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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Theosophy of the Rosicrucian
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Theosophy of the Rosicrucian
The New Form of Wisdom
Schmidt Number: S-1532
On-line since: 4th July, 2002
THE TITLE of this course of lectures has been announced as
Theosophy according to the Rosicrucian Method. By this is
meant the wisdom that is primeval, yet ever new, expressed in a form
suitable for the present age. The mode of thought we are about to
study has existed since the fourteenth century, A.D. in these
lectures; however, it is not my intention to speak of the
history of Rosicrucianism. As you know, a certain kind of
geometry, which includes, for instance, the Pythagorean Theorem, is
taught in elementary schools of the present day. The rudiments of
geometry are learnt quite independently of how geometry itself
actually came into being, for what does the pupil who is learning the
rudiments of geometry today know about Euclid? Nevertheless it is
Euclid's geometry that is being taught. Only much later, when the
substance has been mastered, do students discover, perhaps from a
history of the sciences, something about the form in which the
teaching that is accessible even in elementary schools today
originally found its way into the evolution of humanity. As little as
the pupil who learns elementary geometry today is concerned with the
form in which it was originally given to mankind by Euclid, as little
need we concern ourselves with the question of how Rosicrucianism
developed in the course of history. Just as the pupil learns geometry
from its actual tenets, so shall we learn to know the nature of this
Rosicrucian wisdom from its intrinsic principles.
Those who are acquainted merely with the outer history of
Rosicrucianism as recorded in literature know very little about the
real content of Rosicrucian Theosophy. Rosicrucian Theosophy has
existed since the fourteenth century as something that is true, quite
apart from its history, just as geometrical truths exist independently
of history. Only a fleeting reference, therefore, will here be made to
certain matters connected with the history of Rosicrucianism.
In the year 1459, a lofty, spiritual Individuality, incarnate in the
human personality who bears in the world the name of Christian
Rosenkreuz, appeared as the teacher, to begin with of a small circle
of initiated pupils. In the year 1459, within a strictly secluded
spiritual Brotherhood, the Fraternitas Roseae Crucis, Christian
Rosenkreuz was raised to the rank of Eques lapidis aurei,
Knight of the Golden Stone. What this means will become clearer to us
in the course of these lectures. The exalted Individuality who lived
on the physical plane in the personality of Christian Rosenkreuz
worked as leader and teacher of the Rosicrucian stream again and again
in the same body, as occultism puts it. The meaning of the expression
again and again in the same body will also be explained
when we come to speak of the destiny of the human being after death.
Until far into the eighteenth century, the wisdom of which we are here
speaking was preserved within a strictly secret Brotherhood, bound by
inviolate rules which separated its members from the exoteric world.
In the eighteenth century it was the mission of this Brotherhood to
allow certain esoteric truths to flow, by spiritual ways, into the
culture of Middle Europe; and thus we see flashing up in an exoteric
culture many things that are clothed, it is true, in an exoteric form,
but which are, in reality, nothing else than outer expressions of
esoteric wisdom.
In the course of the centuries many people have endeavoured, in one
way or another, to discover the Rosicrucian wisdom, but they did not
succeed. Leibnitz tried in vain to get at the source of Rosicrucian
wisdom. But this Rosicrucian wisdom lit up like a flash of lightning
in an exoteric work which appeared when Lessing was approaching the
close of his life. I refer to Lessing's Education of the Human
Race. If we do but read it between the lines, then (but only if we
are esotericists) we shall recognise in its unusual utterances that it
is an external expression of Rosicrucian wisdom. This wisdom lit up in
outstanding grandeur in the man in whom European culture and, indeed
international culture, was reflected at the turn of the eighteenth
century in Goethe. In comparatively early years Goethe
had come into contact with a source of Rosicrucianism and he then
experienced, in some degree, a very remarkable and lofty Initiation.
To speak of Initiation in connection with Goethe may easily be
misleading; at this point therefore it will be well to indicate
something of what happened to Goethe during the period after he had
left the Leipzig University and before he went to Strassburg. He
passed through an experience which penetrated very deeply into his
soul and expressed itself outwardly in the fact that during the last
period of his stay in Leipzig, he came very near to death.
