience what Paul experienced at Damascus. We are now able to grasp quite a different aspect of Spiritual Science.

And from this experience they will realize that this is the same Being who at the beginning of our era fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha, that He is indeed the Christ. Just as Paul at Damascus was convinced at the time: This is Christ! … so there will be men whose experiences in the etheric world will convince them that in very truth Christ lives. The supreme mystery of the age in which we are living is the Second Coming of Christ – that is its true nature.

GA 118. The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric – The Return of Christ

All the faculties that today can be acquired by means of initiation will in the future be universal faculties of humanity. This condition of soul, this experiencing of soul, is called in esotericism the “second coming of Christ.” Christ will not be incarnated again in a physical body, but He will appear in an etheric body as in the street near Damascus. Christ incarnated on the physical plane when humanity had become limited to the physical body.

GA 118. True Nature of the Second Coming – The Event of Christ’s Appearance in the Etheric World

When this is understood, Spiritual Science is disclosed as the means of preparing men to recognize the return of Christ, in order that it shall not be their misfortune to overlook this event but that they shall be mature enough to grasp the great happening of the Second Coming of Christ. Men will become capable of seeing etheric bodies and among them, too, the etheric body of Christ; that is to say, they will grow into a world where Christ will be revealed to their newly awakened faculties. There will be men whose experiences in the etheric world will convince them that in very truth Christ lives. The supreme mystery of the age in which we are living is the Second Coming of Christ. Just as other happenings preceded the Christ Event in Palestine, so will those who prophetically foretold His coming follow Him after the time referred to, after He Himself has become visible to mankind again in the etheric body. The preparers of His coming will be recognizable in a new form to men who have experienced the new Christ Event.

GA 198. The Festivals and Their Meaning II: Easter – Easter: the Festival of Warning

The writings of Paul, as we know them, convey only a weak reflection of all that he experienced inwardly. But even so, when he speaks of the event of Damascus we can discern that he speaks as one who through this event attained knowledge of cosmic happenings lying behind the veil of the world of sense.

GA 132. Inner Realities of Evolution – Inner Aspect of the Earth-Embodiment of the Earth

Among the many proofs of this fact which occult science is able to provide, is the following: That the event of Damascus will, in the course of the next three thousand years, as we have often said, be renewed for a sufficiently great number of mankind. This means, that capacities will be developed in man which will enable him to perceive the Christ as an etheric figure on the astral plane, as Paul saw Him on the road to Damascus.

GA 131. From Jesus to Christ – Lecture Ten

And in the next three thousand years the truth that Christ is acting as Karmic Judge will become apparent to a sufficiently large number of people. Christ Himself will be experienced by men as an etheric Form. Like Paul before Damascus, they will know quite intimately that Christ lives, and is the Source for the reawakening of the physical prototype we received at the beginning of our evolution, and need if the Ego is to attain full development.

GA 118. The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric – The Return of Christ

What Paul experienced at Damascus, which was a personal experience for him, will become common experience for a certain number of people. At the event of Damascus, he could say for the first time with his clairvoyant consciousness: Christ exists! The people who will experience the event of Damascus in the twentieth century will receive direct knowledge of Christ. Through this, the possibility is given that a certain number of human beings, and then more and more, shall experience during the next 2,500 years a repetition of the event of Damascus. The greatness and power of the next age will consist in the fact that for many people the event of Damascus will come to life; that through these faculties of which I have just spoken the Christ will become perceptible in the spiritual sphere of the earth.

GA 116. The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness – The Further Development of Conscience

We have already indicated the way in which it will alter in the future. As a parallel to the appearance of the Event of Damascus a great number of people in the course of the twentieth century will experience something like the following: As soon as they have acted in some way they will learn to contemplate their deed; they will become more thoughtful, they will have an inner picture of the deed.

GA 109. Rosicrucian Esotericism – Man’s Experience after Death

Saul who, as an initiate of the Jewish Mysteries, knew full well that the “Great Aura,” Ahura Mazdao, would one day unite with the earth, rebelled against the belief that this being could have died on the shameful cross. Although he had participated in the events in Palestine, he did not believe that this great spirit had dwelt on the earth in Jesus of Nazareth. It was when he became clairvoyant near the gates of Damascus that in the earth’s aura he beheld the Christ spirit, the living Christ, who could not previously have been seen there.

