Lecture I
4th January 1918.
In the course of the public lectures lately given in Switzerland I
have frequently remarked that knowledge, that way of thinking
which prevails among the men of our time and has taken root in human
souls, is not adapted to grasp the social-moral life. Present
conditions can only be brought to a healthy state if men are able to
come again to such a thinking, such a grasp of the universe, as will
give what lives in the soul a direct link with reality.
I said that what
prevails in the historical, the social, the ethical life is more or
less dreamt, slept through by mankind, that in any case abstract
ideas are not fitted to take hold of the impulses which must be
active in the social life. I stated that in earlier times men were
aided through older, what we call atavistic, knowledge, through
myths. They brought to expression in the form of a myth what they
thought concerning the world, what entered their vision of the world
secrets. Myths the contents of mythology can be
viewed in the most manifold ways, and in fact I pointed in these
observations to a positively magnificent materialistic explanation of
the myth by Dupuis. In other places we have repeatedly for years
examined this or the other myth. However, the myth permits of many
points of view and when something has been said about it, its content
is far from being exhausted. Again and again from different
standpoints different things may be asserted in regard to a myth. It
would be very useful for the man of today if he made himself
acquainted with the nature of that thinking which underlies the mode
of thought found in the concepts of mythology. For the ideas which
are formed about the origin of myths, the creation of mythology,
belong indeed to the realm of the modern superficial judgment which
is so widespread.
Deep truths are
embedded in the myths, truths more concerned with reality than
those which are expressed through modern natural science about this
thing or the other. Physiological, biological truths about man
are to be found in the myths, and the origin of what they express
rests upon the consciousness of the connection of man as
microcosm with the macrocosm. Especially can one realize and
this I shall deal with today and tomorrow when one has in
mind the nature of the thinking employed in the myths, how deeply, or
actually how little deeply, one is concerned with reality in
ordinary modern concepts. It is therefore useful to recollect
sometimes how myths have been formed among neighbouring peoples of
the pre-Christian ages. Neighbours to one another and much
interconnected in their culture are the ancient Egyptians, the Greeks
and the Israelites. Moreover, one can say that a great part of the
thinking that still rules in the soul today is connected with the
knowledge of the Egyptians, Greeks and Israelites as expressed by
them in the form of myth.
The
myth which I should first like to discuss but as already
said, from a certain standpoint is the Osiris-Isis-Myth
belonging to the Egyptian culture. I have already called your
attention to the fact that the Osiris-Isis-Myth is also conceived by
Dupuis as a mere priest lie, that the priests as far as they
themselves were concerned, had meant nothing but astronomical,
astronomical-astrological events, and had fabricated such a myth for
the common people.
One
can observe in an interesting way how the Greeks not only have a
number of Gods connected with their own life, but how they have whole
generations of Gods. The oldest God-generation was linked with Gaia
and Uranus, the next generation with Chronos and Rhea, the
Titans, and all that is related to them, and the third generation of
Gods, the successors of the Titans Zeus and the whole Zeus
circle. We shall see how the construction of such God-myths springs
from a special type of soul.
The
Greeks, Israelites and Egyptians had different conceptions of
their connection with the universe. Nevertheless there prevailed in
all, as we shall shortly see, a deep relationship as regards other
standpoints, as well as in reference to the one I shall take as a
basis today. Of the Egyptians one must say that in the age when the
Osiris-Isis-Myth arose as the representative for profounder truths,
they developed a knowledge which had a longing to know the deeper
foundations of the human soul. The Egyptians desired in this way to
turn their gaze to that element in the human soul which lives not
only between birth and death, but which passes through birth and
death and also leads a life between death and a new birth. Even from
external perception one can see how the Egyptians in their
preservation of mummies, in their peculiar death-ceremonies
turned the eye of the soul to that element in the soul which passes
through the Gate of Death and in new form experiences new destinies
when man treads ways that lie on the other side.
What
is it in man that passes through the gate of death and that enters
through birth into earthly existence? This question, more or less
unconscious and unexpressed, underlay the thought and aspirations of
the Egyptians. For it is this eternal-imperishable element I
have often already expressed it in another form that is
united in the Egyptian consciousness with the name of Osiris. Now, in
order to have a foundation, let us consider the Osiris-Myth in its
most important aspects, let us just consider it, as it has been
preserved.
