LECTURE TEN
ROSICRUCIAN WISDOM IN FOLK-MYTHOLOGY
There is no
doubt that the Spiritual Science we have been studying for
many years is beginning to make more and more headway in the
world and to find increasing understanding in the hearts and
minds of our contemporaries. It might be useful occasionally
to speak of how the ideas of Spiritual Science are being made
known and many of you would be glad to know what effect the
spiritual nourishment you have yourselves received has had
upon others at the present time. It is only now and then that
I can speak of this spread of spiritual-scientific thought in
the outer world, but it will be some satisfaction to you to
know that we can see how the spirit inspiring us all is
finding entry in various countries. I could see, for
instance, that our ideas were beginning to find a footing
when I was lecturing in the south of Austria, in Trieste,
recently. Then, when I gave a course of lectures in
Copenhagen
[
The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind.
(Obtainable from Rudolf Steiner Press.)]
only a few days ago,
there too it was evident that the spirit we are trying to
cultivate under the symbol of the Rose Cross is gaining more
and more ground. Signs such as these make it clear that there
is a need and also a longing for what we call Spiritual
Science.
It is
fundamental to the spirit informing our Movement that we
should refrain from any agitation or propaganda and far
rather pay heed to the great, all-embracing wisdom needed by
the hearts and souls of modern men if they are to feel any
security in life to-day. It is our duty to make these
spiritual thoughts into real nourishment for our souls. You
will certainly have understood enough of the great law of
Karma to know that it is by no chance or accident that an
individual feels urged to come down into the physical world
at this particular time. The souls of all of you here have
felt the longing to incarnate in a physical body at the turn
of the nineteenth to the twentieth century because of a
desire to experience what can be achieved in the present
physical environment.
Let us look at
our own epoch and see how its spiritual aspect appears to
souls which, like yours, have been born into it. At the turn
of the century conditions were very different from what they
had been fifty or sixty years earlier. Human beings who —
like all of you here — are growing up at the present time,
attempt now and then to hear about the spiritual guidance and
leadership of the world, about the spiritual forces and
influences pervading the external world in the different
kingdoms of nature and penetrating into the souls of men. But
for the last fifty years a soul longing and searching for
spiritual nourishment has found very little. This longing has
been present in the depths of men's souls, although it
may have been a very faint voice, easily silenced.
Nevertheless the longing is there and everyone is seeking for
spiritual nourishment, whatever his position in life and
whatever use he may make of his faculties. No matter in what
department of science you may be working to-day, you learn
only external, material facts; they can be utilised very
cleverly and ingeniously to advance modern culture but they
are no help at all towards understanding what the spirit may
reveal. No matter whether you are an artist or are engaged in
some practical work, you will find little that can pass into
head or hand to give you not only energy and impetus for your
work but also security and comfort in life. By the beginning
of the nineteenth century people had forebodings that in the
near future very little spiritual nourishment would be left.
During the first half of the century, when vestiges of an old
spiritual life were still present, although in a different
form, many people felt that there was something in the air
presaging the complete disappearance of the ancient treasures
of the spirit handed down by tradition from olden times. Yet
it is precisely the legitimate progress of culture during the
nineteenth century that will completely wipe out the
spiritual traditions handed down from the past.
During the
first half of the nineteenth century, many voices are to be
heard speaking in this strain and I will quote one example of
a man who lived during that period and had a wide knowledge
of the old form of theosophy, but who also knew that owing to
the course of events in that century it was bound to
disappear; at the same time he was convinced that a future
must come when there would be a revival of this old theosophy
but in a new form. I am going to read you a passage written
towards the end of the first half of the nineteenth century,
in 1847. Its author was a thinker of a type no longer in
existence to-day — men who were still sensitive to the last
echoes of those old traditions which have now been lost for a
considerable time.—
‘It is
often difficult to learn among the older theosophists what
the real purpose of theosophy is ... but it is clear that
along the paths it has taken hitherto, theosophy can acquire
no real existence as a science nor achieve any result in a
wider sphere. Yet it would be very ill-advised to conclude
that it is a phenomenon scientifically unjustifiable and also
ephemeral. History itself decisively disproves this: it shows
how this enigmatic phenomenon could never make itself really
effective in the world but for all that was continually
breaking through and was held together in its manifold forms
by the chain of a never-dying tradition. ... At all times
there have been very few in whom this insistent speculative
need has been combined with a living religious need. But
theosophy is for these few alone. ... The important thing
is that if theosophy ever becomes scientific in the real
sense and produces obvious and definite results, these will
gradually become the general conviction, be acknowledged as
valid truths and be universally accepted by those who cannot
find their way along the only possible path by which they
could be discovered.
