The Rudolf Steiner Archive

From a conversation with Kurt Englert-Faye

according to his diary entry: Dornach, February 25, 1933

With Dr. Steiner. I asked her to tell me the exact facts about Dr. Steiner's relationship to Freemasonry, since I needed to be clear about this in order to be able to counter the claim from the masonic side: that Dr. Steiner had been a mason and then, after he had come into possession of the “secrets”, had fallen away in order to fight them.

She gave me the following explanation of the context:

In his lectures on the most diverse subjects of anthroposophy, Dr. Steiner also described, among other things, various things that are also contained in the Masonic tradition in a certain way, without regard or reference to it, but out of his own spiritual research; for he only considered the results of his own research work to present. Now, among the many people who gradually found their way into the Society's groups, there were also personalities who were members of Masonic lodges, some of whom even held quite high degrees. These recognized the “maturity” by virtue of which Dr. Steiner spoke and the superiority of his knowledge. They went to him and asked him, as their “master”, to renew the spiritual striving in accordance with today's needs of consciousness, which had been alive as an original impulse in the masonic traditions.

So this demand from the outside world was presented to Dr. Steiner as a karmic task to be solved, no different than his commission at the time to collaborate on the Goethe Archives in Weimar and to edit the scientific writings of Goethe for the great Weimar Edition.¹ And just as Dr. Steiner did not pursue Goethe philology in his Goethe research, but rather further developed the tendencies inherent in Goethe's ideas and thoughts, leading them further in a contemporary and spiritually appropriate “renewal”. He also took the essential core of the former Masonic impulse and allowed its formative forces to unfold further, in accordance with the spiritual laws of our time. Wherever spiritual science takes up an existing tradition, it is never a matter of adopting a tradition, but of realizing spiritual succession. In this case, too, the introduction of renewal took place while observing the given forms, just as it had been the case with the development of Goetheanism into modern spiritual science. On the surface, Dr. Steiner worked in Weimar in the same arena and with the same means as the Goethe philologists, but inwardly something completely different happened. They preserved, but he metamorphosed. Just as Rudolf Steiner was, so to speak, scientifically legitimized for Weimar through the recommendation of Karl Julius Schröer (besides his doctorate), so it was also necessary with regard to masonry to “tie in with what already existed,” as he himself often said later. In this case, this meant that he acquired a charter, the authorization, the external “historical” legitimization to be able to work in this field. (A process comparable, in its way, to acquiring a doctorate from any present-day university in order to obtain all the associated rights.)

The middleman from whom the charter was purchased was now a certain Reuß. It was a providential real-symbolic character that the decadence of historical Freemasonry presented itself personally as this Reuß, who at the time represented the institution as an official representative, fully recognized and authorized. ² It was only later that the Freemasons banned Reuß as a fraud and charlatan.

The only contact between Dr. Steiner and the Freemasons was the acquisition of the charter. Rudolf Steiner himself was never a Freemason and never received any directives from them.

The fact that some Freemasons present a different version of events does not change the facts and may be due to the fact that, as custodians of a traditional “dead” wisdom, the spiritual autonomy and sovereignty of Rudolf Steiner is just as repugnant to them as the Goetheanism, which has been developed into spiritual science, is to the administrators of Goethe's literary estate, who have also taken it upon themselves to discredit Dr. Steiner's achievements as the editor of the scientific writings.

Marie Steiner to C.S. Picht in Stuttgart

the editor of the journal “Anthroposophie”, in connection with the essay “Was Rudolf Steiner a Freemason?”, Dornach, March 11,

... Must all Freemasons be traitors? What about Frederick the Great, Field Marshal Blücher, Wilhelm I and Emperor Frederick, and countless other German princes and generals? Should they all be pilloried, along with the countless still living who have belonged to German Masonic circles?

The first person to destroy the preserved document that gave him the right to work independently was Rudolf Steiner, right at the outbreak of the war. He declared that this work had been irrevocably dissolved. What had it consisted of? In the interpretation of the symbols and some fundamental features of the ceremony from the point of view of spiritual science. In order to be able to do this honestly, he needed to have the right to do so. This right was offered to him by fate, because some Masons thought that it would help them to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. The gentleman bearing the title of Grand Master, who had the right to grant such a document, was not the sort of person with whom Rudolf Steiner would have wished to maintain further relations. So Rudolf Steiner's condition was: no relations of any kind whatsoever, except the payment of the due fees. And that suited the gentleman very well.

But what the detractors want to make of this fact, which is described in Rudolf Steiner's “Course of My Life,” is affiliation with such associations that have political intentions, even those whose goal is the destruction of Germany. It is a shameless, irresponsible lie. But what else can be done in a world where the lie is so powerful than to call it by its own name?

The only time Rudolf Steiner attended a masonic ceremony was the funeral service for Joachim,³ and there were so many military people present, but also ladies, that this is really not enough to be accused of supranational machinations. (...)

Can you refute claims that are plucked out of thin air? In his book, a Mr. Huber calls Mr. Reuß the inspirer of Rudolf Steiner.⁴ If I were to claim that Mephistopheles is the inspirer of Mr. Huber, he could hardly bring me the necessary documents to prove to me that this is not the case. However, it is likely that this is the case to a certain extent, but there was never any inspiration of Dr. Steiner by Mr. Reuss.

Dr. Steiner had to acquire the external right to save a certain spiritual content, which was expressed in time-honored symbols, from complete corruption, in that, let us say, Mephistopheles took possession of these things through people who were subject to his influence and were in Masonic associations. Someone who sees through such things also tries to protect spirituality from being robbed by evil forces, and to do so he makes many sacrifices. Rudolf Steiner was the first to point out certain political intentions behind certain secret societies, and the members of many so-called secret societies, such as the Freemasons, are unsuspecting of them. ⁵ Therefore, objective education was needed, but not fanatical, defamatory agitation that sees ghosts and itself pursues political purposes with it.

Most German Freemasons are certainly quite unsuspecting and incredulous regarding the hidden intentions of a few circles. Their feelings will also turn against Dr. Steiner because he has spoken some serious words of warning about it. Thus, the one who knows must expose himself to the hatred of all circles and let the “crucify him” resound over him.

Freemasonry, too, is accused of blasphemy and denial of Christ. Dr. Steiner's entire life's work is dedicated to the task of bringing the Christ impulse closer to human understanding, to make it come alive again in a time when materialism threatened to suffocate it and the godless movement began. This is indeed proof against many assertions. But one must take the trouble to study such evidence.

The most compelling evidence against everything that is untruthful about him and has been raised by spiteful enemies lies in a serious and conscientious study of Rudolf Steiner's works.

• 1. Cf. Footnote 2) on page 25.
• 2. It should be noted here that Reuß was only recognized by Yarker, but not by regular Freemasonry.
• 3. Cf. footnote 2) on page 97.
• 4. Engelbert Huber, “Freimaurerei. A World Power Behind the Scenes», Stuttgart 1934. This book claims that Rudolf Steiner was commissioned by Theodor Reuß to work out a ritual for the Memphis-Misraim Order in Germany. This is refuted by the documents in the present volume. In addition to this, Rudolf Steiner's remark in the lecture Dornach, October 11, 1915, is worth mentioning: “Occult brotherhoods also made various suggestions to me; and when a very respected occult brotherhood suggested that I participate in the spread of an occult organization that also called itself a Rosicrucian, I left it unanswered.”
• 5. See in particular the lectures from the war years 1916/17 “Zeitgeschichtliche Betrachtungen”, two volumes GA 173/74.

On the meaning and spiritual origin of the cult of knowledge

It is quite impossible to make real progress in penetrating into higher worlds without going through the stage of imaginative knowledge.¹

The motif of the temple in Goethe and in Rudolf Steiner is to be a vessel for supersensible worship, which Goethe has performed by the three kings and which Rudolf Steiner has performed at the three altars.²

One important reason for working with cultic symbolism at all lies in the original knowledge that events in the higher world immediately adjacent to the physical world - the astral or imaginative world - express themselves in symbolic images that correspond to astral facts just as what is seen in the physical world corresponds to physical facts. In this sense, symbolic-cultic work can be seen as a practical tool for becoming familiar with the astral world. Rudolf Steiner once emphasized that the higher worlds cannot be penetrated in any other way than through symbolic representations. Literally it says: “In the various occult currents of the present time, the opinion prevails that there are other ways of ascending into the higher worlds than by using imaginative and symbolic images. And for people of the present time, ascending to the astral world with the help of symbolic signs or other occult means of education is associated with a certain fear, even aversion. If one raises the question: Are such states of fear justified? - one can say: Yes and No. - In a certain respect they are justified, in another respect they are completely out of place, because no one can really come up into the higher worlds without passing through the astral world.” (Cologne, December 29, 1907).

Regarding the statement about the spiritual origin of the cult of knowledge in the letter of August 15, 1906 (p. 68): “This ritual cannot be any different than the reflection of what is the fact of the higher planes,” there is an important addition in lectures from 1924, in which this fact of the higher planes is described as follows: “At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, hovering very close by, of course, I mean in terms of quality, to the physical-sensuous world, there is a supersensible event which presents supersensible acts of worship, powerful developments of images of spiritual life...” These illuminated Goethe's spirit in miniature images and were shaped by him into his ” Fairytale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily (Dornach, September 16, 1924). One of the central motifs of this fairy-tale is the temple with the three kings, the representatives of wisdom, beauty, power or strength; also characterized by Rudolf Steiner as representatives of initiation: the golden king for the imagination, the silver king for the cognitive faculty of objective feeling, the brazen king for the cognitive faculty of the will (Berlin, October 24, 1908). The three altars with their servants are in line with this, both in the cult of knowledge and in the temple scenes of the mystery dramas. And if the letter of August 15, 1906, goes on to say that the ritual recognized by occultism for 2300 years ³ was prepared by the masters of the “Rosicrucians” according to European standards, the connection with supersensible cult appears in the following words: “The Rosicrucians said: Shape the world so that it contains wisdom, beauty and strength, then wisdom, beauty and strength are reflected in us. If you have devoted your time to this, you yourself will emerge from this earth with the reflection of wisdom, beauty and strength. Wisdom is the reflection of the manas; beauty, devotion, kindness is the reflection of the budhi; strength is the reflection of the atma. ... Man advances on earth, not by idle contemplation, but by assimilating wisdom, beauty and strength from the earth.

Goethe's riddle-tale, as it has often been called, was written at the end of the 18th century (1795). A century later, in 1899, as the so-called Kali Yuga, the spiritually dark age, came to an end and a spiritually bright age was to begin again, Rudolf Steiner grasped the far-reaching decision to bring the esoteric that lived in him to public display, in the sense of the decisive word for the whole event in Goethe's fairy tale, “It is time!” And true to the esoteric law of maintaining continuity, he took up the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily, the images of which had been his meditation for twenty years. On August 28, 1899, the 150th anniversary of Goethe's birth, he published the essay “Goethe's Secret Revelation” and a year later, in the fall of 1900, he continued the interpretation of the Goethean apocalypse begun in it in a lecture given to the Berlin Theosophists and now became “completely esoteric”. ⁴ Twenty years later, on the eve of the first event in the first Goetheanum building, the so-called first college course, he referred to this lecture as the “primordial cell” of the anthroposophical movement, looking back on its development (Dornach, September 25, 1920).

This probably meant not only that the anthroposophical movement had its external beginning with this lecture, but also, unspoken, that at that time the realization of the central demand of the Goethe fairy tale had begun: to bring the mysteries - the temple - out of the hidden into the full light of day, that is, into the public sphere. For it was in this deeper sense that anthroposophical spiritual science was developed as the herald of the spiritually bright age that had dawned for humanity. And that is why, in the last year of his lecturing activities, Rudolf Steiner said the following, which is so important in connection with the description of the supersensible cult: “What is anthroposophy in terms of its reality? Yes, my dear friends, when you see through all the wonderful, majestic imaginations that existed as supersensible worship in the first half of the 19th century [and also at the end of the 18th century], and translate that into human concepts, then you have Anthroposophy” (Dornach, July 8, 1924).

Thus, a straight line leads from the perception of the cult in the supersensible world - which is undoubtedly connected with the ancient ritual prepared by the masters of the Rosicrucians for European conditions - through the Goethe fairy tale to the translation of these images of spiritual life into the scientific concepts of anthroposophy and to the design of the cult of knowledge.

In this sense, Rudolf Steiner brought the cult of knowledge, with its three altars, which Marie Steiner describes as the signs and seals of his work, “out of the depths of the temple in which they have stood since the beginning of mystery religions” and handed it over to “mankind” ($. 486).

Why the cult of knowledge was cultivated in fraternal union

It is not the one and the other and the third, but something completely new that arises through union.⁵

To answer the question of why cult symbolism is used in fraternal associations, certain spiritual facts must be taken into account. One is the nature of such associations, which Rudolf Steiner characterized in his lecture on brotherhood and the struggle for existence, given in Berlin on November 23, 1905, one day before he entered the Memphis-Misraim Freemasonry:

"Unity means the possibility of a higher being expressing itself through the united members. This is a general principle in all life.” Five people who are together, thinking and feeling in harmony with each other, are more than 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1; they are not merely the sum of the five, just as our body is not the sum of the five senses, but the living together, the living into each other means something very similar to the living into each other of the cells of the human body. A new, higher being is in the midst of the five, even in the midst of two or three. “Where two or three are united in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” It is not the one and the other and the third, but something completely new that arises from the union. But this can only come about if the individual lives in the other, if the individual draws his strength not only from himself but also from the others. But this can only happen if he lives in the other selflessly. Thus human associations are the mysterious places into which higher spiritual beings descend in order to work through individual people, as the soul works through the members of the body.

In our materialistic age, this is not easily believed, but in the spiritual scientific world view, it is not merely something figurative, but highly real. Therefore, the spiritual scientist is not just talking about abstract things when he speaks of the folk spirit or the folk soul or the family spirit or the spirit of another community. You cannot see this spirit at work in an association, but it is there, and it is there through the brotherly love of the personalities working in this association. Just as the body has a soul, so a guild, a brotherhood, also has a soul, and I repeat once again, it is not just a figure of speech, but is to be taken as a full reality.

The magicians are the people who work together in the brotherhood because they attract higher beings into their circle. There is no longer any need to invoke the machinations of spiritualism when working together in a community with brotherly love. Higher beings are manifesting themselves there. When we give ourselves up in the brotherhood, this giving up, this merging into the whole, is a strengthening, a fortification of our organs. When we then act or speak as a member of such a community, it is not the individual soul that acts or speaks in us, but the spirit of the community. This is the secret of the progress of future humanity, to work out of communities. Just as one epoch replaces another and each has its own task, so it is also with the medieval epoch in relation to our own, with our epoch in relation to the future. The medieval brotherhoods were active in the practical side of life, in the foundation of the useful arts. They only showed a materialistic life after they had preserved their fruits, their basis of consciousness, namely brotherhood, but had more or less disappeared after the abstract principle of the state, the abstract, spiritual life had taken the place of real empathy. It is incumbent upon the future to found brotherhoods again, and to do so out of the spiritual, out of the highest ideals of the soul. Human life has so far produced the most diverse associations; it has given rise to a terrible struggle for existence, which today has almost reached its peak. The spiritual-scientific world view aims to develop the highest goods of humanity in the sense of the brotherhood principle, and so you see that the spiritual-scientific world movement is replacing the struggle for existence with the brotherhood principle in all fields. We must learn to live a life of community. We must not believe that one or the other is capable of carrying out this or that.

Everyone would like to know how to combine the struggle for existence and brotherly love. That is quite simple. We must learn to replace struggle with positive work, to replace war with the ideal. Today, however, people understand too little what this means. We do not know what fight we are talking about, because we only talk about fights in life in general. There is the social fight, the fight for peace, the fight for the emancipation of women, the fight for land and so on, everywhere we look we see fight.

The spiritual scientific worldview now strives to replace this struggle with positive work. Those who have embraced this worldview know that fighting in any area of life does not lead to real results. Seek to introduce into life that which proves to be right in your experience and knowledge, to assert it without fighting your opponent. It can, of course, only be an ideal, but there must be such an ideal to be introduced into life today as a spiritual-scientific principle. People who attach themselves to other people and use their strength for the benefit of all are the foundation on which a fruitful development into the future can be built. The Theosophical [or Anthroposophical] Society aims to be exemplary in this respect. It is therefore not a propaganda society like others, but a brotherhood. In it, one works through the work of each individual member. One must only understand this correctly. The one who works best is not the one who wants to enforce his opinion, but the one who sees what he sees in his fellow brothers; who searches the thoughts and feelings of his fellow human beings and makes himself their servant. He works best within this circle, which can implement in practical life, not sparing one's own opinion. If we try to understand in this way, that our best powers arise from union and that union is not to be held merely as an abstract principle, but above all to be practiced in a theosophical way in every action, in every moment of life, then we will make progress. We must only not be impatient in this progress."

Another spiritual fact on which communal work on cult symbols is based is that the powers of thought developed through genuine cult symbols, when thought through long periods of time, increase to such an extent that they become external reality in later times. In this way progress is effected. For everything happens from within, not from without: “What is thought and feeling in one period is outer form in the following period. And the individualities that guide the evolution of humanity must implant the thought forms that are to become outer physical reality many millennia in advance. There you have the function of thought forms, which are stimulated by such symbolic images as Noah's Ark, the Temple of Solomon, and the four apocalyptic creatures man, lion, bull, eagle. ... Images that guide people when they surrender to them... to take part in the world that directly borders on theirs,” as it says in the lecture Cologne, December 28, 1907, in which the transformation of the human body is described as a prime example of how the ideas of Noah's Ark and Solomon's Temple are brought about.