It is
related of Osiris that at one time he ruled in Egypt. It is related
that above all the Egyptians owed to him the suppression of
cannibalism, that they owed to him the plough, agriculture, the
preparation of food from the plant kingdom, the building of cities,
certain legal ideas, astronomy, rhetoric, even a script and so on. It
is then related that Osiris inaugurated not only among the Egyptians
such beneficent arts and institutions but that he undertook journeys
into other lands and there too spread similar useful arts. And in
fact it was expressly stated that Osiris did not spread them by the
sword but by persuasion.
Then
it is further related that Typhon, the brother of Osiris, wanted to
institute new things in opposition to what had proved beneficial for
the Egyptians throughout centuries through the influence of Osiris.
Typhon wanted to inaugurate all sorts of novelties. We should say
today: after the institution of Osiris had existed for hundreds of
years, Typhon made a revolution while Osiris was absent extending his
institutions among other peoples. This differs a little from the
latest example of revolution ... there something happened which
newcomers brought about, not while the other was extending beneficent
institutions among other nations ... But between Osiris and Typhon
there took place what has been stated. Then, however, the myth
proceeds:
Isis
waited at home in Egypt. Isis, the consort of Osiris, did not permit
the innovations to be really sweeping. That, however, had the effect
of enraging Typhon, and as Osiris came back from his wanderings
Typhon slew him and made away with the dead body. Isis had to search
a long time for the corpse. She found the body at last in Phoenicia,
and brought it back home to Egypt. Typhon now became angrier and tore
the corpse in pieces. Isis collected the pieces and out of each
piece, by means of spices and all sorts of other arts she made a
being again which had the complete form of Osiris. She then gave to
the priests of the land a third of the whole territory of Egypt, so
that the tomb of Osiris should be kept a secret, but his service and
worship all the more fostered.[See Egyptian Myths and Mysteries.]
The
remarkable statement was then added to this myth, that Osiris now
came up out of the underworld when his worship had already
been inaugurated in Egypt and that he then occupied
himself with the instruction of Horus, the son whom Isis had borne
after the death of Osiris. Then it is related that Isis had the
imprudence to release Typhon whom she had succeeded in imprisoning.
Thereupon Horus, her son, became angry, tore the crown from her head
and set cow-horns there instead and Typhon was defeated in two
battles with the assistance of Hermes that is the Roman
Mercury, the Greek Hermes. A kind of Horus-cult, the cult of the son
of Osiris and Isis was instituted.
The
Greeks in some way or other heard of these Egyptian stories of
world-mysteries. It is remarkable how in Greece they often spoke of
the same being as was spoken of over in Egypt, or over in Phoenicia
or Lydia, etc. These God-conceptions flowed into one another, as it
were, and this is very characteristic and significant. When a
Greek heard the name Osiris, he could picture something from it, he
identified what the Egyptian understood under the name Osiris, with
something of which he too had certain concepts. Although the name was
different, what the Egyptian conceived of as Osiris was no stranger
to the Greek. I ask you to take note of this. It is very significant.
We
have the whole thing once more. Read the ‘Germania’ of
Tacitus; there Tacitus also describes the Gods that he finds in the
North a hundred years after the founding of Christianity, and he
describes them with Roman names. He thus gives Roman names to the
Gods whom he finds there. In spite of the fact that the Gods whom he
found there had of course other names yet he recognized their being
and could give them the Roman names. We find in the ‘Germania’
that he knew that in the North men had a God, that was the same God
as Hercules and so on. That is very significant and it points to
something very deep and of great meaning. It shows that in those
ancient times there was a certain common consciousness concerning
spiritual things. The Greek knew how to picture something of Osiris,
independent of the Osiris-name, because he had something
similar. What was concealed behind the name Osiris was not unfamiliar
to him.