But all this
lies in the womb of the future which we do not wish to
anticipate. For the moment let us be thankful for the
beautiful presentation given by Oetinger, which will
certainly be appreciated in wide circles.’
This shows
what a man such as Rothe of Heidelberg felt about
the theosophical spirit in 1847. The passage is from his
Preface to a treatise on Oetinger, a theosophist living in
the second half of the eighteenth century.
What, then,
can be said about the spirit of theosophy? It is a spirit
without which the genuine cultural achievements of the world
would never have been possible. Thinking of its greatest
manifestations, we shall say: Without it there would never
have been a Homer, a Pindar, a Raphael, a Michelangelo; there
would have been no depth of religious feeling in men, no
truly spiritual life and no external culture. Everything that
man creates he must create from out of the spirit. If he
thinks that he can create without it he is ignorant of the
fact that although in certain periods spiritual striving
falls into decline, the less firmly rooted a thing is in the
spirit the more likely it is to die. Whatever has eternal
value stems from the spirit and no created thing survives
that is not rooted in it. But since everything a man does is
under the guidance of the spiritual life, the very smallest
creation, even when used for the purposes of everyday life,
has an eternal value and connects him with the spirit. We
know that our own theosophical life has its source in what we
have called the Rosicrucian stream; and it has often been
emphasised that since the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth
centuries the Masters of Rosicrucian wisdom have been
preparing conditions that began at the end of the nineteenth
century and will continue in the twentieth. The future longed
for and expected by Rothe of Heidelberg is already the
present and should be recognised as such. But those who
caused this stream to flow into souls, at first in a way
imperceptible to men, have been preparing conditions for a
long, long time. In a definite sense what we have called the
Rosicrucian path since the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries is present in our Theosophical Movement in a more
conscious form; its influence has flowed into the hearts and
minds of the peoples of Europe and sets its stamp upon
them.
From what has
happened in European culture, can we form an idea of how this
spirit has actually taken effect? I said just now that it has
worked as the true Rosicrucian spirit since the eleventh,
twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; it was always
present although only at that time did it assume Rosicrucian
form. This Rosicrucian spirit goes back to a very distant
past — it had its Mysteries even in Atlantean times. The
influence has been taking effect for long ages, becoming more
and more conscious as it streamed into the hearts and souls
of men.
Let us try to
form some idea of how this spirit made its way into humanity.
We meet together here and our studies help us to perceive
ways in which the human soul develops and gradually rises to
regions where it can understand the spiritual life, and
perhaps actually behold it. Many of you have for years been
trying to let concepts and ideas which mirror the spiritual
life stream into your souls as spiritual nourishment. You
know how we have tried to acquire some understanding of the
riddles of the world. I have often described the different
stages of the soul's development and how it can rise to
the higher worlds; how a higher part of the Self must be
distinguished from a lower part; how man has come from other
planetary conditions, having passed through a Saturn-, a Sun-
and a Moon-evolution, during which his physical, etheric and
astral bodies were formed; and how finally he entered into
the period of Earth-evolution. I have told you that there is
something within us that must receive its training here on
the Earth in order to rise to a higher stage. We have also
said that the development of certain beings — the Luciferic
beings — was retarded during the Old Moon-period and they
later approached man's astral body as tempters, and
also in order to impart to him certain qualities. I have
often told you too how man must overcome certain tendencies
in his lower self and through this conquest rise into the
spheres to which his higher Self belongs, into the higher
regions of the spiritual life. Words of Goethe must be
remembered:
And as long
as thou knowest it not,
This Dying and Becoming,
Thou art but a troubled guest
Upon the dark Earth!
The degree of
development that is possible to-day and can give strength,
assurance and a genuine content to life is within our reach
if we acquire knowledge of the manifold nature of man and
realise that his constitution is not a haphazard medley but
consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego.
We have formulated definite ideas, for example of the
temperaments, by studying the process of education and the
development of the physical body up to the seventh year, of
the etheric body up to the fourteenth and of the astral body
up to the twenty-first year. By studying the mission of
Truth, of Prayer, of Anger, our ideas of the three bodies, of
the sentient soul, intellectual or mind-soul and
consciousness — or spiritual soul, do not remain mere
abstractions but impart meaning, clarity and content to our
existence.
