Lecture 1:
WHITSUNTIDE.
FESTIVAL OF THE LIBERATION OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT
Berlin,
Whit Monday, 23rd May 1904
[See the
Notes for this Lecture]
It was to be expected
(Note 1)
that only a small company would gather here today. I have
nevertheless decided to hold our meeting this evening to talk
to those of you who are present about something connected with
Whitsuntide.
Before I
start I would like to report to you one result of my latest visit to
London, which is that in all likelihood Mrs. Besant will be visiting
us here
(Note 2)
in the autumn. We shall have the opportunity then of
hearing again one of the personalities belonging to the most powerful
spiritual influences of our time. The next two public lectures
(Note 3)
will be held in the Architektenhaus — on spiritualism a week hence,
and on somnambulism and hypnotism, the following week. Then the usual
Monday arrangements will take place again regularly. On the coming
Thursdays
(Note 4)
I shall speak about theosophical cosmology, about
theosophical ideas concerning the creation of the universe. Those of
you who are interested in such things may hear much which is not
already known from the usual theosophical literature. I wish to hold
over till a later date the lectures on the rudiments of theosophy.
(Note 5).
What I wish to talk about today comes from an old occult
tradition. The subject cannot, of course, be dealt with exhaustively
today. Some of it may appear incredible.
I would
request, therefore, that today's lecture be treated as an episode in
which nothing is to be proved, but only things related.
People
celebrate their festivals today without having an inkling of what is
signified by them. In the newspapers, which constitute the main
source of the education and enlightenment of most of our
contemporaries, one can read many and various articles dealing with
such festivals, the writers of which have not the slightest idea of
the meaning of such a festival. But for theosophists it is necessary
to look again at their inner meaning. And so I want today to direct
your attention to the origin of such an age-old festival: the source
of the Whitsuntide Festival.
Whitsuntide is one of the most important festivals
and one of the most difficult to understand. For Christian
consciousness it commemorates the coming of the Holy Ghost. This
event is described as a miracle: the Holy Spirit was poured out over
the Apostles so that they started to speak in all manner of tongues.
This means that they could enter into every heart and speak according
to each one's understanding. That is one of the interpretations of
Whitsuntide. If we wish to reach a more fundamental understanding of
it, we must go still deeper into the matter. Whitsuntide — as
symbolical festival — is connected with the most profound mysteries,
with the holiest spiritual qualities of humanity — that is why it is
so difficult to talk about it. Today I should like at least to touch
on just a few things.
What the
Whitsuntide Festival symbolises, the underlying principle from which it
receives its deep inner meaning, is preserved in a single manuscript copy
(Note 6)
which is to be found in
the Vatican Library, where it is guarded with the greatest care. To
be sure, no mention is made of Whitsuntide in this manuscript, but it
certainly tells of that for which Whitsuntide is only the outer
symbol. Hardly anyone has seen this manuscript, unless he has been
initiated into the deepest secrets of the Catholic Church, or has
been able to read it in the Astral Light.
(Note 7)
One copy is possessed
by a personality who has been very much misunderstood in the world,
but who is beginning to interest today's historians. I could equally
well have said ‘was possessed’ instead of ‘is
possessed’, but it would thereby cause a lack of clarity.
Therefore I say again: a copy is
in the possession of the Count of St. Germain,
(Note 8)
who is the only existing source of information about it.
I should
like to give a few hints about this from a theosophical point of
view. We shall be led thereby to something intimately connected with
the evolution of mankind during the fifth Root Race. Man assumed his
present-day form during the third Root Race, the time of ancient
Lemuria, developed it further during the fourth Root Race, the time
of ancient Atlantis, and then progressed to the fifth Root Race with
what he had thus acquired. Whoever heard my Atlantis lectures
(Note 9)
will remember that a vivid memory of those times still existed among
the Greeks.
To find
our bearings,
(Note 10)
we must get a little insight into two currents
belonging to our fifth Root Race, which are active as hidden powers
in the souls of men and are often in conflict with one another. The
one current is most clearly and best represented by what we call the
Egyptian, Indian and South European outlook on life. Everything
belonging later to Judaism and even to Christianity contains a little
of that. But in our European culture, on the other hand, this has
been intermingled with that other current which is to be found in
ancient Persia and — if we disregard what the anthropologists and
etymologists say and go deeper into the matter — we find it again
stretching westwards from Persia to the regions of the
Teutons.
