Mystery Knowledge & Mystery Centers
GA 232
21 December 1923, Dornach
12. The Mysteries of the Samothracian Kabiri
During these last weeks I have lectured on many forms of the Mysteries. We have been trying to gain insight more especially into those Mysteries which, in a certain sense, were the last of the great Mysteries connecting man’s inner life directly with Nature, with the spirit of Nature-existence. These were the Mysteries of Hibernia. And on the other hand we have seen how, through insight into Man himself, through insight of an altogether intimate, spiritual kind, individual and personal, the Greek Mysteries penetrated into the inner being of Man. One may indeed say: Just as in external Nature various regions of the Earth bear various kinds of vegetation, so in the course of human development in the different regions of the Earth the most manifold influences upon Man appear from the side of the spiritual world.
If we were now to proceed Eastward—as we shall be doing in the course of the next few days in our study of historical connections—we should find there many other forms of the Mysteries. Today, however, since all our visitors are not yet here, rather than start on something new, I will add to what we have already been considering. Looking back on the evolution of man we may describe it as a threefold development, as it appears with all clarity to the Imaginative consciousness. I say the ‘Imaginative’ consciousness, for by extending the epochs of which I am about to speak further and further into the past, we should of course arrive at a greater number than the threefold; and it would be the same if we were to penetrate farther into the future. Today, however, we will take for our study those middle stages of human evolution which do not appear first to Inspiration, but quite clearly even to Imagination. We will consider these today from a particular standpoint.
As late as the Egyptian epoch mankind was still at the stage when for the European-African as well as for the Asiatic peoples there was for the consciousness of man no such thing as what we call matter. There was no external coarse substance of any kind for human consciousness, much less those abstractions which we now call carbon, hydrogen, sulphur, and so on. There were none of these things; everything in outer Nature was immediately seen as the embodiment of divine-spiritual Beings who manifest themselves throughout the whole of Nature. If today we go into the hills and pick up a stone, we look upon it as a substance like any other. Nothing at all comes into our consciousness such as came into the consciousness of the ancient Egyptian and Oriental.
If we today stand before a man and look, let us say, at his finger, we do not consider what we find there as human finger to be an object just like any other. We regard it as belonging to the human organism as a v/hole. If we were to look, for example, at the last joint of the index finger, we could not do otherwise than speak of it as a part of a whole organism. Thus it was for the consciousness of the ancient Egyptians; and thus too it was for the consciousness of the ancient Orientals. If they came upon a stone and took it up, it was not for them merely a stone as it would be for us today; it was not ordinary earthly substance at all; it was a part of the divine body which the Earth appeared to them to be. Men of old regard the outer surface of the Earth just as we in our consciousness regard the human skin. Again, we may meet a man, and become conscious that he reminds us of someone else we already know, who is perhaps not now present; and if it afterwards transpires that the person we met is the brother or sister of the other, then we see at once : these two arc of the same flesh and blood, they belong in a special physical way to one another. When the ancient Greek or Oriental raised his eyes to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and then looked at the Earth, he saw in the Earth the divine body of the God of the Earth, but at the same time he saw also in the Earth the sister or brother of the planets—in short, he saw a family likeness to the planets which revolve out there in space around the Earth,—Jupiter, Mars, Saturn.
Thus, in their perception of the Cosmos as a whole, and in their perception of the Earth as part of the Cosmos, there was for these ancient people something of soul and spirit. You must picture to yourselves what an utterly different experience this was from the experience modern man has in his perception. It means something, indeed, to gaze at the divine body of the Earth, and to see in the Earth a member of the great family of the planets of the Universe! The people of old did indeed think of the Universe as God-enfilled. For them not only was the whole Earth filled with the Gods, but the great planetary world-bodies, each single planet—all were God-enfilled. In stone and tree, in river and rock, in cloud and lightning, some spiritual being was revealed. This consciousness was awake in wide circles of people on the Earth, and this consciousness was intensified in the various forms of the Mysteries to be found here and there on the Earth.
To turn now to the Greek nature, at the time when the external political greatness of Greece sank into a kind of chaos and the Macedonian power arose, we find a new current flowing into human knowledge. It is what we came to know last time as Aristotelianism, as that which Alexander the Great in a spiritual connection had made his task. When we look at the culmination of the greatness of Greece on the one hand, and on the other the fall of Greece and the rise of Macedonia, we are faced, first of all, with what external history tells us, which is in reality a mere legend. But we can also see something else. In the subconsciousness of the deeper thinkers we perceive an impulse which came from those Mysteries to which Aristotle was very near—despite the fact that he never spoke of them outwardly. They were those Mysteries which, in the deeper sense, awakened to full life in their hearers the consciousness that the whole world was a theogony, a divine process of being, and that we see the world in an altogether illusory way if we believe anything comes to being in the world other than Gods alone. It is Gods who are manifested in the beings and entities of the world. It is Gods who have experiences in the world, it is Gods who perform deeds. And what we see in clouds, what we hear in thunder, what we behold in lightning, what we see on the Earth in rivers and mountains, in the mineral formations—all are revelations, expressions of the coming-into-being of the destinies of the Gods hidden behind them. And what appears externally as cloud, lightning, thunder, trees or forest, mountains or stream, is nothing else than a revelation everywhere of Gods’ existence—-just as the skin of a man reveals his inner nature of soul. And if everywhere there are Gods, then, as the pupils of the Mysteries were taught in Northern Greece, one must differentiate between the lesser Gods who are in single Nature-beings and Nature-processes, and the greater Gods who manifest as Beings of the Sun, of Mars, of Mercury, and of a fourth who cannot be made externally visible in an image or a form.
Those were the great Gods, the great planetary Gods, who were presented to man in such a way that his gaze was led out into the cosmic expanse, to see with his eyes, to see too with his whole heart, what lives in Sun, Mars, Mercury—yes, and what lives not only out there in one little circle in cosmic space but what lives everywhere in cosmic space. This was what was first of all revealed to man.
And then, after what I may call a majestic impulse had been awakened in the pupil of the Mysteries of Northern Greece, in that his gaze was directed out to the planetary spheres—then this insight was deepened within him in such a way that the eye was, so to speak, taken hold of by the heart, so that he might see with the soul. Then the pupil understood why, on the altar facing him, three symbolically formed vessels had been placed.
Here in Dornach we once introduced a portrayal of these vessels in a Eurythmy performance of Faust. They were presented there exactly as they appeared in the Samothracian Mysteries of Northern Greece. The important fact is that with these vessels in their whole symbolic form there was associated an act of consecration, an act of sacrifice. A kind of incense was put into them and lighted, and as the smoke streamed up, three words (of which we shall speak tomorrow) were uttered with mantric power into this smoke by the Father who was celebrating; and there appeared the forms of the three Kabiri. It happened in the following way. The human breath, as it was exhaled, took shape through the mantric word that was spoken, and communicated its form to the ascending, evaporating substance that had been incorporated in the symbolic jars. When in this way the pupil learned to read in the stream his own breath, to read what the stream of his breath wrote in the smoke, he learned at the same time to read what the mysterious planets said to him from out the wide Universe. For now he knew: as the one Kabir was formed through the mantric word and its power, so in actuality was Mercury; as the second Kabir was formed, so in actuality was Mars; and as the third Kabir was formed, so in actuality was Apollo, the Sun.
When we look at those fashion plate figures—if you will forgive such plain speaking—such as we see only too often in the galleries, of the later Greek plastic art, and which are only so greatly admired because people have no idea of the majesty from which they have declined, when we direct our gaze to those figures of an Apollo, a Mars, a Mercury, we must look at them with the gaze with which Goethe looked, during his Italian journey; for then we may gain some idea of what Greek art really was in the productions that are now lost—lost and destroyed along with so much else in the first centuries of the Christian era, in the frightful devastation which befell those times. If we look penetratingly at those late Greek plastic figures, held to be so great (and rightly on the one hand), as pointing the way, but on the other hand wrongly because they are mere imitative reproductions of the earlier—if we look through them back to that from which they arose, we see how in the older Greek times it was nothing less than the revelations accompanying the sacrificial rites that were reproduced in art—revelations that in those earlier times were even more majestic and grand than later on in the Kabiri Mysteries of Samothrace. We look back into times when the mantric word was uttered into the incense smoke, and the true figures of Apollo, of Mars, and of Mercury appeared.
Those were times when man would not say, in the abstract: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God—for then he could say something quite different. He could say: In me the outgoing breath takes shape, and inasmuch as it shapes itself in an ordered way, it shows itself as an image of cosmic creating; for it creates for me, out of the sacrificial smoke, forms which are for me living fines of writing, telling me what the planetary worlds would say to me.
