The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The Trojan War

[ 1 ] Since there are some newcomers here today, I would like to briefly mention that in the course of these lectures I have attempted to show how esoteric content is recorded in various myths and legends, and that one need only be able to handle the language of myths and legends in order to find deep esoteric truths in them under certain circumstances. Today I would like to speak in particular about one of those legends that display the remarkable peculiarity of being legends on the one hand and having a completely external content from the physical point of view on the other, that is, expressing a very specific physical event.

[ 2 ] Before I speak about this legend, I would like to mention a fact that most of you already know, but which must be repeatedly emphasized. This is that during the course of our fifth root race, that is, in the period from the downfall of Atlantis in the fourth root race to the next root race, a highly important step was taken in the entire evolution of humanity, namely that leaders of humanity, the Manus, arose from within humanity itself. All the great leaders, the Manus, who advanced humanity during the earlier root races, who gave it its great impulses, did not complete their development purely on Earth, but partly on other celestial bodies, and in doing so brought with them to Earth from other worlds the great impulses they had to give to humanity. The Manus of the Lemurian and also of the Atlantean race, as well as the Manu of our fifth root race, are superhuman individualities who underwent their great schooling on other planets, through which they were able to become the leaders of humanity. In contrast, during our fifth root race, such highly developed individualities emerged within humanity itself that they can now become the leaders of humanity from the sixth root race onwards. The main leader of the sixth root race will be a human being like us, only one of the most advanced, the most advanced of all human beings. It will be a being who began its development at the time when human evolution began in the middle of the Lemurian epoch, who has always been human among humans, but who was able to progress more quickly and went through all the stages of human development. This will be the basic character of the Manu of the sixth root race. The main Manu of the sixth root race and all those who stand by his side must go through the most varied initiations; they must have been initiated repeatedly. That is why there have always been initiated people in the fifth root race since its inception, people who were initiated, so to speak, in such a way that they could go their own voluntary path. This was not the case during the entire Lemurian and Atlantean periods. Those who helped humanity, who ruled and guided it, who were the leaders of states and of large religious communities, were under the influence of higher beings. During the Lemurian and Atlantean periods, they were directly dependent on those higher beings who had undergone their development on other planets. Only in the fifth root race is humanity becoming increasingly liberated. There we have initiates who are connected with the higher beings, but who are not given advice that is so detailed that it is completely worked out. Instead, the initiates of the fifth root race are given more and more freedom in the details. In general, the initiates are given directives and impulses, but in such a way that they carry things out out of their own spirituality and power of judgment.

[ 3 ] Our fifth root race comprises seven sub-races. They occupy the following positions in the development: The first sub-race is the race of spirituality, of the spirit; it is the race from which the Indian cultural community emerged, the Rishi culture, the Vedic culture. Then we have the second sub-race, the race of the flame, which is the Persian cultural community that finds its expression in the Zarathustra religion. Then we have the third subrace, which we call the race of the stars, the Ur-Chaldeans, of which the Israelite people form a main branch. The fourth subrace is the cultural community from which the Greeks and Romans emerged, the race of personality. The fifth subrace is the race of the world; it is the one within which we ourselves stand, the cultural community of the Germanic-Anglo-Saxon peoples, which is currently in the stage of development and which makes human beings free personalities, the race that conquers the world. It will be replaced by the Slavic subrace, a cultural community advancing from Asia.

[ 4 ] In my last lecture, I spoke to you about the great initiates in the Nordic regions. I already pointed out that there were symbolic designations for the initiate or for someone who was in some way connected with the initiations, and that one symbolic expression for this is that the initiate is invulnerable. This invulnerability, which we encountered in Siegfried, can also be found in Achilles. In fact, there is a deeply esoteric meaning hidden in the myth in which Achilles is woven. You must remember that what I have explained is happening gradually in the course of the fifth root race. The Manu established the leadership of humanity at the beginning of the fifth root race in such a way that the guidance was entirely in the hands of the priesthood, who received their inspiration directly from the higher divine beings, from superhuman beings. This initiated priesthood could be entrusted with the task of dividing humanity itself into classes. It would have been impossible to carry out a just division of people into castes in cultural communities other than those ruled by priestly rulers. You therefore find caste divisions only in true priestly cultures, in ancient India and ancient Egypt, where initiated priests were at the top, who did not follow kama impulses but higher instructions. They acted impersonally, free of kama, and it could be left to them to carry out the serious division of people into castes, which was originally fully justified in Egypt and India. If you look at these castes, you will find in them the whole plan for the development of the fifth root race.