These spiritual scientific insights also provide a concrete background for the following statement about Freemasonry: “If you ask me what Freemasonry actually consists of, I have to tell you in abstract terms: Freemasonry consists in its members thinking ahead, for several centuries, of the events that should advance the world, “which, however, has already been realized to a large extent today (Berlin, January 2, 1906).

If the whole of progress is served by symbolic-cultic fraternal cooperation, then the progress of the individual is also served. The fact that Rudolf Steiner points out that real consciousness of immortality is bound to practical fraternity, for the decisive law for the real consciousness of immortality is: Only that which a person does not do for himself alone in order to attain it contributes to the development of the consciousness of immortality, to a spiritual survival filled with full consciousness (Berlin, December 23, 1904).

As is well known, realizing ideals requires a great deal of patience. Rudolf Steiner spoke about this in an instructive and consoling way in a lesson in the following way:

Instruction lesson, Berlin, October 28, 1911

Perhaps there are some among you who feel oppressed because they cannot yet apply what they have learned here in their lives to their outer work, so that they can only keep taking in spiritual teachings and now have to ask themselves: Am I perhaps a spiritual hedonist? The wise masters of the East give us this answer: When spiritual teachings are assimilated, something happens that also lasts for all eternity. The spiritual development of humanity could not be furthered by the “spirits of the past” - whether people who lived in the distant past or gods who preceded us in their earthly development - if there were no souls into which they could pour these teachings. It is like the seed of a plant: as long as it is still inside the flower or ovary, it has no value; only when it enters the earth can it flourish. Of much more importance for the development of the earth are the people who allow works of art such as the Sistine Madonna, Faust and so on to have an effect on them than the artists themselves. If Raphael had only painted the [Sistine] Madonna and no one else had ever seen it, it would have been significant only for him, but not for eternity. Only by allowing people to be affected by works of art or other intellectual products is something created that will outlast the earth and be taken into the Jupiter state. The creator is not the most important thing; by far the most important are the viewers, readers and so on. If someone who creates a work of art or writes a book receives the inspiration for it from the spiritual world, then, until the moment of conception, it also has an eternal meaning for him. But as soon as he sets to work with pen or brush, he works only for the temporal, it has meaning only for him. Everything that is produced for the world is temporal. Only that which is inspired in human souls remains. The greatest weight is therefore not where one would expect it to be according to ordinary intellectual judgment. That the evangelists wrote the Gospels was significant for them, but it would mean nothing for eternity if there had not been innumerable hearts on which these Gospels had an effect. It is infinitely better to read a good book from an earlier time and let it have an effect on you than to write a bad book yourself. Those who believe they have to achieve something in the world should wait until their karma calls them to this or that work. And those who, for example, have had a spiritual vision and wonder whether they should share it with the world can apply the following criterion: If sharing it gives them joy, then they should certainly refrain from doing so. Only that which causes pain when communicated has value. Humorists who enjoy their ideas do not produce anything that has meaning for humanity; only those who have painfully relived the folly of men and have risen to their humor from it give something lasting in history. Nothing but “devotion to the spiritual world” can make a work fruitful in the world.

People may have accumulated treasures and feel the need to use them again for the benefit of humanity, but without occult insight it is impossible to know whether one or the other philanthropic institution will serve the good or the misfortune of people after a short time. No matter how many Samaritan deeds are performed and how many people are made happy, it could be, and without the devotion to the spiritual world just mentioned, it is even very likely, that great harm will be done, for instance to the children of those people, that is, to the next generation.

Here, in our lodge, because people are present with their thoughts, more is being done for the good of the world than all philanthropic work. Physical values are destroyed by using them for oneself; spiritual values, on the other hand, are created by absorbing them. Thus, the creator himself is not the most important thing at all. If one were to go back to the Akasha Chronicle to the age of Raphael, Michelangelo and so on, and pay attention only to them, one would not get the right picture. Likewise, if one were to only pay attention to what was in the souls of the great leaders of the mysteries when researching the Atlantean period in the Akasha Chronicle – which, by the way, is very difficult – one only sees the right thing when one pays attention to what was awakened in the hearts and souls of their disciples.

Anyone capable of writing a mediocre book is then also capable of understanding a good book from the past and will derive infinitely more benefit from it than from writing a mediocre book.

So it is not unauthorized enjoyment when the members endeavor to absorb what is offered here. Without this acceptance by the members, nothing could be done for the further spiritual development of people. Then people would have to fall completely prey to materialism; future generations would be sick in body and soul. The children born among us would not find the thoughts they need for their proper development in the spiritual atmosphere if there were no circles in which spiritual knowledge is received, even if it is not carried out. Materialism sins so much that one cannot do enough in this direction, that exaggeration is not possible at all. Even if ten or a hundred times more were studied than is really the case, it would still not be too much to make up for what is sinned against the world through materialism.

Regarding the name of the working group

It was a “cult of knowledge”.

For inner reasons, the working group had no actual name for Rudolf Steiner (see page 237). It was therefore sometimes abbreviated to “FM” (Freemasonry), sometimes to “ME” (mystica aeterna), and later, at Rudolf Steiner's express request, to “MD” (Misraim Service) (see page 94). For the present publication, the term “cult of knowledge” was chosen because it best expresses the essence of Steiner's intentions. It was in 1923 when he answered a question from priests of the “Christian Community” about the relationship between their cult and the earlier esoteric cult:

"The earlier cult was purely demonstrative. It was a cult of knowledge with degrees. The first degree brought the knowledge of the earthly man, showed man from the Lemurian time to the present, in the imagination. The second degree represented the relationship to the spiritual world, the third the secrets of the gate of death and so on. This cult was a non-temporal, interdenominational and interreligious one; only a certain degree had a Christian character. The use of this cult had to be discontinued because the demonstration character could no longer be made clear to the outside world.6

Even before Rudolf Steiner referred to the cult as a “cult of knowledge” in this question-and-answer session, he had pointed out the importance of knowledge for the cultic in his Dornach lecture of December 30, 1922, with the words: “For everything that is cultic must ultimately dissolve if the backbone of knowledge is lacking.”

Admission Procedure

Those approaching the institution were told in the clearest possible terms that they were not joining a religious order, but that as participants in ceremonial acts they would experience a kind of sensitization, a demonstration of spiritual knowledge. If some of the forms in which members were accepted into traditional orders or promoted to higher degrees were retained, this too had nothing to do with the purpose of such an order, but only to illustrate spiritual ascent in soul experiences through sensual images. ⁷

An example of how admission was sought can be found in a letter from the leader of the Munich group, Sophie Stinde, which Steiner passed on to Rudolf Steiner on February 24, 1908: “Countess H. would like to become a member of the FM. but wanted to ask you in Stuttgart beforehand whether she could join at her next visit or whether you thought it better if she waited. Since she did not get around to asking you in Stuttgart, I suggested that I should ask you. Since we probably have recordings, we could include her, if you don't think it's too soon for Grf.H. Miss L. was with us recently and repeated that she and Dr. W. would like to be included in March. Miss Kr. and Mr. R. also repeated the request. (...) We had thought of the work plan as follows: On the 17th in the evening, Lodge. On the 18th in the morning ES. - In the evening public lecture Man and Woman. On the 19th in the morning FM-admission. We would certainly have placed the admission before the instruction, since we know that you prefer it that way, but since there is a public lecture on the 19th in the evening, we must refrain from it this time, since the admission will be a very extensive one after all."

Depending on how many candidates were admitted, the admissions often lasted for hours; individual admissions were only undertaken in exceptional cases. Before the actual admission, there was a preparatory session in which the candidates were informed about the tasks and duties. Only two records of Rudolf Steiner's remarks in such preparatory sessions are available (p. 143f.). In exceptional cases, such preliminary meetings were also formally organized, as can be seen from a letter from Rudolf Steiner to Sophie Stinde dated June 10, 1908, which states: “St's are to be admitted to the FM this time. It will not do to have a short preliminary celebration on Monday for the FM. The most urgent wish of the St. is to be admitted precisely on his 50th birthday. Of course, the admission cannot take place until Tuesday – the day after his birthday – but one could briefly – perhaps without a lodge ceremony – hold a preliminary celebration of the admission on Monday, which would be specially arranged.

On the degrees

A truth is either known or not known. ... Therefore, the democratic principle is impossible in matters of knowledge.⁸

Regarding the right to work in degrees, one of the lectures given during the period of preparation of the circle states: “Truth is not something about which one can have opinions. One either knows a truth or one does not know it.... Just as little as one can discuss whether the sum of the angles of a triangle is such and such or has so many degrees, just as little can one discuss higher truths. Therefore, the democratic principle is impossible in matters of knowledge (Berlin, December 16, 1904).

In this sense, the working group of the Knowledge Cult was structured in degrees. One participant described it as follows: “It was an institution in which there were different degrees to which the participants were promoted, depending on the readiness of their souls for the content of these degrees, as determined by their karma. Promotion to a higher degree took place partly in forms that were also practiced in occult societies, for example in Freemasonry - but not in imitation of such orders, but because they resulted from spiritual research. ... It is easy to see that the esoteric impulses flowed ever more abundantly as the degrees rose, and that in the almost ten years of the events – right up to the outbreak of war – the experiences of these hours meant something tremendously profound for the development of the soul life of many participants.” ⁹

There were nine degrees in all, divided into three and six, forming two sections or classes, which, together with the so-called “ES”, formed the three sections or classes of the Esoteric School, as it existed from 1904 to 1914. In the first three degrees, the emphasis was on ritual acts; in the following six degrees, which, according to tradition, only a few belonged to, teaching was said to have been the main focus. The extent to which nine degrees correspond to the number of degrees that can be taught in a true secret training course today was once explained as follows:

”...Now it is very important to know that every occult fraternity is built upon the foundation of three degrees. In the first degree, when the symbolism is used in the right way (and by 'right' I naturally mean as I have just indicated for our fifth post-Atlantean period), the souls come to the point where they have a precise inner experience of the fact that there is knowledge independent of ordinary physical-sensory knowledge. And in the first degree they must have a certain sum of such knowledge independent of the physical. Everyone in the first degree today within the fifth post-Atlantic period should know approximately what is in my “Occult Science”. Everyone who has reached the second degree should know - that is, know inwardly in a living way - what is contained in the book “How to Know Higher Worlds”. And anyone who has reached the third degree and receives the meaningful symbols, signs, grip and word of the third degree already, knows what it means to live outside of one's physical body. That would be the rule, that would be what is to be attained.

But then there are people who arrive at the so-called high degrees, at higher degrees. Now, this is certainly an area where an enormous amount of vanity comes into play, because there is fraternization in which one can reach ninety or more than ninety degrees. Now just imagine what it means to bear such a high degree! The so-called Scottish High Degree system has thirty-three degrees, simply due to an error arising from grotesque ignorance. This system is built on the three degrees that run in the way I have described. So there you have the three degrees, which, as you can see, have their profound significance. But after these three degrees, there are another thirty. Now you can imagine what a high being you are if you are able to experience yourself outside of your body in the third degree, what a high being you are if you go through another thirty degrees after that. But it is based on a grotesque error of knowledge. In the occult sciences, degrees are read differently than in the decimal system: they are read in such a way that one does not calculate according to the decimal system, but according to the system of numbers that are currently being considered. So when you write: 33rd degree, in reality, according to the system of numbers that are being considered, it means: 3 times 3 = 9. ... Just because people can't read, they read 33 instead of 9.

Well, but let's disregard these vanities. There are still six degrees that build on these three degrees, and these are counted as legitimate degrees. And when they are gone through, they already give very significant results. But basically, they cannot be fully experienced in the present. It is absolutely impossible. They cannot be fully experienced because humanity in the fifth post-Atlantic period is not yet so far advanced that all that can be experienced can actually be experienced. For not enough has emerged from the spiritual worlds – I will not say in the way of knowledge, but in the way of the exercise of knowledge. This will come out only later.” (Berlin, April 4, 1916)

On the symbolism of the institution

In fact, Freemasonry originally emerged from the mystery schools through a betrayal. This is why many of the symbols found in Freemasonry can also be found here.¹⁰

The interior design of the lodge or temple has been handed down in detail only for the first two degrees, but it is likely that it was also largely the same for the third degree, at least: walls draped in black, which were transformed into glowing red in the final act, at the Rose Cross conclusion. ¹¹ On the east wall, in a blue square of cloth, there was a radiant sun with a triangle in the middle. On the ceiling was a lamp with a second-degree letter “G” made of gilded cardboard or sheet metal.¹² The floor was covered by a carpet in a black and white checkerboard pattern. At the edges of the large carpet were three altars: in the east the altar of wisdom (master), in the south the altar of beauty (2nd overseer), in the west the altar of strength (1st overseer). ¹³ Each officiant carried a herald's staff, presumably as in the Mystery Dramas. A large candelabrum stood beside each altar. A plumb line made of gilded sheet metal was affixed to the front of each altar. Furthermore, each altar had a candle, matches, scissors for cutting candles, a candle snuffer, a hammer and a trowel. A chalice belonged to the altar of the East, the so-called “Holy of Holies”; a censer with a bowl and an angle to the altar of the South; two compasses, a yardstick and a skull to the altar of the West.

At the altar of the East stood a cross with a wreath of thorns, which in the final act, at the Rose-Cross conclusion, was exchanged for a wreath of red roses. Close by stood a somewhat smaller altar with the 13th chapter of the Gospel of John open at the Bible, on which lay a gilded sheet metal triangle and a ladle that fit into each other. In the beginning, one had to swear at this altar not to reveal the secrets of the Temple. This was in keeping with an ancient tradition in occult contexts.¹⁴

Although this was also linked to the old, it was later abandoned, as reported by participants. For Rudolf Steiner, people in the modern age should be increasingly called upon to take personal moral responsibility in their esoteric lives. In the north, outside the large carpet, stood the two round columns Jakin and Boaz, also called the Pillars of Hercules. The left one (Jakin) was brick red; on top lay a hewn cube-shaped stone (blue). The right one (Boaz) was dark blue; on top of it lay an unhewn stone (red). Between the two columns lay the symbolic table, which Elisabeth Vreede's sketch shows as a “small carpet”, as it is also used in general Masonic lodges (so-called Tapis, Tableau). The participants had their seats on the north and south sides of the lodge room.

In the third degree, a fourth altar appeared in the north, as well as a coffin, just as in certain temple scenes in the mystery dramas.

The sketches for the first and second degree settings, as well as the detailed sketches and explanations, were done by the Dutchwoman Elisabeth Vreede.

Clothing

There is no authentic information about clothing. It is known that the apron (mason's apron, lambskin) was worn, and that Rudolf Steiner wore an alb (the long white priest's robe), over which a red cloak was thrown when the color of the room changed from black to red.

For the symbolic meaning of such clothing, see the remarks in the workers' lecture of June 4, 1924, reproduced on page 272 under “Zeichen, Griff und Wort”.

Regarding the rituals

Everything that was presented in terms of the content of “actions” ... was without historical reference to any tradition. In the possession of the formal diploma, only that was cultivated which resulted from the visualization of anthroposophical knowledge.¹⁵

All the extant ritual texts are summarized in the second part of this volume. It is known that there were also one or two smaller ritual acts: for example, the so-called baptism of fire in the fourth degree. Before a burning sulfur flame, the person in question was given the name that is appropriate for him in the spiritual world; ¹⁶ There are also isolated reports of marriages. But there are no texts for these small ceremonies. Presumably there were none for them, or no ritual text was necessary.

The rituals can no longer be reconstructed in their full entirety, insofar as they were determined not only by the wording but also, and just as essentially, by the actions, the implements, the clothing and so on. But there is not enough authentic information available about these.

At the beginning of 1913, after some members left the Erkenntniskultischer Arbeitskreis in connection with the separation from the Theosophical Society and the founding of the independent Anthroposophical Society, and apparently betrayed some of it, Rudolf Steiner announced that it had become necessary to change the rituals as a result. In the notes from the instruction session for all degrees in Berlin on February 8, 1913, it says: “Because of this betrayal, it has become necessary to change our ritual and to transform it so that - while the meaning remains essentially the same - the rituals will nevertheless be different from before, so that they will not resonate with those of the others.” Another participant noted the statement as follows: “We were talking about those who have fallen away. In order for their thoughts not to resonate with our work here, it is necessary to change the ritual.” There is no original document for this announced change. However, one participant has passed on the extent to which the words spoken at the three altars have undergone a certain change (see page 170).

Ritual events only take place in places where appropriate rooms are available, such as in the anthroposophical centers in Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, Munich, Stuttgart, among others, but also in other countries. ¹⁷

On the explanations of the cult of knowledge and the symbolism of the furnishings

Theosophy is the inner truth of these ceremonies; it says what these ceremonies show, it has the spirit of these signs and images.¹⁸

The instruction or teaching sessions in which the rituals and the symbolism of the furnishings were explained and general spiritual scientific research results were presented, took place between the ritual beginning and the ritual end of a meeting. But there were also instruction sessions without ritual; mostly for one degree, sometimes for several, sometimes for all degrees together.