Of these
two currents
(Note 11)
I would maintain that two mighty and important
spiritual intuitions underlie them. The one was best understood by
the ancient Rishis. To them was revealed the intuition of beings of a
higher order, the so-called Devas.
(Note 12)
He who has undergone occult
training and can carry out investigations into these matters will
know what Devas are. These purely spiritual beings, of the Astral or
Mental Plane, have a twofold inner nature, whereas man's nature is
threefold. For man consists of body, soul and spirit, but the Deva
nature — as far as can be investigated — consists only of soul and
spirit. It may possess other members, but we are unable to find them,
even by occult means. The Deva is an ensouled spirit. The impulses,
emotions, desires and wishes which live invisibly within man, but are
seen as light effects by the seer, these soul powers, this soul body,
which constitutes man's inner being, supported by the physical
body, is the lowest body which the Devas possess. We can regard it as
their body. The intuitive faculty of the Indian was concerned mainly
with the worshipping of these Devas. The man of India sees these
Devas all around. He sees them as creating powers when he penetrates
the veil of outward appearance. This intuition is fundamental to the
outlook on life of the peoples of the Southern Zone!
(Note 11)
It is expressed most powerfully in the Egyptians' conception of the
world.
The other intuition was the basis upon which the
ancient Persian mysticism was founded, and this led to the veneration
of beings who were also only twofold in their nature: the Asuras.
They, too, possessed what we call soul, but the soul organ was
enclosed within a physical body developed in sublime and titanic
fashion. The Indian view of the world, which
clung to the Deva worship, looked upon the Asuras as something
inferior; whereas those who inclined to the viewpoint of the Northern
peoples
(Note 11)
adhered to the Asuras,
(Note 13)
to physical nature. Thus
there developed in the Northern Zone more especially the impulse
towards controlling the things of the sense world in a material way,
towards an ordering of the world of realities by means of the highest
technical advancement, through physical arts and so on. Nowadays
there is nobody who still persists in Asura worship, but there are
many among us who still have something of this within them. Thence
comes the tendency towards the materialistic side of life and that is
the basic tendency of the Northern peoples.
(Note 11)
Whoever acknowledges
purely materialistic principles can be sure that he has something of
the Asuras in his nature.
Among the
Asura adherents there then developed a strange undertone of feeling.
It first made its appearance in the spiritual life of Persia. The
Persians developed a kind of fear of the Deva nature. They
experienced fear, apprehension and dread in face of what was of a
purely soul-spirit nature. That was the reason for the great contrast
which we now observe between the Persian and the Indian attitude. In
the Persian attitude those things were often venerated which to the
Indians were bad and inferior, and just those things were avoided by
the Persians which the Indians held in veneration. The Persian
experience of the world was steeped in a mood of soul which feared
and avoided a being of the nature of a Deva. In short, it was the
picture of Satan which arose in this view of the world. Lucifer, the
being of Spirit and Soul, became an object of fear and dread. That is
where we have to look for the origin of the belief in the Devil. This
mood of soul has also been absorbed into the modern view of the
world; Lucifer became a much feared and avoided figure in the Middle
Ages. Lucifer was definitely shunned.
We learn
particulars about it
(Note 14)
in the manuscript already mentioned. If we
follow in it the course of earth evolution we shall find that in the
middle of the third Root Race, the Lemurian Epoch, mankind was
clothed in physical matter. It is a wrong conception when
theosophists believe that reincarnation had no beginning and will
have no ending. Reincarnation started in the Lemurian Age and will
cease again at the beginning of the sixth Root Race or Age. It is
only a certain period of time in earth evolution during which mankind
reincarnates. It was preceded by a most spiritual condition which
precluded any necessity for reincarnation and there will follow again
a spiritual state which will likewise obviate the necessity for
reincarnation.