When the pupil of the Kabiri Mysteries at Samothrace approached the gates of the places of Initiation, then through the instruction he had received the feeling came to him: Now I am entering the place that holds for me the magic acts of the celebrating Father. (The Initiate who celebrated in these Mysteries was called the Father.) What did the magic power of this celebrating Father reveal to his pupil? Through what was laid within man by the Gods, through the power of speech, the priest-magician and sage wrote into the sacrificial smoke the writing which expressed the secrets of the Universe.
Thus it was that the pupil, as he approached the gate, said in his heart: I am entering that place within whose shelter dwells a powerful Spirit, within whose shelter dwell the greater Gods, who unveil on Earth the secrets of the Universe through the sacrificial acts of man.—There, my dear friends, words were spoken and a writing written that appealed not only to the intelligence but laid claim to the whole man. In the Samothracian Mysteries there was still present something of a knowledge that is today quite dimmed. Modern man is perfectly able to speak with truth something of what he feels a quartz crystal to be like, he can say what hair feels like, or the human skin, or the fur of an animal, he can say how silk or velvet feels to him. Modern man has the capacity of realising such things through his feeling. In the Samothracian Mysteries something still existed by means of which man could truly say how the Gods let themselves be felt. For the sense of feeling, the sense of touch, was still capable of that of which in ancient times it had always been capable; it was still able to feel the spiritual, to touch the Gods.
And now the wonderful thing is this. We must certainly go back to very ancient times even to speak of how man could say with truth: I know through my finger-tips what the Gods feel like. In the Samothracian Mysteries, however, man had another way of touching the Gods. It was as follows:
When the priest-magician spoke the words into the smoke rising from the incense, when he intoned the words into the exhaled breath, then in the outgoing breath he felt as man otherwise feels when he stretches out the hand to touch; and as one knows that one touches differently with the fingertips in passing them over different substances—in feeling velvet, or cat’s fur, or the human skin,—so did the Samothracian priest-magician perceive with the outgoing breath; he perceived the exhalation which he breathed out towards the incense smoke as an expression of something coming out of himself, he felt it as an organ of touch reaching towards the incense smoke. He felt the smoke, and in the smoke he felt the great Gods, the Kabiri coming to meet him. He felt how the smoke forced itself and how the forms there shaping themselves came into the exhaled breath, so that the exhaled breath felt: here is something spherical, there is angularity, there again something is catching hold of me. The whole divine figure of the Kabir was touched and felt by the breath clothed in the form of the word. With the speech issuing from the heart the Samothracian wise men ‘touched’ the Kabiri, that is, the greater Gods descending to them in the smoke of the incense; it was a living interchange between the word within man and the word without in cosmic space.
When the initiating Father led the pupil to the sacrificial altar, and, step by step, taught him how man can feel with speech, and when the pupil progressed further and achieved for himself this ‘feeling with speech’, he came at last to that stage of inner experience in which he first had clear consciousness of the form of Mercury or Hermes, of Apollo, and of Ares or Mars. It was as if the consciousness were wholly raised up out of the body, as if that which the pupil earlier knew as the content of his head, had gone up above his head, as if the heart were located in a new place, being thrust up out of the breast into the head. Then, in the one who had in this way really gone out beyond himself, there arose a knowledge that inwardly formed itself into the words: Thus do the Kabiri, the greater Gods, will thee! From that time the pupil knew how Mercury lived in his limbs, the Sun in his heart, Mars in his speech.
So you see it was not by any means only natural processes and beings in the outer world that were presented to the pupil in ancient times. What was presented to him was something neither one-sidedly naturalistic, nor one-sidedly moral, but he was given something wherein Morality and Nature flowed into one. That was the secret of the Samothracian world—that to the pupil it was granted to have the consciousness: Nature is Spirit, Spirit is Nature.
To those times which found their last echo in the cult of the Kabiri, is to be traced the insight which brings earthly substances into connection with the Heavens. In olden times, when one saw that red-brown mineral with the coppery sheen, which we call copper, one could not simply say as we say today: ‘That is copper, that is a constituent of the Earth.’ It could not be thought of in this way. For the ancients it was no constituent of the Earth. They said: ‘Wherever copper is manifest, there is manifest a deed of Venus on the Earth. The Earth has only suffered rocks and stones to appear, such as sandstone, or chalk, in order to take up in her lap what the Heavens have planted on to the Earth.’ As little as we now should venture to say of a seed that it had merely grown out of the Earth—-just as little in those times would one have been able to say that copper ore was a constituent of the Earth. One had to say: The Earth that is here with its sandstone, or any other stone, is the ground within which something of a metallic nature has been planted by some planet. The metal is a seed planted in the Earth by a planet. Everything within the Earth was viewed as proceeding from the influence of the Heavens upon the Earth. Today the Earth and its substances are described as you may see it done in any mineralogical or geological work, and as it would never have been in the science of the ancients. In those times when man let his gaze wander over the Earth, looking at a substance meant looking up to Heaven and there in the Heavens beholding the essence and reality of the substance.
Copper, tin, lead, only apparently lie in the Earth; they are seeds planted in the Earth-existence during the time of Old Sun and Old Moon. This was still the teaching of the Kabiri in the Samothracian Mysteries. And this it was ultimately that worked upon Aristotle and Alexander—if only as an atmosphere or mood of knowledge. And then a beginning was made for something quite different.
Man did not, with his insight, come right down at once on to the Earth; he went through an intermediary stage. Even in the echoes of those ancient times, in the Samothracian Mysteries, if men wished to describe the metals of the Earth or other earthly substances such as sulphur or phosphorus, it was in fact the Heavens they were describing, just as one describes a plant when one wants to know the nature of a seed.
If you have a seed of corn before you, you cannot recognise its nature and kind unless you know the plant. What would you do with a seed which looks like this, for example, if you did not know what the aniseed plant looks like? What then, the men of old would have asked, would you make of the copper appearing in the Earth, if you did not know what Venus looks like, in spirit, soul and body, up there in the Heavens?
From the knowledge of the Heavens, gradually a knowledge of the environment of the Earth, a knowledge of the atmosphere, was gained. When man regarded what was of the Earth, instead of describing what the stars are, in their essence and nature, he looked to a being of Earth and said to himself; There lives in it first of all what we see in the firm soil; and there lives in it that also which we see as fluid with the tendency to form into drops, and there lives within it too what tends to spread out on all sides, the aeriform, which lives, for example, in human breath and speech. And then there lives in it the fiery element which decomposes the single being so that from the scattered, disintegrated parts a new being may arise. Thus did man behold the elements in every earthly formation.
And as in the ancient Mysteries men looked to the Salt—true, it is also cosmic in nature, but it is formed and moulded by the Earth—as they looked to everything of a salt-nature and saw in it that which Mother Earth has brought to meet the metals, so they looked on the other hand to Mercury, and they saw the Mercurial in that which comes from out of the Universe and is destined to become metal.
It is really so utterly childish to try to give descriptions, as modern man does, of what was thought of as Mercury in olden times! Persistently in the background is the idea that by Mercury, even in the Middle Ages, something like quicksilver, some single metal, could be intended. This is not the case; no single metal alone is denoted. Mercury means every metal in so far as it stands under the influence of the whole Cosmos. For what would copper look like if the Cosmos alone, in its periphery, worked upon it? Copper would be globular like quicksilver. If the Cosmos alone affected it, what would lead be like? Lead would be globular, like quicksilver. What of tin, if it were affected only by the Cosmos? Tin would be globular. Every metal if affected only by the Cosmos would be quicksilver. All metals are Mercury in so far as the Cosmos acts upon them. But what about Mercury, the actual present-day Mercury which still takes on a globular form on the Earth? What, then, is it?
I will tell you. The other metals—let us say, lead, copper, tin, iron—have progressed beyond the globular form. If the whole Earth were still under the influence of the spherical Cosmos all metals would be mercurial. They have progressed beyond the mercurial form. Today they crystallise into other forms. Only the true quicksilver, in the present-day sense of the word, has remained at that stage. What did the ancients and even the mediaeval alchemists say of quicksilver? They said: copper, tin, iron, lead are the good metals which have progressed with Providence. Quicksilver is the Lucifer among the metals, for it has remained at an earlier form. Thus it was in earlier times; when the terrestrial was spoken of in this way, in truth men were really speaking of the celestial.
Thence could men come to speak of that which lies between the periphery and the Earth. Between the periphery and the Earth there lies first, below, the Earth itself, then the watery element, the aeriform, and the fiery.
Thus did the ancients see everything on the Earth in the aspect of the Heavens. And thus did the men of mediaeval times, which came to an end in the first third of the fourteenth century, see everything in the aspect of the surrounding atmosphere. Then, in the fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries came the great change. Man, in his outlook, fell down right on to the Earth. And now to his consciousness the elements of water, air, fire, split up; they split up into sulphur, carbon, hydrogen and so forth. Man sees everything in its terrestrial aspect.
