Secrets of the Threshold

Notes

1. Devachan, devachanic (Sanscrit, deva-divine being) The spirit world. In An Outline of Occult Science Steiner describes it as “The manifestation of the Spirit World in its fullness.”

2. Rudolf Steiner, The Souls' Awakening, contained in Four Mystery Dramas, (Vancouver, Steiner Book Centre, 1978).

3. Theosophical Society: The German section of the Theosophical Society, headed by Rudolf Steiner until 1912, diverged from the beginning from the rest of the Theosophical Society which was headed by Annie Besant. In 1912, the German section broke away and the Anthroposophical Society was founded.

4. The Souls' Awakening, Scene 3.

5. Rudolf Steiner, A Road to Self-Knowledge and The Threshold Of The Spiritual World (London, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1975).

6. The Souls' Awakening, Scene 13.

7. Rudolf Steiner, The Probation of the Soul, contained in Four Mystery Dramas.

8. See Rudolf Steiner, The Guardian of the Threshold, Scene 7. Contained in The Four Mystery Dramas.

9. Leadbeater wrote that he had “stood with Mrs. Besant in the presence of the Director of the Universe.” Mrs. Besant was at that time the President of the Theosophical Society.

10. See The Souls' Awakening, Scene 4. The Guardian of the Threshold says:
    You see myself, too in delusion's form
    while vain desires are joined to inner sight
    and spirit peacefulness as sheath of soul
    has not yet taken hold of your whole being.

11. Ferdinand Fox Reinecke. See Guardian of the Threshold, Scenes 1 and 8; The Souls' Awakening, Scene 12, where there is the remark: “Ahriman goes off and returns with the Soul of Ferdinand Fox, whose figure is a sort of copy of his own.”

12. Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 – 1949), Belgian poet who wrote his metaphysical, “Symbolistic” drama, poetry and prose in French. Dramas include “Melisande” and “The Blue Bird.” He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911.

13. See also Rudolf Steiner, Three lectures on the Mystery Dramas, (Spring Valley, Anthroposophic Press, 1983).

14. The Guardian of the Threshold, Scene 3.

15. See The Guardian of the Threshold, Scene 10.

16. The Souls' Awakening, Scene 6.

17. See Three Lectures on the Mystery Dramas (note 13).

18. See The Probation of the Soul, Scene 5.

19. See The Guardian of the Threshold, Scenes 9 and 10.

20. The Probation of the Soul, Scene 12.

21. After his introductory words, Rudolf Steiner added, Because of so many requests each year I've taken up my pen and made not only a beginning but have something worked out as a kind of explanation of our four mystery dramas. But each time I've laid the thing aside for the same reason I indicated in the “Remarks” introducing The Souls' Awakening: ‘I am averse to adding material of this kind to a portrayal intended to speak for itself.’ It is disagreeable to me to make an intellectual commentary on something that truly had no theoretical or intellectual origin but stands complete in all its scenes like an inspiration from the spiritual world. I could really say nothing more about it intellectually than anyone else would do who went into the matter. When things are given in this way, there is a definite need to let them speak for themselves, and not to suck them dry with clear theoretical thinking. However, we may be able to address several points in this lecture cycle.

22. Krishnamurti: in 1911 Mrs. Besant had named this young Hindu boy as the newly appeared Christ; later as a young man, Krishnamurti repudiated this attribution.

23. Rudolf Steiner, Mysterienstaetten des Mittelalters (GA 233a), (Jan. 5, 1924), (Dornach Switzerland, Rudolf Steiner Verlag). Not available in English.

24. The Souls' Awakening, Scenes 2, 4, 10.

25. Dr. Ferdinand Maack, ed., Chymische Hochzeit, (Berlin, Hermann Barsdorf Verlag, 1913).

26. Dr. Ferdinand Maack, Zweimal Gestorben. (Leipzig, 1912).

27. See Lecture II in this volume.

28. Besant and Leadbeater, Man: Whence, How and Whither.

29. See Maria's speech in The Souls' Awakening, Scene 2.

30. Two short wars in the Balkan, 1912 – 1913, which prepared the way for World War I in 1914.

31. Struggles in the Theosophical Society.

32. To Charles Bleck, President of the Theosophical Society in France, March 1, 1913, announcing Schure's resignation from the Society which had offered him honorary membership in 1907.

33. See Rudolf Steiner, An Introduction to Eurythmy (Spring Valley, Anthroposophic Press, 1984).