Since it was not allowed to take notes during such lessons, it should be noted that all the records handed down were made afterwards from memory and are therefore fragmentary or only in note form, and in terms of style, and possibly also content, do not always do justice to Rudolf Steiner.

In the present documentation, only those notes were included that directly refer to the cult of knowledge, the symbolism of the furnishings, as well as the temple legend and the golden legend. Since this information is widely scattered, it was extracted and assigned to the respective terms for a better overview. In some cases, where no explanations from instruction hours are available, illustrations from general lectures given later were included.¹⁹ On the other hand, notes from general spiritual scientific presentations were not included, since these can be found, for the most part, in better reproduction in the part of the lecture work that is already available in the complete edition, because they are based on stenographic notes.

Regarding the Temple Legend and the Golden Legend as they appeared in the rituals.

The nature of Hiram is in all of us; we must bring it to resurrection in us.²⁰

Legends as pictorial representations of esoteric truths play an important role in all secret teachings, since such images summarize a vast number of ideas and not only affect the intellect but also the feelings of the human being. In this sense, the two legends were of great importance because their images reflect the exemplary advancement of the Hiram individuality on the occult path.

The Temple Legend - of which it was once said that he who takes it up takes up something “that forms his thinking in a certain lawful way, and lawful thinking is what matters” ²¹ - appeared in two forms. The part symbolically interpreting the evolution of humanity was taught as meditation material when entering the first degree; the conclusion of the legend, referring to Hiram's death and resurrection, formed part of the initiation ritual into the third degree. The legend was repeatedly treated in instruction hours. The records handed down are summarized in the section 'Explanations of the Temple Legend'. The information contained therein about the re-embodiments of Hiram Abiff requires supplementation, since it forms only part of what may be called Rudolf Steiner's Hiram research in the field of reincarnation. This supplement is attached to the section 'Explanations of the Temple Legend'.

The Golden Legend – referred to in one of the traditional explanations as the “second” Master Legend – was symbolized by the two round columns, Jakin and Boaz. The text of this legend and the explanations that have been handed down can be found in the section “Explanations of the symbolism of the furnishings”.

• 1. From “The Stages of Higher Knowledge,” GA 12.
• 2. E.A. Karl Stockmeyer, a member of the working group on the cult of knowledge, in his essay “On the Unity of Temple and Cult in the Context of the Goetheanum Building Idea,” contained in “Bilder okkulter Siegel und Säulen. Der Münchner Kongreß Pfingsten 1907,” GA 284.
• 3. According to a note by Günther Schubert, Rudolf Steiner said that the whole thing goes back to Melchizedek.
• 4. "My Life” (Chapter 30), GA 28. Marie Steiner noted in a notebook (archive number 21): 'When Rudolf Steiner first came among people with the intention of lifting the veils of esotericism, he took Goethe's fairy tale as his starting point and spoke about the altars of wisdom, beauty and strength. He placed them in the temples of his mystery dramas and spoke to us again and in greater depth about their significance. And again he placed them in our esoteric school and had us approach the various aspects of thinking, feeling and willing, which are an expression of these altars, again and again.”
• 5. From a lecture in Berlin, November 23, 1905.
• 7. “My Life”, see page 95f.
• 8. Berlin, December 16, 1904.
• 9. Adolf Arenson in “Circular letter to the members of the Anthroposophical Society”, October 1926.
• 10. Instruction Lesson Berlin December 16, 1911, see p. 93.
• 11. Rudolf Steiner also indicated the transformation from black to red for the “Easter Night” from Goethe's “Faust”, which he and Marie Steiner staged.
• 12. It is known that the “G” had various meanings, such as “gnosis” or “geometry”.
• 13. At the altar of the east, Rudolf Steiner and Marie von Sivers always officiated together, while the other altars had alternating officiants.
• 14. See page 245.
• 15. “My Life Course”, see page 95f. of the present volume.
• 16. A baptismal ceremony with water took place in the first degree, see page 208 ff. of the present volume.
• 17. From documents in the archive of the Rudolf Steiner estate administration, it can be seen that there must have been translations of Rudolf Steiner's ritual texts (at least in part) into English and French.
• 18. From notes by Marie Steiner from the lecture in Bremen, April 9, 1906.
• 19. Evidence of symbolism in cultural history can be found in Joseph Schauberg, op. cit.
• 20. See the section 'Notes on the Temple Legend'.
• 21. Berlin, May 15, 1905.

by Marie Steiner

Rudolf Steiner's work ¹ points out that in ancient times there were mysteries, initiations through which human souls were elevated to participate in spiritual life. The impulses that originated there led to the great ancient cultures that are known to us today. There, secret knowledge was cultivated, the science of the spirit, which was in full bloom in those times and had the polytheistic religions as its outer expression. The advisors of the kings and the great leaders destined to form new cultures emerged from them. Within the becoming and passing away and clashing of peoples, their wisdom treasures formed the unifying bond. The results of each culture were guarded and preserved for the progress of humanity and passed on from generation to generation. They formed a second current alongside that which flowed directly from spiritual sources, but which faded from the consciousness of the majority of people to the same extent that knowledge of physical things gained in scope and precision. The soul lost the memory of its origin. There came a time when not only a single nation, but all of humanity would have fallen into decadence if the Christ event had not taken place.

Presenting the significance of the Christ event for the revival of humanity in its entirety is the task to which Rudolf Steiner dedicated his life. To do this, he had to draw on all the knowledge that human beings have acquired to date, and shine a light into all areas of this knowledge, the revealed and also the secret ones. The secret included the forgotten old mysteries: here, in a figurative sense, the debris under which they lay had to be cleared away, just as archaeologists do at the ancient buried temple sites. Above all, however, it was important to salvage the living substance that still permeated the mystery knowledge, which was based on ancient tradition but was increasingly ossifying or decaying in its human representatives. Ancient wisdom, without revival through the impact of Christianity, without an understanding of this greatest of mysteries, could only lead to aberrations over time.

Rudolf Steiner had a comprehensive insight into these interrelationships through the spiritual science he philosophically founded and organically developed. That is why he considered it his task in our time to make his knowledge accessible to them when he was approached by such circles, whether they are traditionally or newly inspired, who cultivate ancient secret science. He never sought out such circles, but where they asked for enlightenment and instruction, he did not refuse to give it to them. This was his service to humanity.

He initially rejected the efforts of representatives of the Theosophical Society, who would have liked to see him in their ranks, because the Theosophical Society worked in a one-sided orientalizing direction and in many cases in a scientifically dilettantish or psychically phenomenalist direction. In particular, however, it lacked the foundations for the knowledge of true Christian esotericism. It was only when the German Theosophists wanted to found an independent section under his leadership and thus also on the basis of Western Christian esotericism that he felt obliged not to withdraw this request.

When, after a number of years, Annie Besant, who later became president of the Theosophical Society, tried to prevent this work for a living Christianity, the Anthroposophical Society was founded and separated from the Theosophical Society. Rudolf Steiner describes the details of this process in his autobiography, “My Life Course”.

The other proposal came from the side that traditionally cultivates medieval Christian esotericism based on the ancient wisdom of the mysteries. It emphasizes the fact that its historical continuity goes back to the times when occult knowledge was cultivated in the ancient Egyptian temples. In the course of the centuries, these circles, with their many ramifications, took up whatever seemed spiritually appropriate and beneficial to them from the most diverse mystical currents, especially through the impulses of the Crusades, the masons' guilds, etc. They preserved themselves under various names as freemason federations, orders of illuminati, etc. But in the course of time the majority of them increasingly distanced themselves from their original knowledge and goals, then fell prey to rationalism and often to atheism, and gradually became associations that were partly political, partly commercial, and partly charitable. The disappointment grew ever greater for those who allowed themselves to be admitted to these associations in order to gain knowledge from the spirit there. Again and again, such disappointed people approached Rudolf Steiner to tell him that only now, through his publicly advocated spiritual science, had they found access to what was behind the symbols that no one understood. Many complained that they were serving falsehood by reciting traditional formulas that professed belief in a divine spirit, but were completely skeptical about their content. And one could encounter a great longing to experience something of the seriousness that must once have been associated with the old cultic customs. Freemasonry revealed itself as a declining tradition of the past, whose outer organism could be seized by opposing forces, and indeed had already been to a large extent.

But that which had remained true in these millennia-old endeavors, their spiritual content, which could not be killed, could and had to continue to serve the renewal of humanity in a transformed form. This was the task that Rudolf Steiner saw himself confronted with when a proposal was made to him from within those circles to found an independent organization by means of a historically and legally documented link. This proposal was made by a spiritually striving person who had come to believe that Rudolf Steiner knew more about spiritual matters than all of them put together. The proposal was then formalized by a party that was certainly more concerned with practical benefits and had a highly indifferent attitude towards spiritual matters. It was not Rudolf Steiner's task to snoop into this man's past, as it was not his intention to maintain relations with him. Not only the titled representatives of secret societies, but also those of ecclesiastical and other institutions often prove to be unworthy of their office. The fact that, as can now be seen from their writings, the various Masonic orders do not recognize each other is something that they probably have in common with other human institutions, and which requires a great deal of time and effort and also legal sophistry to investigate. Rudolf Steiner, however, had to take into account what is of decisive importance for every representative of spiritual truths: historical ties to an ancient and venerable spiritual current, even if its forms change over time, in order to protect it from decadence as far as possible. Its truth content could, if he agreed, be awakened to new life and, corresponding to the cognitive powers of the time, made subservient to the progress of humanity. In the language of the consciousness soul, the old symbols could revive and take hold of all of humanity in the possibilities of revelation through art.

Rudolf Steiner set one condition. He would carry out the historical-legal connection within the degree offered to him, through which he was allowed to continue the work independently, but that should exhaust the relationship. Not a single further claim could be made, neither in terms of collaboration nor in terms of human, social or organizational relationships. Nothing but an external, in no way binding formality should be carried out, not a single joint activity should take place! The newly founded and completely independent group, which was made up of those Theosophists who longed to approach this kind of Western esotericism, was introduced to the old symbols, first in their pictorial meaning, then more and more in their inner essence, until they had been digested in consciousness. In this way they were rescued from the mystical twilight and made accessible to artistic and scientific life. When war broke out in August 1914, Steiner dissolved the working group that had come together under the name Mystica Aeterna, and tore up the document that had been drawn up for it. ² They never met again in this way.

This is a precise explanation of the apparent contradiction that some people claim that Rudolf Steiner was a high-ranking Freemason, while others claim that he never belonged to the Freemasons at all. Rudolf Steiner never had any connection with the Freemasons. He is completely foreign to these communities and is even strongly opposed by them, because from the beginning of his theosophical-anthroposophical work, he had revealed in his teachings what they regard as their secrets, which give them weight and prestige. He reveals esoteric knowledge because humanity needs it, because it is a need of the time. But at the same time, he unlocks the understanding for it. In order to legitimately fill the old symbols with new life in a formally constituted working group that ties in with the historical current, he carried out an external contract and stood completely apart from any contact with Freemason brothers. Thus the term 'high-grade brother', which the enemies like to throw around, has been de facto misleading ever since it was no longer possible for them to make him a Jew. Since Rudolf Steiner had no connection whatsoever with any Masonic order, but this term is intended to create the impression that he belonged to these organizations, the aim is to create a misleading impression. The aim of this deception is to prevent people from engaging with the spiritual science founded and developed by Rudolf Steiner. If they were to do so, the contrast to Freemasonry would soon become apparent. Rudolf Steiner, realizing that the spiritual nature of today's human beings can no longer inwardly affirm the mystery and that the mystery must be revealed, set forth his spiritual science in full public view.

In it, he has made possible a true understanding of Christianity and provided the way and the method by which the human being of today can fulfill his life's duties through an understanding of spiritual facts. How this spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner, which is not cultivated in secret circles and from a power-political point of view, but in full public view, is received in the consciousness of the present, will be of decisive importance for the destiny of the next era.

Marie Steiner,
née v. Sivers

Three Additional Versions of the essay “Was Rudolf Steiner a Freemason?”

I

It is very difficult to assert that Dr. Steiner had nothing to do with the Masonic movement. Dr. Steiner himself says that on page... of his “Life Course”.

The Masonic movement itself is a movement that has splintered into many organizations and fallen into decadence. It originally emerged from those currents that were still connected to the ancient wisdom of the mysteries. The original stream has been diverted into many tributaries and canals. They have all undergone their various fates and have partly strayed quite far from their original goal, the pursuit of knowledge.

Dr. Steiner's endeavor has now been to uncover the pure sources of the esoteric teachings again, to let them flood before our soul's gaze in their historical course, to free them from the debris that has gradually settled in them, to show how, despite debris and periodic cloudiness, the pure original forces have again and again sought new paths to give their invigorating, progress-inducing effect to humanity. Rudolf Steiner places the Mystery of Golgotha at the center of humanity's spiritual-historical development, with the power that we know from his writings and lectures. All ancient mystery wisdom tended towards this climax; all subsequent mystery wisdom, revived and reborn through this power current, wrestled for the means, prepared the paths by which not only the yearning of the heart of humanity could be satisfied in a religious way, but also the understanding of the Christ impulse within humanity could gradually be developed.

Rudolf Steiner devoted his life to this task to the highest degree. He worked creatively and impulsively in all three areas, which used to be a unity in the time of the cultures inaugurated by the mysteries: the religious, the artistic, and the scientific. He gave advice and support to all people who sought it in these areas, without distinction of the social context from which they might have come. Many earnestly striving Freemasons were delighted to recognize that in the Anthroposophy represented by Rudolf Steiner a light was given that opened up an understanding for much of what was offered to them in their lodges in the form of images and signs as a traditionally adopted ritual. They began to understand better what might be meant by this. There were also those who suffered greatly from the temptations that some organizations had fallen into, to which their destiny had led them. They looked around for help. Out of such an impulse, a request was made to Rudolf Steiner to attempt to found an organization that could work out the pure basic principles of esoteric striving, free of all the accumulated confusion of the centuries. The way in which this came about resulted from the existing conditions, which were so very unsatisfactory. When organizations go to rack and ruin, the fault lies with the inadequacy of the people working in them, especially those placed at their head. This was the case here in a rather alarming way, and Rudolf Steiner wanted nothing to do with associations that were under such leadership.

That was the condition he set when he agreed to make a historically documented connection, by which he undertook to make financial contributions in return for absolute freedom and independence in the organization of a work that aimed to gradually lift the obscuring veils from the symbolic customs, which were now to be grasped by the forces of clear consciousness. Thus he did what he was constantly doing through his Anthroposophy: in the gradual removal of mystical veils and in the solid building up of the powers of the mind, which, through reason, increase to wisdom, he carried out the duty of the present-day human being to gain knowledge.

In doing so, he did something that he considered his duty to humanity. For him, it was a new burden, an offering. But every sacrifice also has its positive effect in the spiritual sense, in that new sources of knowledge open up to those who willingly take on the burden. And perhaps Rudolf Steiner would not have been able to utter many a word of warning, deeply rooted in truth, about the dangers of today's secret organizations if he had not included this, albeit from afar, in his general study of contemporary social phenomena. It led him to emphasize even more sharply and clearly than before that secret societies could no longer exist today, that the present state of development of humanity could no longer tolerate them.

Like every science, spiritual science also requires a gradual build-up, a step-by-step development of the powers of reason in order to lead to spiritual knowledge. In this sense, one cannot expect the beginner and the novice to have an understanding of the higher levels of knowledge. They must gradually open up to his consciousness, like the higher areas of mathematics, which are also still a secret to the beginner.

Rudolf Steiner's work is a public offering to humanity that leads step by step to higher knowledge. It lies spread out before us in his writings, lectures and artistic creations and has nothing to do with secret organizations, not even with masonic ones. The explanations he gave of time-honored signs and symbols have long since been superseded by the spiritual research results that he left behind in countless works for the human mind and for the human ego, which is called upon to be alert and wants to be alert.

II

Anyone who would take the trouble to study Rudolf Steiner's works without prejudice will soon see that here knowledge of spiritual things is being revealed that truly needs seek no other sources than those that open up to the inner self. He had assimilated school and university knowledge in a comprehensive way. Knowledge about the manifold conditions of life and its social interrelationships was brought by the alert eye for the things of life and the many relationships in which life placed him. They approached him, he did not seek them, did not need to seek them, because they were sought after him, because he had more to give than others, and because he gave with love, never with arrogance or reserve. He did not reject anything that approached him; even if it was inferior, “he alone weighed the good in souls and let evil find its atonement in the course of world justice”.¹ But he drew a sharp line at the effectiveness of evil and did not allow it to undermine the circles he was responsible for.

This attitude of mind explains, on the one hand, his tremendous forbearance and mildness, his willingness to help and his unconditional compassion, and, on the other hand, his ironclad rejection of all persistently harmful elements.

This is my attempt to explain why he did not immediately turn out anyone who was morally displeasing to him and did not allow any leeway for his influence. On the contrary, he tried to lead astray the erring and keep the right path by positive action. That was why he took upon himself the life of the Theosophical Society and why he did not reject the offer, made to him on the basis of his higher knowledge, to found an independent branch of high-grade Freemasonry. The Grand Master of that order made a thoroughly fatal impression; with him one could have nothing to do other than pay the usual fees in those circles. It was a short ceremony, after which the certificate was issued, which Rudolf Steiner tore up at the beginning of the war.