As he lay desperately ill, he had a momentous experience, passing
through a kind of Initiation. To begin with, he was not actually
conscious of it but it worked in his soul as a kind of poetic
inspiration and the process by which it flowed into his various
creations was most remarkable. It flashes up in his poem entitled
The Mysteries, which his closest friends have considered
to be one of his most profound creations. And indeed this fragment is
so profound that Goethe was never able to recapture the power to
formulate its conclusion. The culture of the day was incapable of
giving external form to the depths of life pulsating in this poem. It
must be regarded as issuing from one of the deepest founts of Goethe's
soul and is a book with seven seals for all his commentators. Then,
however, the Initiation took increasing effect in him and finally, as
he grew more conscious of it, he was able to produce that remarkable
prose-poem known as
The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily;
one of the most profound writings in all
literature. Those who are able to interpret it rightly know a great
deal of the Rosicrucian wisdom.
At the time when Rosicrucian wisdom was intended to flow gradually
into the general life of culture, it happened, in a manner of which I
need not speak further now, that a kind of betrayal took place.
Certain Rosicrucian conceptions found their way into the world at
large. This betrayal on the one hand, and on the other the fact that
it was necessary for Western culture during the nineteenth century to
remain for a time on the physical plane uninfluenced by esotericism
these two facts made it imperative that the sources of
Rosicrucian wisdom, and above all its great Founder, who since its
inception had been constantly on the physical plane, should, to all
appearances, withdraw. Thus during the first half and also during a
large part of the second half of the nineteenth century, little of the
Rosicrucian wisdom could be discovered. Only now, in our own time, has
it become possible again to make the Rosicrucian wisdom accessible and
allow it to flow into general culture. And if we think about this
culture we shall discover the reasons why this had to be.
I will now speak of two characteristics of the Rosicrucian wisdom,
which are important in connection with its mission in the world. One
has to, do with the attitude of the human being towards this
Rosicrucian wisdom-which must not be identified with the occult form
of Christian-Gnostic wisdom. We must touch briefly upon two facts
appertaining to the spiritual life if we are to be clear about the
fundamental character of Rosicrucian wisdom. The first of these is the
relationship of the pupil to the teacher; and here again there are two
aspects to consider. We shall speak, first, of
Clairvoyance, and secondly, of what is sometimes called
Belief in Authority. Clairvoyance the
term is really inadequate-comprises not only spiritual seeing but also
spiritual hearing. These two faculties are the source of all knowledge
of the world's hidden wisdom and true knowledge of the spiritual
worlds can come from no other source.
In Rosicrucianism there is an essential difference between the
actual discovery of spiritual truths and the
understanding of them. Only those who have developed spiritual
faculties in a fairly high degree can themselves discover a spiritual
truth in the higher worlds. Clairvoyance is the necessary
pre-requisite for the discovery of a spiritual truth, but only for its
discovery. For a long time to come, nothing will be taught
exoterically by any genuine Rosicrucianism that cannot be grasped by
the ordinary logical intellect. That is the essential point. The
objection that clairvoyance is necessary for understanding the
Rosicrucian form of Theosophy is not valid. Understanding does not
depend upon the faculty of seership. Those who are incapable of
grasping the Rosicrucian wisdom with their thinking have simply not
developed their logical reasoning powers to a sufficient extent
that is all. Anyone who has absorbed all that modern culture is able
to give; who is not too lazy to learn and has patience and
perseverance can understand what a Rosicrucian teacher has to impart.
Those who have doubts about Rosicrucian wisdom and who say that they
cannot grasp it must not cast the blame on the fact that they are
incapable of rising to the higher planes. The fault lies in their
unwillingness either to exert their reasoning powers sufficiently or
to put the experiences gained from general culture to adequate use.
Just think of the tremendous popularisation of wisdom that has taken
place since the appearance of Christianity down to the present day,
and then try to picture Christian Rosicrucianism as it was in the
fourteenth century. Think of the relation of a human being then living
in the world, with his teachers. It was only possible in those days to
work by means of the spoken word. People do not, as a rule, rightly
appraise what tremendous development has taken place since that time.
