Kim Graae Munch
Kim Graae Munch
In the following "Spiritual Soul" is replaced by "Consciousness Soul" as
it is the term Steiner chose later.
In most english translations they have
translated "Ich" to ego, and it gives problems with other literature, New Age
and Jung, where they use ego as the sentience in the astral body, so I
have substituted "ego" with "I" that have the same meaning as "Ich".
A knowledge thus arose among these new initiates that included everything that was the subject of ancient initiation, but in the center of this knowledge there radiated the higher wisdom of the mysteries of the Christ event. Only in a small degree could such knowledge flow into general life, while the human souls of the fourth period of culture had to consolidate the faculties of intellect and feeling. Thus it was at that time a very “hidden knowledge.”
Then the dawn of the new age broke, which is to be designated as the fifth cultural period. Its nature consists in the advance of the evolution of the intellectual faculties, which have unfolded to an exuberant blossoming and will unfold still further in the present and into the future.
This prepared itself slowly, beginning with the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in order to accelerate its advance from the sixteenth century onward into the present time. Under these influences, the chief objective of the evolution of the fifth cultural epoch was the fostering of the powers of the intellect, whereas the confident knowledge of former ages, traditional knowledge, lost more and more of its power over the human soul.
But in its place there developed what may be called an increasingly stronger influx into human souls of the knowledge gained through modern supersensible consciousness. The “hidden knowledge” flows, although quite unnoticed at the beginning, into the mode of thinking of the men of this period.
It is only self-evident that, up to the present, intellectual forces reject this knowledge. But what must happen will happen, in spite of all temporary rejection. The “hidden knowledge,” which from this side takes hold of mankind now and will take hold of it more and more in the future, may be called symbolically “the wisdom of the Grail.” If this symbol, as it is given in legend and myth, is understood in its deeper meaning, we shall find that it is a significant image of the nature of what has been spoken of above as the knowledge of the new initiation, with the Christ mystery at its center.
The modern initiates may, therefore, also be called “initiates of the Grail.” The way into the supersensible worlds, the first stages of which have been described in this book, leads to the “science of the Grail.” This knowledge has the peculiarity that research into its facts can be made only if one has acquired the necessary means that have been described in this book. If, however, such research has been made, these facts can then be understood through the soul forces developed in the fifth cultural period. Indeed, it will become more and more evident that these forces, in an ever higher degree, will find satisfaction through this knowledge.
We move now in an age in which this knowledge ought to be received more abundantly into general consciousness than was previously the case, and it is from this point of view that this book desires to impart its information. To the degree to which the development of mankind will absorb the knowledge of the Grail, the impulse given through the Christ event can become ever more significant. To the external aspect of Christian development the inner aspect will be joined more and more. What may be known through imagination, inspiration, and intuition about the higher worlds in connection with the Christ mystery will increasingly permeate the thought, feeling, and will-life of humanity. The “concealed knowledge of the Grail” will be revealed; as an inner force it will permeate more and more the manifestations of human life.
We see that the highest imaginable ideal of human evolution results from the “knowledge of the Grail”: the spiritualization that man acquires through his own efforts. For this spiritualization appears finally as a result of the harmony that he produces in the fifth and sixth cultural periods of present evolution between the acquired powers of intellect and feeling and the knowledge of the supersensible worlds.
Christ is the inner, divine principle. He must pour Himself into the existing forms, taking the form of the law from the theocratic State, from Judaism. Judaism could not accept the new form. It had its own, which was the highest existing form of the law. But Christ had perforce to accept it, since He was to be made manifest by degrees on the physical plane. Therefore He uttered His wisdom through the form of the wisdom of ancient Judaism.
But this wisdom had to be understood. It could be understood where men had already mastered the explanation of the phenomena of the physical plane, where they had philosophy. That is why the first Church Fathers derive from the Greeks. In their philosophy they had developed the possibility of understanding what now appeared on the physical plane. When the new Spiritual Will manifested in the personality, they were also able to understand this personality. The people who had portrayed a Zeus, who in their art of sculpture had bodied forth a god, were also able to understand the idea of the incarnated God.