That
is something that one must keep well in mind in order to recognize
that in spite of the difference of the separate myths, there existed
a certain community of soul! One could sometimes wish that there
might be as much common understanding among modern men as, let us
say, between the Greeks and the Egyptians, so that the Greeks
understood what the Egyptians expressed! A Greek would never have
uttered so much nonsense about Egyptian conceptions as Woodrow Wilson
is able to think in one week about European conceptions if
one can call it thinking! The Greeks related that Chronos had
begotten a son by Rhea in an irregular way. Thus the Greeks speak of
Chronos and Rhea we shall see immediately how they fit into
the Greek myth and this irregular son, who was so begotten,
was Osiris. So just think: the Greeks hear that the Egyptians have an
Osiris, and the Greeks on their part relate of Osiris that he is the
son of Chronos and Rhea, but not begotten in the right way, so
incorrectly begotten that Helios, the Sun-God became so angry
about the matter that he made Rhea barren.
Thus
the Greeks find a certain relationship between their own conception
of the Gods and the Egyptian conceptions. But again on the other
hand, what the Egyptians in a certain sense formed as their highest
concept of a God the Osiris-concept is connected
among the Greeks with an irregular origin from the Titan race
from Chronos and Rhea.
One
grasps this externally in the first place we shall have to
grasp it much more deeply presently if we are clear that the
Egyptians sought to learn of the eternal part of the human soul. They
sought to know about that which goes through births and deaths
but in order to know of this eternal part in life the Egyptians
expressly turned the soul's gaze beyond death. To the people of Egypt
through whom the Greeks learnt of Osiris, he is no longer the God of
the living, but the God of the dead, the God who sits on the Throne
of the World and passes judgment when man has gone through the gate
of death, that is, the God whom man has to meet after death. At the
same time, however, the Egyptian knew: the same God who judges men
after death, has at one time ruled over the living.
As
soon as one takes these ideas together, one is no longer inclined to
agree with the Dupuis verdict that it was only a matter of
star-events. These Dupuis judgments have much that is captivating,
but on closer inspection they reveal themselves as very superficial.
I have said that the Egyptians in the age when the Greeks
received from them the Osiris-concept directed their mind
above all to the human soul after death. This lay far from the Greek
mind. To be sure, the Greeks spoke too of the human soul after death,
but inasmuch as they spoke of their Gods, they did not really speak
of the Osiris-nature of such Gods as primarily give judgment after
death. The race to which Zeus belongs is a race of Gods for the
living. Man preferably looked up to this world when he turned his
mind's eye to the world to which man belongs between birth and death
a race of Gods for the living: Zeus, Hera, Pallas-Athene,
Mars, Apollo, etc. But these Gods were, so to say, the last God-race
for the Greeks. For the Greeks turned their gaze to three successive
generations of Gods.
As
you know, the oldest generation of Gods was around Uranus and Gaea or
better said: Gaea and Uranus. They were the earliest divine pair with
all the brothers and sisters and so on who belonged to them. From
this divine pair were descended the Titans, to whom also Chronos and
Rhea belonged, but above all Oceanus. As you know, through certain
cruel regulations so says the myth Uranus had evoked
the wrath of his spouse Gaea, so that she prevailed upon Chronos
their son, to make his father on the world-throne, impotent, and we
then have this rulership of the older Gods succeeded by that of the
younger, Chronos and Rhea with all that belongs to it. You know too
that in the Greek myth, Chronos had the somewhat unsympathetic,
in many respects, characteristic of swallowing all his children as
soon as they were born, which was not pleasant for the mother, Rhea.
(I am calling attention to various features which we shall
particularly need.) And you know too that she saved Zeus and brought
him up to overthrow Chronos, just as Chronos overthrew Uranus, only
in another way, so that then the new race of Gods arrives. And then
we have Hera and Zeus with all that belongs to them with all the
brothers and sisters, children and so on.
An important feature in
the myth, which I must relate since we shall need it if we wish to
regard the myth as foundation for all sorts of world-conceptions, is
the following. Zeus, before he overcame the Titans and cast them into
Tartarus, had prevailed on the Goddess Metis, the Goddess of cunning,
to provide him with an emetic, so that all the children swallowed by
Chronos could be brought again to the light of day, and be once more
in existence. Thus Zeus could have his brothers and sisters again ...
for they had been in the body of Chronos. Zeus himself alone had been
rescued by his mother Rhea.
And so we have three
successive generations of Gods: Gaea-Uranus; Uranus overthrown
through Gaea, because he was cruel, supplanted by the children,
Chronos and Rhea; then Chronos overthrown again through Zeus,
likewise at the instigation of Rhea. In the Zeus-circle we have
the Gods who meet us where actual Greek history makes its appearance.