Simultaneously
with its first incarnation in the Lemurian Age the
untarnished human spirit, consisting of Atma-Buddhi-Manas, sought its
primal physical incarnation. The physical development of the earth
with its animal-like creatures had not evolved so far at that time,
the whole, of this animal-human organism was not so far advanced then
that it could have incorporated the human spirit. But a part of it, a
certain group of animal-like beings had evolved so far that the seed
of the human spirit could descend into it to give form to the human
body.
Some of
the individualities who incarnated at that time formed the small
nucleus of those who later spread over the whole earth as the
so-called Adepts. They were the original Adepts, not those whom we
call initiated today. Those whom we call initiates today did not go
through incarnation at that time . Not all incarnated at that time
who would have been able to find human-animal bodies, only some of
them. Some others were opposed to the process of incarnation for a
particular reason. They delayed that until the time of the Fourth
Age. The Bible hints at that in a concealed and profound way:
‘The Sons of God saw the daughters of men
(Note 15)
that they were fair and they took them wives of all which they
chose.’
That is
to say, the incarnation of those who had waited began at a later
time. We call this group the ‘Sons of Wisdom’, and it
almost appears as if there were a kind of arrogance, a sort of pride
about them. We shall make an exception of the small group of Adepts.
Had these other ones also incarnated at the earlier period, mankind
would never have been able to acquire the clarity of consciousness
which he possesses today. He would have been held fast in a dull
trance-like state of consciousness. He would have developed that kind
of consciousness which is to be found in people who have been
hypnotised, sleepwalkers and the like. In short, man would have
remained in a kind of dreamlike state. But one thing would have been
lacking then — one thing of great importance, if not of the utmost
importance — he would have lacked a feeling of freedom, a capacity to
exercise his individual discrimination with regard to good and evil
by means of his own consciousness, his own human ego.
This
postponement of incarnation — in the form it assumed in consequence
of that feeling of dread of the Devas which I characterised — this is
called in the Book of Genesis ‘the Fall of Man’. The
Devas delayed their incarnation and only descended to the earth to
take possession of physical bodies when humanity had reached a
further Stage in its development. Through this they were able to
evolve a more mature form of consciousness than would have been the
case earlier.
Thus, you
see, the cost of man's freedom was the deterioration of his nature,
by waiting for his incarnation till he could descend into denser
physical conditions. A deep understanding of this has been preserved
in Greek mythology. Had man descended earlier into incarnation — so
says the Greek myth — then that would have happened which Zeus wanted
when man was still living in Paradise. He wished to make man happy —
but as an unconscious being. Clear consciousness would have been
possessed solely by the gods and man would have been without a
feeling of freedom. The rebellion of the Lucifer Spirit, the Deva
Spirit within humanity, who wished to descend in order to rise up
again out of his own freedom, is symbolised by the saga of Prometheus!
(Note 16)
But Prometheus had to suffer for his endeavours by having an eagle
— symbol of inordinate desire — gnawing at his liver
and causing him the most deadly pain.
Man had
thus descended more deeply and now had to achieve through his own
free conscious activity what he would have attained by magical arts
and powers. But because he had descended deeper he must suffer pains
and torment. This is also indicated in the Bible with the words:
‘In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.
(Note 17)
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’, etc. That is no less
than to say: mankind must raise itself again with the help of
culture.
Through
the figure of Prometheus, Greek mythology has symbolised free
humanity struggling towards culture. He is the representative of
suffering mankind, but at the same time the giver of freedom. The one
who sets Prometheus free is Heracles, of whom it is said that he
underwent initiation in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Whoever descended
to the underworld was an initiate, for the descent into the
underworld is a technical term denoting initiation. This journey to
the underworld is attributed to Heracles, Odysseus and to all who are
initiates who wish to lead man of his epoch to the source of primeval
wisdom, to a life of the spirit.
Had
mankind retained the attitude of Lemurian
times we would have been dreamers today. Through his Deva nature,
mankind fructified his lower nature. Out of his self-awareness, out
of his awareness of freedom, man now has to reawaken that spark of
awareness which he brought down from heaven in justified presumption;
he has to reawaken that spiritual knowledge which he had received
without his own striving when he was still unfree. There lies in
human nature itself that satanic rebelliousness which, however, in
the form of luciferic aspiration is the only safeguard of our
freedom. And out of this freedom we shall again wrest spiritual life.