In this way we
have achieved some understanding of the riddles of the world.
And although there are large numbers of people outside our
circle who still, consciously or unconsciously, persist in
materialism, there are nevertheless many souls who feel it
necessary to their very existence to listen to expositions of
the kind we have been able to give. Many of you would not
have been present among us for years, sharing our experiences
and activities if it were not a necessity of your very lives.
Why are there souls to-day who understand these things and
for whom the ideas and concepts developed here become a guide
on their life's way? The reason is this. — Just as you
have been born into the modern world with these longings, so
our forbears in Europe — and this means very many of those
present here to-day — were born during past centuries into a
world and environment very different from those of the
nineteenth century. Let us cast our minds back to the sixth,
seventh or even the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of our
era when many of those present here were incarnated, and
think of the sort of things that souls then living might have
experienced.
In those times
there was no Theosophical Society where subjects such as
those with which we are concerned were studied; the influence
of the environment upon the souls of men took a very
different form. People did not travel about giving lectures
on spiritual-scientific subjects, but minstrels went from
village to village, from city to city, proclaiming the
spirit. These minstrels did not speak about theosophy, about
the lower and higher Ego, about man's physical, etheric
and astral bodies and so on. As they moved around the land
their mission was to speak of the spirit in the way it was
wont to be proclaimed at that time. The following story was
told all over Middle and Eastern Europe. —
Once upon a
time there was a King's son. During a ride one day he
heard moans coming from a ditch, and following the course of
the ditch in order to discover the source of the moans, he
found an old woman. He dismounted, climbed down into the
ditch and helped the old woman who had fallen into it, to get
out. Then he saw that she had injured her leg and could not
walk. He asked her how the accident happened and she told
him: ‘I am old and I have to get up soon after midnight
to go to the city and sell my eggs; on the way I fell into
this ditch.’ The King's son said to her:
‘You cannot get home by yourself so I will put you on
my horse and take you.’ This he did, and the woman said
to him: ‘Although you are of noble birth, you are a
kind and good man; and because you have helped me I will give
you a reward.’ He guessed now that she was not an
ordinary woman, for she said: ‘You shall have the
reward which your kind soul has earned. Do you want to marry
the Flower-Queen's daughter?’ ‘Yes!’
he replied. She went on: ‘For that you will need
something that I can easily give you,’ and she gave him
a little bell, saying: ‘If you ring this bell once the
Eagle-King will come with his hosts to help you in the
predicament in which you find yourself; if you ring twice the
Fox-King will come with his hosts to help you in the
predicament in which you find yourself; and if you ring three
times the Fish-King will come with his hosts to help you in
the predicament in which you find yourself.’ — The
King's son took the little bell and returned home,
announced that he was going to search for the
Flower-Queen's daughter, and rode off. He rode a long,
long way but nobody could tell him where the Flower-Queen
lived with her daughter. By this time his horse was
completely exhausted and could carry him no longer so that he
was obliged to continue his journey on foot. He came across
an aged man and asked him where the Flower-Queen lived.
‘I cannot tell you,’ the aged man replied,
‘but go on and on and you will find my father who may
perhaps be able to tell you.’ So the King's son
went on, year after year, and then found another, still more
aged man. He asked him: ‘Can you tell me where the
Flower-Queen lives?’ But the aged man replied: ‘I
cannot tell you, but you must go on and on for many more long
years and you will find my father who will certainly be able
to tell you where the Flower-Queen lives.’ — So the
King's son went on and at last found an old, old man
and asked him if he could tell him where the Flower-Queen
lived with her daughter. The old man replied: ‘The
Flower-Queen lives far away, in a mountain which you can see
from here in the distance. But she is guarded by a fearsome
Dragon. You cannot get near at present for this is a time
when the Dragon never sleeps; he sleeps at certain times only
and this is one of his waking periods. But you must go a
little further, to another mountain, and there you will find
the Dragon's mother; through her you will attain your
goal.’ So he went on and found the Dragon-mother, the
very archetype of ugliness. But he knew that whether he could
find the Flower-Queen's daughter would depend on her.
