LECTURE
X.
THE
CHTHONIC AND THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES
Dornach,
December 14th, 1923.
LET us once again call
to mind the real significance. of the fact that the knowledge and
truths expressed in the Mysteries of Hibernia had been, in a manner
of speaking, dimmed; that means that they could not develop any
further activity in their journey towards central Europe and the
East; and in the place of a spiritual approach even in matters of
religion, physical perception, or at least a tradition based on this
appeared.
Let us again call to mind that Image which appeared at
the end of our last consideration. We pointed to the Being of Christ
in the Mysteries of Hibernia. We indicated also that epoch in which
the Mystery of Golgotha took place. There, in Hibernia, were the
Initiates with their pupils; and there, without any means for the
physical perception of the Mystery of Golgotha, without any
possibility of information concerning this Mystery coming across to
them, we find that at the same time in Ireland the Initiates
established a universal ceremony, because they were quite clear from
their insight that the Mystery of Golgotha was taking place
simultaneously in an external way.
Now for these Initiates and their pupils in the
Mysteries of Hibernia, they had of necessity to experience a physical
reality, a sensible event, but only in a spiritual way. It was not
necessary, for their way of thinking, and the manner of knowledge
then customary in Hibernia to have more than the Spiritual in the
physical world.
It must be clearly understood, however, that in Hibernia
the Spiritual was paramount. In all kinds of secret streams of
spiritual life that which had originated in Hibernia was brought over
to central Europe, through the British Isles, through Brittany,
through what is now Holland and Belgium, and even through the Alsace
of today. Even though not present in the general civilization, yet,
in the first centuries of Christian development, we find here and
there in all the regions mentioned single individualities able to
understand what had come over from the Mysteries of Hibernia, but, as
we have said, this was not to be found in the general civilization of
Europe. One must approach these things with an inner longing for
knowledge, in order to find in the first Christian centuries those
fairly numerous personalities. In the later centuries, from the 8th
and 9th to the 15th and 16th centuries such personalities became
rarer and rarer; personalities able to gather around them a small
number of pupils through whom, in the silent places far removed from
the world and its civilization, that which had been initiated in
western Europe, in Hibernia, could be carried further.
In general, there spread over Europe that for which
spiritual perception is not required, that which could be linked on
to the mere historical tradition, which simply related the physical
events which had taken place in Palestine at the beginning of our
era. From this stream there proceeded that element which gradually
developed more and more, which reckoned only with that which
transpired in physical life. Less and less did humanity in general
divine what a colossal contradiction lies in the fact that the
mystery of Golgotha, which is really only comprehensible by means of
the deepest spiritual life, is now based simply on an external
figure, perceptible physically; this became for a time the necessary
course of development of civilization in Europe.
Fundamentally, all this had been gradually prepared over
a long time, but it could only come about because a very great deal
of the old Mystery-knowledge, even such as still existed in Greece,
had been forgotten.
These Mysteries of Greece were divided into two classes;
one of these busied itself with guiding man's mind towards the
spiritual world, towards the actual guidance and direction of the
world in spirit, while the other investigated the mysteries of nature
and that which rules in nature, especially the forces and beings
connected with the powers of the earth. A great number of candidates
were initiated into both kinds of mysteries. Of these it was said
that they had knowledge and had been initiated into the Mysteries of
the Father, the Mysteries of Zeus, and also that they had been
admitted into the Mysteries of the Mother, the Mysteries of Demeter.
When we look back into those times we find a far-reaching spiritual
perception, though still somewhat abstract, into the highest regions,
and side by side with this, a conception of nature which was capable
of descending into the depths. Above all, we find in Greece that
which is of special significance — the union of both Mysteries.