To begin with, this idea could become life through what developed out of the Roman people. The man who had evolved the personality (the Roman) could make this idea very life. The Christ is given form in the Jewish people, but is comprehended only through the Greek Gnosis and through the Greek Apostle and the Greek Evangelist John. But none of this could have led to the spread of Christianity on the physical plane. It could have led at most to an understanding of it. The Romans who assimilate Greek culture, destroy Jerusalem, go to Asia, and become Christians.
The Jews provide form for Christ
The Greeks understand Christ
The Romans become Christians
Hence Christianity began to spread only after the destruction of Jerusalem and had a definitely Roman form. In Rome, the physical framework for the Christians was already prepared and was the State which had already founded a world empire. The priest who ruled it was the Pontifex Maximus.
So much for the Fourth subrace. We have seen that it had been carefully prepared. The Fifth Subrace was at this time still in the process of developing.
We have come to the culminating point — or the center. The Teachers who now follow have to preserve what has come into being and put it into application again on the physical plane. It is now a matter of certain Initiates elaborating for individuals the culmination already attained. Thus the Christian tradition is preserved in the Brotherhood of the Holy Grail. Christianity is involved in a process of continual degeneration. New impulses have therefore continually to be given from what is known as Montsalvat, the Grail. These impulses assume different characters. Again it is Rishis who now experience the teaching in a Christian form and want always to protect the original Christianity from degenerating.
In this way, manifold attempts to bring about regeneration were made. The first attempt leads back to an Initiate who as yet could play no real role in history because on this soil, previous history is still present. He is, however, named in tradition. He is the “Apostle of Germany” — Boniface. From this stems the adaptation of the original form in which Christianity from Ireland came to Germany, with a mixture of Druidic culture, Irish influence, the impulse of Dionysius the Areopagite.
A new impulse and a new possibility were created through the Initiate who is given the name of “Lohengrin.” The conditions under which this initiation took place were very complicated, as now becomes the case with all initiations, for it was a matter of uniting the original Christianity which had developed continuously from Dionysius the Areopagite onward through Scotus Erigena up to Scholasticism and medieval Mysticism.
This stream was still able to have an effect upon the peoples through preachings and sermons, but it had gradually lost its influence because it led to the very highest levels of thought. Therefore, fructification must be brought from the original spiritual element. A peak had been reached but it was at the same time a blind alley, and in order to work upon the initiate “Lohengrin,” new fructification must come from the East — this was brought about by the Crusades.
The really important outcome of this was (the founding of) the Knights Templar, the actual messengers of the Grail. They built a sanctuary on the site of Solomon's Temple, and after preparation there, they became servants of the Holy Grail, were initiated there by the Grail. This happened at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, and was prepared in the 11th and 12th centuries.
It was only in small circles of Initiates that this sacred Christ Mystery was preserved. A man who was initiated into this Mystery experienced the overcoming of the "I" that functions in the world of sense. This is how he experienced it. — He asked himself: ‘What has been the manner of my life hitherto? In my quest for truth, I have turned to the things of the outer world.
The Initiates of the Christ-Mystery, however, demand that I shall not wait until outer things tell me what is true but that in my soul, without being stimulated by the outer world, I shall seek the invisible.’ — This quest of the soul for the highest was called by the outer world in later times: The secret of the Holy Grail.
And the Parsifal or Grail legend is simply a form of the Christ Mystery. The Grail is the holy Cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper and in which Joseph of Arimathea caught the blood as it flowed on Golgotha. The Cup was then taken to a holy place and guarded.
So long as a man does not ask about the invisible, his lot is that of Parsifal. Only when he asks, does he become an Initiate of the Christ Mystery.
Wolfram von Eschenbach speaks in his poem of the three stages through which the soul of man passes.
1. The first of these is the stage of outer, material perception. The soul is caught up in matter and allows matter to say what is truth. This is the “stupor” (Dumpfheit) of the soul, as Wolfram van Eschenbach expresses it. [Child Soul]
2. And then the soul begins to recognise that the outer world offers only illusion. When the soul perceives that the results of science are not answers but only questions, there comes the stage of “doubt” (Zwifel), according to Wolfram von Eschenbach. [Young Soul]
3. But then the soul rises to “blessedness” (Saelde, Seligkeit) — to life in the spiritual worlds. [Old Soul]
— These are the three stages.