Therewith begin the times which I indicated when describing the fading of the Hibernian Mysteries—the times when man comprehended the Earth with his knowledge, but the Heavens became for him a matter of mathematics. He calculated the size of the stars, their movements, their distance away, and so on. The Heavens became an abstraction to him.
Nor was it only the Heavens which became an abstraction. The reflection of the Heavens in the living human being is his head, and what man can learn of the Heavens is in his head. Since man has learnt to know only the mathematics of the Heavens, that is, the logical and abstract, therefore from this time onwards only the logical and abstract lived in his head—only that which is of the nature of concepts and ideas. Man lost all possibility to receive what is of soul and spirit into his life of concepts and ideas. Then, when the spirit was sought for, there began that great struggle between what man could attain with the idea-content of his head, with his brain-content, and what the Gods desired to reveal to him from the Heavens. This struggle was fought out at its fiercest, and in its grandest aspects, in Rosicrucianism—in the true forms of what are called the Rosicrucian Mysteries in the Middle Ages.1See Rosicrucianism and Modem Initiation. Six lectures given at Dornach, 6th to 13th January, 1924. (Rudolf Steiner Press.) There the helplessness of modern man was perceived as a preparation for true knowledge. For, even then, in circles of true Rosicrucian Initiation something very powerful made itself felt. And it was this. The pupil became—not abstractly, but inwardly—livingly illumined to perceive: As modern man you can penetrate only to the world of ideas; thereby, however, you lose the very essence of your being as Man.
And the pupil felt that what the new age was giving him could not lead him on to that which was his own true being. He felt: Either you must despair of knowledge or you must go through a kind of death of the pride in abstraction.
The Rosicrucian, the true Rosicrucian pupil, felt as if the master had given him a blow on the cheek, to indicate to him that the abstractions of the modern brain are not suited to penetrate into the spiritual worlds, and that he must make a recantation of the merely abstract, if he would enter those worlds.
That was indeed a great moment of preparation for what we may call the Rosicrucian Initiation.
Zwölfter Vortrag
Ich habe ja im Laufe der letzten Wochen über mannigfaltige Mysteriengestaltungen hier vorgetragen. Wir haben insbesondere versucht, Einblicke zu gewinnen in diejenigen Mysterien, die als gewissermaßen die letzten großen Mysterien das menschliche Innere unmittelbar anknüpften an das Naturdasein, an den Geist des Naturdaseins. Es waren dies die Mysterien von Hybernia. Und wir haben gesehen, wie durch Blicke in den Menschen selbst, Blicke, die aber durchaus intim geistiger Natur, individuell persönlicher Natur sogar waren, die griechischen Mysterien in das Innere des Menschen eingedrungen sind. Man kann schon sagen: wie in der äußeren Natur die mannigfaltigsten Erdgegenden diese oder jene Vegetation tragen, so zeigen sich im Laufe der Menschheitsentwickelung auf den verschiedensten Gebieten der Erde die mannigfaltigsten Einflüsse von seiten der geistigen Welt auf die Menschen.
Würden wir, was ja in historischer Beziehung in den nächsten Tagen geschehen soll, in den Orient hinübergehen, so würden wir noch manches andere an Mysteriengestaltung finden. Aber ich habe heute - weil ja noch nicht alle Besucher anwesend sind - mehr an das anzuknüpfen, was schon betrachtet worden ist, denn etwas Neues zu beginnen.
Man kann sagen: Wenn man zurückblickt in der Menschheitsentwickelung, dann tritt einem mit aller Klarheit vor das imaginative Bewußtsein eine dreigliedrige Entwickelung. Ich sage: mit aller Klarheit vor das imaginative Bewußtsein, weil, wenn man die Epochen, von denen ich jetzt sprechen will, weiter nach vorn, nach früheren Zeiten ausdehnt, man ja natürlich eine größere Zahl bekommt als die Dreizahl, und ebenso, wenn man weiter in die Zukunft hineingeht. Aber wir wollen diese mittleren Stadien der Menschheitsentwickelung, die nicht erst durch Inspiration, sondern die schon mit aller Klarheit vor der Imagination auftreten, heute einmal von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus ins Auge fassen.
Noch bis in die ägyptische Zeit herein war es eigentlich für die Menschheit so, daß gegenüber dem damaligen Bewußtsein sowohl der afrikanisch-europäischen Völker wie der asiatischen Völker es dasjenige gar nicht gab, was man heute Stoffe nennt. Nicht einmal die äußeren groben Stoffe gab es für das Menschheitsbewußtsein, geschweige denn jene Abstraktionen, welche wir heute als Kohlenstoff, Wasserstoff, Schwefel und so weiter bezeichnen. Diese Dinge gab es nicht, sondern alles, was sich draußen in der Natur ausbreitete, das wurde unmittelbar angesehen als Körper der göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, die sich durch die ganze Natur offenbaren. Wir gehen heute ins Gebirge, treten auf den Stein, heben wohl auch den Stein auf, wir sehen in ihm eine gleichgültige Substanz. Uns kommt etwas Ähnliches gar nicht zum Bewußtsein, wie es dem älteren Ägypter, dem alten Orientalen zum Bewußtsein gekommen ist.
Nicht wahr, wir werden heute nicht, wenn wir einem Menschen gegenüberstehen und etwa seine Finger erfassen, dasjenige, was wir da berühren am Menschenfinger, als etwas Gleichgültiges betrachten. Wir betrachten es als etwas, was zu seinem ganzen menschlichen Organismus gehört. Und wir können nicht anders, indem wir zum Beispiel das letzte Glied des Zeigefingers eines Menschen betrachten, als uns sagen: dies ist ein Teil eines Gesamtorganismus.
So war es bei den alten Ägyptern, so war es bei den alten Orientalen in ihrem Bewußtsein. Traten sie auf einen Stein, hoben sie einen Stein auf: es war ihnen dies nicht ein gleichgültiger Stein wie uns heute, es war ihnen dies überhaupt nicht gewöhnliche irdische Substanz, es war ihnen dies der Teil des göttlichen Leibes, als der ihnen die Erde erschien. Und so, wie wir heute uns verhalten in unserem Bewußtsein zu der Haut des Menschen, so verhielten sich die Alten gegenüber der äußeren Oberfläche der Erde. Wenn wir heute herantreten an einen Menschen und uns durch besondere Umstände zum Bewußtsein kommt, daß er uns an einen anderen Menschen erinnert, den wir schon kennen, der jetzt vielleicht nicht da ist, und wenn die Umstände ergeben, daß dieser Mensch, den wir da treffen, die Schwester oder der Bruder jenes anderen Menschen ist, dann kommt uns unmittelbar in den Sinn: da ist gemeinsames Fleisch und Blut bei den beiden Menschen vorhanden, die gehören in einer gewissen Weise körperlich zusammen. Und wenn der alte Grieche oder der alte Orientale seinen Blick hinaufrichtete zum Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, und er sah dann die Erde an, dann sah er in dieser Erde eben zunächst den göttlichen Leib des Erdengottes, aber er sah zu gleicher Zeit in dieser Erde die Schwester oder den Bruder, kurz das Geschwisterliche zu den Planeten, die draußen um die Erde herumkreisten, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn.
Und so war etwas durchaus Seelisch-Geistiges im Empfinden des ganzen Kosmos und im Empfinden der Erde als eines Teiles dieses Kosmos bei den Alten vorhanden. Und Sie müssen sich nur recht tief in Ihrem Innern vorstellen, wie das etwas ganz anderes bedeutete für die Seele, als das, was der Mensch heute empfindet. Es heißt schon etwas, in der Erde den göttlichen Leib zu schauen, in der Erde das geschwisterliche Glied gegenüber allen anderen Planeten des Weltensystems zu sehen! Denn von Göttern erfüllt dachten sich die Alten das ganze Weltenall. Und von Göttern erfüllt war ihnen nicht nur die ganze Erde, von Göttern erfüllt war ihnen außer den planetarischen großen Weltenkörpern jedes einzelne Glied dieser planetarischen Wesenheiten. In Stein und Baum, in Fluß und Felsen, in Wolken und Blitz offenbarten sich irgendwelche geistig-göttliche Wesenheiten. Dieses Bewußtsein wurde erweckt in den weiten Kreisen der Bevölkerung über die Erde hin, und dieses Bewußtsein wurde vertieft in den mannigfaltigen Mysteriengestaltungen, die da und dort auf der Erde sich fanden.