Concerning this union of both Mysteries we see that
which today is but little noticed; the fact that man carries certain
external substances of nature in his being while certain other
substances of nature he does not carry in his being; this was
observed and studied in the very deepest sense, in the Chthonic
Mysteries in Ancient Greece. You know that man has iron in his being,
as part of his organization. He also carries other metals within him,
calcium, sodium, magnesium, and so on; but there are other metals
which he does not carry within him. If we were to try and find these
metals within by means of ordinary scientific methods, if one
analysed the substances in man, then by means of this external
investigation, we should find no lead, no copper, no quicksilver, no
tin, no silver and no gold within him.
That was the great riddle which occupied those
undergoing initiation into the Greek Mysteries, and the apex of this
riddle was reached in the question: How does it come about that man
carries iron in himself, that he carries sodium magnesium, and other
substances which we can also find in outer nature, but does not, for
instance carry lead or tin in his being? They were deeply convinced
that man is a small world, a microcosm; yet it would appear that man
did not carry in his being these other metals, lead, tin,
quicksilver, silver, gold and so on.
We may truly say that the older candidates for
initiation in Greece were of the opinion that this was only
apparently the case; for they were deeply permeated by the knowledge
that man is a real microcosm; that means that everything which is to
be found in the cosmos he also carries in his own being.
Let us look for a moment into the mind of a man about to
be initiated in Greece. He would be instructed somewhat as follows:
(and here of course I must compose into a few sentences that which
extended over long periods in the course of this instruction) he was
instructed by being told the following: Observe how the earth today
conceals iron everywhere in itself; iron is also in man. Once upon a
time, when the earth had not yet become earth, when it existed in a
previous planetary condition, the earth which was then Old Moon, or
perhaps even Old Sun also concealed in itself lead, tin and so on:
and all the beings which had shared in the previous construction of
the earth also had a part in these metals and their forces, just as
man today shares in the forces of iron. But with those
transformations which the ancient shape of the earth underwent iron
alone remained in such a degree of strength and density that man
could permeate his being with it. The other metals which we have just
named are also contained in the earth, but they are no longer of such
a consistency that man can directly permeate himself with them; they
are to be found in an infinitely rarefied condition in the whole
cosmic space which surrounds man.
If I examine a small piece of lead I see before me the
well-known grayish-white metal, which has a definite density. One can
grasp it. But this same lead which appears in the lead-ores of the
earth exists in an infinitely fine ramification in the whole cosmic
space surrounding man, and there it has its significance. It has this
significance there, that it radiates its forces everywhere, even
where there is apparently no lead and man comes into contact with
these forces of the lead, not through his physical body, but through
his etheric body; because outside the lead-ores of the earth lead
exists in such a rarefied fine condition that it can work only on the
etheric body of man. On man's etheric body the lead works in this
condition of infinite ramification extended over the whole of cosmic
space.
The pupil of those
ancient Greek Chthonic Mysteries learnt that, just as is the case
today with the earth, which is infinitely rich in iron, and I a
planet concerning which the inhabitant of another planet could say:
“That planet is rich in iron,” (the only other planet
rich in iron being Mars); just as the earth is rich in iron, so
Saturn is rich in lead. What iron is for the earth, lead is for
Saturn; and one has to assume — this the student of the
Chthonic Mysteries in Greece learned — that once upon a time,
when the separation of Saturn from the common planetary body of the
earth took place as described in my
Outline of Occult Science
— when Saturn separated from this cosmic body, this fine
division with reference to lead took place. One can say that Saturn
took the lead out with him, as it were and held it through his own
planetary life-force, through his own planetary warmth in such a
condition that he can permeate the whole planetary system to which
our earth belongs with this infinitely finely distributed lead.
You must therefore imagine the earth, and in the
distances Saturn filling the whole planetary system with its finely
distributed lead, and this fine lead substance works on man. You can
still find traces that this was taught to those about to be initiated
in ancient Greece, and that they learnt to understand how this lead
worked. They knew that our sense organs, especially the organ of the
eye would take the whole of man's being into its own sphere, and not
allow man to come to self-reliance. Man would only be able to see, he
would not be able to think about what he had seen. He would be unable
to detach himself from what he saw and say: “I see.” He
would be over-powered by sight, as it were, unless this effect of
lead existed in the Cosmos. It is this activity of lead which makes
it possible for man to be independent in himself, which places him as
an ego as regards receptivity to the outer world, which lives in him.