Now I
should like to call special attention to a very significant feature
of this. Greek mythology. It is not clearly enough stressed, in spite
of being one of the most important features. Three successive races
of Gods: these are thus the rulers of the macrocosm. But while Gaea
and Uranus, Rhea and Chronos, Hera and Zeus are ruling, the human
being, according to the Greek conception is already everywhere in
existence. Man is already there without question. When therefore
Chronos with Rhea had not yet reigned, when the rulers were still
Gaea and Uranus, particularly, however, when Chronos reigned with
Rhea and Zeus was not yet in possession of his emetic and so on,
there were already men upon the earth, according to the view of the
Greeks. And, what is more, as the Greeks related, they lived a
happier life than in later times. The later human beings are the
descendants of these earlier men. We must say then that the Greeks
had this consciousness: up above rules Zeus, but we human beings
descend from other forefathers who were not yet ruled over by Zeus.
That is an important feature of the Grecian teaching of the Gods:
that the Greek venerated his Zeus, his Hera, his Pallas-Athene, but
was quite clear that they had not created him, what in general one
calls ‘created’, but that men were there much earlier
than the reign of these Gods. This is important concerning the Greek
Gods.
That
this is especially important for the Greek Gods can strike you when
you compare the question with the Jewish teaching of the Gods.
It is, of course, quite unthinkable that one would find the same
feature in the Jewish teaching. You could not possibly imagine that
according to the Old Testament men were pointed to ancestors who had
not yet come under the rulership of Jahve and the Elohim. This
therefore is something which differs radically in the Grecian teaching
of the Gods. The Greek looks up to his Gods and knows: they indeed
are ruling now, but they have nothing to do with what I call
‘creation’ of the human race.
This
was absolutely impossible within the Old Testament conception.
In the Old Testament those whom men looked upon as Gods were in the
main far more concerned with the creation of man. In observing the
course of world events it is very necessary to consider such things.
The point is not merely to form concepts, the point is that one is
able to form concepts that connect one with reality; the especially
characteristic, the especially representative concepts, these are
what one must have in mind.
And
with this, we have considered an important feature of Greek
mythology. Let us just examine it. When the Greek looked up to his
Gods, they were not those of whom he had the consciousness: they have
created me. For human beings were already there, as we have said,
before these Gods had assumed their rulership. What these Gods were
able to do was, for the Greeks, quite a respectable amount, but they
could not produce for him a human race on a planet. That lay in the
Greek consciousness: these Gods could not produce a human race.
Now,
what actually were the Gods of the Zeus circle, the Olympian Gods,
for the Greek consciousness? To form even an historical concept of
what these Gods were I mean now in the Greek consciousness,
we have of course said various things about these Gods, but let us
place ourselves into the Greek consciousness what were they?
Well, they were not beings which went about among men under ordinary
circumstances. They dwelt in fact on Olympus, they dwelt in the
clouds and so on. They paid only at times sympathetic or
unsympathetic visits; Zeus in particular, as you know, sometimes paid
sympathetic or unsympathetic visits into the human world. They
were in a certain respect useful; but they also did things about
which the modern man, who is somewhat more narrow-minded than the
Greeks, would probably take the law into his own hands and involve
such a Zeus in a divorce suit and so on. In any case, these Gods had
a half-divine, half-human connection with men, and such beings, so it
was thought, are not materialized in the flesh ... When Zeus wanted
to conduct his affairs he took on all sorts of forms, did he not
a swan, golden rain, and so on; thus in ordinary life these Gods were
not incarnated in the flesh. But on the other hand, if one looks
deeper, one finds that the Greeks had the consciousness that these
Gods were connected with men who lived in primeval times. Far more
than looking up to the connection with the stars, as Dupuis supposed,
the Greeks looked up to men of primeval times and brought the concept
of the being of Zeus please note exactly how I form the
sentence, for that is the point into connection with some
ancient ruler of a long-past age. Please note that I have not said
that the Greeks had the idea that what they meant by Zeus had been
an ancient ruler; but I said: that which they pictured as Zeus they
brought into connection with an ancient ruler who had once
lived in long gone-by ages. For the kind of connection for Zeus and
also for the other Gods was a somewhat complicated one.