Und wenn wir im griechischen Wesen heraufkommen bis zu jener Zeit, da die äußere politische Größe Griechenlands hinuntersank in eine Art von Volkschaos und aufkam das mazedonische Wesen, dann finden wir, wie in der Tat damals etwas hereinflutete in das menschliche Wissen, in die menschliche Erkenntnis, was wir das letzte Mal hier in Form des Aristotelismus kennengelernt haben, was wir kennengelernt haben als dasjenige, was sich in geistiger Beziehung Alexander der Große zu seiner Volksaufgabe gemacht hatte. Wenn wir da zu diesem Kulminationspunkt des Griechentums auf der einen Seite, auf der anderen Seite zum Sturz des Griechentums, zum mazedonischen Wesen kommen, so sehen wir gegenüber dem, was die äußere Geschichte, die eigentlich in Wirklichkeit eine Geschichtslegende ist, bietet, auf dem Untergrunde der Bewußtseine gerade der tieferen Geister einen Impuls, der herauskam aus denjenigen Mysterien, denen, trotzdem er äußerlich nie davon sprach, Aristoteles recht nahe stand. Es waren jene Mysterien, die gerade im tiefsten Sinne in voller Lebendigkeit vor ihren Zuhörern das Bewußtsein erweckten, daß die ganze Welt eine Theogonie, ein Götterwerden sei, daß man die Welt durchaus in illusionärer Weise sieht, wenn man glaubt, daß etwas anderes wird in der Welt, als Götter. Götter sind es, die die Wesenhaftigkeiten der Welt darstellen, Götter sind es, welche Erlebnisse in dieser Welt haben, Götter sind es, die Taten ausführen. Und das, was man sieht als Wolken, was man hört als Donner, was man wahrnimmt als Blitze, was man auf der Erde wahrnimmt als Fluß und Berg, was man wahrnimmt auf der Erde in den Mineralreichen, das sind die Offenbarungen, die Äußerungen des Werdens der Schicksale der Götter, die sich dahinter verbergen. Und auch dasjenige was äußerlich sich darstellt in der Wolke, in Blitz und Donner, in Baum und Wald, in Fluß und Berg, das ist nichts anderes, als was das Götterdasein, das überall ist, so offenbart, wie die Haut des Menschen das innerlich Seelenhafte dieses Menschen offenbart. Und wenn Götter überall sind, dann muß man unterscheiden — so lehrte man die Mysterienschüler im nördlichen Griechenland — zwischen den kleinen Göttern, die in den einzelnen Naturwesen und -Vorgängen sind, und den großen Göttern, welche sich darstellen als Wesenhaftes der Sonne, des Mars, des Merkur, und eines vierten, der nicht äußerlich durch ein Bild oder durch eine Gestaltung sichtbar gemacht werden kann. Das waren die großen Götter, die großen Planetengötter, jene großen Planetengötter, die so behandelt wurden, daß des Menschen Blick hinaufgelenkt wurde nach dem Weltenraum, daß sein Auge, aber auch sein ganzes Herz schauen sollte dasjenige, was in Sonne, Mars, Merkur lebte, was aber nicht nur draußen in diesem kleinen Kreise lebt im Weltenraum, was überall im Weltenraum lebt, was vor allen Dingen herankommt an den Menschen.
Und nachdem zuerst, ich möchte sagen ein majestätischer Impuls in dem Schüler der nordgriechischen Mysterien dadurch erweckt worden war, daß sein Blick hinaufgelenkt wurde auf die Planetenkreise selbst, wurde dann dieser Blick menschlich so vertieft, daß gewissermaßen das Auge vom Herzen ergriffen wurde, um seelisch zu sehen. Dann verstand der Schüler, warum auf dem Altar vor ihn hingestellt worden waren drei symbolisch gestaltete Krüge.
Wir haben einmal eine Nachbildung dieser Krüge hier in einer eurythmischen Faust-Vorstellung verwendet, und so, wie sie dazumal ausgesehen haben, diese Krüge, so haben sie ausgesehen in den samothrakischen, in den nordgriechischen Mysterien. Aber das Wesentliche war, daß mit diesen Krügen in ihrer ganzen symbolischen Gestaltung eine Weihehandlung, eine Opferhandlung vor sich gegangen ist. Eine Art Weihrauch wurde in diese Krüge getan, wurde entzündet, der Rauch strömte heraus, und drei Worte, von denen wir morgen noch sprechen werden, wurden mit mantrischer Gewalt von dem zelebrierenden Vater in den Rauch hineingesprochen, der von diesen Krügen aufdampfte, und es erschienen die Gestalten der drei Kabiren. Sie erschienen dadurch, daß der menschliche Atem, die Ausatmung durch das mantrische Wort sich gestaltete und seine Gestaltung mitteilte dem Aufsteigenden, Aufdampfenden der Substanz, die den symbolischen Krügen einverleibt worden war. Und indem der Schüler auf diese Weise lesen lernte in seinen eigenen Atemzügen, indem er lesen lernte, was in den Rauch diese eigenen Atemzüge hineinschrieben, lernte er zugleich lesen, was die geheimnisvollen Planeten aus dem weiten Weltenall herein zu ihm sprachen. Denn nun wußte er: wie der eine der Kabiren gestaltet wurde durch das mantrische Wort und seine Gewalt, so war in Wirklichkeit der Merkur; wie gestaltet wurde der zweite Kabir, so war in Wirklichkeit der Mars; wie gestaltet wurde der dritte Kabir, so war in Wirklichkeit Apollo, die Sonne.
Und wenn man jene Modejournalgestalten - verzeihen Sie, daß ich mich radikal ausspreche -, die man ja leider-meistens in Galerien aus der spätgriechischen Plastik sieht, und die man sehr verehrt, weil man keine Ahnung hat, aus was sie hervorgegangen sind, wenn man jene Modejournalgestalten eines Apollo, eines Mars, eines Merkur sich anschaut, sie aber anschaut mit jenem Goetheschen Blicke, mit dem Blick, den Goethe angewendet hat auf seiner italienischen Reise, um durch diese Modejournalgestalten die Ahnung zu bekommen, was eigentlich griechische Kunst war in jenen Hervorbringungen, die zugrunde gegangen sind mit so vielem, was in den ersten Jahrhunderten nach der Begründung des Christentums hinuntergestoßen worden ist in die furchtbare Verwüstung, die dazumal Platz gegriffen hat —, wenn man gewissermaßen hindurchschaut durch diese spätgriechischen plastischen Gestalten, die, ich möchte sagen, auf der einen Seite mit Recht, weil sie wegweisend waren, auf der anderen Seite mit Unrecht, weil sie eben Nachgeburten sind von Früherem, für groß gehalten werden, wenn man zurückschaut auf dasjenige, woraus sie entstanden sind, dann sieht man, wie in der älteren griechischen Zeit nachgebildet worden sind die Opfer-Offenbarungen, die auf eine solche Weise zustande gekommen sind in früherer Zeit in noch viel majestätischerer, großartigerer Weise, als später in Samothrake bei den Kabirenmysterien. Man sieht zurück auf jene Zeiten, in denen das mantrische Wort hineingesprochen worden ist in den Opferrauch, und die wahren Gestalten des Apollo, des Mars, des Merkur erschienen sind.
Das waren die Zeiten, in denen der Mensch nicht in abstracto gesagt hat: Im Urbeginne war der Logos, und der Logos war bei Gott, und ein Gott war der Logos - das waren die Zeiten, in denen der Mensch etwas ganz anderes sagen konnte, in denen der Mensch sagen konnte: In mir gestaltet sich die Ausatmung, und indem die Ausatmung sich in regelmäßiger Weise gestaltet, erweist sie sich selber als ein Nachbild kosmischen Schaffens, denn sie schafft mir aus dem Opferrauch Gestaltungen, die für mich die lebendigen Schriftzüge sind, die mir vertaten, was mir die planetarischen Welten sagen wollen.
Und wenn sich der Schüler der Kabirenmysterien auf Samothrake näherte den Pforten dieser Einweihungsstätten, dann hatte er durch seinen Unterricht das Gefühl: Ja, jetzt betrete ich dasjenige, was mir umschließt die magischen Handlungen des opfernden Vaters. Denn «Vater» nannte man die zelebrierenden Initiatoren dieser Mysterien. ‚Und was offenbarte dem Schüler die magische Kraft dieser zelebrierenden Väter? Durch das, was die Götter in den Menschen gelegt haben, durch die Gewalt der Sprache, schrieb der priesterliche Magier und Weise hinein in den Opferrauch jene Schriftzüge, die aussprachen die Geheimnisse des Weltenalls.