GA 111. The Principle of Spiritual Economy – Results of Spiritual Scientific Investigations of the Evolution of Humanity II

We see the first example of this in Saul when he became Paul. What happened to him on his way to Damascus must be interpreted as something similar to an initiation. The reason that he needed only a few minutes for it was that he had attained a certain maturity in the preceding life.

GA 131. From Jesus to Christ – Lecture Six

Christ had appeared to the disciples also; Paul refers to that, and the events lived through with the Risen One were the same for Paul as they had been for the disciples. But what Paul immediately joins to these, as the outcome for him of the event of Damascus, is his wonderful and easily comprehensible theory of the Being of Christ. What, from the event of Damascus onwards, was the Being of Christ for Paul? The Being of Christ was for him the ‘Second Adam’; and he immediately differentiates between the first Adam and the second Adam, the Christ.

GA 148. On the Fifth Gospel – Lecture X

Paul realizes now that formerly he had seen Christ while He was still in the spiritual world. The Event at Damascus had revealed to him Christ had now passed into the Aura of the Earth and was living in the Aura of the Earth. That is the great truth concerning which so many who lived in the early centuries of Christianity uttered such strange words.

GA 130. Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz – Rosicrucian Christianity II

Then, in the future, although it will only happen to a small number of people to begin with, they will be able to experience Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus and to perceive the etheric Christ, Who will come among men in super-sensible form. But before this happens man will have to return to a spiritual view of nature. And in the course of the next three thousand years this will become possible because it will no longer be necessary to teach from documents, for through the beholding of Christ human beings will themselves learn to understand the experience Paul had on the way to Damascus. Mankind itself will pass through the experience of Paul.

GA 124. Excursus on the Gospel According to St. Mark – Lecture Four

Men had now to understand what Paul taught to all, what it was that all men could receive into them through the revelation of Damascus. Although this event is described in the Bible as a sudden illumination, yet those who know the truth regarding such occurrences know that it can happen at any moment to one who desires to rise to spiritual realms; and that through what such a man experiences he becomes a changed Being.

GA 131. From Jesus to Christ – Lecture Eight

What Paul experienced on the road to Damascus was something which he knew could be experienced only when the Scriptures were fulfilled; when a perfect human Phantom, a human body risen from the grave in a super-sensible form, would appear in the spiritual atmosphere of the earth. And that is what he saw! That is what appeared to him on the road to Damascus and left him with the conviction: ‘He was there – He is risen! For what is there could come only from Him: it is the Phantom which can be seen by all human individualities who seek to relate themselves to the Christ.’

GA 109. The Festivals and Their Meaning II: Easter – Spiritual Bells of Easter II

It was seen again when the eyes of Saul, illumined by clairvoyance on the road to Damascus, beheld and recognized in the radiance of heavenly fire the One Who had fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha. And so both Moses and Paul beheld the Christ: Moses beheld Him in the material fire in the burning thorn-bush and in the lightning on Sinai, but only inwardly could he be made aware that it was the Christ Who spoke with him.

GA 109. The Principle of Spiritual Economy – The Event of Golgotha. The Brotherhood of the Holy Grail. The Spiritualized Fire

It was perceived again when Saul opened his eyes on his way to Damascus, found that they had become illumined and clairvoyant, and recognized in the heavenly fire the One who had accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha. Both Saul, who became Paul, and Moses saw the Christ.

GA 15. The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity – Appendix

As I have pointed out frequently, the experience of the impulse of the Christ event that Paul, an individual filled with grace, had on the road to Damascus will eventually become the common property of all human beings. As Paul knew through a spiritual revelation who Christ was and what he had done, so all people will eventually receive this knowledge, this vision.

It is an intrinsic part of the evolution of our earth that many people will experience for themselves the spiritual vision, the spiritual eye, that opened up for Paul on the road to Damascus. This spiritual eye looks into the spiritual world, bringing us the truth about Christ, which Paul had not believed when he had heard it in Jerusalem. The occurrence of this event is a historical necessity.