Perhaps this only paper connection gave him the opportunity to better understand many things inwardly, which he then repeatedly expressed in his lectures as a warning and to steer the formation of judgment in the right direction. Outwardly, he never had any connection with any order; there was never a joint meeting, never a joint discussion. Therefore, it is an objective untruth when, in a book such as... by Huber ², and in inflammatory writings of a lower caliber, the connection between Rudolf Steiner and Freemasonry is pointed out in a tendentious way. All the grand titles are listed. Well, he did not strive for them; it is the custom of masons to bestow the most supreme, most sovereign, most illustrious, etc. titles upon themselves; this is part of the tradition, the convention, and is in itself comical today, especially since for most only this empty shell remains. But that is precisely why a serious person and a person who knows is concerned about saving the core, which is being crushed and petrified by this shell. For Rudolf Steiner, only the core matter was important. That is why he was also completely indifferent to the extent to which the various orders recognized each other or not; whether the one offering him the certificate was a so-called secondary organization, a lodge in the shadows, or not. He wanted nothing to do with any organization. This was the strict condition to which Mr. Reuss, adorned with many titles, submitted. Rudolf Steiner knew before anyone else that the time of medieval and modern masonry had passed. He came before the world with the unveiling of occult truths because man needs them and because working in secret has led to abuses. But there is a power in the time-honored symbols, and they need not be abandoned because of outward decadent phenomena. They can be saved and preserved for humanity through art, for example. This is what Rudolf Steiner did. In his mystery poems, in his building, in some of the works of his students, this metamorphosis has become life and thus been made fruitful for humanity. This is the eternal value of the truths that must be saved from the decay of the outer form. Continuity in change. This is the justification for Rudolf Steiner's approach, which he faced as a duty.

The tendentious nature of the lies associated with this smear campaign is obvious. The Masons may have a legitimate reason from their point of view to fight against Dr. Steiner and have done so with all their might. The turning of the tables, perhaps also due to their hand, is a clever maneuver that may serve a variety of dark purposes. We do not need to shy away from the full light in this matter.

III

If anyone has recognized and stated at the right time that the time for Freemasonry is over, it is Rudolf Steiner. Not only does his life's work, Anthroposophy, bear witness to this, not only does he express it artistically in his drama (the representatives of the occult society hand over their symbols and step down),³ But in the first days after the outbreak of the world war, he tore up the preserved document as a sign and confirmation of his opinion that the days were over when Freemasonry could still be recognized. In order to be right in his conscience about such a rejection, he had a duty not to avoid contact with it. And how brief was this contact – soon dismissed when it revealed itself in all its hollowness. Such statements are not intended to affect the estimable members in the ranks, who – – – [the text breaks off here].

• 1. Published in “Anthroposophie. Zeitschrift für freies Geistesleben», 16th year, book 3, April-June 1934, Stuttgart, edited by C.S.Picht.
• 2. Anyone who delves into Masonic literature and is concerned with the truth should notice that Rudolf Steiner is never consulted at all (not to mention direct rejections), just as his writings are only represented by three random examples in Wolfstieg's large “Bibliography of Masonic Literature” 1911-1926, which, with 54,320 numbers, covers the entire holdings of the Masonic lodge libraries, only three random copies are represented (out of over 200 of his book-shaped publications!) - Likewise, an “expert” should be aware of how much such designations as Misraim, Memphis, O.T. O (Oriental Order of Templars) [see “Some Notes” under “Egyptian Masonry”] and the like, which the document mentioned and which were for Rudolf Steiner shells robbed of their essence, have long since become mere names.
• 1. Words of the Grand Master in Rudolf Steiner's second mystery drama “The Testing of the Soul” (1911).
• 2. Engelbert Huber, “Freimaurerei. Weltmacht hinter den Kulissen” (“Freemasonry. World Power Behind the Scenes”), Stuttgart 1934.
• 3. See Rudolf Steiner's third mystery drama “The Guardian of the Threshold”, 10th scene (1912).

I have asked you to attend a short discussion on occult questions, because one must acknowledge that anyone participating in the theosophical movement should be clear not only about the outward things that are dealt with in the programme, but also about the direction in which this theosophical movement can lead. Now those occult streams which are living in the theosophical movement are in fact akin, in a particular respect, to earlier occult currents. The topic we mean to broach today concerns precisely one of these, which still persists to the present day: Freemasonry.

You know that, at least until the late seventeenth century, any kind of female member was, for Freemasonry, strictly taboo.¹ At that time, there was a good reason for this. When the reason for the Freemasons having no female members ceases at some point in world evolution to exist, then the time will have come for the work of Freemasonry on the physical plane to be taken over by the work of theosophy. Pro tem, the work of theosophy is preparatory work. Men and women will participate in the theosophical work on the same basis.

If I were now to be permitted to say briefly why women had to be excluded from the activities of Freemasonry, I could only say that one does not exactly give away one's secrets to the opponent; one hardly sends him one's plan of campaign. That is not done in the conduct of any war. And we will see that Freemasonry is in a particular respect in opposition to the female world.

Freemasonry is the continuation of very ancient secret societies and brotherhoods. Such secret societies—at least in the form in which they survive in Freemasonry originated just at the very beginning of our fourth Post-Atlantean epoch, that is to say in the same epoch in which Christianity later began.

You know that the outward compilation of the Bible is rightly ascribed to only a few hundred years before the birth of Christ.² But the biblical revelation was a [living] tradition for thousands of years before that. It was not the custom in antiquity to write such things down; they were instead passed on from mouth to mouth. Therefore it can be assumed that the secrets which Moses entrusted to the priesthood were only later written down.

Now in the same period as that when the Bible first made its appearance in world history as a document, what is known as the Freemasonry legend also came to be compiled and to be circulated.

In world evolution it is always to be regarded as a law, that what happened earlier is later briefly recapitulated. Every human being recapitulates, in the maternal womb, the stages through which the [human] race has already passed. Every planet repeats, in its initial stages, the previously completed steps of its evolution. What has already gone before is always briefly recapitulated. So is it with the races, too. Hence, the first, second and third Post-Atlantean races [epochs] are the recapitulation of earlier earthly conditions, only in a specific higher realm.

What began with Lemuria, developed itself throughout Atlantis, and was recapitulated in our three cultural epochs in a specific higher realm. So that we thus have a recapitulation of what occurred earlier, in Lemurian times, in a less-developed realm. Before the system of two sexes originated, there was a kind of bisexuality, a single [combined] sex, in so far as in each individual both sexes were represented. For the separation into two sexes only came later; only then did male-female become male and female. On a spiritual level something similar is recapitulated in our epoch. Actually, that kind of knowledge and wisdom which pertained to pre-Vedic ancient India had a male-female quality, and thereby, at the same time, something quite unconnected with any kind of duality or with any kind of outward principle. Then came the civilisation of the second cultural epoch; this was pre-eminently a spiritual culture having two sexes. Dualism then appeared—Ormuzd and Ahriman, Good and Evil. All this now merged with man's cognition.

Now we want to clarify how that came about. It came about thus: in the beginning, before there was a separate male and female sex, there was a twofold sexuality within each single individual. We must now ask: What was it that could become fertilised, and what was it that did the fertilising, in the one single individual? In ancient Greek mythology Zeus is portrayed with ample female breasts.³ A truth expresses itself therein, which was known in the old mysteries and which we also learn from the records, that the sex—if I may call it that—which immediately preceded our own, outwardly and physically resembled not the male but the female gender. So that, before the outward separation, we have thus both sexes in one individual that outwardly—in physical expression and in all perceptions and being—was female. Therefore at the beginning of the human race, we have to do with a bisexual individual tending towards the female. Only later did the male sex follow. Now we must be clear that in this individual, which had both sexes in it, a fertilising agent, or male seed, was also present. Woman contained man within her. When we have grasped the fact that the woman had the male principle within her, then we can conceive, with our ordinary scientific concepts, that reproduction was ensured. We want to bear in mind that at this time this happened via the woman.

Now came the time when things had to go their separate ways. What character did the fertilising principle in the woman then have, which on the physical plane would fertilise the female nature? What worked in the female [body] as a seed, was the male; and that was the spiritual, the wisdom. Woman contributed the substance; the spirit gave [it] form. Any structuring of the physical plane is a realisation of wisdom. Wisdom worked in the female. Now the two differentiated themselves, in that the two things which had previously worked as one now appeared as two separated poles. What was previously united in a single human organ, divided itself, whereby a duality in human development originated. This duality came about thus: first, the fertility—the ability of the female egg to fertilise itself—within the one individual, ceased [to function]. The female egg lost the possibility of becoming fertilised from its own body. So we are now dealing with a female which has become infertile and, above everything, the spiritual. The division of the two sexes came about through the separation of the physical organs, and the other sex was now endowed with the possibility of fertilisation. Two individuals appeared, one with physical femininity and the other with physical masculinity. With the man, wisdom has a female character, with the woman, it has a male character.

The separation is a very definite event, that one can follow; we will now have to be satisfied, however, with [just] indications. We are dealing, then, with male-tinged wisdom in the woman and female-tinged wisdom in the man. This female-tinged wisdom is passive, suited to receiving, listening, watching—to taking in from the surroundings. The male-tinged wisdom, the active wisdom, [is suited to] being productive. Thus we have a two-fold wisdom; the female wisdom that is active and that naturally will also be transferred to the men. So that there may indeed be plenty of men who take over the female wisdom, the race [propagates] itself below [on the physical plane]; and above, we are dealing with an active intuition stemming from women, and with a passive cognition, decidedly male in character.

This figures in the old mystery teaching as the antithesis between the Sons of Abel, or Sons of God, and the Sons of Cain, or Sons of Man. Abel represents the female, active intuition. Therefore he is unable to take hold of anything from the outside world which needs to be worked upon. He takes up the divine, which streams through him, that flows into his intuitiveness. The ‘Herdsman’ symbolises that. He tends and nurtures life, while intuition nurtures the divine life of wisdom. Cain has the male wisdom that receives the outward. This [wisdom] espouses the earth in order to till it; the material is outside [himself]. He is the ‘Field-builder’ [Literal meaning of German der Ackerbauer = ‘agriculturalist’]. What does the wisdom of Cain now achieve? This science of Cain's that, being a passive science, only receives—what does it accomplish?

Now there is a very interesting and important legend in which these truths are symbolically expressed for the Freemasons. That is the Temple Legend. And the reason for it is as follows:

The Bible itself, the Old Testament, derives from the female, the intuitive wisdom, and bears its stamp. The Old Testament is female wisdom. Male wisdom was not able to attain to intuition. It confined itself to building and work. It took stones and constructed buildings. It took metals and made implements. The Temple Legend puts it thus:

One of the Elohim impregnated Eve and Cain was born. Afterwards, another of the Elohim, Jehovah, also known as Adonai, created Adam. And Adam begat Abel by Eve. This legend counterposed the wisdom of Cain and the Biblical wisdom, so that, by the beginning of the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch, we have two opposing currents: the Bible, representing womanly wisdom, and the Temple wisdom as its opposing male counterpart. Already, in pre-Christian times, what the man [male wisdom?] wanted stood in opposition to the female wisdom. Moreover, Cain slew his brother Abel. That too comes into the Temple Legend. Jehovah caused strife between the race of Cain and the race of Abel, and Cain killed Abel. That means nothing else ... [Some very obscure sentences follow here in the (German) transcript.]

What was the consequence of the appearance of this Cain wisdom? The outcome of it all was that the fruitfulness that propagated itself through its own wisdom was killed. By killing Abel the male knowledge in Cain killed the possibility of self-propagation, that had been brought into being by the gods. That means it is because knowledge has been transferred to the man, that the Abel in man has been killed.

That is a process in man himself.⁴ Through male knowledge the creative force, the Abel [within], has been killed. There now stand in hostile opposition to one another, the descendants of Cain and the race of those who were put in the place of Abel, the descendants of Seth. The descendants of Cain are those who use their masculine wisdom to build up the external world; the passive wisdom is applied to external construction. The divine wisdom does not stream down into it. Out of what is free, it must build in the world. It has no divine intuition. Through trial, through experience, results the harmonising of the purely mineral products of the earth. Thus Tubal-Cain is born out of the race of Cain and thus, later on, will Hiram-Abiff or Adon-Hiram be born from the same lineage.

I have reserved to myself …[See note].⁵

Among the Abelites, you find the strongest representative in Solomon. During the third cultural epoch all the representatives of the Abel line were priests. The ancient priestly wisdom was the intuitive wisdom which formerly worked in woman as the power of fertilisation, but was then transformed, at a higher level, to spiritual wisdom. Out of this priestly wisdom came the Bible; in this way the Bible came to be a feminine wisdom. This feminine wisdom is able to make great revelations about the Divine; and to say how this relates to the angels and spirits. The business of the Sons of Cain is to shape the earth. Thus the original father of all smiths is indeed Tubal-Cain. Therefore Solomon had to send for Hiram-Abiff, who could build the Temple for him. He built it for King Solomon, the inheritor of the ancient priestly wisdom; for him, for Solomon, who transformed this priestly wisdom into external power. Kingship, as an outward institution, derives from the rule of the priests.

Thus Solomon sent for Hiram-Abiff. And thus Solomon's Temple was built. But now the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon's court and a kind of betrothal was celebrated there between the two. Now the temple was shown to the queen, and she desired to be introduced to the builder of this marvelous temple. When she was introduced to Hiram-Abiff, something quite special happened in her. A glance from Hiram-Abiff fell on her, and that worked in her like fire. And then a second thing happened, as follows: She wanted to see the workers and to be shown how all this was accomplished on the physical plane, so Hiram-Abiff took the Tau Symbol, held it aloft and the workers all came streaming together like ants. Through this she [was so impressed that she] deserted Solomon [for Hiram]. Some of Hiram's apprentices, whom he had refused to make into Masters, came to Solomon's aid. Now they sought to spoil Hiram's masterpiece, the casting of the Molten Sea. Instead of it coming out as a work of art, streams of fire spurted out in every direction. Hiram-Abiff tried to quench it all with water, but all he achieved by this was a complete wreck. A rain of fire sprayed down on everything, including Hiram-Abiff. A voice called to him, however, not to be afraid, for out of this would come his greatest success. Then he was led by a figure to the centre of the earth. There he met Cain himself, to whom he had been led by Tubal-Cain, who founded the art of metal-working. Here an important wisdom was revealed to him. He was told: Now know the true Jehovah, who is the cause of your being here. Jehovah hates the Sons of Fire, and wants to destroy them; he wants to destroy his own creation. But you need have nothing to fear. To you will be born a son, whom you will not yourself see, but from whom shall spring a race, out of which a new fire worship will develop on the earth.—With the hammer which Tubal-Cain gave him, he was able to complete the projected Molten Sea, thereby rising still further in the Queen of Sheba's affections. During a walk, a bird appeared in the air, showing her the mystical Tau sign. From this the Queen's nurse realised that the wisdom of the future was hidden under this sign of the Tau. During a feast, at which Solomon became intoxicated, the Queen of Sheba took the betrothal ring back from his hand. Hiram-Abiff was however set upon by the apprentices and killed. He was only just able to write the secret word on a golden triangle and hide it. It was later retrieved and enclosed in a stone shaped in the form of a cube. The Ten Commandments are inscribed on this stone that conceals the hidden word.

That is the temple wisdom, which male science has counterposed to the female wisdom. These are things that need only to be clarified, to be examined as to their occult meaning, for their deep significance to be recognised.

Consider that Hiram-Abiff was brought before the original father of his race. He was told that Jehovah was the enemy of the Sons of Fire. Who are the Sons of Fire? They are those who could only come into existence after the separation of the sexes, through the penetration of a physical female by a physical male. Fire is the active principle in the male semen. In male semen lives fire, in the occult sense. Jehovah had to create this basic force, so that the race could propagate itself. Jehovah created the Sons of Fire, which was only possible on the basis of this [occult] fire. Hence he is the opponent of change. He it was, who cherished [?] the old kind of propagation. For it was an expedient [?] which had been created, and therefore he turned again to the priests and made them into his preachers. He caused the power and the glory of his own wisdom to be proclaimed through the priestly wisdom; through the priestly wisdom, Jehovah's wisdom came to be made known.

Hiram-Abiff is thus appointed to undertake the Molten Sea, which means the transformation of mineral kingdom through art. He was also told that a son would be born to him, who—even though he would not himself be able to see him—would bring forth a new race. This son is nothing else than the new race which will one day take the place of the old, the present one; the new race for whom it will no longer be necessary for two sexes to unite with one another, but will again be able to bring about propagation through the one human individual. This refers to a far distant future. The old female culture will be relieved by a male culture. The female, as a physical form, will die out. The male must then have the power in itself to produce another individual out of itself. And where is this power located?

Male and female used to be in one individual. And when these two separated themselves, an unfolding of today's individual took place. The upper part [of the human being] was formed. What [today] is the upper part was at that time combined with the sexual organs. The sexual organs of today are only half of the then [procreative] force. The power in the larynx is indeed the other half. Speech is not as yet creative, today. It has to be penetrated by the wisdom of Cain first, and then it must produce. When man has attained the power for his larynx so to develop that his word will be creative, so that he will produce his own kind through the Word, then the whole of the productive force will be transferred to the male. Then [the work of creation] which was once done by the gods, will be given over to man. When did the word come to be lost? When the system of two sexes originated. It was buried, hidden. The Sons of Cain had it only through the original father of their race. Hiram-Abiff was at least to have received the prophecy about it. However, he was killed immediately afterwards.

