The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The European Mysteries and Their Initiates: The Druid and Drotten Mysteries

Notes by Markus Uppling

[ 1 ] After it had been pointed out that human beings are by no means the simple beings that the outer, physical eyes see, which the hand can grasp and the science of the intellect can comprehend, the speaker emphasized that the human ego is clothed not only in its physical body but also in an astral and an etheric body, and thus belongs not only to the physical world but also to the astral and etheric worlds.

[ 2 ] Now he asks himself: Can human beings know anything specific about these spiritual worlds, and are there really methods for exploring them? The speaker answered these questions with an unequivocal “yes.” What, then, are these methods? The same ones that our ancestors used for this purpose, and which have always been referred to by the name “initiation,” although with the higher development of humanity today, the attainment of the various degrees of initiation can now take place only entirely within the human being, without the use of all the external aids that were necessary in the past.

[ 3 ] The part of the human being that we must above all strengthen and develop here is the astral body. We know, said the speaker, that during sleep the astral body, together with the ego, leaves the physical body and the etheric body and enters the astral world to gather the forces from which our life is to be built the following day. But in the majority of people, the astral body is still a chaos, without structure and without organs of perception. It is therefore necessary to develop spiritual eyes and ears within it, so that it may be able to retain the impressions of the spiritual world, just as the physical body retains the impressions of the sensory world. The means for this are meditation and the concentration of the life of feeling, imagination, and will.

[ 4 ] The first step on the path of initiation is imagination. As an example of the exercises required for this, the speaker mentioned the exercise involving the image of a black cross crowned with red roses. The student is told to take this image into themselves and pay attention to the feelings it awakens within them. Afterward, they are told to banish the images of the roses themselves as well as the cross itself from their consciousness and to retain only the memory of how their soul was active in creating these images. The student must process hundreds of other images in their soul in the same way.

[ 5 ] But through this, he gradually acquires new inner sensory organs and can, for example, perceive the “harmony of the spheres” of which the Pythagoreans spoke; and this sound is no figment of the imagination, but a real reality. With this, the human being has ascended to the second degree of initiation, to the stage of inspiration.

[ 6 ] To reach the third and final degree of initiation, the degree of intuition, a person must practice forgetting even the inner soul work mentioned earlier. After that, they must wait. If images now rise up within them, these are impressions from the spiritual world, and the person has gained the gift of intuition. If such images do not arise, the student must continue his exercises. Through intuition, the individual will be able to grasp his own eternal soul being. He can see his own incarnations and can prophetically say what influence what is happening today will have on future incarnations.

[ 7 ] However, initiation did not always take place in this way. In earlier times, an external apparatus was necessary to ensure that the impressions on the soul were strong enough to develop the individual to the point of inspiration and intuition.

[ 8 ] Among the Greeks, there were thus two types of mysteries: the Dionysian and the Apollonian. The Dionysian mysteries originated in Egypt and were based on the idea that the initiate, blind and deaf to all external influences, should immerse himself in his own inner world and experience there as intensely as possible all the emotions of astral life, such as pleasure and fear, terror, anxiety, and superhuman joy. In this way, powerful spiritual forces were to be developed within him. The external apparatus used for this purpose consisted of underground passages and the like in the initiation temples. And even today, one can still find the layout of these arrangements in the Egyptian pyramids.

[ 9 ] The other type of Greek mysteries were the so-called Apollonian mysteries. Here, too, external devices were employed; but the goal was to lead people toward the spiritual not by having them feel and think within themselves, but by having them empathize with and think in harmony with the great forces of nature. The joy of the radiant sun, the melancholy of autumn, the mysticism of the winter solstice, and many other natural phenomena were the means employed for this purpose. Thus, the mundane faded away for the individual, and behind the veil of the sensory world, they began to recognize the spiritual world as a reality.

[ 10 ] It is interesting to study the mysteries that existed in Northern and Central Europe in pre-Christian times and also coincided with the events in Palestine. In Central Europe, we had the Druidic mysteries. These took place in the sacred forests at midnight—for example, at Christmas. And because the druid allowed his senses to merge with the great natural world, a true insight could dawn in his soul regarding what a human being is and can become. And as the essence of the world, the great “All-Father” stood alive before his soul, and facing him the “All-Mother, the Soul”—and this not as an abstraction, but as realities.

[ 11 ] In Northern Europe, we have the Drotten Mysteries, which serve as a preparation for receiving the Christian Mysteries. The Drotten Mysteries directly prepared for initiation through intimate soul methods. Their practitioners believed that humanity had not yet reached the point where it could ascend into the spiritual world; therefore, the soul must first be born. To this end, thirteen men participated in the Mysteries at once, one of whom acted as a guide and the remaining twelve as assistants. Each of these twelve assistants sought within himself to raise a single soul force to a very special height, so that in the mystery all these forces might unite like rays in the soul of the thirteenth. Under the influence of this, he was inspired and could reveal his perceptions from the spiritual world in words. There he saw the perfect human being as an image of the Godhead itself. But then he saw the archetype of this human being, and finally he saw what unites image and archetype—the Holy Trinity, of which our thinking, feeling, and willing are but a faint reflection. In powerful visions, he saw the stars as spiritual beings and saw himself living within these beings. Through the Drotten Mysteries, man became a wanderer in the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] Modern human beings can, if they so choose, rise into the spiritual world. For it is because these initiates lived that we now have bodies capable of becoming instruments for the spiritual.