[ 5 ] This plan is that, little by little, the leadership and guidance of this fifth root race will pass from the priestly mindset to the world mindset, from the priest to the king. A worldly king who was not a priest would have been completely impossible in the early days of the fifth root race. During the Atlantean period, when people did not yet receive their impulses through the thinking mind but from other forces, and also at the beginning of the fifth root race, the guidance of humanity had to be withdrawn from all worldly power and left to those who received divine inspiration. That is why you find pure priestly rule in Indian and Egyptian culture. The priest is the ruler; he is the one from whom everything proceeds. The priest belongs to the highest caste. The warriors, who have a purely worldly occupation, belong to the second caste. Then it goes down to those who are engaged in agriculture.

[ 6 ] Gradually, these castes should come to independence. In what develops in time, we have never had what is really present externally in space. Please bear this in mind. When a spatial relationship becomes temporal, it happens in a ratio of four to seven, in such a way that the fourfold expands into the sevenfold. The four castes standing side by side in space come to the fore in the course of the fifth root race in such a way that we see the seven sub-races gradually developing into independence. The ratio of four to seven is based on a very specific law. Today I will only say that the seven sub-races develop in such a way that in the first sub-race we are essentially dealing with exclusive control by priests, in the second sub-race with control by priest-kings and magicians. Zarathustra, the actual magician, is the advisor to the priest-king. During the third subrace, power can pass to worldly kings, who still follow the advice of the priests. Only during the fourth subrace do we have worldly kings who no longer have any connection with priestly power. The first worldly kings appear first among the Greek people, and when Greek rule is established, it is through worldly kings.

[ 7 ] The spread of Hellenism is depicted outwardly – in a legendary way – in the legend of the Trojan War. This legend of the Trojan War is nothing other than the mythical representation of an esoteric truth, namely the flowering of the fourth sub-race of the fifth root race and the replacement of priestly rule in its final stage by purely secular rule. This is hinted at in an extraordinarily subtle way right at the beginning of the Trojan legend.

[ 8 ] You are well aware that in esotericism, matter is represented everywhere by the symbol of water. Water is the esoteric symbol for matter. I need only refer you to one example from theology: in the Nicene Creed, where it says “...suffered under Pontius Pilate,” it should actually say “suffered in Póntos Pyletós,” which means “in the compressed water.” The Son of God descended to suffer in the matter existing on the physical plane. In the Creed that we have in the Christian confession, “póntos,” the sea, has been Latinized to “Pontius,” and “Pyletós” has become “Pilate.”

[ 9 ] When Thales explains that everything originated from water, he actually means the all-encompassing physical matter. We are dealing here with water as physical matter. This physical matter is to become the decisive factor for those who are now taking over the guidance of humanity: the worldly kings. Previously, there were only kings who were connected with the divine. Peleus is the king who is to rule on the physical plane, drawing his power from the physical plane itself. This was presented to the people in the mysteries as a myth, which was told as follows: Peleus married the sea goddess Thetis. We are dealing here with the marriage of the leadership of humanity to the matter of the physical plane. Thetis is the goddess of water, of the sea. And the one who springs from this marriage is Achilles. Achilles is the first initiate of this kind. He is therefore invulnerable, except for his heel. All initiates of the fourth subrace are still vulnerable in some place. Only at the end of the fifth subrace will there be initiates so advanced that they are no longer vulnerable. Achilles was dipped into the Styx, which means that he died to everything earthly and was transported to a higher plane.