These lead-forces first enter the etheric body of man, and from the
etheric body they also impregnate the physical body, in a certain
sense. Thereby man receives the capacity of memory; the power of
memory.
It was always a great moment when a pupil, such as the
Greek pupil of the Chthonic Mysteries, after having learnt all this,
was led on to what then followed. He was shown with all possible
ceremonial the substance of lead, and then his mind was directed
towards Saturn. The relationship of Saturn with earthly lead was
brought before his soul, and then he was told: “The lead which
thou seest is concealed in the earth, for in its present state the
earth is not in a condition to give the lead a form in which it can
work in man; but Saturn with its very different condition of warmth,
with its inner life-forces scatters lead in planetary space. Thereby
thou art an independent being, possessing the power of memory. Just
think, thou art a human being only through the fact that today thou
dost know still what thou knewest ten or twenty years ago. Just think
how the human part of thee would suffer if thou didst not carry
within thee what thou didst experience ten or twenty years ago. Thy
ego-forces would be shattered unless this power of memory were
present in full measure. This is due to what streams to thee from
that distant Saturn. It is the force which has come to rest in lead
in the earth, and which can now no longer work upon man in its
quiescent state. Thus it is the Saturn lead-forces which enable thee
to consolidate thy thoughts, so that they can arise later out of the
depths of the soul, and thou canst thus live a continuous life in the
external world, and not merely in a transient way. Thou owest it to
the Saturn lead-forces that thou dost not merely look around thee
today and then forget the objects thou beholdest, but canst retain
the memory of them in thy soul. Thou canst retain in thy soul what
thou didst experience twenty years ago, and canst cause this to live
again; thou canst so form thy inner life as to reproduce what thou
didst experience in thy surroundings at any particular time of thy
life.”
It was a powerful impression that the pupil received,
when with the greatest ceremony this knowledge was brought before him
seriously and without sentimentality. He then learnt to understand:
If it were only these lead-forces which were active in giving man the
power of his ego, the power of memory, he would be completely
separated from the Cosmos. If the Saturn-forces alone existed in man
he would indeed be able to retain in his memory what he saw with his
physical eyes, and preserve this throughout his earthly life; but he
would be divorced from the Cosmos. He would become, as it were, a
hermit in his earth-life in spite of being inspired by Saturn with
the power of memory. The pupil then learnt that against the Saturn
forces another force had to be set up, the force of the moon. Let us
suppose that these two forces confront one another in such a way that
the force of Saturn and the force of the moon, approaching from
opposite sides, but flowing into each other, descend to the earth and
to man on the earth. Now Saturn takes from man what he receives from
the moon, and what man receives from Saturn is taken by the moon. So,
just as the earth has in iron a force which man can transmute within
himself, a force which Saturn has in lead, that same force is
possessed by the moon in silver.
Now even the silver, as it exists in the earth, has
already attained a condition in which it cannot enter directly into
man; but the whole sphere which includes the moon is actually
permeated by finely divided silver, and the moon, especially when its
light comes from the constellation of Leo, works in such a way that
man, through these silver-forces of the moon receives the opposing
activity of the lead-forces of Saturn; he is therefore not divorced
or cut off from the Cosmos, in spite of the fact that he is
beneficently inspired with the forces of memory by the Cosmos. It was
a moment of special ceremony when the Greek pupil was led to see this
opposition of Saturn and the moon., In the sanctity of the night it
was made clear to the pupil: “Look up to Saturn surrounded by
his rings; to him thou owest the fact that thou art an independent
being. Now look towards the other side, to the silver-radiating moon.
To her thou owest the fact that thou art able to bear the Saturn
forces without being cut off from the rest of the Cosmos.”