The Mysteries which were illuminated by the Christ Impulse have one quite definite feature in common whereby they are raised to a higher level than that of the more ancient Mysteries. Initiation always means that a man attains to a higher kind of sight and that his soul undergoes a higher development.
Before he sets out on this path, three faculties live within his soul: thinking, feeling and willing. He has these three soul-powers within him. In ordinary life in the modern world, these three soul-powers are intimately bound together. The "I" of man is interwoven with thinking feeling and willing because before he attains Initiation he has not worked with the powers of the "I" at the development of his higher members.
The first step is to purify the feelings, impulses and instincts in the astral body. Out of the purified astral body there rises the “Spirit-Self” or “Manas.”
Then man begins to permeate every thought with a definite element of feeling so that each thought may be said to have something ‘cold’ or ‘warm’ about it. — He is transforming his “ether-body” or “life-body.” Out of the transformed ether-body (it is a transformation of feeling), arises “Budhi” or “Life-Spirit.”
And finally, he transforms his willing and therewith the physical body itself, into “Atma” or “Spirit-Man.”
Thus by transforming his thinking, feeling and willing, man changes his astral body into Spirit-Self or Manas, his ether-body into Life-Spirit or Budhi and finally his physical body into Spirit-Man or Atma. This transformation is the result of the Initiates systematic work upon his soul, whereby he rises to the spiritual worlds.
But something very definite happens when the path to Initiation is trodden in full earnest and not light-heartedly. In true Initiation it is as if a man's organisation were divided into three parts, and the "I" reigns as king over the three.
Whereas in ordinary circumstances the spheres of thinking, feeling and willing are not clearly separated, when a man sets out on the path of higher development thoughts begin to arise in him which are not immediately tinged with feeling but are permeated with the element of sympathy or antipathy according to the free choice of the "I".
Feeling does not immediately attach itself to a thought, but the man divides, as it were, into three: he is a man of feeling, a man of thinking, a man of will, and the "I", as king, rules over the three.
At a definite stage of Initiation he becomes, in this sense, three men. He feels that by way of his astral body he experiences all those thoughts which are related to the spiritual world; through his ether-body he experiences everything that pervades the spiritual world as the element of feeling; through his physical body he experiences all the will-impulses which flow through the spiritual world. And he realises himself as king within the sacred Three.
A man who is not able or ripe enough to bear this separation of his being, will not attain the fruits of Initiation. The sufferings that crowd upon him in his immature state will keep him back. A man who approaches the Holy Grail but is not worthy, will suffer as Amfortas suffered. He can only be redeemed by one who brings the forces of good. — He is freed from his sufferings by Parsifal.
And now let us return once more to what Initiation brings in its train. The seeking soul finds the spiritual world; the soul finds the Holy Grail which has now become the symbol of the spiritual world. Individual Initiates have experienced what is here described. They have gone the way of Parsifal, have become as kings looking down on the three bodies. The Initiate says to himself: ‘I am king over my purified astral body which can only be purified when I strive to emulate Christ.’ He must not hold to any outer link, to anything in the external world, but unite himself in the innermost depths of his soul with the Christ Principle. Everything that binds him with the world of sense must fall away in that supreme moment.
Lohengrin is the representative of an Initiate. It is not permitted to ask his name or rank, in other words, what connects him with the world of sense. He who has neither name nor rank, is called a “homeless” man
[Old Soul.] Such a man is permeated through and through with the Christ Principle. He too looks down on the ether-body which has become
Life-Spirit, as upon something that is now separate from the astral body. By this ether-body he is borne upwards to the higher worlds, where the laws of space and time do not hold sway. The symbol of this ether-body and its organs, is the
Swan who bears Lohengrin over the sea in a boat (the physical body), over the material world. The physical body is felt to be an instrument.