We
will examine the words a little, so that we can form an idea of what
really underlies them. Let us suppose that at some time a personality
had lived in Thrace, a region in Northern Greece, on whom the
Zeus-concept was fastened. Now the Greek, even the quite ordinary
Greek was quite clear: I do not, as it were, venerate this ancestor,
nor do I venerate the single individuality which has lived in this
ancestor, nevertheless I venerate something which had some connection
with this ancient forefather, this ancient king in Thrace, or in
Epirus. The Greek had in fact this idea: There was once such a king
in whose whole being not only his own individuality had lived, but
the individuality of a super-sensible being; this had expressed
itself, had lived upon the earth, by once descending into a human
being. The Zeus-concept was not made earthly in this way, it was
brought into connection with an ancient ruler, who at one time had
furnished the garment or let us say the dwelling
place for this Zeus-being. Thus the Greek differentiated essentially
that which he conceived of as Zeus from the human individuality which
had lived in the body to which the Zeus-concept was referred. But the
Zeus-rulership, the rule of Zeus and the Gods, took its starting
point, as it were, from the fact that Zeus had descended, had lived
in a human being, had found his centre there in order to work in the
being of man but who then went on working no longer as an
ordinary man but in fact as an ‘Olympian’. And it was the
same in the case of the other Greek Gods.
Why
did the Greek form this conception that there was once a
ruler who was possessed, so to say, by Zeus, but that now there is no
longer a ruler who can be possessed by Zeus, but that Zeus only rules
as a super-sensible being why did the Greek form this concept?
Because the Greek knew that human evolution had progressed, that
it had changed. In other words, the Greek knew that there were
ancient times when human beings could have Imaginations in a
particularly outstanding degree. A certain clairvoyance naturally
remained for some few, but the authority of the Imaginations, that
disappeared: the beings who can still have real Imaginations, these
can only hold sway for the life that man knows between birth and
death, in super-sensible worlds.
This
is the essence of what the Greeks pictured to themselves concerning
their Gods: there were Beings who could imagine. But the time
is past when such Beings as can ‘imagine’, can enter into
human bodies. For human bodies are no longer adapted to Imaginations.
So said the Greeks to themselves: we are governed by a race of Beings
who can have Imaginations, while we no longer can have them. The
Greek had a quite unsentimental concept of his Gods. It would
moreover have been rather difficult to be sentimental over Zeus. Yet
the Greek said to himself quietly (I shall again elaborate the matter
somewhat, one must add detail when one wants to be quite clear), We
men are going through a definite evolution; we have developed from
atavistic clairvoyance in Intuition, Inspiration, Imagination; now we
must have ordinary objective thinking. But the Gods have not ventured
upon it, they have remained in their imaginative consciousness,
otherwise they would have to be men and wander about here in the
flesh. It did not suit them (so thought the Greeks in their
unsentimental way of regarding the Gods) to pass over to objective
thinking, so they have not descended to the earth, but kept to their
imaginative consciousness. In this way, however, they rule over us,
for they have more power, as it were, since the Imaginative concept,
when it is utilized fully, is more powerful than the objective
concept.
From
this, however, you see that the Greeks looked back to a time when
man's forming of concepts, his observation and perception were
different, and that this looking back went hand in hand with the
ideas they formed of the Gods. Thus they looked back to Zeus, Hera,
and said: These are ruling over us now, at one time we were also as
they are, but we have developed further and have become weaker.
Therefore they can rule over us, they have remained as it was at that
time. A certain Luciferic character, as we should say today, was
given to their Gods by the Greeks. And those Beings who had remained
at the Imagination stage this developed in the Greek
consciousness these were themselves successors of these
Beings who remained at the Inspiration stage. Hera and Zeus remained
behind at Imagination, Rhea and Chronos at Inspiration, Gaea and
Uranus at Intuition.
You
see, the Greek examined his own soul, and he brought his generations
of Gods into connection with the evolution of mankind and the
different states of consciousness. This he felt, this he perceived.