Deshalb sagte der Schüler, wenn er sich der Pforte näherte, in seinem Herzen: Ich trete ein in dasjenige, was mir umschließt einen gewaltigen Geist, was mir umschließt die großen Götter, jene großen Götter, welche auf der Erde durch die Opferhandlungen der Menschen die Geheimnisse des Weltenalls enthüllen.
Das war eine Sprache, die da gesprochen wurde, und eine Schrift, die da geschrieben wurde, die wahrhaftig nicht bloß den Verstand des Menschen, sondern die den ganzen Menschen in Anspruch genommen haben. Und in den samothrakischen Mysterien war schon noch etwas von einem Wissen, das ja heute ganz verglommen ist. Der Mensch ist heute ja wohl mächtig, mit Wahrheit davon zu sprechen, wie sich ein Quarzkristall anfühlt, wie sich meinetwillen ein Stück Eisen anfühlt, wie sich ein Stück Antimon anfühlt, wie sich ein Haar anfühlt, wie sich die menschliche Haut anfühlt, wie sich ein tierisches Fell anfühlt, wie sich Seide, Samt anfühlt; das ist der Mensch heute mächtig, sich zu vergegenwärtigen durch sein Gefühl. In den samothrakischen Mysterien war noch etwas vorhanden, durch das der Mensch mit Wahrheit sagen konnte, wie sich Götter anfühlen lassen. Denn der Gefühls-, der Tastsinn war noch fähig dessen, wessen er in alten Zeiten durchaus fähig war: das Geistige anzufühlen, Götter zu ertasten. Und das Wunderbare ist eigentlich folgendes, ja man muß schon in ältere Zeiten zurückgehen, wenn man geradezu sprechen will davon, daß die Menschen sagen konnten mit Wahrheit: Ich weiß durch meine Fingerspitzen, wie sich Götter ertasten. Aber in den samothrakischen Mysterien bestand eine andere Kunst des Ertastens der Götter; sie bestand in folgendem.
Indem der priesterliche Magier in den Opferrauch die Worte hineinsprach, indem er also das Wort ertönen ließ im Aushauche und sprach, fühlte er in dem hinausgehenden Atem, wie der Mensch sonst fühlt, wenn er die tastende Hand ausstreckt. Und wie man weiß, daß man mit der Fingerspitze in stets anderer Weise tastet, über den Stoff fährt, wenn man Samt anfühlt, wenn man Seide anfühlt, wenn man Katzenfelle anfühlt, wenn man menschliche Haut anfühlt, so empfand der samothrakische Priestermagier mit der ausgeatmeten Luft, und er empfand den Aushauch, den er gegen den Opferrauch hin strahlen ließ, wie ein Ausstrecken von etwas, was aus ihm selber herauskam: er empfand den Aushauch wie ein Tastorgan, das nach dem Rauche hin ging. Er fühlte den Rauch. Und er fühlte in dem Rauch die ihm entgegenkommenden großen Götter, die Kabiren, er fühlte in dem, wie der Rauch sich gestaltete, und wie die Gestalten, die sich da bildeten, von außen herankamen an den Aushauch, so daß der Aushauch fühlte: da ist Rundung, da ist Eckigkeit, da greift mir etwas entgegen. Die ganze göttliche Gestalt des Kabirs wurde ertastet mit dem in das Wort gekleideten Aushauch. Mit der Sprache, die aus dem Herzen kam, ertastete der samothrakische Weise die durch den Opferrauch zu ihm herabsteigenden Kabiren, das heißt die großen Götter. Und es war eine lebendige Wechselwirkung zwischen dem Logos im Menschen und dem Logos draußen in den Weltenweiten.
Und indem der einweihende Vater den Schüler hinführte vor den Opferaltar und nach und nach lehrte, wie man fühlen kann mit der Sprache, und indem der Schüler immer weiter vorschritt und sich in dieses Fühlen mit der Sprache hineinfand, kam der Schüler endlich zu jenem Stadium inneren Erlebens, in dem er zunächst ein deutliches Bewußtsein hatte, wie gestaltet ist Merkur, Hermes, wie gestaltet ist Apollo, wie gestaltet ist Ares, der Mars. Es war, wie wenn das ganze Bewußtsein des Menschen herausgehoben wäre aus seinem Leibe, wie wenn dasjenige, was der Schüler früher gewußt hat als den Inhalt seines Kopfes, oben gewesen wäre über seinem Haupte, wie wenn das Herz lokalisiert wäre an einem neuen Orte, indem es heraufgedrungen wäre aus der Brust in den Kopf. Und dann erstand in diesem über sich selbst wirklich hinausgegangenen Menschen dasjenige, was innerlich sich formte zu dem Worte: So wollen dich die Kabiren, die großen Götter. Von da ab wußte der Schüler, wie in ihm lebte Merkurius in seinen Gliedmaßen, die Sonne in seinem Herzen, der Mars in seiner Sprache.
Sehen Sie, durchaus nicht nur natürliche Vorgänge und Wesenheiten wurden in der äußeren Welt in den alten Zeiten den Schülern vorgeführt. Was ihnen vorgeführt wurde, war weder etwas einseitig Naturalistisches, noch etwas einseitig Moralisches, sondern etwas, wo Moral und Natur in eins zusammenflossen. Und das war gerade das Geheimnis der samothrakischen Welt, daß der Schüler vermittelt bekam das Bewußtsein: Natur ist Geist, Geist ist Natur.
Aus jenen Zeiten, die ihren letzten Nachklang in dem samothrakischen Kabirendienste gefunden haben, stammt jene Einsicht, welche die irdischen Substanzen zusammenbringt mit dem ganzen Himmel. Man konnte eben nicht in alten Zeiten sagen, wenn man jenes rötlich-bräunliche Mineral sah mit dem Kupferglanz, wenn man unser heutiges Kupfer sah, man konnte eben nicht sagen, so wie man heute sagt: Das ist Kupfer, das ist ein Bestandteil der Erde-denn das konnte man sich nicht denken. Das ist für die Alten kein Bestandteil der Erde gewesen, sondern das ist die Tat der Venus in der Erde gewesen, was sich als Kupfer überall offenbarte. Die Erde hat nur solche Gesteine wie Sandstein, Kalk entstehen lassen, um aufzunehmen in ihrem Schoß, was der Himmel in die Erde gepflanzt hat. Und so wenig, wie wir heute sagen dürfen, wenn wir hier (es wird gezeichnet) den Erdboden haben und wir einen Pflanzensamen in den Erdboden säen: AusdemErdboden ist dieser Same herausgewachsen, so wenig durfte man, wenn man hier die Erdoberfläche hätte und in der Erde ein Kupfererz, damals sagen: Dies Kupfererz ist ein Bestandteil der Erde. Was man sagen mußte, ist: Die Erde hier mit ihrem Sandstein oder sonstigen Gestein, sie ist der Boden, und das, was da metallisch drinnen ist, das hat irgendein Planet in die Erde hereingepflanzt. Das ist Same, hereingepflanzt in die Erde durch einen Planeten. Alles das, was so auf Erden war, sah man an als hereinimpulsiert in die Erde vom Himmel aus.
Wenn man heute die Erde hat und die Substanzen der Erde kennenlernt, dann beschreibt man ja alles so - sehen Sie sich irgendeine Mineralogie, eine Geologie an -, daß man die Erde beschreibt. So hat man in der alten Wissenschaft nicht beschrieben. Da schweifte der Blick hin über die Erde; aber indem man dann die Substanzen sah, mußte man zum Himmel hinaufsehen, und in dem Himmel, da sah man das Wesenhafte der Substanzen. Scheinbar nur liegt Kupfer, liegt Zinn, liegt Blei in der Erde. Sie aber sind die Samen, welche hereingepflanzt worden sind während der alten Sonnen- und Mondenzeit von dem Himmel in das irdische Dasein.
So war aber auch noch die Lehre der Kabiren in den samothrakischen Mysterien. Das war schließlich schon das, was wenigstens als ‚Atmosphäre des Wissens auf Aristoteles und Alexander den Großen gewirkt hat. Und dann wurde der Anfang geschaffen zu etwas ganz anderem.
Die Menschheit kam mit ihrer Einsicht nicht sogleich vom Himmel auf die Erde herunter, sondern die Menschheit machte erst ein Zwischenstadium durch in alten Zeiten. Und noch in den Nachklängen jener alten Zeiten, den samothrakischen Mysterien, hat man, wenn man die Metalle der Erde oder auch andere Substanzen der Erde, wie Schwefel oder Phosphor, beschreiben wollte, eigentlich den Himmel beschrieben, geradeso, wie man eine Pflanze beschreibt, wenn man die Wesenheit des Samens kennen will. Man kann doch nicht, wenn man ein Samenkorn vor sich hat, das Wesen dieses Samenkorns erkennen, wenn man nicht die Pflanze erkennt. Was wollen Sie denn mit solch einem Samenkorn, das so aussieht, wenn Sie nicht wissen, wie Anis ausschaut? Was wollen Sie denn, hätten die Alten gesagt, aus dem Kupfer machen, das in der Erde sich zeigt, wenn Sie nicht wissen, wie geistig-seelisch-leiblich die Venus ausschaut da oben am Himmel.