[ 10 ] This is an important stage in human development. In the middle of the fourth sub-race, spiritual life first descends, and we only have initiates of the physical plane. This brings about something very special. The earlier world leaders were free of kama, they were without desires, they had to strip away everything kamic through the various preceding stages of initiation until they reached spiritual initiation. As long as there were priests in the old sense, it was impossible for anything of kama to flow into world leadership. But Kama causes peculiarity; Kama makes it possible for people to turn against each other. There used to be fighting and strife, but people were not yet ready to contrast good and evil. Strife and war among the people of that time cannot be measured by our standards today; they must be measured by the same standards as the animal world today. One could not say that something was good or evil, any more than a lion or a tiger is good or evil. Real evil only began when Manas united with Kama, so that human beings were directed by Kama, and this led to human beings fighting each other with consciousness.

[ 11 ] This is indicated in the legend by the fact that all the gods are present at the marriage of Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis, but one goddess is missing. Eris, the goddess of discord, is missing because humanity was not yet at the stage where Kama united with Manas and the separation arose that caused people to oppose each other. But now the goddess Eris appears; she throws an apple among the guests, which bears the inscription “to the most beautiful,” in order to cause discord. This provides the impetus for the war that first occurs within the fifth root race and is entirely the responsibility of humans. Only from this point on can one speak of a conscious rage of humans against each other.

[ 12 ] Everything else in the myth is an elaboration of what began here. The most beautiful of the goddesses is to receive Eris' apple. The three goddesses Hera, Pallas Athena, and Aphrodite argue over the apple. The three goddesses represent different stages of soul life on the higher, spiritual planes. Now, however, the decision is to be made not on the spiritual plane, but on the physical plane. Therefore, Paris is called upon to decide from the physical plane. Here lies the real crux of the matter, where we can see clearly what is at stake. What must we face when decisions are made from the physical plane?

[ 13 ] When manas first appeared on the physical plane, it mixed with kama. Before that, people were also kamic, but that didn't mean good or evil yet. But now manas connects with kama, and that's why people become aware of their actions. Manas draws into what people are according to their lower nature. He had already acquired his kamic development on the old moon. The coarsest kamic element fell away from the earth when the moon left, and now accompanies the earth as a satellite. In esotericism, the moon is the leitmotif, the mark of the lower nature, of that which pulls us down, of where we can end up if we ourselves fall prey to the lower nature.

[ 14 ] The fatal flaw in the connection between Manas and Kama during the fourth subrace must therefore lie in the fact that human beings, who have decisions to make, connect themselves with the kamic, with the lunar principle, with Selene. The name Helena originated from Selene. The connection between Paris and Helen symbolically expresses the marriage of Manas and Kama in the fourth subrace. The human being on the physical plane has seized the lunar principle. You can find this everywhere when esotericism speaks of the “moon.” The fact that the entire connection between the manas principle and the kama principle is consciously created directly on the physical plane gives rise to war. The Trojan War is both a symbol and a fact. It really took place; the most important events of the Trojan War took place on the physical plane. But they also have symbolic meaning. The legend of the Trojan War has a mystical content, but the facts also took place externally on the physical plane.

[ 15 ] Now I ask you to understand one more thing. When the fifth root race has reached its end and the sixth root race is on the rise, an influence will have developed in the realm of the conscious mind which is still very much in the background during the fifth sub-race, but which is already emerging. It is something that emanates from music. The significance of music will become more and more apparent in the fifth sub-race. Music will not merely be an art, but will become a means of expression for things quite different from the purely artistic. Here lies something that points to the influence of a very definite principle on the physical plane. The most significant impulses in the field of music or music-like activities will be given by the initiates of the fifth root race. What must flow into the fifth root race, namely in the field of conscious intellectual life, is what is called the kundalini fire. This is a force that is still dormant in human beings, but will become increasingly important. Today it already has a great influence and significance in what is perceived through the sense of hearing. During the further development of the sixth sub-race of the fifth root race, this Kundalini fire will gain great influence over what lives in the human heart. The human heart will truly have this Kundalini fire within itself. Human beings will then be permeated by a special power that will live in their hearts, so that in the sixth root race they will no longer distinguish between their own good and the good of the whole. Human beings will be so permeated by the Kundalini light that they will have the principle of love as their very nature.