Think only of what has been achieved by the art of printing. Think of
the thousands and thousands of channels through which, thanks to this
discovery, the highest achievements of Culture have been able to flow
into civilisation. From books down to the latest newspaper article,
you can perceive the innumerable channels through which countless
ideas flow into life. These channels have only been open for mankind
since that time and they have had the effect of making the Western
intellect assume quite different forms. The Western mind has worked
quite differently since then and the new form of wisdom had
necessarily to reckon with this fact. A form had to be created which
would be able to hold its ground in face of all that flows into life
along these thousands of channels. Rosicrucian wisdom can hold its own
against any objection that might be raised by either popular or
technical science. Rosicrucian wisdom contains within itself the
sources which enable it to counter every objection made by science. A
true understanding of modern science, not the dilettante understanding
to be found even in University Professors, but understanding that is
free from abstract theorising and materialistic conjectures, standing
firmly upon the basis of facts and not going beyond them, can find
from science itself the proofs of the spiritual truths of
Rosicrucianism.
A second point concerning the relationship between teacher and pupil
in Rosicrucianism is that the relationship of the pupil to the
Guru (as the teacher is called in the East) is
fundamentally different from that prevailing in other methods of
Initiation. In Rosicrucianism this relationship cannot in any way be
said to be based upon belief in authority. Let me make this clear to
you by an example drawn from everyday life. The Rosicrucian teacher
desires to stand in no different relation to his pupil than does a
teacher of mathematics to his students. Can it be said that the
student of mathematics depends upon his teacher simply out of belief
in authority? No! And can it be said that the student of mathematics
does not need the teacher? Some people may argue that he does not,
because he may have discovered how to teach himself from good books.
But this is simply a different situation from the one where student
and teacher are sitting in front of each other. In principle, of
course, self-instruction is possible. Equally, every human being,
provided he reaches a certain stage of clairvoyance, can discover the
spiritual truths for himself but this would be a much lengthier path.
It would be senseless to say: My own inner being must be the sole
source of all spiritual truths. If the teacher knows the mathematical
truths and imparts them to his pupil, the pupil is no longer called
upon to have belief in authority for he grasps these
truths through their own inherent correctness and all he needs is to
understand them. So is it with all occult development in the
Rosicrucian sense. The teacher is the friend, the counselor, one who
has already lived through the occult experiences and helps the pupil
to do so himself. Once a man has had these experiences he need as
little accept them on authority as in mathematics he need accept on
authority the statement that the three angles of a triangle are equal
to 180º. In Rosicrucianism there is no authority in the
ordinary sense. It is far rather a matter of what is required for
shortening the path to the highest truths.
That is the one side of the question; the other is the relation of the
spiritual wisdom to culture in general.
These lectures will show you that it is possible for truth to flow
directly into practical life. We are not setting up a system that is
applicable in theory only; we are speaking of teachings which can be
put to use in practical life by anyone who desires to know the
foundations of the science of worlds and to allow the spiritual truths
to flow into everyday life. Rosicrucian wisdom must not stream only
into the head, nor only into the heart, but also into the hand, into
our manual capacities, into our daily actions. It does not take effect
as sentimental sympathy; it is the acquisition, by strenuous effort,
of faculties enabling us to work for the well-being of humanity.
Suppose some society was to proclaim human brotherhood as its aim and
was to do no more than preach brotherhood. That would not be
Rosicrucianism. For the Rosicrucian says: Suppose a man is lying in
the road with a broken leg. If fourteen people stand around him
pityingly but not one of them is able to help, the whole fourteen
together are of less importance than a fifteenth who comes, perhaps,
without any sentimentality at all, but is able to and actually does
deal with the broken leg. The attitude of the Rosicrucian is that what
counts is knowledge able to take hold of and intervene effectively in
life. Rosicrucian wisdom considers that repeated talk about pity and
sympathy has an element of danger in it for continual emphasis upon
sympathy denotes a kind of astral sensuality. Sensuality on the
physical plane is of the same nature on the astral plane. It is the
attitude that is always only willing to feel and not to know.
Knowledge that is capable of taking effect in practical life
not, of course in the materialistic sense but because it is brought
down from the spiritual worlds this is what enables us to work
efficaciously. Harmony flows of itself from knowledge that the world
must progress; and it flows all the more surely because it arises
quite naturally out of knowledge. Of a man who knows how to deal with
a broken leg, people might say: If he is no friend of humanity, he may
just let the sufferer lie. Such a thing would be possible in the case
of knowledge pertaining only to the physical plane. But it would not
be possible for spiritual knowledge. There is no spiritual knowledge
that would refrain from entering into practical life.