The Word lies buried, but it is still there. If it were not buried, man would be self-creative, just as the Elohim are self-creative. Therefore the ‘Word,’ of present-day Freemasonry is not the true Word but the false one. The true Word is concealed. The Ten Commandments are inscribed on the stone which contains the hidden Word. What are the Ten Commandments? They are the laws of the moral world order. They regulate the outer intercourse [of mankind], just as it now is—subject to the influence of a race having two sexes. Such laws will not be needed, when there are no longer two sexes. They are that human code which originated in the context of two sexes.

Thus we have, in Freemasonry, the preservation of the remembrance of the Lost Word, that those who work in Freemasonry must strive for, and which can only be gained when the passive male wisdom awakens activity in itself. The Freemasons therefore say: Everything which does not arise out of that generalised knowledge about the world, and proper to it, must then stem from the female priestly rule of ancient times. Rather than contenting ourselves with merely taking this over [conquering it?], we actually want to start on a new spiral of existence; we ourselves must give intuition to the male wisdom of Cain. That would be impossible if one took the female into the secret, which would take man's power from him. It would all be useless, the instant it was discussed in front of women.

It thus became necessary for the whole female sex to be excluded from Freemasonry. This hangs together with the link between the organ of speech and gender or sexuality. Therefore the man changes when he reaches puberty. The change [of voice] is nothing else than the expression of the former connection between the organs of speech and of sexuality. Now you too can grasp what the Freemason is saying: It is only the man who is appointed to utter the Lost Word at all and to re-establish it; only the male form of the larynx is in a position to say, to know, what can be regained through the Lost Word. When we grasp it in this way, one will understand why woman was not permitted to let the new pass her lips.—It is comic to see scholars give as the reason for this that women were not admitted because they blabbered out everything. The female larynx has remained, as a rudiment. It is the male larynx which will however form the organ of the future.

You see that deep and meaningful relationships are involved, and that the expression ‘Mason’ has to be taken as literally as possible. That is why the masons of Greek and Roman times were the builders of things made to express beauty. Cathedrals, temples and other significant buildings were built by these master builders.

The matter rests thus, that a part of what came to be accomplished by the Order of Freemasons had naturally to be taken over again from the old priestly wisdom. So, once again, we have an intermingling of womanly wisdom and male striving. In essence, the secret of Freemasonry is something which has not yet been revealed, which is not even there yet, so that it cannot be revealed, precisely because it does not yet exist. It is something which will be uttered when the word is once more imbued with productive force.

Those are a few words which will clarify the thinking of Freemasonry for the occultist. Up to the eighteenth century it was known that things were so. Only when the connection with higher worlds was lost did the consciousness of what was lost fade from Freemasonry too. And yet again, not so. One watered Freemasonry down, one said that one no longer knew its meaning. One must be clear, however, that everything which existed as symbols, was derived from the old priestly wisdom and that what is implanted therein, in the symbols, must still first come into the open. The true female wisdom is gradually becoming quite lost. Because of that, the so-called Higher Degrees of Freemasonry, which preserved the female wisdom, have been allowed to vanish. All that is still left is what is called Craft Masonry, which only concerns itself with worldly things, and only understands a little about them, in any case.

But that is, after all, quite natural; as materialism developed itself, then the priestly wisdom did indeed have to fade away. What can happen now? The old wisdom has gone away. We have to live in the external. What follows from that? This—that something better can come along again, only when a wisdom arrives which is again asexual, which is connected neither with the male nor with the female wisdom, neither with the female Bible, nor with the male Temple Legend. We find this wisdom in theosophy. In this wisdom both sexes understand each other. In it, the man that is in woman is at work on woman, and what is once more asexual is working on man. Male and female meet each other there in the knowledge of higher planes. It is therefore quite natural that the proper occult basis has come about in Freemasonry, and that a new start has been made. Something such as this is called a ‘vortex:’

In our time these things are thus intertwining in their influence. We must therefore think of them as interacting. Thus, theosophy has relied neither on the Biblical legend, nor on the Temple Legend, but asexually seeks the kernel of wisdom, that has to be restored again, in everything. Now you see how theosophy is the bringer of peace, the harmoniser.

How does this work together in our Root Race? Our Root Race recapitulates what already was there before. It brings the antithesis of what was already there in Lemurian times to meaningful expression in the spiritual realm. An opposition had therefore to come about, because the female sex was there originally, and follows a falling curve, whereas the male sex is in a rising curve, and is seeking in itself the procreative force which the female already has. When we remain in lower spheres, we have to make an exact distinction, through occultism: Whoever is racially an Atlantean man, need not also be Atlantean in his soul [qualities]. Hence, the soul is not tied to [a particular] sex either. The souls of the female gender work themselves through [this] until they can live equally with men in the bodies the latter have made out of and for themselves, and there will [then] be one sex on earth.

As long as men still stood in opposition to the female, they had to hold their tongues. The founding of the Adoption Lodges in the eighteenth century paved the way for the sexes to come together.⁶ The first of these was founded in 1775. A Freemasonry was practised in them, which had different symbols from the male Freemasonry. However, the induction of women in such Adoption Lodges of the male Freemasons did pave the way for the sexes to come together. The founder of our Society was indeed a [female] member of such an Adoption Lodge.⁷ What must be pointed to as the beginning of theosophy did indeed thus play a part in the matter. So, theosophy is a world task, connected with occult currents, and must take over where Freemasonry left off. Freemasonry could indeed still be reawakened, and could help us.

But the more profound thought is this: these one-sided male endeavours must be vanquished in theosophical circles. Throughout the Middle Ages there was a sublime preparation for spiritually engendering the opposite sex in man. Man developed in himself, by concentrating, at first as a thought, what had to become a reality in him later on. Therefore, as a preparation for this, the Cult of Mary resulted during the Middle Ages. This is nothing else than concentrating to engender the female in the male, while for the female the Cult of Jesus served the parallel purpose. The Cult of Mary had its origin in this foundation.

You will now see what confusion must result when an Order arose which broke with all this and sought to regain the female wisdom. It is world dominion which is at stake in this; if anyone wants to leave the old wisdom as it is, he will have to conquer the world for the old powers. There is such an Order: it is the Jesuit Order. It has consciously set itself this task. That is why the Jesuits and the Freemasons confront each other so sourly.

• 1 . See note 6.
• 2 . This was at the time of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity in the fifth century B.C. by the Hebrew scribe Ezra.
• 3 . There is a Zeus type, several examples of which are still preserved in Asia Minor, in which the upper part of the body is covered by a number of breasts or humps similar to the famous statue of Artemis Ephesia: e.g., relief sculpture of the ‘Stratios Zeus’ and the figures on coins, among which is the ‘Labrandeus Zeus’ from daria.
• 4 . See in this connection the later descriptions which Rudolf Steiner gave in: The Effects of Occult Development Upon the Sheaths of Man. (Rudolf Steiner Publishing Company, London, and Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1945).
• 5 . The shorthand report is unclear at this point. The conclusion of the sentence has two possible renderings:
  
  1. ‘I have reserved to myself confessing (erzihlen) a bias (eine Neigung) about those of Abel's race and those of Cain's race.’
  
  2. ‘I have reserved to myself achieving (erzielen) a unification (eine Einigung) between those of Abel is race and those of Cain's race.’
• 6 . In Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries by Charles William Heckethorn (Book 8, Section 2 1) we learn that:
  
  ‘According to one of the fundamental laws of Masonry—and a rule prevailing in the greater mysteries of antiquity—women cannot be received into the order ...
  
  ‘But we have seen that Cagliostro admitted women to the Egyptian Rite; and when at the beginning of the eighteenth century several associations sprang up in France, which in their external aspect resembled Freemasonry, but did not exclude women, the ladies naturally were loud in their praise of such institutions, so that the masonic brotherhood, seeing it was becoming unpopular, had recourse to the stratagem of establishing “adoptive” lodges of women, so called because every such lodge had finally to be adopted by some regular masonic lodge. The Grand Orient of France framed laws for their government, and the first lodge of adoption was opened in Paris in 1775 ...
  
  ‘Similar lodges spread over Europe, Great Britain excepted; but they soon declined and are at present confined to the place of their origin.’
• 7 . This refers to H.P. Blavatsky (1831–1891) who was awarded the highest adoption degree of the Memphis-Misraim Freemasonry in 1888 by John Yarker (see note 16 to lecture 9 of 16th December 1904) after she had published her first great work: Isis Unveiled.

May I speak to you today about something which is subject to many misunderstandings and about which many extraordinary errors are spread abroad. Most of you know that I have already spoken¹ on the same subject on the occasion of our General Meeting this year, and that, at that time, following an ancient occult practice, I spoke separately to men and to women. For specific reasons which could probably become still clearer from the lecture itself, I have departed today from this ancient custom, and, indeed, because the very thing that motivated me both then and now to discuss this matter is connected with the [prospect] that sooner or later—hopefully sooner—this ancient custom will be abandoned altogether.

I said: many misunderstandings have circulated about the subject. I need only mention one fact out of my own life to show you that it really is not exactly easy today to get beyond what are bluntly the bizarre and superstitious notions in existence about it. On the other hand, I need only say how easily, how unbelievably, one can put one's foot in it, when dealing with these extraordinary facts.

May I simply recall an incident in my life. Perhaps you will scarcely credit it, and yet it is true. It is now some seventeen or eighteen years ago² that I was in company with university professors, and some particularly gifted poets. Among the professors, there were also some theologians, from the theological faculty of the university in question. They were Catholics. Now, in this company, the following was said, not without foundation, and in all seriousness, that one of these theologians, a very erudite man, would not go out at night any more, because he believed that the Freemasons would be on the loose. The man in question represented a major department; but he did not tell the story, a colleague did. He went on to relate that while he was in Rome, a number of monks of a particular order—there would have been eleven, twelve or thirteen of them—had vouched on oath for the [truth of the] following event.

In Paris an eminent bishop had preached a sermon in which he had spoken of the terrible danger to the world of the Order of Freemasons. After the sermon a man came to him in the sacristy and said that he was a Freemason and could give the bishop a chance to witness a meeting of the Lodge. The bishop assented, saying to himself: I will, however, take some holy relics with me, so that I am protected.—Then a meeting place was arranged. The man in question led the bishop into the Lodge, where a hiding place was pointed out to him, from which he could observe all that took place. He placed himself in position, held the Holy Relics in front of him and waited for whatever would befall. What he then saw, was related in the following way. I emphasise that some of those in the company thought it all rather doubtful at the time.

The Lodge was then opened. (It bore in reality the name ‘Satan's Lodge’—though it had quite a different name in the outside world.) Then a remarkable figure appeared. By ancient custom—how he knew this custom, he did not relate—the figure did not walk. (It is indeed well known that spirits do not walk, but glide, so many believe.) This remarkable figure opened the session. The bishop would on no account divulge what happened next—it became too terrible—but he called upon the whole power of the relics and there was a rumbling like thunder through all the rows [of seats], the call resounding: We are betrayed!—and the one who had opened the session disappeared. Briefly, a brilliant victory of episcopal powers over what was to be done, one supposes.

This was discussed as a completely serious matter³ [in the company]. You can see from that, that there arc people today, perhaps gentlemen more erudite than many others, well-known people, who nevertheless take the view that this sort of thing can happen in Freemasonry.

Now what happened was⁴ that in the mid-eighties a French book appeared, which represented the secrets of the Freemasons in a most gruesome way, making them certainly more gruesome than secret. This book particularly revealed how the Freemasons celebrated Black Mass. This book was a ploy by a French journalist called Leo Taxil. He stirred up a lot of dust by bringing in a Miss Vaughan as a witness. The result of all this was that the Church found the Freemasons and their nocturnal intrigues so dangerous that they felt it necessary to found a world society against Freemasonry. A kind of council was held in Trent; although it was not a real council, it was dubbed ‘The Second Council of Trent. It was attended by many bishops and hundreds of priests; a cardinal presided. [The Congress became a major coup for Taxil.] But afterwards rebuttals were published, after which Mr Taxil revealed that the entire contents of his books, including the people mentioned in them, were his own invention.

You see, there are plenty of opportunities for incurring censure over such things. This was one of the worst cases of a body with a world-wide reputation doing so. From it you have to draw at least one conclusion; that hardly anything is really known about the Freemasons. For if something was known about them it would be easy to become informed, and then such rubbish could not gain currency.

Indeed, this or that opinion about Freemasonry predominates in large sections of the public. Today, to be sure, it is not all that difficult to form an opinion, as there is already a tolerably abundant literature, written partly by those who have studied many documents, but in part also containing things which the Freemasons would say had been brought into the open by turncoats. Anyone who concerns himself to any extent with this literature will draw some sort of conclusion from what it deals with. However, one can rule out coming to a correct conclusion from it, since it is still pre-eminently true what Lessing, who was himself a Freemason, said.⁵ When he was accepted, the Worshipful Master asked him: ‘Now you see, don't you, that you have not been initiated into anything particularly subversive or anti-religious?’ To which Lessing replied: ‘Yes, I must admit that I haven't learnt any such thing. I would in fact have been glad to do so, for then, at least, I would have learned something.’

That is the statement of a man who was able to consider the matter with the right understanding, and who admitted that he had learned precisely nothing from what took place there. You can at least draw the conclusion from that, that those who are not Freemasons know nothing [about it], since even those who are Freemasons know nothing of any importance. They generally get the impression that they have gained nothing in particular from it. And yet it would be quite wrong to make such an inference.

Now there is still another opinion, which has little to do with real Freemasonry. In a text appearing in 1875,⁶ the author claims that Adam became the first Freemason. One can hardly go further back than the first man in searching for the founder of an association.

Others claim that Freemasonry is an old Egyptian art; in short, that it is what has always been known as the ‘Royal Art,’ and this is indeed placed by some back in primeval times. Finally, many rites—for thus the symbolic ways and manners of the Freemasons are designated—bear Egyptian names, and so from these names you may infer that something deriving from ancient Egyptian culture is involved. At least the opinion is widely held, both in and out of Freemasonry, that it is something very ancient.

Now Freemasonry is something which can indeed provide people with scope for reflection. The name itself connects with two perceptions differing totally from each other. Some claim—and they are no very great party within Freemasonry—that all Freemasonry originated in the work done by masons, in the craft of erecting buildings; while the other opinion considers this to be a childish and naive conception and claims that Freemasonry was in reality always an art to do with the soul; and that the symbols taken from the work of masons—such as, for example, apron, hammer, trowel, chisel, compass, rule, square, plumb-line, spirit-level, etc.—are to be seen as symbolic of soul development. Thus, by the expression ‘Masonry’ is to be understood nothing else than the building of the inner person, the work on the perfection of self. If you talk with a Freemason today, you can then experience him telling you that it is a childish and naive outlook that believes that Freemasonry has ever had anything to do with the work that masons do. On the contrary, it has never concerned itself with anything else than these things: the building of the Wonder Temple, which is the theatre of the human soul, the work on the human soul itself, which has to be perfected, and the art which one must apply to all this. Now all this is expressed in these symbols, so as not to expose it to profane eyes.

Looked at from our contemporary standpoint, both of these views are wholly and utterly wrong, and are so for the following reasons. As regards the first opinion, present day man—in talking about the Freemasons having derived from the work of building—no longer conceives himself to be as significant as he properly should; as for the second opinion, that the symbols are only there to serve as metaphors for the work on the soul, this opinion—even though it is regarded by most Freemasons as something quite irrefutable—is, when properly conceived, a nonsense. It is much more correct to link Freemasonry with the work of building, not, indeed, as architecture or construction are thought of today, but in a fundamentally deeper sense.

Today there are broadly two trends in Freemasonry. The one is represented by far the larger number of those calling themselves masons today. And this majority trend claims now that all masonry is comprised in what it terms the so-called Symbolic or Craft Masonry. Its principal outward characteristic is that it is divided into three degrees, the apprentice, journeyman and master degrees; as for the inward characteristics, we will have something to say presently. Apart from these Craft Masons, there are still quite a number of masons who maintain that Craft Masonry is only a product of the decline of the great universal masonic idea. [They consider] it would be a falling away from this great masonic idea, if it is claimed that masonry comprises only these three Symbolic or Craft degrees; whereas in fact the essence, the fundamental meaning of Freemasonry lies in the so-called Higher Degrees, which are best preserved in the so-called Scottish or Accepted Rite, which, in a particular respect, still conserves [a relic of] what is called the Egyptian, the Misraim or the Memphis Rite.⁷

Thus we have two tendencies confronting each other: the Craft Masonry, and the Higher Degree masonry. The Craft- Masons claim that the Higher Degrees are nothing but a frippery based in human vanity, that takes pleasure in having something special, something spiritually aristocratic, with its ascent from degree to degree, and its pride in the possession of the eighteenth or twentieth or still higher degree.

Now you have already become acquainted with quite a bundle of things likely to lead to misunderstandings.

The Higher Degree Freemasonry traces itself back to the old Mysteries, to the procedures which to the extent possible we have described and will describe, in our theosophy; procedures which have been in existence since primordial times and still exist today, and which have preserved the higher super-sensible knowledge for mankind. This super-sensible knowledge, accessible to men, would be transmitted [by] those who could attain entry to these Mystery centres; for certain super-sensible powers were developed in them, enabling them to see into the super-sensible world. These primordial Mysteries—they have become something else nowadays, and we do not want to speak of that now—contained the original seed for all later spiritual culture. For what was enacted in these primordial mysteries was not what constitutes human culture today.