The soul on earth who experiences a new impulse through Initiation is symbolised in the figure of Elsa von Brabant. This shows us the sense in which the Lohengrin legend — which has many other meanings as well — is a portrayal of Initiation in the Mysteries associated with the Holy Grail. Thus in the eleventh to the thirteenth century, these secrets of the Holy Grail were taught in connection with the Christ Mystery. The Knights of the Grail were the later Initiates. They were confronted in the world with an exoteric Christianity, whereas esoteric Christianity was cultivated in the Mysteries.
And in the Mysteries, men sought to find that relation to Christianity whereby, through the outer Christ in the soul, the inner Christ, Who is symbolised by the Dove, was awakened to life.
It was said: Flor and Blancheflor are souls incarnated in human beings who have lived on earth. According to the legend, these two were the grandparents of Charles the Great. But those who studied the legend more deeply, saw in Charles the Great the figure who, in a certain sense, united esoteric and exoteric Christianity. This is expressed in the coronation of the Emperor.
But in the grandparents of Charles the Great, Flor and Blancheflor, lived the rose and the lily — typifying souls who were to preserve in its purity the esoteric Christianity which had been taught by Dionysos the Areopagite and others. The rose — Flor or Flos — symbolised the human soul who has received the impulse of the "I", of personality, who lets the Spiritual work out of his individuality, who has brought the "I"-force down into the red blood. But the lily was the symbol of the soul who can only remain spiritual when the "I" remains outside. Thus there is a contrast between the rose and the lily.
The principle of self-consciousness has entered wholly into the rose, whereas it remains outside the lily. But there was a union between the soul that is within and the soul that as the World-Spirit pervades the universe outside.
Flor and Blancheflor symbolise the finding of the World-Soul, the World-"I", by the human soul or the human "I". The event recorded in the legend of the Holy Grail is also described in the legend of Flor and Blancheflor. Flor and Blancheflor must not be thought of as outer figures — the lily symbolises the soul which finds its higher Egohood. The union of the lily-soul with the rose-soul was taken to express that principle in man which can link him with the Mystery of Golgotha.
Therefore it was said: Over against the forces of European Initiation inaugurated by Charles the Great which were to fuse exoteric and esoteric Christianity, pure esoteric Christianity must be kept alive and continued. But among the Initiates it was said: The same soul who lived in Flos or Flor and of whom the legend tells, was reincarnated in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as the founder of Rosicrucianism [Christian Rosenkreutz,] a Mystery-School having as its aim the cultivation of an understanding of the Christ Mystery in a way suited to the new era.
Thus esoteric Christianity found refuge in Rosicrucianism. Since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Rosicrucian Schools have trained the Initiates who are the successors of the ancient European Mysteries and of the School of the Holy Grail. Many things have trickled through into outer life in regard to the Rosicrucian Mysteries, but much that is told is a caricature of the truth.
Profound achievements of spiritual life were influenced by the mysterious threads of Rosicrucianism which found their way into civilisation. — So, for instance, there is a connection between [Francis] Bacon of Verulam's New Atlantis and Rosicrucianism. This work is more than a Utopia. Bacon there tries to lead those who would revive the dim clairvoyant faculties of the old Atlanteans, to higher levels.
Goethe's greatest poetic achievements were nourished from Rosicrucian sources. It is not without significance that in his poem Die Geheimnisse he speaks of a man who was led to a house and found on its door the sign of the Rose Cross. “Who brought the roses to the Cross?” — Who were these Initiates of the European Mysteries who linked the mysteries of the rose to the mystery of the Cross?
How deeply Goethe had penetrated these things is apparent, for instance when he speaks of the twelve gathered around the table — twelve as in the ancient Trottic Mysteries. Oh! Goethe knew all these things. But those who study him to-day, study only the Goethe they are capable of understanding.
The world and “all that therein is” is born out of the spirit; man is born and called to rise to the spirit.
Spiritual Science shows us more and more that the spirit lies exhausted in matter, that physical substance is the magic robe of the Spiritual. It is for man living in the material world, to charm the spirit out of this magic robe. The Spiritual finds its resurrection in man, in the human soul that rises above itself. — To enable the soul to find this path is the task of Spiritual Science. Thus does spirit find spirit. And man will realise and understand the spirit more and more as he fashions himself in its image.