This, then, is the second aspect of Rosicrucian wisdom, namely, that
it can be discovered only through the powers of clairvoyance but can
be understood by normal human reason. It may seem strange to say that
in order to have experiences in the spiritual world you must become
clairvoyant, but that in order to understand what the clairvoyant
sees, this is not necessary. A seer who descends from the spiritual
worlds and tells of what comes to pass there, bringing to the
knowledge of men something that is necessary for humanity at the
present time, can be understood if those who listen are willing to
understand. For the constitution of the human being is such that it
can be intelligible to him.
First of all we shall study the seven-fold nature of man according to
the Rosicrucian teaching. We shall consider the whole nature of man as
he confronts us; we shall learn to understand the nature of the
physical body, which everyone thinks he knows all about but in reality
knows nothing. As little as we can see the oxygen in water but must
separate it from the hydrogen in order to recognise it, as little do
we see the real physical human being when we look at another man
standing before us. Man is a combination of physical body, etheric
body, astral body and the other higher members of his being, as water
is a combination of oxygen and hydrogen. The being who stands before
us is the sum total of all these members! If we are to see the
physical body alone, the astral body must have separated from it: this
is the condition in dreamless sleep. Sleep is a kind of higher
chemical separation of the astral body with the higher members of
man's nature, from the etheric and physical bodies. But even then it
cannot be said that we have the real physical body before us. The
physical body is alone only at death, when the etheric body too has
left it.
This has a direct and concrete bearing. I will make it clear to you by
means of an example. Think of some particular part of the astral body.
In the remote past, the pictures which the human being perceived in
dim, shadowy clairvoyance, worked very differently than do mental
images today. These pictures were impressed, first of all, into the
astral body. Let us suppose that at one time pictures of the three
dimensions of space length, breadth, and depth were
impressed into the astral body. This picture of three-dimensional
space which was once impressed into the astral body through the old,
dim clairvoyance was carried over into the etheric body. Just as a
seal is pressed into liquid sealing wax, so did the astral picture
impress itself into the etheric body and this in turn moulded the
forms of the physical body. Thus the picture of three-dimensional
space built an organ in a particular area of the physical body.
Originally there was a picture in the astral body of the three
perpendicular directions of space; this picture impressed itself, like
a seal into wax, into the etheric body and a certain part of the
etheric body moulded an organ in the interior of the human ear,
namely, the three semi-circular canals. You all have them within you;
if they are in any way impaired you cannot orientate yourself within
the three directions of space; you get giddy and cannot stand upright.
Thus are the pictures of the astral body connected with the forces of
the etheric body and the organs of the physical body.
The whole physical body of man in its plastic forms is nothing else
than a product of the pictures of the astral body and the forces of
the etheric body. Hence those who have no knowledge of the astral and
etheric bodies cannot understand the physical body. The astral body is
the predecessor of the etheric body and the etheric body is the
predecessor of the physical body. Thus the matter is complicated. The
three semi-circular canals are a physical organ, just as is the nose.
All noses differ from one another although there may be resemblance
between the noses of parents and children. If you were able to study
the three semicircular canals in the ears of human beings, you would
find difference and resemblance just as in the case of noses, for
these canals may resemble those of the mother or father. What is not
inherited is the innermost spiritual core of being, the Eternal in man
which passes through the successive incarnations. Individual talents
and faculties are not determined by the brain. Logic is the same in
mathematics, in philosophy, or in practical life. The difference in
the quality of the faculties becomes apparent only when logic is
applied in domains where knowledge depends, for instance, upon the
functioning of the semi-circular organs in the ear. Mathematical
talent will be particularly marked when these organs are highly
developed. An example of this is the Bernoulli family, which produced
a succession of fine mathematicians. An individual may possess great
incipient talent for music or some other art, but if he is not born
into a human body that has inherited the requisite organic structures,
he cannot bring these talents to expression.
So you see, the physical world cannot be understood without knowledge
of how it is constituted. The Rosicrucian does not consider it his
task to withdraw in any way from the physical world. Certainly not!
For what he has to do is to spiritualise the physical world. He must
rise to the highest regions of spiritual life and with the knowledge
there obtained labour actively in the physical world, especially in
the world of men.
This is the Rosicrucian attitude-the direct outcome of Rosicrucian
wisdom. We are about to study a system of wisdom which will enable us
to understand even the smallest things; and we shall not forget that
the smallest thing in the world can be of importance to the greatest,
that the smallest thing, in its rightful place, can lead to the
highest of goals!
Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
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