In this way, based directly upon the union of man with
the cosmos, that teaching was given in Greece which later on we find
as a caricature in what is called astrology. At that time it was a
true wisdom, for then man saw in a star not merely the speck or point
of light above him; he saw in the star the spiritual living being,
and the human being of the earth was seen in union with this
spiritual living being. Men then had a natural science which reached
up into the heavens, and extended right out into cosmic spaces. When
the pupil had received such insight, and such illumination had
entered deeply into his soul, he was lead into the real Mysteries of
Eleusis. You have heard what took place in these Mysteries, in my
description of other Mysteries; for instance, the Mysteries of
Hibernia. The pupil was led before two statues. One of these statues
represented to him a fatherly divinity, that fatherly divinity which
was surrounded by the signs of the planets and the sun, represented
to him shining Saturn, but so radiant that the pupil was reminded of
the fact: That is the radiance of lead from the cosmos — just
as the moon reminded him of the silver radiance. And this same thing
happened with each single planet. Thus, in that statue which
represented the father principle there appeared all those mysteries
which ray down to earth from the planetary environment, all that
which was related to the single metals of the earth, which, however,
had now become unusable within the earth as regards man's inner
being.
Then the pupil was told the following: Here stands the
Father of the world before Thee. The Father of the world carries the
lead in Saturn, in Jupiter he bears tin, in Mars the iron, which is
so closely related with the earth-being but in quite another
condition, in the sun, the radiating gold, in Venus, the radiating
streaming copper, in Mercury the radiating quicksilver, and in the
moon the radiating silver. Thou dost only bear within thee that part
of the metals which thou wast able to assimilate from the planetary
conditions which the earth had once upon a time gone through. In its
present condition thou canst only assimilate the iron. As an earthly
human being thou art not complete. In that which the Father, standing
before thee shows thee in the metals which cannot today exist within
thee in thy earthly existence, but which thou must take up from the
cosmos, in that thou hast another part of thy being; when thou dost
look upon thyself as a human being who has gone through the planetary
transformations of the earth, then art thou really a complete human
being. Here on the earth thou art only a part human being; the other
part the Father carries round his head and in his arms before thee.
It is only that which stands before thee, combined with that which he
bears which makes thee man. Thou standest on the earth, but that
earth was not always as it is today. If the earth had been always as
it is today thou couldst not dwell upon it as a human being. For the
earth carries today in itself, even in a lifeless condition, the lead
of Saturn, the tin of Jupiter, the iron of Mars (though in that other
state) the gold of the sun, the silver of the moon, the copper of
Venus, and the quicksilver of Mercury. It carries these things within
it. But these metals which the earth carries in its body today are no
more than a memory of their former existence, of the way in which,
once upon a time silver lived during the Moon-existence of the earth,
in which gold lived during the Sun-existence, only a reminder of the
way in which lead lived during the Saturn-existence of the earth.
That which thou hast today in the dense metallic ores of lead, tin,
iron, gold, copper, quicksilver, silver, with the exception of the
iron which thou really knowest, and which is not the iron within the
earth, for that belongs to the Mars nature, that which thou now seest
in these dense compact metals — these metals poured themselves
out on to the earth in a quite different condition. These metals as
thou knowest them today on the earth are the corpses of the erstwhile
metal-beings. The corpse has remained of that metal-being which
during the Saturn time and later in a different stage, during the
Moon time of the earth played a part in their ancient form. Tin
played a part in a combination with gold during the Sun time of the
earth in a very different condition. And if thou dost see these
things in the Spirit, then will this statue become for thee in all
that it brings before thee the true Father statue.
And in the Spirit, as in a real vision the statue of the
true Mysteries of Eleusis became living and handed to the female
statue which stood beside it that which the metals at that time were.
In the vision seen by the pupil, the female statue received that
which was the metals in their former shape, and surrounded it with
what the earth in becoming earth could give out of its own being.
The pupil saw this wonderful process, this wonderful
happening. There radiated forth out of the hand of the Father-statue
the metallic mass, as the pupil now saw in a symbolic way; and that
which the earth then was, with its chalk and stone-formation
encountered that which streamed in and surrounded this in-streaming
metal-element with earthly substance.