On the other hand you also know that these symbols are linked — and I particularly stress this — with the two great streams running through the whole world, and rising to the highest spiritual realm; which streams we also encounter as the law of polarity in the forces of male and female.
Within that culture which we now have to consider, the priestly principle is expressed in masonic terminology as the female principle in the spiritual realm — in that spiritual realm which is most closely related to cultural evolution. The rule of the priests is expressed by the female [principle].
On the other hand, the male principle is everything which is opposed to this priestly rule; however, in such a way that this opponent has to be considered as the holiest, the noblest, the greatest and the most spiritual [principle] in the world, no less.
There are thus two streams with which we have to deal: a female and a male stream. The Freemasons see Abel as representing the female current, Cain, the male.
Here we come to the fundamental concept of Freemasonry, which to be sure is old, very old. Freemasonry developed in ancient times as the opponent of the priestly culture.
Understood in this way, we can characterise what underlies the priestly principle as refraining from investigating fundamentals, as accepting things as they present themselves from whatever aspect of the world, as being satisfied with what is thus given [Brahma.] The symbol of that for which man does nothing, the proper symbol for what is, in the truest sense of the word, donated to man, that symbol is taken from sexual life. The human being is [indeed] productive there, but what manifests itself in this productive force has nothing to do with human art, with human science or with human ability; from it is excluded everything which causes itself to be expressed in the three pillars of the ‘Royal Art.’ So when some present these sexual symbols to humanity, they want to say: In this symbol, human nature expresses itself, not as man has made it, but as it has been given by the gods. This finds its expression in Abel, the hunter and herdsman, who offers the sacrificial animal, the sacrificial lamb, thereby offering what he himself has done nothing to produce, which came into existence independently of him.
What did Cain, on the other hand, offer? He sacrificed what he had obtained by his own labour, what he had won from the fruits of the earth by tilling the soil [Shiva.] What he sacrificed needed human skill, knowledge and wisdom: that which demands comprehension of what one has done, which is based in a spiritual sense on the freedom of man to decide things for himself. That has to be paid for with guilt, by killing, first of all, the living things which had been,given by Nature or by Divine Powers, just as Cain killed Abel.
Through guilt lies the path to freedom. Everything which is born into the world — upon which man can, at best, act only in a secondary way — everything given to man by Divine Powers, everything which is there without him needing to work at it incessantly; all this is given to us first of all in the Kingdoms of Nature over which we have no control — in those Kingdoms (the Plant, Animal and Human Kingdoms) whose forces are isolated from any human contribution, because in these Kingdoms it is physical reproduction that is involved....
The symbol for these three Kingdoms is the Cross. The lower beam symbolises the Plant Kingdom, the middle or cross beam, the Animal Kingdom, and the upper beam, the Human Kingdom.
The plant has its roots buried in the earth and directs upwards, in the blossom, those parts which, in man, are directed downwards. It is the reproductive organs of the plant that appear in the blossom. The downward-turned part, the root, is the plant's head, buried in the earth. The animal is the plant turned half way and carries its backbone horizontally, in relation to the earth. Man is the plant turned completely round, so that the lower part is directed upwards.
This view lies at the basis of all the mysteries of the Cross. And when theosophy shows us how man has to pass, In the course of his evolution, through the various Kingdoms of Nature, through the Plant, Animal and Human Kingdoms, then that is the same thing expressed by Plato in the beautiful words, ‘The World Soul is nailed to the Cross of the World Body.’
The human soul is a spark struck from the World Soul, and the human being, as physical human being, is plant, animal and physical man at the same time. Inasmuch as the World Soul has divided itself up into the individual sparks of human souls, it is, as it were, nailed to the World Cross, nailed to what is expressed in the three Kingdoms, the Animal, Plant and Human Kingdoms. Powers which man has not mastered are at work in these Kingdoms. If he wants to control them, then he must create a new Kingdom of his very own, which is not expressed in the Cross.
So you see that what man has mastered, what he is able to master, is, up to now, the realm of the inanimate. And everything which the human being has converted to harmony and order out of the inanimate world is the symbol of his Royal Art on earth.
