At no time in the history of humanity have there been available to those who wish to follow the events of the Passion the spiritual treasures that lie to hand for us now. For anyone who desires to penetrate these treasures with full understanding of their deeper dimensions, there are three seers – properly, seeresses – who have generously shared with us their intimacy with the Lord as he approached Golgotha.
As faithful as these three seers are in their portraits of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, it is perhaps in what they bring to the mysteries of Holy Saturday that they perform their highest service. Reading and rereading their accounts, I am painfully aware of my own limits to comprehension – and certainly also to commentary. There is simply no way that I or anyone can improve upon their carefully chosen words. Here then, for your contemplation, is just one small moment in the magnificent panorama which they bring to us, in threefold glory:
Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, Some Words on Christ’s Descent into Hell:
Close to the doors of the rocky cave, in which was the real tomb, the tomb proper, stood Cassius. He moved not from the spot, he was silent and recollected. I saw the closed doors of the tomb and the stone lying before them. But through the doors, I could see the body of the Lord lying just as it had been left. It was environed with light and splendor, and rested between two adoring angels, one at the head, the other at the foot. When my thoughts turned to the holy soul of our Redeemer, there was vouchsafed me a vision of his descent into hell so great, so extended, that I have been able to retain only a very small portion. I shall, however, relate what I can of it.
When Jesus with a loud cry gave up his most holy soul, I saw it as a luminous figure surrounded by angels, among them Gabriel, penetrating the earth at the foot of the holy cross. I saw his divinity united with his soul, while at the same time, it remained united to his body hanging on the cross. I cannot express how this was. I saw the place whither the soul of Jesus went. It seemed to be divided into three parts. It was like three worlds, and I had a feeling that it was round, and that each one of those places was a kind of locality, a sphere separated from the others.
Just in front of Limbo, there was a bright, cheerful tract of country clothed in verdure. It is into this that I always see the souls released from Purgatory entering before being conducted to heaven. The Limbo in which were the souls awaiting Redemption was encompassed by a gray, foggy atmosphere, and divided into different circles. The Savior, resplendent and conducted in triumph by angels, pressed on between two of these circles. The one on the left contained the souls of the leaders of the people down to Abraham, that on the right, the souls from Abraham to John the Baptist. Jesus went on between these two circles. They knew him not, but all were filled with joy and ardent desire. It was as if this place of anxious, distressed longing was suddenly enlarged. The Redeemer passed through them like a refreshing breeze, like light, like dew, quickly like the sighing of the wind. The Lord passed quickly between these two circles to a dimly lighted place in which were our first parents, Adam and Eve. He addressed them, and they adored him in unspeakable rapture. The procession of the Lord, accompanied by the first human beings, now turned to the left, to the Limbo of the leaders of God’s people before the time of Abraham. This was a species of Purgatory, for here and there were evil spirits, who in manifold ways worried and distressed some of those souls. The angels knocked and demanded admittance. There was an entrance, because there was a going in; a gate, because there was an unlocking; and a knocking, because the one that was coming had to be announced. It seemed to me that I heard the angel call out: “Open the gates! Open the doors!” Jesus entered in triumph, while the wicked spirits retired, crying out: “What hast thou to do with us? What dost thou want here? Art thou now going to crucify us?” and so on. The angels bound them and drove them before them. The souls in this place had only a vague idea of Jesus, they knew him only slightly; but when he told them clearly who he was, they broke forth into songs of praise and thanksgiving. And now the soul of the Lord turned to the circle on the right, to Limbo proper. There he met the soul of the good thief going under the escort of angels into Abraham’s bosom, while the bad thief, encompassed by demons, was being dragged down into hell. The soul of Jesus addressed some words to both and then, accompanied by a multitude of angels, of the redeemed, and by those demons that were driven out of the first circle, went likewise into the bosom of Abraham.
This space, or circle, appeared to me to lie higher than the other. It was as if a person climbed from the earth under the churchyard up into the church itself. The evil spirits struggled in their chains, and wanted not to enter, but the angels forced them on. In this second circle were all the holy Israelites to the left, the patriarchs, Moses, the judges, the kings; on the right, the prophets and all the ancestors of Jesus, as also his relatives down to Joachim, Anne, Joseph, Zechariah, Elizabeth, and John. There were no demons in this circle, no pain nor torment, only the ardent longing for the fulfillment of the Promise now realized. Unspeakable felicity and rapture inundated these souls as they saluted and adored the Redeemer, and the demons in their fetters were forced to confess before them their ignominious defeat. Many of the souls were sent up to resuscitate their bodies from the tomb and in them to render visible testimony to the Lord. This was the moment in which so many dead came forth from their tombs in Jerusalem. They looked to me like walking corpses. They laid their bodies again upon the earth, just as a messenger of justice lays aside his mantle of office after having fulfilled his superior’s commands.
I now saw the Savior’s triumphant procession entering another sphere lower than the last. It was the abiding place of pious pagans who, having had some presentiment of truth, had ardently sighed after it. It was a kind of Purgatory, a place of purification. There were evil spirits here, for I saw some idols. I saw the evil spirits compelled to confess the deception they had practiced. I saw the blessed spirits rendering homage to the Savior with touching expressions of joy. Here, too, the demons were chained by the angels and driven forward before them.