If you wish to understand present-day culture and immerse yourself in it, you will find that it divides into three realms—the realm of wisdom, the realm of beauty and the realm of strength. The whole extent of spiritual culture is in fact contained in these three words. Therefore they are known as the three pillars of human culture. They are the same as the three Kings in Goethe's fairy story of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily⁸ —the Gold King, the Silver King and the Brass King. This is connected with Freemasonry being called ‘the Royal Art.’ Today these three realms are separated from each other. Wisdom is essentially contained in what we call science; beauty is essentially embodied in what we call art; and what, in Freemasonry terms, is known as Strength is contained in the regulated and organised living together of humanity in the State. The Freemason subsumes all this in the relation of the will to these three principles, wisdom, beauty and strength.

What they [these three principles] were to give to humanity was in primeval times bestowed on the candidate for initiation by the revelation of the Mystery secrets. We arc now looking back to a time when religion, science and art had not yet become separated, but when they were still combined. In fact, to anyone who can see supersensibly, astrally, these three principles are not for him separate; wisdom, beauty and the domain of the will impulses are for him one unity—On the higher realms of vision there is no abstract science; only a science which exists in pictures, in that which has only a shadowy existence in the [external] world, and finds a shadowy expression in the imagination. What can [now] be read in books, in this or that record of the Creation [about the origin of the world and of humanity I, was not described; instead it was brought before the eyes of the pupil in living pictures, in magnificent harmonious colour. And what the pupil would perceive as wisdom was art and beauty at the same time, was something which stirred his feelings to greater heights than we experience in front of an exquisite work of art. The yearning for truth and beauty, wisdom and art, and the religious impulse as well, [all] developed themselves simultaneously. The artist's eye looked at what was enacted [in the Mysteries]⁹ and he who sought piety found the object of his religious ardour in these high events that were enacted before his eyes. Religion, art and science were one.

Then came the time when this unity split itself up into three cultural provinces; the time when the intellect went its own way. Science arose at the same time when the Mysteries which I have just described lost their importance. You know that Western philosophy and science, science proper, began with Thales. That is the time when it first developed out of the former fullness of the life of the Mysteries. Then also began what in the Western sense is conceived of as art; for Greek dramatic art developed itself out of the Mysteries. Whereas in India, up to the time of the Egyptian cult,¹⁰ one was concerned with the suffering and death of gods, with the great Greek tragedian-poets, such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, etc., we are dealing with individual human beings, who are images of the great Godhead. Through these human beings, the pupils of the Mysteries reconstructed the suffering, struggling and needy Godhead, thus displaying God to the human audience through their human imagery.

Whoever wants to understand what Aristotle meant by purification, catharsis,¹¹ must interpret the concept by means of the astral, by means of the secrets of the Mysteries. The expressions which he employs for tragedy [by way of explaining it] are a dim reflection of what the pupils learnt in the Mystery [schools]. Remember how Lessing investigated the soul forces of fear and compassion that are to be aroused through tragedy. That has furnished the material for many a great and learned discussion since the days of Lessing. [For the Mystery pupil] these emotions would be aroused in reality, when God was portrayed to him in his passage through the world. The passions present [deep] in the human soul were thereby straightforwardly stirred up and drawn out, just as one induces a fever and brings it to its culmination. This led to purification so as to be able to proceed to rebirth. All this appeared in shadow images in the ancient Greek tragedies. Just as with science, so has art, too, developed out of these ancient Mysteries.

It is to these ancient Mysteries that the Higher Degree Freemasons trace back their origin. In their higher degrees they have nothing else than an imitation of the higher degrees of the Mysteries, into which the Mystery candidate was gradually initiated. Now we can also understand why the Craft Freemasons insist so much that there should be no more such higher degrees. Actually, the higher degrees have more or less lost their meaning in Freemasonry in recent centuries. What has taken place in culture during recent centuries has been largely uninfluenced from this quarter. But there was a time when the great cultural impulses issued precisely from what Freemasonry should be. in order to understand this, we must look a little deeper into an age to which I have often referred already here, but now wish to mention in a masonic context, that is, the twelfth century of our European cultural development.

At that time occultism, appearing under a variety of names, played a much greater role in the contemporary culture than anyone could ever imagine today. But all these different names are no longer relevant today, and I will indeed explain why. By an example from Freemasonry itself, I will show you why these names contribute nothing essential to understanding the matter.

What I am now about to relate, anyone can experience if they become an apprentice Freemason; and, since these things are known, at least by name, I am able to speak about them.

A customary practice is what is known as ‘tyling.’ When the Lodge is opened and the Worshipful Master has taken his seat and the Outer Guard is at his post, the first question of the Worshipful Master is: Has the Lodge been tyled? The number of Freemasons who understand what this expression means are probably very few. Since the matter is simple, I can indeed give you an explanation of the term. At the time of which I am speaking, to be a Freemason meant to stand in vehement opposition to everything that commanded outward, official power. Therefore it was necessary to conduct the affairs of the Freemasons, with exceptionally great caution. Precisely for this reason, it was at that time necessary for Freemasonry to appear under various names which sounded harmless. Among other names they called each other ‘Brethren of the Craft’ and so on. Today Freemasonry has accomplished a large part of what it then set out to do. Today it is itself officially a power in the world.

If you ask me what Freemasonry is really about, I must answer with abstract words; it consists in this, that its members aim to anticipate in thought by several centuries the events that are to occur in the world; and to perfect the high ideals of humanity in a fully conscious way, so that these ideals are not just abstract ideas.

Today, when a Freemason talks about ideals and one asks him what he means by the highest ideals, he will say that the highest ideals are wisdom, beauty and strength; which, however, on further consideration, is usually nothing but a form of words. If at that time—or now indeed—the discussion about these ideals is with someone who actually understands something about this, then the discussion will be about something quite specific—about something so specific that it relates to the course of events in the coming centuries, in the same way as the thoughts of an architect building a factory relate to the factory when finished.

At that time [in the twelfth century] it was dangerous to know [in advance] what was to happen later. Hence it was necessary to make use of harmless sounding words, as a cover. And that is also where the expression originated, ‘Is the Lodge tyled?’, which means, in effect, ‘Are only those present who know the meaning of the things which have to be implanted in the future development of mankind by Freemasonry?’ For each had to reflect that they must never let themselves be recognised as Freemasons when they appeared in public. This precautionary rule, then essential, has been maintained until our time. Whether many Freemasons know what is meant thereby, is questionable. Most think it is some sort of verbal formality, or they interpret more or less astutely. I could give you countless more such examples that would show you how outer circumstances have led to the adoption of practical rules for which people now try to discover some deep symbolic explanation.

But now for the very heart of what was attempted in the twelfth century. That is expressed in the deeply significant Saga of the Holy Grail,¹² of that enchanted vessel which is said to have come from the distant East, and to have the power to rejuvenate people, to bring the dead back to life, and so on.

Now what is the Holy Grail—in Freemasonry terms—and what is it that lies at the bottom of the whole saga? We shall best be able to understand what it is all about if we call to mind a symbol of certain Freemasonry associations, a symbol misunderstood today in the coarsest way imaginable. It is a symbol taken from sexual life. It is absolutely true that precisely one of the deepest secrets of Freemasonry has a symbol taken from sexual life; and that many people who try to explain such symbols today are only following their own sordid fantasies when they understand these symbols in an impure sense. It is very likely that the interpretation of these sexual symbols will play no small role in times to come, that it is precisely this which will then reveal the parlous state into which the great ancient secrets of Freemasonry have fallen today; and on the other hand, how necessary it is in the present time for the pure, noble and profound basis of the Freemasonry, symbols to be kept sacred and unblemished.

Those of you who heard my recent lecture¹³ at the General Meeting will know that the true original significance of these symbols is connected with the reason for not allowing women to become Freemasons until a short while ago, and the reason for addressing men and women separately on these matters until [just] recently. On the other hand you also know that these symbols are linked—and I particularly stress this—with the two great streams running through the whole world, and rising to the highest spiritual realm; which streams we also encounter as the law of polarity in the forces of male and female.¹⁴ Within that culture which we now have to consider, the priestly principle is expressed in masonic terminology as the female principle in the spiritual realm—in that spiritual realm which is most closely related to cultural evolution. The rule of the priests is expressed by the female [principle]. On the other hand, the male principle is everything which is opposed to this priestly rule; however, in such a way that this opponent has to be considered as the holiest, the noblest, the greatest and the most spiritual [principle] in the world, no less. There are thus two streams with which we have to deal: a female and a male stream. The Freemasons see Abel as representing the female current, Cain, the male.

Here we come to the fundamental concept of Freemasonry, which to be sure is old, very old. Freemasonry developed in ancient times as the opponent of the priestly culture. We must now, however, make clear, in the right way, what is to be understood by priestly culture.

What is involved here has nothing to do with Petty opposition to churches or creeds. Priestliness can show itself in the most completely secular [people]; even what manifests itself today as science, that holds sway in many cultural groups, is nothing else than what is known in Freemasonry terms as the priestly element, though [there are?] other [such groups?] which are profoundly masonic. We must conceive such things, then, in their entire profundity, if we want to appraise them correctly. May I explain by an example how what manifests as science can often be what is denoted in Freemasonry as the priestly element.

Who today among doctors would not scoff if told about the healing properties of the spring at Lourdes? On the other hand, what doctor would not accept as a matter of course that it is wholly reasonable for certain people to go to Wiesbaden or Karlsbad? I know I am saying something fearfully heretical, but then I represent neither the priesthood nor even medicine; however a time is already coming when an unbiased judgment will be pronounced on both. Were there an effective medicine today, faith in the power of healing would be among the things a doctor would prescribe. One patient would be sent to Karlsbad and another to Lourdes, but both for the same reason. Whether you call it great piety on the one hand, or blatant superstition on the other, in the last analysis it is the same thing.

Understood in this way, we can characterise what underlies the priestly principle as refraining from investigating fundamentals, as accepting things as they present themselves from whatever aspect of the world, as being satisfied with what is thus given. The symbol of that for which man does nothing, the proper symbol for what is, in the truest sense of the word, donated to man, that symbol is taken from sexual life. The human being is [indeed] productive there, but what manifests itself in this productive force has nothing to do with human art, with human science or with human ability; from it is excluded everything which causes itself to be expressed in the three pillars of the ‘Royal Art.’ So when some present these sexual symbols to humanity, they want to say: In this symbol, human nature expresses itself, not as man has made it, but as it has been given by the gods. This finds its expression in Abel, the hunter and herdsman, who offers the sacrificial animal, the sacrificial lamb, thereby offering what he himself has done nothing to produce, which came into existence independently of him.

What did Cain, on the other hand, offer? He sacrificed what he had obtained by his own labour, what he had won from the fruits of the earth by tilling the soil. What he sacrificed needed human skill, knowledge and wisdom: that which demands comprehension of what one has done, which is based in a spiritual sense on the freedom of man to decide things for himself. That has to be paid for with guilt, by killing, first of all, the living things which had been,given by Nature or by Divine Powers, just as Cain killed Abel.

Through guilt lies the path to freedom. Everything which is born into the world—upon which man can, at best, act only in a secondary way—everything given to man by Divine Powers, everything which is there without him needing to work at it incessantly; all this is given to us first of all in the Kingdoms of Nature over which we have no control—in those Kingdoms (the Plant, Animal and Human Kingdoms) whose forces are isolated from any human contribution, because in these Kingdoms it is physical reproduction that is involved. All the reproductory forces in these Kingdoms are given to us by Nature. Inasmuch as we take what is living for our use—because we make the world our dwelling place, which developed itself out of what is living—we thereby offer the sacrifice given to us, just as Abel offered the sacrifice given to him.

The symbol for these three Kingdoms is the Cross. The lower beam symbolises the Plant Kingdom, the middle or cross beam, the Animal Kingdom, and the upper beam, the Human Kingdom.

The plant has its roots buried in the earth and directs upwards, in the blossom, those parts which, in man, are directed downwards. It is the reproductive organs of the plant that appear in the blossom. The downward-turned part, the root, is the plant's head, buried in the earth. The animal is the plant turned half way and carries its backbone horizontally, in relation to the earth. Man is the plant turned completely round, so that the lower part is directed upwards.

This view lies at the basis of all the mysteries of the Cross. And when theosophy shows us how man has to pass, In the course of his evolution, through the various Kingdoms of Nature, through the Plant, Animal and Human Kingdoms, then that is the same thing expressed by Plato in the beautiful words, ‘The World Soul is nailed to the Cross of the World Body.’¹⁵ The human soul is a spark struck from the World Soul, and the human being, as physical human being, is plant, animal and physical man at the same time. Inasmuch as the World Soul has divided itself up into the individual sparks of human souls, it is, as it were, nailed to the World Cross, nailed to what is expressed in the three Kingdoms, the Animal, Plant and Human Kingdoms. Powers which man has not mastered are at work in these Kingdoms. If he wants to control them, then he must create a new Kingdom of his very own, which is not expressed in the Cross.

When talking about this subject I am often asked: Where is the Mineral Kingdom in all this? The mineral kingdom is not symbolised in the Cross; because it is that Kingdom which man can already express himself in clear and blinding clarity, where he has learnt to apply the techniques of weighing and calculating, of geometry and arithmetic; in short, everything pertaining to inorganic nature, to the inorganic Mineral Kingdom.

If you contemplate a temple, you know that man has erected it with ruler, compasses, square, plumb-line and spirit level, and finally with the thinking that inorganic nature has transmitted to the architect in geometry and mechanics. And as you continue your contemplation of the whole temple, you will find it to be an inanimate object born out of human freedom and brainwork. You cannot say that, however, if you subject a plant or an animal to human observation.

So you see that what man has mastered, what he is able to master, is, up to now, the realm of the inanimate. And everything which the human being has converted to harmony and order out of the inanimate world is the symbol of his Royal Art on earth. What he has implanted into the Mineral Kingdom with his Royal Art started as an outflow, an incarnation of Divine wisdom. Go back to the time of the ancient Chaldeans and Egyptians, when it was not only the intellect that was used in building, but when heightened perceptions permeated everything; the controlling of inorganic nature was then seen as the ‘Royal Art,’ which is why the control of nature was denoted as ‘Free masonry.’ At first this may seem to be fantasy, but it is more than that.

Picture to yourselves that instant, that point in time in our earth's development, when no one had yet applied his hand to the shaping of inorganic Nature, when the whole planet was presented to man just as it came from Nature! And what happened then? Look back to the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, in which stone was fitted to stone through human agency. Nature's creation was given a new shape as a result of human thought. Human wisdom has thus transformed the earth. That was perceived as the proper mission of free constructing man on earth. Using a wide variety of tools, guided by human wisdom, human powers have brought about in the mineral world a transformation that has unfolded between primordial times and the present day, when human powers can influence far distances without mechanical means. And that is the first pillar, the pillar of wisdom.

Somewhat later we see the second pillar established, the pillar of beauty, of art. Art is likewise a means of pouring the human spirit into lifeless matter, and again the result is an ensoulment (conquest)¹⁶ of the inanimate to be found in Nature. Try for a moment to picture in your mind how the wisdom in art gradually overcomes and masters lifeless Nature, and you will see how what is there without man's participation is reshaped piece by piece by man himself. Visualise—as a fantasy, if you must—the effect of the whole earth having been transformed by the hand of man, the effect of the whole earth becoming a work of art, full of wisdom and radiating beauty, built by man's hand, conceived by man's wisdom! It may seem fantastic but it is more than that. For it is humanity's mission on earth, to transform the planet artistically. You find this expressed in the second pillar, the pillar of beauty.

To which you can add, as the third pillar, the reshaping of the human race in national and state life, and you have the propagation of the human spirit in the world; you have this right here in the realm of what is lifeless.

Hence the medieval people of the twelfth century reflected, in looking back to the ancient wisdom, that the wisdom of times past was preserved in marble monuments, while contemporary wisdom is to be found in the human heart. For it is manifested through the artist, becoming a work of art through the labour of his hands. What he feels he impresses into matter that is unformed, he chisels out of the dead stone; while the inner soul of man does not of course live in this dead stone, it does manifest itself there. All art is dedicated to this purpose; there is always this mastering of unliving, inorganic nature, regardless of whether it is a sculptor chiseling marble or a painter arranging colour, light and shade. And even the statesman gives structure to Nature [?]¹⁷ ... always,—apart from when plant, animal, or human forces come into it—you are dealing with man's own spirit.

Thus, the medieval thinker of the twelfth century looked back at the occult wisdom of the ancient Chaldeans, at Greek art and beauty, and at the strength in the concept of the state in the Roman Empire. These are the three great pillars of world history—wisdom, beauty and strength. Goethe portrayed them in his ‘Fairy Story’ as the Three Kings—occult wisdom in the Gold King, beauty as in Greece in the Silver King, and, in the Brass King, strength as it found its world historical expression in the Roman concept of the State, and as then adopted in the organisation of the Christian Church. And the Middle Ages; with its chaos¹⁸ resulting from the impact of the migrating nations, and with its mixed styles, is expressed in the misshapen Mixed King made of gold, silver and brass; what was kept separate in the various ancient cultures, is mixed together in him. Later, the separate forces must once more develop themselves out of this chaos, to a higher level.