Then he saw seven other dragons around her, all eager to
guard the Flower-Queen and her daughter who had been long
imprisoned and were destined to be set free by the
King's son. So he said to the Dragon-mother: ‘I
know that I must become your servant if I am to find the
Flower-Queen.’ ‘Yes’, she said, ‘you
must become my servant and perform a task that is not easy.
Here is a horse which you must lead to pasture the first day,
the second day and the third. If you can bring it home in
good condition you may possibly achieve your object after
three days. But if you fail, the dragons will devour you —
we shall all devour you.’ The King's son agreed
to this and the next morning he was given the horse. He tried
to lead it to pasture but it soon disappeared. He searched
for it in vain and was in despair. Then he remembered the
little bell given him by the old woman, took it out and rang
it once. A host of eagles gathered, led by the Eagle-King,
looked for the horse and found it, so that the King's
son was able to take it back to the Dragon-mother. She said
to him: ‘Because you have brought the horse back I will
give you a cloak of copper so that you can attend the Ball
tonight at the court of the Flower-Queen and her
daughter.’ Then, on the second day, he was again given
the horse to take to pasture, but again it disappeared and he
could not find it. So he took out the bell and rang it twice.
Immediately the Fox-King appeared with a host of his
followers; they looked for and found the horse and the
King's son was again able to take it back to the
Dragon-mother. She then said to him: ‘To-day you shall
have a cloak of silver so that you can attend the Ball
to-night at the court of the Flower-Queen and her
daughter.’ At the Ball the Flower-Queen said to him:
‘On the third day ask for a foal of that horse and with
it you will be able to rescue me and we shall be
united.’ Then, on the third day, the horse was again
handed to him to lead to pasture, and again it soon
disappeared, for it was very wild. So he took out the bell
and rang it three times, whereupon the Fish-King appeared
with his followers, found the horse, and for the third time
the King's son brought it home. He had now successfully
performed his task. The Dragon-mother then presented him with
a mantle of gold as his third garment in order that on the
third day he might attend the Flower-Queen's Ball. He
was also given as a fitting reward the foal of the horse he
had cared for. With it he was able to lead the Flower-Queen
and her daughter to their own castle. And around the castle,
since there were others who wanted to steal her daughter, the
Flower-Queen caused a thick hedge to grow to prevent the
castle from being invaded. Then the Flower-Queen said to the
King's son: ‘You have won my daughter and
henceforth she shall be yours, but only on one condition. You
may keep her for half the year but for the other half she
must return beneath the surface of the earth and be restored
to me. Only on this condition can you be united with
her.’ So the King's son won the
Flower-Queen's daughter and lived with her for half the
year, while for the other half she was with her mother.
—
This story, as
well as others like it, was listened to by many people in
those days. They listened and drank in what they heard but
did not, like many modern theosophists, proceed to invent
allegories, for symbolic or allegorical interpretations of
such matters are valueless. People listened to the stories
because they were a source of delight to them and a warm glow
pervaded their souls as they listened. They wanted nothing
more than this as they listened to the story of the
Flower-Queen and the King's son with his bell and his
wooing of the Flower-Queen's daughter.
There are many
souls alive to-day who in those days heard such tales with
inner delight, and the effects lived on in them. Their
feelings and perceptions were converted into thoughts and
experiences and their souls were transformed by new forces.
These forces have changed into the longing for a higher
interpretation of the same secrets, a longing for Spiritual
Science. In those days the wandering minstrels did not go
about saying that man strives towards his higher self and to
that end must overcome his lower self which holds him back.
They gave their message in the form of a story about a
King's son who rode out into the world, heard moans
coming from a ditch and thereupon performed a good deed.
To-day we speak simply of a good deed, a deed of love and
sacrifice. In earlier times the deed was described in
pictures. To-day we say that man must develop a feeling for
the spirit which will awaken in him an inkling of the
spiritual world and create powers through which he can
establish relationship with it. In earlier times this was
expressed in the picture of the old woman who gave the
King's son a bell which he rang. To-day it is said: Man
has taken into himself all the kingdoms of nature and unites
in harmony everything that lies outspread before him. But he
must learn to understand how what is outspread in the
external world lives within him and how he can overcome his
lower nature, for only if he can bring what is at work in the
kingdoms of nature into the right relationship with his own
being can it come to his aid.