It will be reawakened in the man of the fifth Root Race, our present
epoch. This form of consciousness will again be conveyed through
initiates. It will not be a dreamy, but a clear consciousness. It is
the Heraclean spirits, the initiated ones, who will help mankind
forward and reveal to him his Deva nature, his knowledge of the spirit. That
was also the endeavour of all the great founders of religion, that
they should restore to mankind the knowledge of the spirit which had
been lost in physiological existence. The fifth epoch still contains
much of the material life within it. This materialistic culture of
the present time shows us how far man has become embedded in purely
physical-physiological nature, as Prometheus was enmeshed in his
chains. But it is equally certain that the vulture, the symbol of
lust and craving, gnawing at our liver, will be thrust aside by
spiritual men. That is the goal to which the initiates would lead
mankind through consciousness of self, by means of such movements as
the theosophical movement, so that it can raise itself up in full
freedom.
The
moment which we have to regard as the one in which spiritual life
poured into the self-conscious human being is indicated precisely in
the New Testament. It is alluded to in the profoundest of the Gospels
the one which is misunderstood by today's theologians, the St. John's
Gospel, when it speaks of the Feast of the Tabernacles which was
attended by Jesus. The founder of Christianity there speaks of the
outpouring of spiritual life with which humanity was to be endowed.
It is a remarkable passage. For the Feast of the Tabernacles, the
people had to visit a spring from which water flowed. There followed
a festival which intimated to man that he should call to mind again
his spiritual nature, his Deva and spiritual strivings. The water
which flowed there was to remind him of the soul and spirit world.
After repeated refusals Jesus finally went up to the feast. The
following happened on the last day of the feast
(John 7, 37):
‘In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and
drink.’ Those who drank celebrated a feast in which the
spiritual life was brought to recollection. But Jesus connected
something else with it, as can be seen in the following words of St.
John's Gospel: ‘He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath
said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this
spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should
receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was
not yet glorified)’.
Here the
Whitsuntide mystery is indicated. It is intimated that man has to
wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. When the moment arrives in
which man is able to kindle the spark of spiritual life within him,
when the physiological nature of man is able to attempt the ascent by
means of its own forces, then will the Holy Spirit descend upon him
and the time of spiritual awakening will be at hand.
Man
descended as far as the physical body and so, in contrast to the
nature of the Devas, he is built up out of three principles: Spirit,
Soul and Body. The Devas are at a higher stage than man, but they do
not have to surmount physical nature as man does. This physical
nature has to be transfigured so that it can absorb the life of the
spirit. Man's consciousness in the body, his physiological
consciousness of today, will itself be able to enkindle the spark of
spiritual existence in freedom.
Christ's
sacrifice is an example which shows that man will be able to unfold a
higher form of consciousness out of his life in the physical plane.
His lower individuality lives in the physical body, but it must be
enkindled so that the higher personality can develop. Only then can
the ‘rivers of living water’ flow from man's
‘belly’. Then can the Holy Spirit appear and be poured
forth upon humanity. Man, as an ego being, must be as though dead to
physiological existence.
Herein
lies what is truly Christian, and it also embodies the deeper mystery
contained in the Whitsuntide Festival. Man lives primarily in his
lower organism, in his consciousness imbued with desires. It is right
that this is so, because it is only this consciousness which can
provide him with awareness of his true goal, to attain freedom. He
should not remain there, however, but must raise his ego to the
nature of a Deva. He must develop the Deva within him, bring it to
birth so that it becomes a spirit of healing — a Holy Spirit. To that
end he must consciously sacrifice his earthly body, he must
experience that ‘dying and becoming’ so that he does not
remain a ‘gloomy guest’
(Note 18)
on this dark earth.
Thus the
Easter mystery is only revealed in its fullness when taken together
with the Whitsuntide mystery. We see the human ego, exemplified in
its Divine Representative, divesting itself of the lower ego and
dying in order to be completely transfigured in its physical nature
and offered up again to the Godhead. Ascension is the symbol of this.
