If we look at the figure of Jesus, which is of course the source of mythical overlay or romantic overlay and so on, nevertheless, here’s an individual who reportedly could change the ontological structures of the world.  He could intervene in the ordinary structures of the world.  So, in history periodically people breakthrough this cultural egg and become a model.  They become an example of what some of the potentials of the human being are. But generally there’s a kickback from the culture which is called a backlash from the culture to re-establish the cultural supremacy there. 

By and large the religious aspect of this fermenting simply becomes one of the most powerful tools that culture has at its disposal. What does the religious impulse do with something like fire walking as in Shri Lanka, which is a very real and genuine occurrence, it’s been in every possible way by all sorts of scientific things, but it’s attributed to and brought about only by allegiance to their God, they named it Katharagama.  He has a temple, he has a certain parameter of area over which he has dominion within that area, you too then with the proper preparations can walk down into a pit 25 feet long that will melt aluminum on contact and not be bothered by it. They have about 100 people a year in this great ceremonial do that. 

This has taken a potential of the human being out of the human and projected it on to a God on cloud nine.  And in that projection the strange thing is Katharagama takes on life and becomes that which is being projected and Katharagama becomes a power within that 28 mile radius.  In other words the belief in him has created him, which strengthens the belief in him and you’ve got a reciprocal tape loop creator and created giving rise to each other. 

And we find the same thing happening in most of these things, even the Tibetans and their enormous strange capacities that they once had all treated as a religious kind of a discipline and so on, rather than the human being expressing his various capacities, and through it became limited to a very select elite grouping in Tibet, masses of people very miserably in order that that these Yoga’s might be given all the support they need to make this elite. 

If we look at the figure of Jesus, which is of course the source of mythical overlay or romantic overlay and so on, nevertheless, here’s an individual who reportedly could change the ontological structures of the world.  He could intervene in the ordinary structures of the world. 

So in history periodically people breakthrough this cultural egg and become a model.  They become an example of what some of the potentials of the human being are. But generally there’s a kickback from the culture which is called a backlash from the culture to re-establish the cultural supremacy there.  Here you had this individual called Jesus who claimed that we were superior to any of these cultural effects and we had this tremendous capacity and power within us.  But he placed it all within us.  It’s all within you.  And of course culture couldn’t deal with that because were that the case, then the whole cultural structure falls apart.  And so what we have is a backlash which takes the modeling of Jesus and replicates it in a close enough similarity that catches us with the same attractiveness and yet shifts us slightly over so that everything he says becomes a cultural support, which is the way this thing has worked time and time and time again. 

 So trying to break through the cultural constraints goes on all the time and yet the culture always reasserts itself.  Rudolph Steiner’s looking at what he calls a mystery of Golgotha. That’s into all this.  He considers it a struggle between two mythological forces; Lucifer, the bringer of light; and Ara-mon, the bringer of darkness.  Light and dark, and a clash there on Golgotha and everyone assumes of course the forces of light broke through.  No, there are demonic forces of darkness quickly re-establish the cultural pattern.  You find this probably repeated over and over through history but Jesus as a model, is an anathema to culture.  But as that which stood for a religion or a belief system which we could buy in to, then we can be controlled, particularly if it’s a belief system based on punishment, heaven and hell, reward, devils and angels and so forth and so on.