And thus I saw the Redeemer passing rapidly through these numerous abodes and freeing the souls therein confined. He did a great many other things, but in my present miserable state I am unable to relate them.
Estelle Isaacson, Effects of Christ’s Descent into Hell upon Human Beings:
Christ took the human love he received during his life and transformed it as he descended into the center of the Earth. He took all his experiences of human love, of course, but especially the holy, redemptive, mystical love he shared with Magdalene. This transformed love he then radiated to the human souls there.
They had never known such love. They had not received it while in the body, but were able to recognize it now through Christ’s light. The promise of such love among human beings instilled in them the desire to leave hell. Indeed, this was how they first awakened to knowledge that they were in hell.
We all incarnate on Earth because of love. Love draws us here. We all wish to find love, and to love others. And we will persist in incarnating until love is victorious over all. We may offer prayers that the dead awaken to this promise of love. Satan strove against Christ to prevent his planting the seed of love. Because of what Christ accomplished in his descent, however, our capacity to love one another is immeasurably strengthened. When he planted love in the center of the Earth, it became quick. It became a verb, whereas previously it was a noun.
Hell indeed serves its purpose. It is not a place where souls are sent, so much as a place where souls send themselves.
For the souls incarnated at the time of Christ’s descent into hell, there were other effects. Many experienced dreams and visions in the night. Some felt a great heaviness within them and became spiritually sleepy. For some, it was as though time stood still. Others became physically ill. Still others became aware of their deceased family members and felt the urge to pray for them. This was especially so in cultures with a belief in life after death. There is much more to the great mystery of what occurred during the descent.
After receiving these preliminary answers to my questions, I found myself again at the tomb. Again I rested against the stone just outside the doorway. All was as it had been. I was told to return here to meditate whenever I feel my heart separated from his Heart as by a stone. . .
The tomb is such a special place for me. It is a door to so many mysteries! The time I have spent there has altered my life. It is a place I go to understand death. It is a place I go to release what is dead in me. It is a place I go to be transformed. I go to the tomb dead, and emerge alive.
As we turned from the tomb, I found myself once again on my knees. Christ—the Risen One—stood before me, his hands raised in blessing, his aura a rainbow of light, his countenance so brilliant that I could see only his eyes and his eternal smile.
Judith von Halle, Prelude to The Seven–Stage Path of Initiation: “The Most Advanced Chapters of Occultism” (from Descent Into the Depths of the Earth, 2011):
Even when we focus our full, heartfelt attention on the turning point of earthly and human evolution, on the Christ event, and enquire into it through spiritual research, we will soon discover that such research comes up against one of those ‘most difficult tasks’ for the esotericist: we enter a realm that may well appear as ‘phantasm.’ It is not for nothing that Rudolf Steiner describes the Christ event as the “Mystery” of Golgotha. Much – especially what occurred between the death of Jesus, and thus the submersion of Christ in the earth, and the Resurrection – must appear as ‘phantasm’ and ‘mysterious’ to us today; just as fantastic and mysterious in fact as, according to Rudolf Steiner, those not properly prepared would find the occult facts about the earth’s interior. It is after all the earth’s interior which was transformed through that very journey of Christ into the earth during the so–called descent into hell, becoming thereby a ‘mystery’ to us who today stand at the beginning only of our spiritual awakening.
We do not discover much about this descent into hell in the Gospels. From artworks we know the scenes of souls being liberated by Christ, right back to Adam, and the banishing of the adversary. And as so often, through further spiritual enquiry, one discovers that in historical engagement with the Christ Mystery – as also in pictorial art – the profoundest occult aspects have been veiled as it were in simple garb, and that the story of the Good Friday Mystery is portrayed in an apparently naive fashion. . . In modern times, we are called on to approach these mysteries in another way, since the Consciousness Soul allows us to expand the old, felt sense of things through new, spiritual knowledge. And yet anyone whom this new form of vision allows to penetrate deeper regions of understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, will inevitably also see the rightness in the core message of those supposedly naïve depictions of the fourth cultural epoch. An unwavering law of evolution is that the divine initially appears in all simplicity, and then, as human consciousness develops, this original simplicity comes to seem highly complex and multi-layered – whereas, toward the end of evolution again, we can consciously realize that this complexity, once understood as such, can be fully expressed in the fullest simplicity. . .
Someone who engages in esoteric research in the age of the Consciousness Soul must therefore, for example, enquire into the precise details of the great event that occurred in the depths of the earth so that, subsequently, an artist was wholly justified in depicting Christ as the Redeemer of the human race, who descended into Satan’s realm. We can ask what precisely our spiritual gaze can perceive behind powerful words such as that Christ transformed the earth. What consequences in the depths of the earth did these mighty events at the Mystery of Golgotha have for the future of the human race and for our earth itself?
Thank you Kevin!
Takk Kevin og God Påske ❤️🌟☀️