The way in which the hand stretching out in love from
the Mother-statue received the metal-forces which were offered by the
Father-statue made a great and mighty impression on the pupil, for he
then saw how the Cosmos worked together with the earth in the course
of aeons of time, and he learnt to feel in the right way what the
earth was offering.
Look around at the metallic nature in the earth today.
It is crystallized and surrounded with a kind of crust which comes
from the earth. The metal-nature streamed in from the cosmos, and
that which comes from the earth received lovingly that which streamed
in from the cosmos. You see this everywhere if you go to metal-mines
and take an interest in them. That which received the metal was
called the Mother. The most important of these earthly substances
which, as it were, came forward to meet the heavenly metal-element in
order to take it up were called “the Mothers.”
That
is only one aspect of “The Mothers” to whom Faust descends.
He descends at the same time into those pre-earthly periods of the
earth, in order to see there how the Mother-earth takes into herself
what is given by the Father-element in the cosmos.
Through all this there was stirred up in the pupil of
the Eleusinian Mysteries, in his inner being, a feeling of being one
with the Cosmos. It was an inner recognition in his heart of that
which is in reality the nature-processes of the earth.
If the man of today observes these processes, these
products of nature, he finds everything dead, there is nothing but a
corpse; and if we occupy ourselves with physics or chemistry, are we
doing with nature really anything else in our science than what the
anatomist does when he dissects the corpse in the anatomical theatre
when he has only the dead aspect of that which was intended for life?
Thus in our science and physics we cut into living nature.
To the Greek pupil was given a different natural
science, a natural science of the living, which showed him our
present lead as the corpse of lead. He had to go back to the times
when lead lived, and in that way the mysterious relation of man with
the cosmos, the mysterious connection of man with all that existed
around him on the earth was made clear.
When the pupil had undergone all these things, when the
Father-statue and the Mother-statue had sunk deeply into his soul,
bringing before his soul the two opposing forces of the Cosmos and of
the earth, he was led in Ancient Greece into the very holiest of all.
There he had before him the picture of a female figure suckling at
her breast a Child, and he was finally led to the understanding of
the Word: “That is the God Jakos, Who is to come in the future.”
In this way the Greek disciple learned to understand the
Mystery of Christ in a pre-Christian period; again it was in a
spiritual way that the Christ was placed before those to be initiated
into the Mysteries of Eleusis. In that time, however, he had to learn
of the Christ only as a future Appearance, as One Who was still a
Child, a cosmic Child, Who must first grow up in the Cosmos. Those
about to be initiated, who were taught to look towards the end,
towards the goal of earth-evolution were called Tellists.
Now there came a very important turning-point, which is
expressed very dearly and even historically in the transition from
Plato to Aristotle. It is remarkable that, in the evolution of this
Greek civilisation, as the fourth century began, this first
transition towards the abstract appeared. This fact is exemplified in
the following scene which took place between Plato and Aristotle, at
a time when Plato was very old, and really at the end of his earthly
career. I must of course clothe in words what naturally occurred in a
much more complicated way. Plato said to Aristotle somewhat as
follows: “Many things I have told you and my other pupils may
not have seemed correct to you, but what I have told you is really an
extract of the most ancient holy Mystery-Wisdom. Human beings will,
however, in the course of their evolution acquire such a form and
such an inner Organisation, which will gradually lead them to
something certainly higher than we now possess but this will at the
same time make it impossible for them to accept natural science in
the way it is presented to the Greeks.” Plato made this clear to
Aristotle. “Therefore, I will withdraw myself for a time”
said Plato, “and will leave you to yourself. In the world of
thought, for which you are so especially endowed, and which will
become the thought-world of humanity for many centuries, try to build
up in thoughts what you have learnt here in my school.” So Plato
and Aristotle separated, and Plato therewith fulfilled, as commanded,
a high spiritual mission through Aristotle.