The Festivals and Their Meaning III : Ascension and Pentecost – World-Pentecost: the Message of Anthroposophy

Thus, in the light of Spiritual Science, the Pentecost-secret reveals to us that the Mystery of Golgotha has replaced the Sun-Myth of the ancient Mysteries. It was Paul who, through the revelation that came to him at Damascus, realized with particular clarity that Christ was the Sun-Being. Through the revelation at Damascus Paul realized that without being transported into the spiritual world, man can behold the Christ, and therefore that He had in very truth descended to the earth. From this moment he knew that the disciples of Christ Jesus spoke the truth; for the sublime Sun-Being had now come down from the heavens to the earth.

GA 118. The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric — The Sermon on the Mount

Before the first half of the twentieth century has passed, some people will, with full I-consciousness, experience the penetration of the divine-spiritual world into the physical, sensible world in the same way as Saul did during his transformation into Paul before Damascus. This will then become the normal condition for a number of people. Christ will not incarnate again in a physical body as He did at that time in Jesus; nothing would be achieved by it now. From the middle of the twentieth century on, and continuing for the next 2,500 years, this will happen more and more often. Enough people will by then have experienced the event at Damascus that it will be taken as a common occurrence on the earth. We occupy ourselves with spiritual science so that these newly appearing faculties, which are at first barely perceptible, may not be overlooked and lost to humanity and that those blessed with this new power of vision may not be considered dreamers and fools but may instead have the support and understanding of a small group of people who in their common purpose may prevent these delicate soul seeds and soul qualities from being roughly trampled to death for lack of human understanding.

GA 109. The Principle of Spiritual Economy – Christianity in Human Evolution, Leading Individualities and Avatar Beings

People like these were especially common in European countries, and they had always been able to experience inwardly in miniature a kind of Pauline revelation, that is the experience through which Saul became Paul on the road to Damascus. It was possible because the multiplied copies of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth had been preserved and were in these centuries woven into the etheric bodies of a large number of people who wore these multiplied copies as one would wear a garment.

GA 112. The Gospel of St. John — The Cosmic Significance of the Mystery of Golgotha

And men will further learn to grasp the fact that through the deed of Golgotha, not only was it revealed to human cognition that death is in reality the source of life, but man was provided with an attitude toward death which permitted him to infuse more and more life into his own being, until ultimately it will become wholly alive – that is, until he will be able to rise from all death, until he has overcome death. That is what was revealed to Paul when he saw the living Christ on the road to Damascus – when he knew: Christ liveth – as he gazed with his newly found clairvoyance into what constituted the environment of the earth. As an Old-Testament initiate he knew that until then the earth had lacked a certain light, but now he saw that light in it; hence the Christ was present; hence also, He Who had hung on the Cross was the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth. Thus there came to Paul, on the road to Damascus, an understanding of what had taken place on Golgotha.

GA 211. Planetary Spheres and Their Influence on Mans Life on Earth and in the Spiritual Worlds – The Threefold Sun and the Risen Christ

And this secret, that the Gods too undergo evolution – this secret Christ communicated to His initiate pupils after His Resurrection. This secret Paul also learned through the natural initiation that he experienced outside Damascus. What stunned and shook Paul to the depths of his being was the knowledge that the Power that had formerly been sought in the Sun had now become united with the powers of Earth. But when Paul received enlightenment on his way to Damascus, at that moment he knew that it was he himself who had been mistaken, in that he was ready to believe only what had hitherto been true. For now, he saw that what had been true, had become changed; the Being Who dwelt formerly only in the Sun had now descended to Earth and continued to live in the forces of the Earth.

GA 118. The Festivals and Their Meaning III : Ascension and Pentecost — Whitsun: The Festival of the Free Individuality

We know that we live in an important time of human evolution: that already before the close of this century new forces will develop in the human soul which will lead man to the unfolding of a kind of etheric clairvoyance, whereby, as if through a natural development, there will be renewed for certain human beings the event which Paul experienced at Damascus; and that in this way, for the heightened spiritual powers of man, Christ will return in an etheric garb. Ever more and more souls will share in what Paul experienced at Damascus. Then it will be seen in the world that Spiritual Science is the revelation, heralding a renewed and transformed truth of the Christ Impulse.

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In the video above, Douglas asked Tyla to describe her Damascus experience.

Tyla Gabriel Is Blinded by the Light, Overwhelmed with the Love