All those who, in the Middle Ages, took the Holy Grail as their symbol, set themselves the task of using human powers to bring these separate forces to a higher stage [of development]. The Holy Grail was to have been something essentially new, even though it is closely related in its own symbolism to the symbols of a very ancient mystical tradition.

What then is the Holy Grail? For those who understand this legend correctly, it signifies—as can even be proved by literary means¹⁹—the following:

Till now, man has only mastered the inanimate in Nature -the transformation of the living forces, the transformation of what sprouts and grows in the plants, and of what manifests itself in animal [and human] reproduction that is beyond his power. Man has to leave these mysterious powers of Nature untouched. There he cannot encroach. What results from these forces cannot be fully comprehended by him. An artist can certainly create a strangely beautiful Zeus, but he cannot fully comprehend this Zeus; in the future, man will reach a level where he can do that as well. Just as it is so, that man has achieved control over Inanimate nature, has mastered gravity with spirit level and plumb-line, and the directional forces of Nature with the aid of geometry and mechanics; so it is the case that in future man will himself control what he only receives as a gift from Nature or the Divine powers—namely, the living.

When in the past Abel sacrificed what he had been given by Divine hand, he was thus sacrificing, in the realm of the living, only what he had received from nature. Cain, by contrast, had offered something which he had himself won from the earth by his own labour, as the fruits of effort.²⁰ Hence, at this time [in the Middle Ages], a radically new impulse was introduced into Freemasonry. And this impulse is that denoted by the symbol of the Holy Grail, the power of self-sacrifice. I have often said, harmony in human relationships is not brought about by preaching it, but by creating it. Once the necessary forces have been awakened in human nature, there is no more unbrotherliness. [The concepts of] majority and minority are meaningless in what the masonic symbols express; in it there can be no contention, for it is only a matter of ‘can’ or ‘cannot.’

No majority can decide whether one should use a plumb-line or a spirit level; the facts must decide that. In that all men are brothers, there they find themselves to be one. On that there can be no contention, if everyone treads the path of objectivity, the path which entails the acquisition of higher powers. Thus, the bond [of the Freemasons] is without doubt a bond of brotherhood which in the broadest sense depends on what men have in common in inanimate Nature.

However, not every power is still available there. Some things which were once there have disappeared again, because in the cycle of Nature in which we now find ourselves, and which we call earth, it is material perception which is to the fore, while intuitive perception has been lost. May I indicate just one case; in architecture, the ability to design a really acoustic building has been completely lost. Yet, in the past, this art was understood. Whoever puts a building together by outward [concepts] alone, will never create an acoustic; but anyone who thinks intuitively, with his thoughts rooted in higher realms will be enabled to accomplish an acoustic building. Those who know that also know that, in the future, those forces of outward nature over which we have no control at present must be conquered, just as man has already conquered gravity, light and electricity in inanimate nature.

Although our age is not yet so advanced as to be able to control outwardly living Nature, although that cultural epoch has not yet come in which living and life-giving forces come to be mastered, nevertheless, there is already the preparatory school for this, which was founded by the movement called the Lodge of the Holy Grail. The time will however come—and it will be quite a specific point in time—when humanity, deviating from its present tendency, will see that deep inward soul forces cannot be decided by majority resolutions; that no vote can settle questions involving the limitless realm of love, involving what one feels or senses. That force which is common to all mankind, which expresses itself in the intellectual as an all-embracing unity about which there can be no conflict, is called Manas. And when men have progressed so far that they are not only at one in their intellect, but also in their perceptions and feelings, and are in harmony in their inmost souls, so far that they find themselves in what is noble and good, so far that they lovingly join together in the objective, in what they have in common, in the same way that they agree that two times two makes four and three times three equals nine; then the time will have arrived when men will be able to control the living as well. Unanimity—objective unanimity in perception and feeling—with all humanity really embracing in love: such is the pre-condition for gaining control over the living.

Those who founded the movement of the Holy Grail in the twelfth century said that this control over living [nature] was at one time available, available to the gods who created the Cosmos and descended [to earth] in order to give mankind the germ of the capacity for the same divine forces that they already possessed themselves; so that man is now on the way to becoming a god, having something in his inner being which strives upwards towards where the gods once stood. Today, the understanding, the intellect, is the predominant force; in the future it will be love [Buddhi], and in a still more distant future, man will attain the stage of Atma.

This joint force (communal force)²¹ which gives man power over what is symbolised by the cross,

is expressed as far as the gods' use of the force is concerned—by a symbol, namely by a triangle with its apex pointing downwards. And when it is a matter of this force expressing itself in man's nature, as it germinally strives upwards towards the Divine force, then it is symbolised by a triangle with its apex pointing upwards. The gods have lifted themselves out from man's nature and have withdrawn from him; but they have left the triangle behind with him, which will develop further within him. This triangle is also the symbol of the Holy Grail.^†

The medieval occultist expressed the symbol of the Grail—the symbol for awakening perfection in the living—in the form of a triangle. That does not need a communal church, entwining itself around the planet in a rigid organisation, though this can well give something to the individual soul; but if all souls are to strike the same note, then the power of the Holy Grail must be awakened in each individual. Whoever wants to awaken the power of the Grail in himself will gain nothing by asking the powers of the official church whether they can perhaps tell him something; rather, he should awaken this power in himself, and should not question all that much. Man starts from dullness [of mind] and progresses through doubt to strength. This pilgrimage of the soul is expressed in the person of Parsifal, who seeks the Holy Grail. This is one of the manifold deeper meanings of the figure of Parsifal.

Does it further my knowledge if a corporate body, be they ever so great, proclaims mathematical truth through their official spokesmen? If I want to learn mathematics, I must occupy myself with it, and gain an understanding of it .or myself. And of what use is it if a corporate body possesses the power of the Cross?²² If I want to make use of the power of the Cross, the control of what is living, then I must achieve this myself. No one else can tell it to me, or communicate it through words; at best they can show it to me in the symbol, give me the shining symbol of the Grail, but it cannot be told in an intellectual formula.

The first accomplishment of this medieval occultism would have been, consequently, what appeared in so many different movements in Europe: the striving for individuality in religion, the escape from the rigid uniformity of the organised church. You can barely grasp to what extent this tendency underlies Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival.²³ What manifested itself for the first time in the Reformation was already inherent in the symbol of the Holy Grail. Whoever has a feeling for the great meaning of what can confront us in this symbolism, will understand its great and deep cultural value. The great things of the world are not born in noise and tumult, but in intimacy and stillness. Mankind is not brought forward in its development by the thunder of cannons, but through the strength of what is born in the intimacy of such secret brotherhoods, through the strength of what is expressed in such world-embracing symbols, which inspire mankind.

Since that time, through innumerable channels, the hearts of men have received as an inflow, what was conceived by those who were initiated into the mysteries of the Holy Grail in the middle of the twelfth century; who had to hide themselves from the world under pseudonyms, but who were really the leaven preparing the culture of the last four hundred years,

The guardians of great secrets, of those forces which continually influence human developments live in the occult brotherhoods. I can only hint at what is really involved, because the matter itself goes very deeply into the occult realm.

For those who really gain access to such mysteries, one practical result is a clearer perspective of world happenings [in the future].

Slowly but surely the organic, the living forces intervene in the present-day cycle of humanity's development. There will come a time—however fantastic this might seem to contemporary people—when man will no longer paint only pictures, will no longer make only lifeless sculptures, but will be in a position to breathe life into what he now merely paints, merely forms with colours or with a chisel.

However, what will appear less fantastic is the fact that today the first dawn is already beginning, for the use of these living forces in the affairs of social life- that is the real secret surrounding the Grail. The last event brought about in the social sphere by the old Freemasonry was the French Revolution, in which the basic idea of the old Freemasonry came into the open in the social sphere with the ideas of equality, liberty and fraternity as its corollaries. Whoever knows this also knows that the ideas which emanated from the Grail were propagated through innumerable channels, and constituted the really active force in the French Revolution.

What is today called socialism exists only as an abortive and impossible experiment, as a final, I may say desperate, struggle in a receding wave of humanity's [development]. It cannot bring about any really positive result. What it sets out to achieve, can only be achieved through living activity; the pillar of strength is not enough. Socialism can no longer be controlled with inanimate forces. The ideas of the French Revolution—liberty, equality, fraternity were the last ideas to flow out of the inanimate. Everything that still runs on that track is fruitless and doomed to die. For the great evil existing in the world today, the dreadful misery that expresses itself with such frightful force, that is called the social question, can no longer be controlled by the inanimate. A Royal Art is needed for that; and it is this Royal Art which was inaugurated in the symbol of the Holy Grail.

Through this Royal Art, man must acquire control of something similar to the force which sprouts in the plant, the same force that the occultist uses when he accelerates the growth of a plant in front of him. In a similar way, a part of this force must be used for social salvation. This power, which is described by those who know something of the Rosicrucian mysteries—as for example did Bulwer Lytton in his futuristic novel Vril²⁴ is at present still in an elementary, germinal, stage. In the Freemasonry of the future, it will be the real content of the higher degrees. The Royal Art will in the future be a social art.

Again, I have to tell you something which will seem fantastic to the uninitiated, on account, I may say, of the comprehensive, all-embracing range of the idea. What man prints as a form deriving from his soul on the matter of this earth Round is eternal, it will not pass away. Even though the matter thus given form outwardly decays, what the Royal Art has given form to, in pyramids, temples and churches, is imperishable. What the human spirit has given shape to, in matter, will remain present in the world as a continuing force. That is completely clear to those who are initiated in such matters. Cologne's Gothic cathedral will, for example, pass away; but it is of far reaching significance that the atoms were once in this form. This form itself is the imperishable thing that will henceforth participate in the ongoing evolutionary process of humanity, just as the living force that is in the plant participates in the evolution of Nature! The painter, who paints a picture today, who prints dead matter with his soul's blood, is also creating something which will sooner or later be disposed in thousands of atoms. What has imperishable and continuing value, what is eternal, is that he has created, that something from his soul has flowed into matter.

States and all other human communities come and go before our eyes. But what men have formed out of their souls, as such communities, constitute humanly-conceived ideas of eternal value, with an eternally enduring significance. And when this human race once again appears on the earth in a new form, then it will see the fruits of these elements of eternal value.

Today, whoever turns his gaze upwards to the starry heavens sees a wonderful harmony. This harmony has evolved, it was not always there. When we build a cathedral we place stone upon stone, when we paint a picture we place colour next to colour, when we organise a community we make law upon law; in exactly the same way, creative beings once worked upon what confronts us today as the cosmos. Neither moon nor sun would shine, no animal, no plant, would reproduce itself, unless everything we face in the cosmos had been worked upon by beings, unless there were such beings who worked as we work today on the remodelling of the cosmos. Just as we work on the cosmos today through wisdom, beauty and strength, so too did beings who do not belong to our present human Kingdom once work on the cosmos.

Any harmony is always the outcome of the disharmony of an earlier time. Just as stones were given form for a Greek temple, just as they abounded in other forms, in a perplexing variety of forms, out of which they became a coordinated structure, just as the profusion of colours on the palette is meaningfully arrayed in a picture, so, in just the same way, all matter was in other chaotic relationships before the creating spirit transformed it into this cosmos. The same thing is recapitulating itself at a new level, and only he who sees the whole can work on the details correctly and clearly. Everything which has had real significance for humanity's progress in the world has been brought about with care and judgment and through initiation into the great laws of the world plan. What the day produces is ephemeral. What is created in the day through knowledge of the eternal laws is, however, imperishable. To create in the day through knowledge of the eternal laws is the same thing as Freemasonry.

Thus you see that what confronts us in art, science and religion, beyond what is given by the gods and expressed in the symbol of the Cross, is in fact brought about by Freemasonry, from which everything that has been properly built in the world derives. Freemasonry is thus intimately involved in everything that human hand has shaped in the world, with everything that culture has created out of raw, inanimate matter. Go back to the great things the cultural epochs have produced; consider, for example, the poems of Homer. What is contained in them? What the initiates have taught mankind in great world-embracing ideas. The great artists did not invent their topics, but rather gave form to what embraces all humanity. Is a Michaelangelo conceivable without the power of Christian concepts? Try in the same way to trace back to its origin whatever has achieved a really incisive cultural meaning, and you will in every case be led back to what has come from initiation [in the Mysteries].

Everything must in the end undergo a schooling. The last four hundred years were in fact a schooling for humanity—the school of godlessness, in which there was purely human experimentation, a return to chaos if seen from a particular point of view. Everyone is experimenting today, without being aware of the connection with higher worlds—apart from those who have once more sought and found that connection with spiritual realms. Nearly everyone lives entirely for himself today, without perceiving anything of the real and all-penetrating common design. That of course is the cause of the dreadful dissatisfaction everywhere.

What we need is a renewal of the Grail Chivalry in a modern form. Anyone who can approach this will thereby come to know the real forces which today are still lying hidden in the course of human evolution.

Today so many people take up the old symbols without understanding them; what is thus made out of the sexual symbols in an uncomprehending way comes nowhere near to a correct understanding of masonic concepts. Such understanding is to be sought in precisely those things which redeem mere natural forces; in penetrating and mastering what is living in the same way that the geometrician penetrates and masters the inanimate with his rule, compasses, spirit level and so forth; and in working upon the living in the same way those who build a temple put the unliving stones together. That is the great masonic concept of the future.

There is a very ancient symbol in Freemasonry, the so-called Tau:

This Tau sign plays a major role in Freemasonry. It is basically nothing else than a Cross from which the upper arm has been taken away. The Mineral Kingdom is excluded in order to obtain the Cross at all—man already controls that. If one lets the Plant Kingdom come into play [in Aktion treten] then one obtains the Cross directed upwards:²⁵

What unfolds itself from the earth, from the soul, as power over the earth, is the symbol of future Freemasonry.

Whoever heard my last lecture about Freemasonry²⁶ will remember my telling you about the Freemasonry legend of Hiram-Abiff, and how at a particular point he makes use of the Tau sign, when the Queen of Sheba wanted him to call together once more the workers engaged in building the Temple. Now the people working together in social partnership would never appear at Solomon's command; but at the signal of the Tau—which Hiram-Abiff raised aloft—they all appeared from all sides. The Tau sign symbolises a totally new power, based on freedom, and consisting in the awakening of a new natural force.

May I be allowed to resume at the remark with which I ended last time,²⁷ when I told you where such great control over inanimate Nature leads. Without much fantasy, one can show what is. involved by an example. Wireless telegraphy works across a distance from the transmitting station to the receiving station. The apparatus can be set to work at will, it is effective over great distances, and one can make oneself understood by it. A similar force to that by which wireless telegraphy works will be at man's disposal in a future age, without even any apparatus; this will make it possible to cause great devastation over long distances, without anyone being able to discover where the disturbance originated. Then, when the high point of this development has been reached, it will eventually come to the point where it falls back on itself.

What is expressed by the Tau is a driving force which can only be set in motion by the power of selfless love. It will be possible to use this power to drive machines, which will, however, cease to function if egoistical people make use of them.

It is perhaps known to you that Keely invented a motor²⁸ which would only go if he himself were present. He was not deceiving people about this; for he had in him that driving force originating in the soul, which can set machines in motion. A driving force which can only be moral, that is the idea of the future; a most important force, with which culture must be inoculated, if it is not to fall back on itself. The mechanical and the moral must interpenetrate each other, because the mechanical is nothing without the moral. Today we stand hard on this frontier. In the future machines will be driven not only by water and steam, but by spiritual force, by spiritual morality. This power is symbolised by the Tau sign and was indeed poetically symbolised by the image of the Holy Grail.²⁹ Man is no longer merely dependent on what Nature will freely give him to use; he can shape and transform Nature, he has become the master craftsman of the inanimate. In the same way he will become the master craftsman of what is living.

As something that must be conquered, the old sexual symbol stands at the turning point for Freemasonry. You could compare the old sexual symbol of the Freemasons with the new symbolism for future Freemasonry by the analogy of placing a rock struck from a cliff face and covered with rough grass next to a beautifully worked statue by a sculptor. Those who have been to some extent initiated into the Royal Art have been aware of this. Goethe, for instance, has expressed this marvelously in the Homunculus episode in the Second Part of Faust. There are still many mysteries³⁰ in that work, which remain to be revealed.

All this indicates that humanity faces a new epoch in the development of the occult Royal Art. Those who officially represent Freemasonry today know the least about what this future Freemasonry will be. They are the least aware that something quite new will replace the old symbols they have so often misinterpreted, and that this will have an entirely new significance.

Just as it is true that everything of real importance in the past stems from the Royal Art, so it is also true that everything of real importance in the future will derive from the cultivation of the same source. Certainly, every schoolboy today can demonstrate the theorem of Pythagoras; only Pythagoras could discover it, because he was a master in the Royal Art. It will be the same in the Royal Art of the future. Thus you see that the masonic Art stands at a turning point in its development, and has the closest links with the work of the Lodge of the Grail, with what can appear as salvation in the dreadful conflicts all around us.

