Lecture 17:
FREEMASONRY AND HUMAN EVOLUTION
(First lecture: for men only)
Berlin, 23 October 1905
[See the
Notes for this Lecture]
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.
(Note 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.
(Note 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.
(Note 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.
(Note 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].
(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.
(Note 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.
(Note 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.
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