We have spoken
often enough of man's evolution through the periods of
Saturn, Sun and Moon and of how he left behind him the other
kingdoms of nature, retaining within himself the best of each
in order that he might rise to a higher stage. To what stage
has he evolved? To indicate what lives in the human soul
Plato had already used the picture of the horse on which man
rides from one incarnation to another. In the times of which
we have been speaking the picture used was that of the bell
which was rung to summon the representatives of the kingdoms
of nature — the Eagle-King, the Fox-King and the Fish-King
— in order that the being destined to become the ruler of
these kingdoms might establish the right relationship with
them.
Man's
soul is unruly and can be brought into the right relationship
with the kingdoms of nature only when it is tempered by love
and wisdom. In earlier times this truth was presented in
pictorial form and the soul was helped to understand what we
to-day express differently. Men were told that the
King's son rang the bell once and the Eagle-King
appeared; twice and the Fox-King appeared; three times and
the Fish-King appeared. It was they who brought back the
horse. In other words: the tumults which rage in the human
soul must be recognised; when they are recognised the soul
can be freed from lower influences and brought into
order.
In the modern
age we say that man must learn how his passions, his anger
and so on, are connected with his development from one
seven-year period to another. In other words, we must learn
to understand the threefold sheaths of the human being. In
earlier times a wonderful picture was placed before men: the
King's son was given a mantle, a sheath, every time he
rang the little bell — that is to say, when he had
subjugated one of the kingdoms of nature. To-day we speak of
studying the nature of the physical body; in earlier days a
picture was used — of the Dragon-mother giving the
King's son a cloak or mantle of copper. We study the
nature of the etheric body; in earlier times it was said that
the Dragon-mother gave the King's son a silver cloak on
the second day. We speak of the astral body with its surging
passions; in earlier times it was said that on the third day
the Dragon-mother gave the King's son a cloak of gold.
What we learn to-day about the threefold nature of man in the
form of concepts was conveyed through the picture of the
copper, silver and golden cloaks. Instead of the pictures of
the copper, silver and golden cloaks we speak to-day in terms
which convey an understanding of how the solid physical body
is related to the other sheaths of the human being as copper
ore is related to silver and gold.
We speak
to-day of seven classes of Luciferic beings whose development
was retarded during the Moon-evolution and who set about
bringing their influence to bear upon man's astral
body. The minstrels said: When the King's son came to
the mountain where he was to be united with the
Flower-Queen's daughter, he encountered seven dragons
who would have devoured him if he had not accomplished his
task. We know that if our evolution does not proceed in the
right way it will be corrupted by the forces of the sevenfold
Luciferic beings. We say nowadays that by achieving spiritual
development we find our higher Self. The minstrels said: The
King's son was united with the Flower-Queen. And we
say: A certain rhythm must be established in the human soul.
You will remember that a few weeks ago I said that when an
idea has arisen in the soul we must allow time for the idea
to mature, and it will then be possible to detect a certain
rhythm in the process. After seven days the idea has
penetrated into the depths of the soul; after fourteen days
the maturing idea can lay hold of the outer astral substance
and allow itself to be baptised by the World-Spirit. After
twenty-one days the idea has become still more mature. And
only after four times seven days is it ready to be offered to
the world as a gift of our own personality. This is the
manifestation of an inner rhythm of the soul. A man's
creative faculty can work effectively only if he does not try
immediately to force upon the world something that occurs to
him but is aware that the ordered rhythm of the external
world repeats itself in his soul, that he must live in such a
way that the Macrocosm is reflected in the Microcosm of his
own being. The minstrels said: Man must bring the forces of
his soul into harmony, must seek the Flower-Queen's
daughter and enter into a union with her during which he
spends half of the year with his bride and for the other half
leaves her to be with her mother who lives in the depths.
This means that he establishes a rhythm within himself and
the rhythm of his life takes its course in harmony with the
rhythm of the Macrocosm.
These pictures
— and hundreds like them could be mentioned — stimulated
the soul through the thought-forms they created; and the
result is that souls living to-day have become sufficiently
mature to listen to the different kind of presentation given
by Spiritual Science. But before this could happen man had
perforce to experience a sense of deprivation and intense
longing. The spiritual longings of the soul had first to be
engulfed in the physical world. This did in fact happen in
the first half of the nineteenth century; and then, in the
second half of the century, came the materialistic culture
with its devastating effect upon spiritual life. But the
longing grew all the stronger and the ideal of the
spiritual-scientific Movement became all the more
significant. In the first half of the century there were only
few who in a kind of silent martyrdom felt that ideas once
conveyed in the form of pictures in narratives still survived
but only in a state of decline.