These conflicts are only beginning. Humanity is unaware that it is dancing on a volcano. But it is so. The revolutions beginning on our earth make a new phase of the Royal Art necessary. Those people who do not drift thoughtlessly through life, will know what they have to do; that they have to participate in our earth's evolution. Therefore, from a certain point of view, this very ancient Royal Art must be represented in a new form to stand alongside of what is so ancient, in which there lies an inexhaustible force. Those who can grasp the new masonic ideas will strike new sparks from Freemasonry's ancient symbols. Then it will also become plain that contention between Craft and Higher Degree Freemasonry is meaningless set against the endeavours of real Freemasonry.

For this it is necessary to answer the question—and that brings us back to our starting point—‘What was the Royal Art up till now?’ The Royal Art was the soul of our culture. And this culture of ours has two basic ingredients. On the one hand, it is built up by those forces in the human soul which concern themselves with the inanimate; and on the other hand, by the forces of those people who make it their principal task to control the inanimate simply bv means of the forces summoned up by their organism; and they are the men, hence the Royal Art has hitherto been a male art. Women were therefore excluded and could not take part in it. The tasks carried on in the Lodges were set apart, kept separate—the details do not matter—from everything related to the family or to the reproduction of the purely natural basis of the human race.

In Freemasonry, a double life was led; the great ideas which came to expression in the Lodges were not to be mixed up with anything connected with the family. The work in the Lodges, being related to the inmost life of the soul, ran parallel to nurturing the social life of the family. The one current lay in conflict with the other. The women were excluded from Freemasonry. This ceased the instant that Freemasonry stopped looking backwards and turned its gaze forward. For it was precisely what flowed in from outside[?] which was seen as the female current; the Freemasons considered what came from Nature as something priestly. And hitherto Freemasonry had regarded that as hostile.

Man is by his nature the representative of the force that works on the inanimate, whereas the woman is seen as the representative of the living creative force that continually -develops the human race from the basis in Nature. This antithesis must be resolved.

What has to be achieved in the future can only be brought about by overcoming everything in the world that relies upon .he old symbols, that are expressed precisely in what is sexual. The Freemasonry that is obsolete today has these symbols, but is also aware of the fact that we must overcome them. However, these sexual [symbols] must be kept in existence outside in the institutions that relate to what is natural and only in this division can the matter be resolved.

Neither the architect nor the artist nor the statesman have anything to do—in their way of thinking, I ask you -o ponder that—with the basis of sexuality in Nature. They all labour to control inanimate forces with reason, with the intellect. That is expressed in the masonic symbols. Overcoming this basis in Nature in the far future, gaining control of the forces of life—as in the far-off times of the Lemurian race, man started to gain control of inanimate forces—that will be expressed in new symbols. Then the natural basis will have been conquered not only in the sphere of the inanimate, but also in the sphere of the animate.

When we reflect on this, then the old sexual symbols appear to us as precisely what has to be overcome, in the broadest sense; and then we discover what in the future must be the creative and truly effective principle, in the concept of uniting both male and female spiritual forces. The outward manifestation of this progress in Freemasonry is therefore the admission of the female sex.

There is a meaningful custom in Freemasonry which relates to this matter. Everyone inducted into the Lodge is given two pairs of gloves. He puts one pair on himself; the other pair is to, be put on the lady of his choice. By this is signified that the pair should only touch each other with gloves on, so that sensual impulses should have nothing to do with what applies to Freemasonry. This thought is also expressed in another symbol; the apron is the symbol for the overcoming of sexuality, which is covered by the apron. Those who do not know about this profound masonic idea will be unable to have any inkling of what the apron really means. One cannot bring the apron into line with Freemasonry in the narrow sense.

We thus have the conquest of the natural by the free creative spirit on the one hand, but the separation by means of the gloves, on the other. However, we could even take the gloves off in the end, once what is lower has been conquered by applying the immediate free spiritual forces of both sexes. Then only will what manifests itself today in sexuality be finally overcome. When human creation is free, completely free, when man and woman work together on the great structure of humanity, the gloves will no longer be distributed, for man and woman will be freely able to stretch out their hands to each other, because then spirit will be speaking to spirit, not sensuality to sensuality. That is the great idea of the future.

If anyone today wants to enter the ancient Freemasonry, then he will only be at the high point of masonic thinking about the future shape of mankind if he works in this spirit, and if he understands what the times demand of us, regardless of what the Order was in antiquity. If it becomes possible to discover an understanding of what is called the secret of the Royal Art, then the future will undoubtedly bring us the rebirth of the old good and splendid Freemasonry, however decadent it is today.

One of the ways in which occultism will permeate humanity will be through Freemasonry reborn. The very best things reveal themselves precisely through the faults of their own virtues. And although we can only look upon Freemasonry today as a caricature of the great Royal Art, we must nevertheless not lose heart in our endeavour to awaken its slumbering forces again, a task which is incumbent on us³¹ and which runs in a parallel direction to the theosophical movement. So long as we do not dabble in the question which weighs upon us, but really grapple with it out of the depths of our understanding of world events, make ourselves understand what is manifesting itself in the souls of the sexes, in the battle of the sexes, then we will see that it is out of these forces that the formative powers of the future must flow.

All today's chatter is nothing. These questions cannot be answered, unless the answer is drawn out of the depths. What exists in the world today as the social question or the question of woman, is nothing, unless it is understood out of the depths of world forces, and brought into harmony with them.

Just as it is true that the great deeds of the past had their origin in Freemasonry, so is it also true that the great practical deeds of the future will be gained from the depths of future masonic ideas.

• 1 . In the two lectures 17 and 18 in this volume on 23rd October 1905, to men and women separately.
• 2 . Rudolf Steiner here refers to his association with the circle around Marie Eugenie della Grazie in Vienna during the eighties of the last century. See in this connection The Story of My Life.
• 3 . The occasion for this lay in the discussions prevailing at that time between the Church and Freemasonry concerning the sensational work by Leo Taxil on satanic practices of the Freemasons which had already appeared in 100,000 copies at the time of these discussions. Die Drei-Punkte-Brifder ∴—see following note.
• 4 . Rudolf Steiner refers here to the now famous Taxil-Vaughan swindle. Leo Taxil (pseudonym for Gabriel Jogand Pages), 1854–1907, brought up by Jesuits and known since the seventies as an anti-clerical writer and founder of several free-thinking societies, became a member of the Paris Lodge: ‘Le Temple de I'Honneur Francais’ in 1881, but was excluded from it soon afterwards because he was supposed to have forged letters of ∴ Brother Hugo and Louis Blanc. In 1885 he staged his repentant return to the Church. In obedience to the encyclical of Leo XIII of 20th April 1884, Humanum Genus in which the unmasking of Freemasons as confederates of the Devil was required, he commenced his main work, Les Freres Trois-Points (Paris, 1885, German: H. Gruber S.J., Die Drei-Punkte Bruder Paderborn 1886–87), started his unmasking campaign with other writings concerned with his fabricated Freemasonry system of ‘Palladism’ and was even called to a private audience with Leo XIII in 1887. The unparalleled success of Leo Taxil and his two other accomplices: the German, Karl Hacks (pseudonym, Dr. Bataille; brother-in-law of. the publisher of the ultramontane Kolnischen Volkszeitung) and the Italian Domenico Margiotta, in Catholic Church circles reached its climax when Taxil invented the witness Miss Diana Vaughan (Miss Diana Vaughan. Memoires d'une Expalladiste. Publication mensuelle). With the co-operation of the highest Church dignitaries, Taxil founded an Anti-Freemasonry Union which summoned a first Anti-Freemasonry Congress in Trient, September 1896. Thirty-six bishops, fifty episcopal delegates and over seven hundred opponents of the Lodges, most of them priests, took part in the Congress. The Sovereign Bishop Cardinal Haller of Salzburg and the leader of the Catholic nobility in Germany, Prinz Karl zu Lowenstein, chaired the meeting. The Congress was a public declaration of the revelations of Taxil and Miss Vaughan, only a few sceptics demanded proof. The first to start questioning the Taxil affair was the Freemason Gottfried Joseph Findel who published his Katholischer Schwindel as early as 1896. In general, however, H. Gruber S.J., who had long been a believer in Taxil, is credited with being the first to raise doubts about him with his three volume work: Leo Taxits Palladismus-Roman. This work only appeared in 1897, however. A.E. Waite, with his Devil-Worship in France or the Question of Luzifer (London, 1896) is also said to have this distinction.
  
  >By this time Taxil admitted in a great assembly in Paris, 19th April 1897, that everything was a deliberate swindle on his part and that the Devil Bixtru and his satanic Bride, Miss Vaughan, had never existed. According to the Allgemeines Handbuch der Freimaurerei, Taxil's confession came about earlier than was intended ‘because, according to his own admission, he could not carry the mystification any further after the appearance of Findel's work.’ Bibliographical references: Das Papsttum in seiner sozial-kulturellen Wirksamkeit, Graf von Hoensbroech, Leipzig, 1900; Entente-Freimaurerei und Weltkrieg, Karl Heise, Basle, 1920; Entlarvte Freimaurerei, Friedrich Hasselbacher, Berlin, 1939.
• 5 . According to Menckeberg, (G.E. Lessing als Freimaurer, Hamburg, 1880) Lessing, on his enrolment in the Hamburg Lodge on 15th October 1771, was asked by the Worshipful Master, von Rosenberg: ‘Now, you see indeed, I have told the truth! You have not discovered anything anti-religious or politically dangerous, have you?’ Lessing is said to have replied: ‘Ha, I wish I had discovered something of the sort. It would have pleased me better.’
• 6 . It cannot be determined what text Rudolf Steiner was referring to. However, according to Heckethorn, quoted previously, this notion already appeared in 1751 in the Konstitutionenbuch .ffir irlandische Logen.
• 7 . This is Seiler's shorthand version. In text (a) it is rendered: ‘so-called Scottish? or the same rite as that which corresponds, in a particular respect, to what is called the Egyptian, the Misraim, or the Memphis Rite.’ The Reebstein text (d) only has: ‘Scottish or Accepted Rite—Memphis Rite.’
• 8 . On this, see note 6 to the lecture given on 29th May 1905 (lecture 13).
• 9 . In text (a) ‘in the Mysteries’ is replaced by ‘in the spiritual world.’ In the shorthand version of Seiler these words are missing. For his fair copy he apparently made use of text (a).
• 10. This sentence is incomplete in all versions. It is given in the published version as corrected by Marie Steiner from text (a).
• 11. Compare also: ‘Aristotle on the Mystery Drama’ (NSL 420. Anthroposophical Monthly, Volume 4, No. 9) Speech and Drama,
  Anthroposophical Publishing Company, London, 1960.
• 12. Rudolf Steiner often spoke about the Grail Mysteries at the time of these lectures: for instance in Berlin, on 19th May 1905 (Anthroposophical News Sheet, Volume 5, No. 11), and in Landin (Mark), on 29th July 1906 (typescript copy: Z307).
• 13. The double lecture given on 23rd October 1905 to men and women separately (lectures 17 and 18 in the present volume).
• 14. This sentence is not word for word as transcribed. The various texts are different. Text (a) omits from this sentence the words ‘great streams’ and has in their place ‘forces of male and female,’ and ends at the word ‘realms,’ omitting the rest. Seiler's fair copy has the same wording, but the shorthand version has a gap here. In Reebstein's text (d) we find the following: ‘The symbols are connected with questions running through the whole world, which meaning ... basic forces of male and female.’ The notes of Marie Steiner von Sivers give the following: ‘The two sexes are only an expression of the two great currents, which confront us as the Law of Polarity.’ The printed version has been revised by the editor to give a meaningful rendering.
• 15. See note 10 to lecture given on 22nd May 1905 (lecture 12).
• 16. ‘Ensoulment’ (Beseelung), ‘conquest’ (Besiegung). Texts (a) and (b) have the former; text (d) the latter.
• 17. The questionable word ‘nature’ was given in texts (a) and (b) but was missing in the other texts.
• 18. This sentence was incomplete in texts (a) and (b) and was made up from texts (d) and (e).
• 19. Rudolf Steiner was obviously referring here to the saga of ‘Poor Henry’ composed by Hartmann von Aue (1165—C 1215), a contemporary of Wolfram von Eschenbach. (See also note 13). Rudolf Steiner often referred to this poem later in his lectures.
• 20. This sentence only occurs in text (a). Reebstein's text (d) on the other hand, is the only text to contain this sentence: ‘Abel is the one who in the future will have the power to create [what is] holy through [the forces of] his soul.’
• 21. Text (a) has ‘communal force’ (Gemeinsam keitskraft). In Seiler's fair copy it is ‘joint force’ (Gesamtkraft), but in Seiler's shorthand copy, Gemeinsamkeitskraft can be read. The whole text, ‘including the preceding paragraph, is rendered in Reebstein's text (d) in the following way: ‘Objective love was present in the gods who created the cosmos. Something superhuman stirs itself, which today is understanding, which later will be love. Manas, Buddhi, Atma is a joint force which gives power over the Cross.’
• †. See note following the lecture.
• 22. Text (a) has the word ‘Christ’ instead of the word ‘Cross,’ but on the other hand, Seiler's shorthand and fair copy, as well as Reebstein's text (d), give ‘Cross.’
• 23. Composed around 1200–1210. First printed 1477. Forgotten then for many years and only came to be known again about 1750. First critical edition by Lachmann (1833) followed by numerous others. English translations: J.L. Weston, A Knightly Epic, 2 volumes, London, 1894, in verse; Mustard and Passage, Parzival, Vintage Books, New York, 196 1; A.T. Hatto, Parzival, Penguin Classics, 1980.
• 24. The Right Hon. Lord Lytton, The Coming Race, George Routledge and Sons, London, 1870. Translated into German by Gunther Wachsmuth at Rudolf Steiner's instigation, Stuttgart, 1922, under the title: Vril oder eine Menschheit der Zukunft.
  
  In an answer to a question put to Rudolf Steiner at the end of a lecture held in Leipzig, 13th October 1906, regarding the meaning of Vril, he said the following:
  
• 25. the Cross directed upwards. The explanations of the Tau symbol are fragmentary and the texts differ in their wording.
  
  Text (a) has the following: ‘The Tau sign plays an important role in Freemasonry. It is basically nothing else than a Cross with the upper, arm taken away. In a figurative sense, therefore, the mineral realm has been omitted. But in order to arrive at the Cross at all, the plant kingdom must be brought into play, whereby one arrives at the upward pointing Cross.’
  
  Text and symbol of (a) both seem questionable. Marie Steiner, who once made some preparatory corrections of (a), left off the symbol in its original form and replaced it with the following: ‘In order to arrive at the Cross at all, the plant kingdom must be brought into play, whereby the upward pointing Cross is obtained.’
  
  In text (b) the following version is given: ‘This Tau sign plays an important role in Freemasonry. It is nothing else but the Cross. Only one of the beams is left off. The mineral kingdom has been left off in order to arrive at the Cross at all. If you allow the plant kingdom to come into play you get the upward pointing cross.’ In the shorthand version of this there is a gap after the words: ‘in order to arrive at the Cross at all.’ Instead, the symbol is inserted after ‘upwards pointing Cross,’ whereas it has been left out of the fair copy.
  
  The text (d) only has:
  ‘The Tau plays an important role τ
  It is nothing else than the Cross.
  If the productive forces of the plant ...’ It is significant that the Tau symbol has been drawn, but not the reverse form, in a text which otherwise provides the greatest number of diagrams.
  
  Text (f) has the following: ‘The Tau is the Cross, from which the upper beam has been removed. The mineral realm has been left off, man controls it already. For if one lets the plant realm come into play one arrives at (symbol). What develops out of the earth, out of the soul as power over the earth, is the symbol of future Freemasonry.’
  
  The other texts do not contain a reference to this.
• 26. Double lecture on 23rd October 1905, for men and women separately (lectures 17 and 18).
• 27. In the lecture of 28th December 1905 (unpublished as yet), Rudolf Steiner said: ‘Allow me to conclude my observations of the old year with an allusion I have made once before [in the lectures of December 1904, included in the present volume]. A major work of destruction is being carried out all around us, which could tell an observant person—even if he were not clairvoyant—that we stand at the beginning of a great work of destruction involving outer material [culture] as it has developed in recent centuries—for material development only goes up to a certain point.’
• 28. The American, John Worrell Keely (born 1837) caused much talk in the second half of the nineteenth century through the invention of the ‘self-motor,’ the so-called Keely Motor. A treatise on his experiments is to be found in H.P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, Volume 1, Book III (X ‘The Coming Force,’ pp. 554–556). Among the lectures of Rudolf Steiner there are several references to this subject, notably in the lecture given during the Great War on 20th June 1916: ‘Cosmic Being and Egohood’ (cycle C 43), where he says: ‘It was a concept still. Thank God it was only a concept at that time for, if this Keely's concept had become reality then, what would this war have become!’ Compare also the lecture given in Dornach on 1st December 1918, in In the Changed Conditions of the Times, Rudolf Steiner Publishing Company, 1941.
• 29. Texts (a) and (b) have: ‘the Tau’ of the Holy Grail. The other texts do not have this passage, the image of the Holy Grail is Marie Steiner's correction; perhaps, however, it rests on an error in copying and it should read: ‘the Taube’ (i.e., ‘dove’) of the Holy Grail.
• 30. See in this context Rudolf Steiner's later lectures: The Problem of Faust, twelve lectures, Dornach, between 13th September 1916 and 19th January 1919.
• 31. Rudolf Steiner is referring here to the Section dealing with cult and symbolism of his Esoteric School which he was about to found. See in this connection: The Course of My Life,Chapter XXXII