The eldest Gods, Gaea and Uranus, were Beings whose whole inner
relation to the world was ordered by the fact that they had an
intuitive consciousness. They wanted to remain at the stage of
Intuition; and those at the stage of Inspiration set themselves
against them. And again the inspiring Beings wished to remain at
Inspiration; and those living in the Imaginative consciousness set
themselves against them. The Intuitive were thus overthrown through
the Inspiring, the Inspiring through the Imagining. We live as human
beings and above us the Imaginings. Now you know that in the
Prometheus myth, the Greek already desired to find some kind of
instrument against the Imagining.
-
|
{
|
Gaea-Uranus
|
==
|
Intuition
|
Man
|
Rhea-Chronos
|
==
|
Inspiration
|
|
Hera-Zeus
|
==
|
Imagination
|
The Greeks graded their Gods in such a way that in this gradation
they showed how they looked back to earlier states of consciousness
of that being who has at the same time evolved as humanity. The
Greeks showed how they connected this with their retrospect of the
Gods. Just think how deeply significant this is for the
understanding of the Greek consciousness! Thus the Greek in looking
back to his generations of the Gods looked back to the past in the
mental life. He connected the ancient Intuitional Beings with Gaea,
the Earth, and Uranus, the Heavens, and connected the Inspirational
Gods with Rhea and Chronos. They still perceived what Gaea and
Uranus were. Rhea and Chronos are described as Titans What
are they actually?
Now
for some centuries mankind has lost practically all consciousness
of what lies at the foundation of all this.
Let
me remind you that you know how a few hundred years ago the human
being was brought into connection with three fundamental elements.
You can still find this knowledge in Jacob Boehme and Paracelsus,
even up to the time of Saint Martin. Jacob Boehme still gives: Sal
== Salt; Mercur == Quicksilver; Sulphur == Sulphur. In the
Middle Ages one said:
Salt
Mercury
Sulphur.
What was understood was not the same but yet had something to do
with what the Greek meant when he spoke of Uranus-Gaea, or
Gaea-Uranus; Rhea-Chronos; Hera-Zeus. For you see Chronos drove
Uranus from World-rulership, Gaea became shall we say
as good as widow. For what did she become? She became what is
‘Earth’ not the ordinary earth which we find
outside, but the earth that man carries in himself, i.e.
Salt. Could man this was known to the investigator of nature
in the Middle Ages make use consciously of the salt that
existed in him, then he would have Intuition. Thus the process which
has sunk down deep into the nature of man was a more living one in
the old Gaea-Uranus time.
A
younger process which has also entered deep down into human nature
is that which can be described as the Rhea-Chronos-process. The
Greeks said: the power of Rhea was once widespread, and ‘Chronos’
represented the forces that confronted Rhea. Chronos was
overthrown. What has been left? Well, just as from Uranus-Gaea the
dead salt has been left, so from Chronos-Rhea, the fluid, Mercury,
has been left; the fluid in man that can take a drop formation; that
has remained behind. But neither can man make conscious use of
this; it has sunk into unconscious depths.
Today,
of course, that is long past and in the time of the Greeks it was
already gone by, for the Greeks said to themselves: the time of Zeus
upon earth was in hoary primeval ages, but at that time man could
make use of the Sulphur to be found in him. Were man able to make
use consciously of his Salt, he would be able to use Intuition in an
atavistic way. If he could consciously make use of his Mercury, his
fluid element, he would be able to use Inspiration, and Imagination
if he could use his Sulphur not in that transmitted sense,
but in the actual sense as the Alchemists of the Middle Ages still
understood it, when they spoke of the ‘philosophical
sulphur’. Today there is also a philosophical sulphur:
[Schwefel (Sulphur) has also a slang meaning of ‘hot air’.
Trans.] Professors of philosophy manufacture it in vast
quantities, but this is not what the Alchemists understood by it.
They understood an imaginative consciousness, an atavistic
Imagining, which was connected with the use of this active sulphur
in man. Human beings, so said the Greeks, and their priests of the
Mysteries also said so, for the mysteries of Salt, Mercury and
Sulphur are ancient; human beings, through their evolution have
overcome atavism, making use of sulphur atavistically. But Zeus and
his circle have withdrawn into the super-sensible and avail
themselves of the Sulphur processes: hence Zeus can hurl his
lightning. If man, like Zeus, could hurl lightning, that is, if he
could transform the sulphur through Imagination into reality, if he
could inwardly and consciously hurl lightning, then he would use
Imagination atavistically. That is what the Greeks wished to say
when they said of Zeus that he could hurl lightning.