I am obliged to describe this scene in this way; but if
you look in the history books, you will also find this scene
described, and I will now tell you how it is there described:
“Aristotle was always a headstrong pupil of Plato; so that Plato
once said that though Aristotle was a gifted pupil yet he was like a
horse that was trained by someone and then kicked its trainer with
its hoof. That which took place between Aristotle and Plato led as
time went on to Plato becoming annoyed and withdrawing from
Aristotle. He returned no more into the Academy to teach therein.”
That is the account given in the history books.
This narrative is in the history books; the other which
I have just related is the truth and bears within it an impulse
toward something very significant. For there were two kinds of
writings of Aristotle. The one contained a remarkable natural
science, the natural science of Eleusis, which came by way of Plato
to Aristotle. The other contained the thoughts, the abstract thoughts
which were also given to Aristotle by Plato from out of the
Eleusinian Mysteries for the accomplishment of his mission.
That which Aristotle actually had to give also followed
a two-fold path. We have his so-called logical writings, those
logical writings which drew forth the most weighty thoughts from the
ancient Eleusinian Mystery wisdom. These writings containing, less of
natural science, Aristotle gave to his pupil Theophrastus, and
through him and in other ways they came through Greece and Rome and
formed the content of the wisdom taught throughout the Middle Ages to
those leading minds in civilisation — the teachers of
philosophy in Central Europe.
That which came about in the way I described in the last
lecture, because the Mystery-wisdom of Hibernia had to be rejected,
and men had simply to link on to what was tradition, tradition
recording the events which took place at the beginning of our own
era, this united with that which was separated from the wisdom of
Plato by Aristotle, the wisdom of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The
natural science which still carried within it the spirit of the
Chthonic Mysteries and which had flowed into the Eleusinian Mysteries
was a natural science which extended to the heavens, and soared out
to the wide spaces of the cosmos to seek explanation of the earth
from thence. For this natural science the time was past in Greece. As
much as could be saved of this natural science was saved by Alexander
becoming the pupil of Aristotle, who then undertook his journeys into
Asia, and did everything possible to introduce this Aristotelian
natural science to the East to extend it eastward. That then passed
over into the Jewish and Arabian schools. From thence it came across
from Africa to Spain, and there in a filtered form it influenced
certain human beings in Central Europe. Theophrastus had given his
version of the teachings of Aristotle to the theological teachers of
the Middle Ages. Alexander the Great had carried his — the
other version of Aristotle — over into Asia. That Eleusinian
wisdom which came, but in infinite dilution, through Africa into
Spain, shone out here and there in the Middle Ages, and
notwithstanding the general standard of culture, was cultivated in
certain monasteries and lived on under the surface. For instance, we
meet with it in mystical form as brought down to posterity in
Basilius Valentinus. On the surface there prevailed that culture of
which I spoke to you in the last lecture. In this culture that which
it was still possible to teach at the time of Aristotle was not to be
found — that Christ must really be recognized and known.
The third picture, the female form who carries at her
breast the Child, the Jakos-Child, must also be understood; but that
which should bring the understanding of this third figure was still
to come in the evolution of humanity. That must come through certain
relationships which I have explained to you. This was made clear to
Alexander the Great by Aristotle, not in writing, but through
circumstances such as I have just described.
So we see how in the bosom of time there lies the demand
to understand in its original reality what has been so beautifully
put before the world by the Christian painters; the Mother with the
Child at her breast; but which was not fully understood either in the
Madonna of Raphael, or in the eastern icons. It still awaits
understanding.
Something of what is necessary to acquire such
understanding will be discussed in the lectures to be given here; and
in the next lecture I will describe the way along which many deeply
occult secrets traveled from Arabia towards Europe. This will help to
place before your souls a certain historical phenomenon, and in the
lectures which are to form the basis of the historical evolution of
humanity, and which will be given to the delegates at Christmas I
will endeavour to put before you at the proper place the significance
of the journeys of Alexander the Great in connection with the
teachings of Aristotle.
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