[ 16 ] In the seventh sub-race, the whole of humanity will be in true chaos, for the root race will then be close to destruction. But a small portion of the people of the seventh sub-race will be the true sons of the Kundalini fire. They will be permeated with all the powers of the Kundalini fire; they will provide the material for the next root race, for those who will guide the further development of humanity. Thus, the fifth root race is heading toward those heights where the divine fire, the Kundalini fire, will fan the divine principle within human beings with holy pathos, so that human beings will no longer be separated from one another, but, as far as the thinking mind can reach, a brotherhood will be brought about. This fire will one day live in human beings. And in those human beings who are initiated during the course of the fifth root race, there already lives a hint of this divine fire, in which is the power of brotherhood and which will remove the separation between human beings. But it is only working its way through, it is only beginning to emerge, it is still veiled, obscured by the divisive passions of human beings, the separating forces of Kama. And where it appears in individuals as a harbinger of a coming age, it takes on a different form, a completely different character. On the plane of deception, the divine fire is divine wrath. Only when brotherhood floods the whole of humanity will it be divine love. But as long as it asserts itself in the individual as zeal, it is divine wrath, and it asserts itself as a powerful force in the individual precisely because the rest of humanity is not yet ripe.

[ 17 ] This is also expressed by the initiated poet—Homer is called the “blind” poet because he sees inwardly—in his poetry: “Sing, O Muse, of the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus.” This is the divine wrath of which the poet speaks here at the very beginning of the Iliad. In the Iliad, the expression of the Kundalini fire on the physical plane is depicted. In the dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles, anger flares up as divine wrath. The legend of the Trojan War depicts how the ancient priestly kingdom is replaced by secular kingship. For Troy is a state in which the king is under the influence of the old priestly rule. He is replaced by the principle of worldly wisdom. This is beautifully depicted in the way worldly wisdom triumphs. Odysseus, the cunning one, wins. He is the initiate of the fifth subrace, who received his initiation through his wanderings. The spirituality of the old priests is replaced by intellectuality. This is also expressed by the image of Laocoon being embraced by snakes. The snakes, symbols of worldly wisdom, entangle the priest Laocoon, the representative of the old spirituality.

[ 18 ] If you follow all this, you will see that the Trojan legend is nothing more than a world-historical context. Such events were depicted in the mysteries. In the older mysteries that preceded the Eleusinian mysteries, this important moment of the emergence of the fourth subrace of the fifth root race was depicted, among other things. The Trojan War, which actually took place, was already depicted in the mysteries before it happened. For those who are not well versed in theosophy, this is fantastic. However, it is a principle of the mysteries to depict not only the past but also events of the future. And because they anticipate events of the future, they had to be kept secret. The mysteries were not there to satisfy people's curiosity, but rather for those who were called to participate in shaping the future. They were to draw inspiration for their task there. That is the meaning of the mysteries.

[ 19 ] If someone were to reveal a mystery, it would mean that they would publicly tell people what is to happen in the future. This would inevitably cause confusion among their fellow human beings. Only a few advanced individuals receive these impulses. They have the task of slowly guiding people to where they are meant to go. Only the few mature individuals who are perhaps five hundred years ahead of their fellow human beings are capable of bearing these secrets and working in accordance with the mysteries. Suppose others were to hear about them, they would immediately want to bring about what people are not yet ready for. Every mystery will one day become public knowledge under significantly changed circumstances. Everything will become apparent at a certain time. The secret nature lies only in the fact that initially only a few individuals have to prepare the future; they must become the leaders in order to guide the other people.

[ 20 ] There are still secrets today that can only be revealed in the sixth root race, when completely different conditions of brotherhood prevail, which have not yet been realized. Those who knew something of these facts were naturally terribly afraid that something of the mysteries might be betrayed through carelessness. In the past, the highest penalties were imposed for betraying the mysteries; in ancient times, it was the death penalty. It was not the initiated priests who imposed the death penalty, but those who knew something from outside and were not initiated. The fear of betraying the mysteries brought about the tragic end of many a great man. Socrates also fell victim to such a judgment, albeit unjustly.