It
was known, even by Saint Martin, that with the Sulphur of the
Alchemists something different is meant from the ordinary earthly
sulphur, of which one could at most say excuse the plain
speaking it is the excrement of that which was understood
by Saint Martin and those before him as the real sulphur, which they
also called the ‘philosophical sulphur’. And Saint
Martin still speaks of how thunder and lightning are really
connected with the processes of the macrocosmic, or one could
say the cosmic sulphur. Today, indeed, many a physical-natural
scientific explanation creeps into science, which is also a sulphur,
[See former note. Trans.]
but not exactly a ‘philosophical sulphur’. Yet,
remember that the really clever people of today are, of course,
far beyond talking of sulphur processes in the cosmos when thunder
and lightning arise; for lightning and thunder arise, as you can
read in elementary books on physics, through some sort of friction
processes in the clouds don't they? Anything really rational
one cannot find in what is said about lightning and thunder; for the
wet clouds in their mutual action are supposed to create the
electricity which comes about through thunder and lightning! But if
an electrical experiment is made in the schoolroom each
apparatus is most carefully dried, for the least dampness
prevents any electricity from arising. The clouds up there, however,
are apparently not wet! The teacher can do nothing with an electric
machine which is damp, which indeed is not completely dry, but at
the same time he explains that the wet clouds are supposed to be
connected with the creation of electricity. Yes, indeed such things
get thoroughly mixed up, don't they! I wanted, however, only to say
that in Saint Martin there was still a consciousness that this
element of which the Greeks dreamt when they spoke of Hera and Zeus,
had something to do with lightning and thunder.
You
see, even superficial ideas can indicate to us that certain nature
processes, the Salt, Mercury, Sulphur-processes, but in their older
sense are connected with what the Greeks possessed in their
mythology. Let us hold that fact to begin with. We must have such
fundamental concepts in order to pass over in the right way to our
own time.
Thus
the Greeks looked back to generations of Gods, to conditions that
had ceased to exist, but that in earlier ages were also perceptible
to man. They connected what lived in their Gods with what we call
processes of nature. Mythology was therefore at the same time a sort
of natural science. And the more one learns to know mythology, the
deeper is the natural science one finds in it, only a different one,
which is at the same time a science of the Soul. This is how the
Greeks thought, and how the Egyptians too conceived of their Osiris,
who once had ruled but who was now in the underworld.
Do
you notice how different the things are and yet how they are all to
be traced back to a common type? If the Greeks refer to earlier ages
when such a being as Zeus, who in their own time could live only
supersensibly, could even incorporate in a man, so could the
Egyptians also point to an older age when Osiris or Osirises
the number is not the point ruled, when they had descended
into human beings, when they were present. But that time has gone by
... now (in the Egyptian Osiris-culture) one can no longer look to a
human being on the physical plane if one wants to find Osiris, one
must look to the world which man enters when he goes through the
portal of death. Osirises are no more in the world where human
beings live, but man meets them after death. Thus the Egyptian too
looked back to an ancient time in the sense of the change of human
consciousness, when he distinguished between the Osiris who could
once wander the Earth, and the Osiris who can now no longer wander
the Earth, who only belongs to the Kingdom of death.
If
we confine ourselves today to the two mythologies and tomorrow touch
briefly upon the Old Testament teachings before we draw any
conclusions, we can make the following statement: We observe from
the whole way in which Greek and Egyptian stood to their Gods, that
at the same time there was expressed in this consciousness a
remembrance of the ancient times of atavistic clairvoyance. They
have vanished, they are no more there. With the destinies which the
human being has gone through together with his Gods whether
with Zeus or Chronos in Greece, or with Osiris in Egypt, man was
describing to himself at the same time this knowledge: If I
look farther back, I was related as a human being to the macrocosm
in a different way from how I am now. This relation has altered.
To
look back in this way to earlier ages when the Gods walked among
men, had a distinct reality for these ancient peoples, since they
knew that the human being stood as microcosm to macrocosm in a
different way from in their own time. The old atavistic clairvoyance
actually faded away in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. This was
what it was sought to express through the Greek mythology, what it
was also sought to express through the Osiris-mythology of the
Egyptians.
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