Und aus der Himmelskunde wurde nach und nach, möchte man sagen, eine Umlaufskunde, eine Atmosphärenkunde, indem nicht mehr geschildert wurde, wenn man auf das Irdische hinsah, was die Sterne in ihrer Wesenhaftigkeit waren, sondern, indem man ein irdisches Wesen sah, sich sagte: Darinnen lebt erstens das, was wir in der festen Erde sehen, dann aber lebt da drinnen auch dasjenige, was wir in der nach der Tropfenform tendierenden Flüssigkeit sehen; dann lebt darinnen, was sich nach allen Seiten ausdehnen will, was luftförmig ist, was zum Beispiel im menschlichen Organismus in Atem und Sprache lebt. Und dann lebt darinnen das Feurige, welches das einzelne Wesen in sich auflöst, so daß aus den zerklüfteten, aufgelösten Bestandteilen Neues entstehen kann. Da leben die Elemente in jeder irdischen Gestaltung.
Und indem früher in den alten Mysterien die Menschen hingeschaut haben auf das allerdings auch kosmische, aber zum Irdischen gestaltete Salzige, das sie in dem gesehen haben, was Mutter Erde der Metallität entgegengebracht hat, haben sie das Merkuriale gesehen in alledem, was aus dem Weltenall heraus das Metall werden soll.
Ach, es ist so ungeheuer kindisch, wenn heute die Menschen anfangen, Beschreibungen zu geben von dem, was man sich noch im Mittelalter als Merkur vorgestellt hat! Es steht da doch immer wieder im Hintergrunde, daß mit Merkur auch im Mittelalter so etwas Ähnliches wie das Quecksilber gemeint sein könnte oder überhaupt irgendein einzelnes Metall. Es ist ja gar nicht so. Merkur ist jedes Metall, insofern dieses Metall unter dem Einfluß des ganzen Kosmos steht. Denn wie würde Kupfer, wenn nur der Kosmos in seiner Peripherie wie auf jedes Metall wirkte? Kupfer würde tropfig wie Quecksilber. Wie würde Blei, wenn nur der Kosmos wirkte? Blei würde tropfig, Quecksilber. Wie würde Zinn, wenn nur der Kosmos wirkte? Zinn würde tropfig. Jedes Metall, wenn nur der Kosmos wirkt, würde Quecksilber. Alle Metalle sind Merkur, insofern der Kosmos auf sie wirkt. Und das wirkliche heutige Quecksilber, das noch auf der Erde Tropfenform annimmt, was ist denn das?
Nun, sehen Sie: die anderen Metalle, sagen wir Blei, Kupfer, Zinn, Eisen, die sind über die Tropfenform hinausgegangen. Als die ganze Erde noch unter dem Einfluß des sphärisch-kugeligen Kosmos stand, waren alle Metalle Merkur. Sie sind über die merkuriale Gestalt hinausgegangen, sie kristallisieren heute in anderen Gestalten. Nur das eigentliche, im heutigen Sinne eigentliche Quecksilber ist auf jener Stufe stehengeblieben.
Wie hätten die Alten und wie haben noch die mittelalterlichen Alchemisten zu dem heutigen Quecksilber gesagt? Sie haben gesagt: Kupfer, Zinn, Eisen, Blei sind die guten Metalle, die mitder Vorsehung fortgeschritten sind; Quecksilber ist der Luzifer unter den Metallen, denn es ist auf einer früheren Stufe der Gestaltung stehengeblieben. Und so war es eben in alten Zeiten, daß, indem man in dieser Weise von dem Irdischen gesprochen hat, man eben in Wahrheit von dem Himmlischen gesprochen hat.
Von da aus kam man dann dazu, von demjenigen zu sprechen, was nun zwischen dem Umkreis und der Erde liegt. Zwischen dem Umkreis und der Erde liegt eben unten die Erde selbst, dann das wäßrige Element, das luftförmige Element und das feurige Element. Und so haben die Alten alles, was auf der Erde war, im Aspekt des Himmels gesehen; so hat eine mittlere Zeit, die erst zu Ende ging im ersten Drittel des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, alles im Aspekt des Umkreises, des Atmosphärischen gesehen. Und da, im vierzehnten, fünfzehnten Jahrhundert, kam der große Umschwung. Da fiel der Mensch mit seiner Anschauung ganz auf die Erde herab. Da zerklüfteten auch in seinem Bewußtsein die Elemente Wasser, Luft, Feuer; sie zerklüfteten in Schwefel, Kohlenstoff, Wasserstoff. Der Mensch sah alles im irdischen Aspekt.
Und damit beginnt dann die Zeit, auf die ich schon hingedeutet habe, als ich die hybernischen Mysterien besprochen habe: es beginnt die Zeit, wo der Mensch die Erde umfaßt mit seiner Erkenntnis, und der Himmel wird ihm Mathematik. Er errechnet die Größe der Sterne, die Bewegung, die Entfernung der Sterne und so weiter. Der Himmel wird ihm Abstraktion.
Aber es wurde eben nicht bloß der Himmel Abstraktion. Denn das Abbild des Himmels im lebenden Menschen ist sein Haupt. Und was der Mensch vom Himmel erkennen kann, lebt in seinem Haupte. Und da der Mensch vom Himmel nur die Mathematik, das heißt das Logische, Abstrakte kennenlernte, lebte von nun an in seinem Haupte nur das Logisch-Abstrakte, das Begrifflich-Ideelle. Und so gab es fortan keine Möglichkeit für den Menschen, in das Begrifflich-Ideelle das Spirituell-Geistige hereinzubekommen. Und da, wo man den Geist suchte, begann jener große Kampf zwischen dem, was der Mensch ertingen konnte mit seinen ideellen Hauptesinhalten, Gehirninhalten, und dem, was ihm die Götter offenbaren wollten vom Himmel herein. Am größten, am gigantischesten wurde dieser Kampf gekämpft in den wahren Gestaltungen desjenigen, was man die rosenkreuzerischen Mysterien im Mittelalter nennt. Da wurde empfunden als Vorbereitung zum wirklichen Wissen die Ohnmacht des modernen Menschen. Denn es war schon etwas, was empfunden werden konnte als etwas Gewaltiges gerade in den Kreisen der wahren rosenkreuzerischen Initiation. Das Gewaltige bestand darinnen, daß dem Schüler nicht abstrakt, sondern innerlich lebendig klar wurde: Du kannst als moderner Mensch ja nur in die Begriffswelt hinein. Aber damit verlierst du das lebendige Wesen dieser deiner Menschheit.
Und indem der Schüler dieses fühlte, daß dasjenige, was ihm gerade die neuere Zeit gab, ihn nicht hinführen konnte zu dem, was sein eigentliches Wesen ist, da war es dann, daß der Schüler fühlte: Du mußt entweder verzweifeln an der Erkenntnis, oder du mußt durchgehen durch eine Art von Abtötung des Hochmutes der Abstraktion. Und schon fühlte der Rosenkreuzerschüler, der wahre Rosenkreuzerschüler etwas Ähnliches, wie wenn ihm der Meister einen Schlag ins Genick gegeben hätte, um ihm anzudeuten, daß das Abstrakte des modernen Hauptes nicht geeignet ist, in die geistigen Welten einzutreten, und daß der Schüler zu leisten habe die Absage an die bloße Abstraktion, um in die geistige Welt einzutreten.
Das war eigentlich ein großer vorbereitender Augenblick dessen, was man nennen kann die Rosenkreuzer-Initiation.
Twelfth Lecture
Over the past few weeks, I have presented a wide range of mystery formations here. In particular, we have tried to gain insights into those mysteries that, as the last great mysteries, so to speak, directly linked the human soul to the existence of nature, to the spirit of nature. These were the mysteries of Hybernia. And we have seen how the Greek mysteries penetrated into the depths of the human soul through insights into the human being himself, insights that were, however, of an intimately spiritual nature, even of an individually personal nature. It may be said that just as the most diverse regions of the earth bear this or that vegetation in the outer world, so in the course of human development the most diverse influences from the spiritual world are revealed in the most diverse regions of the earth.
If we were to go to the Orient, which is to happen in the next few days from a historical point of view, we would find many other mysteries. But today, because not all visitors are yet present, I have more to build on what has already been considered, because to start something new.