In the soul of
a man born in the year 1803, echoes of the old wisdom of past
times were still reverberating. Something closely akin to
theosophical ideas was a living reality in him. His soul was
completely engrossed in what we to-day call the
spiritual-scientific solution of the riddle of
world-existence. His name was Julius Mosen. His soul
was able to survive only because for most of his life he was
bedridden. Soul and body could not adjust themselves to each
other because owing to the way in which Mosen had grasped
these ideas without being able to penetrate them spiritually,
his etheric body had been drawn out of his physical body
which was paralysed as a result. His soul had nevertheless
risen to spiritual heights. In 1831 he wrote a remarkable
book, Ritter Wahn. He had learnt of a wonderful
legend still surviving in Italy, an old Italian folk-legend.
As he studied it he became convinced that it enshrined
something of the spirit of the universe, that those who
created its imagery were filled with the living spirituality
of the World Order. The result was that in 1831 he wrote a
truly wonderful work — which, needless to say, has been
forgotten, in common with so much that is the product of
spiritual greatness.
Ritter Wahn
sets out to conquer death and on his way he comes across
three old men — Ird, Time and Space. Julius Mosen hit on the
German word Ird to translate the Italian il
mondo, because he knew that there was something
particularly significant in it. Ird, Time and Space are the
names of the three old men who, however, can be of no use to
Ritter Wahn because they are themselves subject to death. Ird
denotes everything that is subject to the laws of the
physical body, and so to death; Time, the etheric body, is by
its very nature transitory; and the third, the lower astral
body, which gives us the perception of Space, is also subject
to death. Our individuality passes from incarnation to
incarnation; but according to the Italian folk-legend, Ird,
Time and Space represent our threefold sheath.
Who is
‘Ritter Wahn?’ Each of us, passing from
incarnation to incarnation, looks out upon the world and
faces maya, the great Illusion; each of us, in that we live a
life in the spirit, goes forth to conquer death. On this
quest we meet the three old men who are our three sheaths.
They are indeed very old! The physical body has existed since
the evolutionary period of Old Saturn, the etheric body since
the period of Old Sun, and the astral body since the period
of Old Moon. The Ego, the ‘I’, has been embodied
in men in the course of the Earth period itself.
Julius Mosen depicts Ritter Wahn seeking to overcome death.
He uses the Platonic image of a rider on horseback — an
image that was known all over Middle Europe and still farther
afield. Ritter Wahn rides out in an attempt to conquer the
heavens with materialistic thinking — like those who cling
to the sense-world and are imprisoned in illusion and maya.
But when through death they enter the spiritual world, what
happens is faithfully described by Julius Mosen. Such human
beings have not lived out their lives to the full and long to
come down again to the Earth in order that their souls may
continue to evolve. So Ritter Wahn returns to the Earth. He
sees the beautiful Morgana, the soul, which is destined to be
stimulated by whatever is earthly and — like the
Flower-Queen's daughter — represents the union with
what man can acquire only through schooling on Earth. He
falls a victim to death through being again united with the
Earth and the beautiful Morgana. This means that he passes
through death in order that he may raise his own soul,
represented by Morgana, to higher and higher stages during
each succeeding incarnation.
It is from
pictures like these which carry the stamp of their thousands
of years’ life that ideas stream into artists of the
calibre of Julius Mosen. In his case they were given
expression by a soul too great to live healthily in a
physical body during the approaching age of materialism and
Julius Mosen had consequently to endure the silent martyrdom
imposed on him by his passionate soul. — Such was the
impulse at work in a man living in the first half of the
nineteenth century. It will become active again but in such a
way as to kindle human powers and forces; and it will enable
us to have some understanding of what is meant by the spirit
of Rosicrucianism — the spirit that must make its way into
the souls of men.
We can now
surmise that what we ourselves are cultivating has always
existed. Were we to imagine that anything in the world can
prosper without this spirit working in men we should be
succumbing to the delusions suffered by Ritter Wahn.