When man has become transfigured in the physical body. has offered it
up again to the Spirit, he will be ripe to receive the outpouring of
spiritual life, to experience what is called the ‘coming of the
Holy Spirit’ according to the explanation of One, who is
mankind's greatest Representative. Therefore it is also said:
‘And there are three that bear witness in earth,
(Note 19)
the Spirit, the water and the blood.’ Whitsuntide is the outpouring
of the Spirit into man.
The
highest goal of humanity is symbolically expressed by means of the
Whitsuntide festival; that is, that mankind must progress once more
from an intellectual to a spiritual life just as Prometheus was set
free from his suffering by Heracles, so will mankind be set free by
the power of the Spirit. By descending into matter, mankind has
attained self-consciousness. Through the fact that he ascends again.
he will become a self-aware Deva. Those who worshipped the Asuras and
regarded the Devas as beings of a satanic nature, who did not wish to
descend into the innermost depths, regarded this descent as something
devilish.
That,
too, is referred to in Greek mythology. The one whose state of
consciousness is not free — the contemplator — the one who
does not wish to win redemption in complete freedom and therefore is the
opponent of Prometheus — is Epimetheus. Zeus gives him
Pandora's box, the contents of which — sufferings and plagues
— fall on mankind when it is opened. The only gift which is left
behind is hope; the hope that one day, in a future state he will also
progress to this higher, clear consciousness. He is left with the
hope that he will be set free. Prometheus advises him against
accepting this doubtful gift from the god Zeus. Epimetheus does not
listen to his brother, but accepts the gift. The gift which
Epimetheus receives is not worth as much as the one belonging to his
brother Prometheus.
Thus we
see that there are two ways of life open to men. Some of them cling
to a feeling of freedom and — although it is dangerous to develop
spirituality — they search for it in freedom nevertheless. The others
are the ones who find their satisfaction in the dull round of life
and in blind faith, and who suspect danger in the luciferic
endeavours of their fellow men. The founders of the Church's outward
doctrine have distorted the deeper meaning of luciferic striving. The
ancient teachings on the subject are contained in hidden manuscripts
(Note 20)
in undisclosed places, where they have hardly been seen by
anyone. They are available to a few people who are able to see them
in the Astral Light, and otherwise only to a few initiates. The path
is fraught with danger, but it is the only one which leads to the
sublime goal of spiritual freedom.
The
spirit of man should be free and not dull. That is also the aim of
Christianity. Health and healing are connected with holy. A spirit
which is holy is able to heal, it sets men free from sufferings and
torments. Healthy and free is the human being who is released from
the bondage of his physiological state. For only the free spirit is
the healthy one, whose body is no longer gnawed by an
eagle.
Thus
Whitsuntide can be looked upon as the symbol of the freeing of the
human spirit, as the great symbol of mankind's struggle for freedom,
for consciousness of his own freedom.
If the
Easter Festival is the festival of resurrection in nature, then the
Whitsuntide Festival is the symbol of the becoming conscious of the
human spirit, the festival of those who know and understand and —
penetrated through and through by this — go in search of
freedom.
Those
spiritual movements of modern times which lead to a perception of the
spiritual world in clear day consciousness — not in trance or under
hypnosis — are the ones which lead to an understanding of such
important symbols as this. The clear consciousness, which only the
spirit can set free, is what unites us in the Theosophical Society.
Not the word alone, but the spirit gives it its meaning. The spirit
which emanates from the great Masters, which flows through a few
people only who are able to say: ‘I know they are there, the
great Adepts, who are the founders of our spiritual movement — not our
society’
(Note 21)
— this spirit flows into our present civilisation
and bestows on it the impulse for the future.
Let
a spark of understanding of this Holy Spirit flow again into
the misunderstood Whitsuntide Festival, then it will be revivified
and gain meaning once more. We want to live in a world that makes
sense. Whoever celebrates festivals without sparing them a thought is
a follower of Epimetheus. Man must see what binds him to his
surroundings and also to what is invisible in nature. We have to know
where we stand. For we humans are not confined to a dull, dreamy,
semi-existence, we are destined to develop a free, fully conscious
unfolding of our whole being.
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