One can say: if one looks back at the development of humanity, a three-fold development comes clearly to mind. I say “with all clarity before the imaginative consciousness” because if one extends the epochs I am about to speak of further and further into the past, one naturally arrives at more than three, and the same applies if one goes further into the future. But let us today consider these intermediate stages of human development, which arise not only through inspiration but also with complete clarity before the imagination, from a certain point of view.
Right up until the Egyptian period, the fact that what we call “materials” today did not even exist for the consciousness of the African-European and Asian peoples at that time. Not even the external coarse substances existed for human consciousness, let alone those abstractions that we today call carbon, hydrogen, sulfur and so on. These things did not exist, but everything that spread out in nature was directly seen as the body of the divine-spiritual beings that reveal themselves through all of nature. Today, we go into the mountains, step on a stone, and probably pick up the stone as well, but we see only an indifferent substance in it. We do not become aware of anything similar to what the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Orientals became aware of.
Today, when we stand before a person and touch his finger, we do not consider what we are touching on the human finger to be something indifferent. We consider it to be part of his entire human organism. And we cannot help but look at the last phalanx of a person's index finger, for example, and say: this is part of an entire organism.
This was the case with the ancient Egyptians, this was the case with the ancient Orientals in their consciousness. If they stepped on a stone, they picked up a stone: for them it was not an indifferent stone like it is for us today, for them it was not at all an ordinary earthly substance, for them it was that part of the divine body as the earth appeared to them. And just as we today behave in our consciousness towards the skin of a person, so did the ancients behave towards the outer surface of the earth. If today we approach a person and under special circumstances become aware that he reminds us of another person whom we already know, who may not be there now, and if the circumstances reveal that this person we meet is the sister or brother of that other person, then it immediately occurs to us: there is common flesh and blood in both people, they belong together in a certain physical way. And when the ancient Greeks or the ancient Orientals looked up at Mars, Jupiter or Saturn, and then looked at the Earth, they saw in this Earth first of all the divine body of the Earth God, but at the same time they saw in this Earth the sister or the brother, in short, the sibling relationship to the planets that circled around the Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn.
And so, in the ancient world, there was something thoroughly spiritual in the way the whole cosmos was felt, and the way the earth was felt as part of that cosmos. And you just have to imagine yourself deep within, how that meant something quite different for the soul than what a person feels today. It means something to see the divine body in the earth, to see the sisterly link in the earth in relation to all the other planets of the world system! For the ancients thought of the whole universe as being filled with gods. And not only was the whole earth filled with gods for them, but every single link in these planetary entities was also filled with gods, in addition to the large planetary bodies. In stone and tree, in river and rock, in clouds and lightning, some spiritual-divine entities revealed themselves. This consciousness was awakened in the wide circles of the population across the earth, and this consciousness was deepened in the manifold mystery formations that were found here and there on the earth.
And when we go back to Greek life until the time when the external political greatness of Greece declined into a kind of national chaos and the Macedonian element arose, then we find that something did indeed flood into human knowledge and human understanding at that time, which we got to know last time here in the form of Aristotelianism, which we recognized as that which Alexander the Great had undertaken in a spiritual sense for his people. When we come to this culmination of Greek culture on the one hand, and on the other hand to the fall of Greek culture, to the Macedonian nature, we see, in contrast to what external history, which is actually a historical legend in reality, offers, on the basis of the consciousness of precisely the deeper minds, an impulse that emerged from those mysteries to which, never spoke of them in public, was very close to Aristotle. These mysteries awakened in their listeners, in the fullest sense, the consciousness that the whole world is a theogony, a becoming-god. They awakened in them the realization that it is an illusion to believe that anything in the world becomes other than a god. It is gods that represent the entities of the world, it is gods that have experiences in this world, it is gods that perform deeds. And that what one sees as clouds, what one hears as thunder, what one perceives as lightning, what one perceives on earth as river and mountain, what one perceives on earth in the mineral kingdom, that are the revelations, the expressions of the becoming of the destinies of the gods, which are hidden behind it. And also that which manifests itself externally in the cloud, in lightning and thunder, in the tree and forest, in the river and mountain, is nothing other than what the existence of the gods, which is everywhere, reveals in the same way that the skin of a human being reveals the soul of that human being. And if there are gods everywhere, then one must distinguish – so the mystery school students in northern Greece were taught – between the lesser gods, which are in the individual natural beings and processes, and the great gods, which present themselves as the essence of the sun, Mars, Mercury, and a fourth, which cannot be made visible externally through an image or a form. These were the great gods, the great planetary gods, those great planetary gods who were treated in such a way that man's gaze was directed upwards into space, so that his eye, but also his whole heart, should behold that which lives in the sun, Mars, Mercury, but which not only lives outside in this small circle in space, but which lives everywhere in space, and which above all else draws near to man.
And after first, I might say, a majestic impulse had been awakened in the pupil of the Northern Greek Mysteries by directing his gaze upwards to the planetary circles themselves, this gaze then became so deeply human that, as it were, the eye was seized by the heart in order to see soulfully. Then the pupil understood why three symbolically designed jugs had been placed on the altar in front of him.
We once used a reproduction of these jugs in a eurythmic Faust performance, and the way they looked then is how they looked in the Samothracean, in the Northern Greek mysteries. But the essential thing was that with these jugs, in their entire symbolic design, a consecration, a sacrificial act had taken place. A kind of incense was put into these jugs, was ignited, the smoke streamed out, and three words, which we will speak of tomorrow, were spoken with mantric power by the celebrating father into the smoke that rose from these jugs, and the figures of the three Kabirs appeared. They appeared through the human breath, the exhalation, taking shape through the mantric word and communicating its shape to the rising vapors of the substance that had been incorporated into the symbolic jugs. And in that the disciple learned to read in this way in his own breaths, in that he learned to read what these own breaths inscribed in the smoke, he learned at the same time to read what the mysterious planets spoke to him from the far-flung universe. For now he knew: just as the one of the Kabirs was shaped by the mantric word and its power, so was Mercury in reality; how the second Kabir was shaped, so was Mars in reality; how the third Kabir was shaped, so was Apollo, the Sun, in reality.
And when you look at those fashion magazine figures – forgive me for speaking out radically – that you unfortunately mostly see in galleries of late Greek sculpture, and that you worship because you have no idea what they emerged from; when you look at those fashion magazine figures of an Apollo, a Mars, a Mercury, but looks at them with Goethe's gaze, with the gaze that Goethe used on his Italian journey to get an idea of what Greek art actually was in those creations that perished with so much of was destroyed in the first centuries after the founding of Christianity in the terrible devastation that took place at that time – if you look through, as it were, these late Greek plastic figures, which, I might say, on the one hand rightly, because they were pioneering, on the other hand wrongly, because they are, after all, the offspring of earlier ones, are considered great. If you look back to what they emerged from, you see how the sacrificial revelations that came about in this way in earlier times were recreated in the older Greek period in an even more majestic and magnificent way than later in Samothrace in the Cabiren Mysteries. We can see back to those times when the mantric word was spoken into the sacrificial smoke and the true forms of Apollo, Mars and Mercury appeared.
Those were the times when man did not say in abstracto: In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and a god was the Logos - those were the times when man could say something completely different, when man could say: In me, the exhalation is forming, and by forming itself in a regular way, it proves itself to be an image of cosmic creation, for it creates forms out of the sacrificial smoke for me, which are the living lines of writing for me, which do for me what the planetary worlds want to tell me.
And when the disciple of the Kabir mysteries approached the gates of these initiation sites on Samothrace, he had the feeling through his teaching: Yes, now I am entering that which encompasses me, the magical actions of the sacrificing father. For “father” was the name given to the celebrating initiators of these mysteries. 'And what revealed the magical power of these celebrating fathers to the disciple? Through what the gods have placed in man, through the power of speech, the priestly magician and sage wrote those lines in the sacrificial smoke, which expressed the secrets of the universe.
Therefore, when the disciple approached the gate, he said in his heart: “I enter into that which encompasses me, a mighty spirit, the great gods, those great gods who, through the sacrificial acts of men on earth, reveal the secrets of the universe.
The language that was spoken and the writing that was used were truly not only intellectually demanding, but also required the whole person. And in the Samothracean mysteries there was still something of a knowledge that has now been completely lost. Today, people are able to speak knowledgeably about how a quartz crystal feels, how a piece of antimony feels, how a hair feels, how human skin feels, how animal fur feels, how silk and velvet feel; today man is capable of visualizing this through his feeling. In the Samothracean mysteries there was something else that enabled man to say with truth how the gods feel. For the sense of feeling, the sense of touch, was still capable of what it was fully capable of in ancient times: to feel the spiritual, to sense the gods. And the wonderful thing is actually the following: indeed, one must go back to older times if one wants to speak of the fact that people could say with truth: I know through my fingertips how gods can be felt. But in the Samothracean mysteries there existed another art of feeling for the gods; it consisted in the following.