Whence came
the minstrels of the seventh, eighth or even thirteenth
centuries, wandering as they did through the world to create
thought-forms that would enable souls in our own day to have
a different kind of understanding? Where had these minstrels
learnt how to bring such pictures to men? They had learnt
from the centres we think of to-day as the Rosicrucian
schools. They were pupils of Rosicrucians. Their teachers
said to them: You cannot now go forth into the world and
clothe your message in concepts and ideas, as will have to be
done later on; you must speak of the King's son, of the
Flower-Queen and of the three cloaks, in order that from
these pictures thought-forms may come into being and live in
the souls of men. And when these souls return to Earth they
will understand what is needed for their further progress. —
Messengers are continually sent out from the centres of
spiritual life in order that in every age what lies in the
depths of the spirit may be made accessible to men.
It is a
superficial view to believe that such tales can be invented
by human fancy. The old tales which give expression to the
spiritual secrets of the world came into being because those
who composed them gave ear to others who were able to impart
the spiritual secrets. Consequently we can say with truth
that the spirit of all humanity, of the Microcosm and the
Macrocosm, lives in them.
The minstrels
were sent out to tell their stories from the same centres
whence we to-day draw the knowledge on which the culture
needed by humanity is based. Thus it is that the spirit in
which mankind is rooted moves on from epoch to epoch. The
Beings who in pre-Christian times imparted instruction to
individuals in the temples, teaching them what they had
themselves brought over from former planetary evolutions —
these Beings placed themselves under the leadership of
Christ, the unique Individuality who became the great Teacher
and Guide of mankind. Stories which have come down through
the centuries and have inspired in the whole of Western
culture thought-forms expressing in pictures the same
teaching about Christ as we give to-day, make it quite clear
that in the period after the Mystery of Golgotha the
spiritual leadership of mankind, working through its centres
of learning, was vested in Christ. All spiritual leadership
is connected with Him. If we can make ourselves conscious of
this fact we shall be turning our gaze to the light we need
in order to understand the longings of human souls incarnated
in the nineteenth century.
If we think
deeply about souls who reveal the longings of earlier times,
we shall recognise with a sense of profound responsibility
that they waited for us to bring their longings to
fulfilment. Julius Mosen, the author of Ritter Wahn
and Ahasver, and others like him, were the last
prophets of the West because the teachings once given by
messengers from the holy temples in the form of pictures to
prepare souls for later ages, were living realities to them.
And their yearning is indicated in words written by Rothe of
Heidelberg in 1847: ‘... if theosophy ever becomes
scientific in the real sense and produces obvious and
definite results, these will gradually become the general
conviction, be acknowledged as valid truths and be
universally accepted by those who cannot find their way along
the only possible path by which they could be discovered ...’
At that time a man who had these yearnings —
thinking not only of himself but also of his contemporaries
— could only say with resignation that all this lay in the
womb of the future which he had no wish to anticipate. In
1847, men who were cognisant of the secrets of the
Rosicrucian temples had not yet spoken in a way that could be
generally understood. But what lies in the womb of the future
can become living power if there are enough souls who realise
that knowledge is a duty — a duty because we must not give
back undeveloped souls to the World-Spirit. Were we to do
that we should have deprived the World-Spirit of forces
implanted in us. If there are souls who recognise their duty
to the World-Spirit and endeavour to understand the riddles
of the world, the hopes cherished by the best men of earlier
times will be fulfilled. They looked to us, who were to be
born after them, and longed that theosophy should become
scientifically acceptable and lay hold of the hearts of men.
But these hearts must exist! And that depends upon people who
have identified themselves with our spiritual-scientific
Movement being convinced of the need for spiritual
illumination of the riddles of existence. It depends upon
every single soul among us whether the longings of which I
have spoken prove to have been empty dreams on the part of
those who had hoped for the best in us or to have been dreams
now brought to fulfilment.
When we see
the barrenness of science, art and every domain of social
life we must tell ourselves that we need not succumb to it
but that there is a way out. For again an age has dawned when
voices from the holy temples are speaking — not in pictures
and stories but proclaiming truths which many people still
regard as theories but which can and must become sources of
life and nourishment to the soul. Each individual can resolve
with the highest powers of his soul to receive this source of
life.
This is what
we must impress upon our souls as the epitome of the meaning
and spirit of the guidance of mankind. If we allow this
thought to be active in our souls it will be an impulse in us
for many months. We shall find that it can grow into an
impressive structure — quite independently of the words used
to express it. My words may well be imperfect but it is the
reality in the thought that matters, not the form in which it
is expressed. This reality can live in every single soul. The
totality of truth is present in every soul as a seed and can
be brought to blossom if the soul devotes itself to the
development of that seed.
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