When the priestly magician spoke the words into the sacrificial smoke, when he let the word resound in the exhalation and spoke, he felt in the outgoing breath as a person otherwise feels when he extends a groping hand. And just as we know that we feel with the tip of our finger in a constantly different way when touching velvet, when touching silk, when touching cat fur, when touching human skin, so the Samothracean priest-magician felt with the exhaled air, and he felt the breath he let radiate towards the sacrificial smoke, like an extension of something that came out of himself: he felt the breath like a tactile organ that went towards the smoke. He felt the smoke. And in the smoke he felt the great gods, the Kabirs, coming towards him. He felt in the way the smoke took shape and how the forms that were formed there approached from outside the exhalation, so that the exhalation felt: there is roundness, there is angularity, something is reaching out to me. The entire divine form of Kabir was sensed with the outbreath clothed in words. With the language that came from the heart, the Samothracean sage sensed the Kabirs, that is, the great gods, descending to him through the sacrificial smoke. And there was a living interaction between the Logos within man and the Logos outside in the world.
And as the father, who was initiating the student, led him to the altar of sacrifice and gradually taught him how to feel with language, and as the student progressed further and further and found his way into this feeling with language, the student finally came to that stage of inner experience in which he first had a clear awareness of how Mercury, Hermes, Apollo, how Ares, Mars, was formed. It was as if the whole consciousness of the human being had been lifted out of the body, as if that which the pupil had previously known as the content of his head had been above his head, as if the heart had been localized in a new place, having risen from the chest to the head. And then, in this man who had truly risen above himself, there arose that which inwardly shaped itself into the words: Thus the Kabirs, the great gods, want you. From that time on, the disciple knew how Mercury lived in his limbs, the Sun in his heart, Mars in his speech.
You see, it was not only natural processes and beings that were presented to the students in the external world in ancient times. What was presented to them was neither one-sidedly naturalistic nor one-sidedly moral, but something in which morality and nature flowed together into one. And that was precisely the secret of the Samothracean world, that the student was given the awareness: nature is spirit, spirit is nature.
From those times, which found their last echo in the Samothracean cabir service, comes that insight that brings earthly substances together with the whole of heaven. In ancient times, when you saw that reddish-brown mineral with a copper luster, when you saw our present-day copper, you could not say, as we say today: “This is copper, this is a component of the earth.” Because that could not be conceived. For the ancients, this was not a component of the earth, but the action of Venus in the earth, which revealed itself as copper everywhere. The earth only allowed such rocks as sandstone and limestone to form in order to take up into its womb what heaven had planted in the earth. And just as we cannot say today, if we have the earth's surface here (it is being drawn) and we sow a plant seed in the earth's surface: this seed has grown out of the earth's surface, so too in those days, if one had the earth's surface here and a copper ore in the earth, one could not say: this copper ore is a component of the earth. What one had to say is: the earth here with its sandstone or other rocks is the soil, and what is metallic in it was planted in the earth by some planet. That is a seed, planted in the earth by a planet. Everything that was on earth was seen as having been pulsed into the earth from heaven.
Today, when we study the earth and its substances, we describe everything in such a way – just look at any mineralogy or geology – that we describe the earth. This was not how it was described in the old science. There the gaze wandered over the earth; but by seeing the substances, one had to look up to heaven, and in heaven one saw the essential nature of the substances. Seemingly, copper, tin and lead lie in the earth. But they are the seeds that were planted from heaven into earthly existence during the ancient solar and lunar periods.
But the teaching of the Kabirs was also still present in the Samothracean mysteries. This was ultimately what, at least, informed the atmosphere of knowledge surrounding Aristotle and Alexander the Great. And then the beginning of something completely different was created.
Humanity did not immediately come down from heaven to earth with its insight, but rather went through an intermediate stage in ancient times. And still in the echoes of those ancient times, in the Samothracean mysteries, when people wanted to describe the metals of the earth or other substances of the earth, such as sulfur or phosphorus, they actually described the heavens, just as one describes a plant when one wants to know the essence of the seed. You cannot recognize the essence of a seed if you do not recognize the plant. What do you want with such a seed that looks like this if you don't know what aniseed looks like? What do you want to make of the copper that appears in the earth, if you don't know what the Venusian soul, spirit and body look like up there in the sky, the ancients would have said.
And little by little, one might say, astronomy became a study of the heavenly bodies, a study of the atmosphere, in that when looking at earthly phenomena, people no longer described the essential nature of the stars, but rather, when seeing an earthly being, they said to themselves: In it lives, first, what we see in the solid earth, but then also what we see in the liquid tending towards the drop form; then what wants to expand in all directions, what is air-like, what lives in the human organism in breathing and speech, for example. And then there is the fiery element, which dissolves the individual being within it so that something new can arise out of the fissured, dissolved components. The elements live in every earthly form.
And in the old mysteries, when people looked at the salty, which is also cosmic but shaped into the earthly, they saw the mercurial in all that is to become metal from the universe.
Oh, it is so incredibly childish when people today begin to give descriptions of what was imagined in the Middle Ages as Mercury! It is always there in the background, that Mercury in the Middle Ages could mean something similar to quicksilver or any single metal at all. It is not like that at all. Mercury is every metal, insofar as this metal is under the influence of the whole cosmos. For how would copper change if only the cosmos were to act on it at its periphery as it does on every metal? Copper would become dropy like mercury. How would lead change if only the cosmos were to act on it? Lead would become dropy, like mercury. How would tin change if only the cosmos were to act on it? Tin would become drop-shaped. Every metal would become mercury if only the cosmos were at work. All metals are Mercury, insofar as the cosmos is at work in them. And what is the real present-day Mercury, which still takes on the drop form on Earth?
Now, you see, the other metals, let's say lead, copper, tin, iron, they have gone beyond the drop shape. When the whole earth was still under the influence of the spherical cosmos, all metals were Mercury. They have gone beyond the mercurial form; today they crystallize in other forms. Only the actual, in the modern sense, actual mercury remained at that level.
What did the ancients say, and what do medieval alchemists still say about today's mercury? They say: copper, tin, iron, lead are the good metals that have progressed with providence; mercury is the Lucifer among metals, for it has remained at an earlier stage of formation. And so it was in ancient times that, by speaking in this way of the earthly, one spoke in truth of the heavenly.
From there, one then came to speak of that which now lies between the periphery and the earth. Between the periphery and the earth, the earth itself lies just below, then the aqueous element, the air-shaped element and the fiery element. And so the ancients saw everything on earth in the aspect of heaven; so a middle time, which only ended in the first third of the fourteenth century, saw everything in the aspect of the periphery, of the atmospheric. And then, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there was the great change. Then man, with his outlook, descended completely to the earth. Then the elements of water, air and fire also cleft in his consciousness; they cleft into sulphur, carbon and hydrogen. Man saw everything in the earthly aspect.
And so begins the time to which I have already alluded when discussing the Hybernian Mysteries: the time begins when man comprehends the earth with his knowledge, and heaven becomes mathematics to him. He calculates the size of the stars, their movement, their distance, and so on. Heaven becomes abstraction for him.
But it was not just the sky that became an abstraction. For the image of the sky in the living human being is his head. And what man can recognize of the sky lives in his head. And since man only came to know mathematics from the sky, that is, the logical and the abstract, only the logical and abstract, the conceptual and ideal, lived in his head from then on. And so henceforth there was no possibility for man to get the spiritual into the conceptual-ideational. And where man sought the spirit, there began that great struggle between what man could conquer with his ideal head-contents, brain-contents, and what the gods wanted to reveal to him from heaven. This struggle was fought most fiercely and most gigantically in the true forms of what are called the Rosicrucian Mysteries in the Middle Ages. The impotence of modern man was felt to be a preparation for real knowledge. For it was something that could be felt as something tremendous, especially in the circles of true Rosicrucian initiation. The enormity consisted in the fact that the pupil realized, not abstractly, but vividly inwardly: You can, as a modern man, only enter into the world of concepts. But in so doing you lose the living essence of your own humanity.
And when the disciple felt this, that what the more recent times gave him could not lead him to what his true nature is, then it was that the disciple felt: You must either despair of knowledge, or you must go through a kind of mortification of the arrogance of abstraction. And already the Rosicrucian disciple, the true Rosicrucian disciple, felt something similar, as if the master had given him a blow to the neck to indicate that the abstract of the modern mind is not suitable to enter the spiritual worlds, and that the disciple must renounce mere abstraction in order to enter the spiritual world.
This was actually a great preparatory moment of what can be called the Rosicrucian initiation.