Using a wide variety of tools, guided by human wisdom, human powers have brought about in the mineral world a transformation that has unfolded between primordial times and the present day, when human powers can influence far distances without mechanical means. And that is the first pillar, the pillar of wisdom.
Somewhat later we see the second pillar established, the pillar of beauty, of art. Art is likewise a means of pouring the human spirit into lifeless matter, and again the result is an ensoulment (conquest) of the inanimate to be found in Nature.
Try for a moment to picture in your mind how the wisdom in art gradually overcomes and masters lifeless Nature, and you will see how what is there without man's participation is reshaped piece by piece by man himself. Visualise — as a fantasy, if you must — the effect of the whole earth having been transformed by the hand of man, the effect of the whole earth becoming a work of art, full of wisdom and radiating beauty, built by man's hand, conceived by man's wisdom!
It may seem fantastic but it is more than that. For it is humanity's mission on earth, to transform the planet artistically. You find this expressed in the second pillar, the pillar of beauty.
To which you can add, as the third pillar, the reshaping of the human race in national and state life, and you have the propagation of the human spirit in the world; you have this right here in the realm of what is lifeless.
Thus, the medieval thinker of the twelfth century looked back at the occult wisdom of the ancient Chaldeans, at Greek art and beauty, and at the strength in the concept of the state in the Roman Empire. These are the three great pillars of world history — wisdom, beauty and strength.
Goethe portrayed them in his ‘Fairy Story’ as the Three Kings — occult wisdom in the Gold King, beauty as in Greece in the Silver King, and, in the Brass King, strength as it found its world historical expression in the Roman concept of the State, and as then adopted in the organisation of the Christian Church.
And the Middle Ages; with its chaos resulting from the impact of the migrating nations, and with its mixed styles, is expressed in the misshapen Mixed King made of gold, silver and brass; [The three soul components] what was kept separate in the various ancient cultures, is mixed together in him. Later, the separate forces must once more develop themselves out of this chaos, to a higher level.
All those who, in the Middle Ages, took the Holy Grail as their symbol, set themselves the task of using human powers to bring these separate forces to a higher stage [of development]. The Holy Grail was to have been something essentially new, even though it is closely related in its own symbolism to the symbols of a very ancient mystical tradition.
When in the past Abel sacrificed what he had been given by Divine hand, he was thus sacrificing, in the realm of the living, only what he had received from nature.
Cain, by contrast, had offered something which he had himself won from the earth by his own labour, as the fruits of effort.
Hence, at this time [in the Middle Ages], a radically new impulse was introduced into Freemasonry. And this impulse is that denoted by the symbol of the Holy Grail, the power of self-sacrifice.
I have often said, harmony in human relationships is not brought about by preaching it, but by creating it. Once the necessary forces have been awakened in human nature, there is no more unbrotherliness. [The concepts of] majority and minority are meaningless in what the masonic symbols express; in it there can be no contention, for it is only a matter of ‘can’ or ‘cannot.’
No majority can decide whether one should use a plumb-line or a spirit level; the facts must decide that. In that all men are brothers, there they find themselves to be one. On that there can be no contention, if everyone treads the path of objectivity, the path which entails the acquisition of higher powers. Thus, the bond [of the Freemasons] is without doubt a bond of brotherhood which in the broadest sense depends on what men have in common in inanimate Nature.
The time will however come — and it will be quite a specific point in time — when humanity, deviating from its present tendency, will see that deep inward soul forces cannot be decided by majority resolutions; that no vote can settle questions involving the limitless realm of love, involving what one feels or senses. That force which is common to all mankind, which expresses itself in the intellectual as an all-embracing unity about which there can be no conflict, is called Manas.
This joint force (communal force) which gives man power over what is symbolised by the cross, in the diagram is expressed as far as the gods' use of the force is concerned — by a symbol, namely by a triangle with its apex pointing downwards. And when it is a matter of this force expressing itself in man's nature, as it germinally strives upwards towards the Divine force, then it is symbolised by a triangle with its apex pointing upwards. The gods have lifted themselves out from man's nature and have withdrawn from him; but they have left the triangle behind with him, which will develop further within him. This triangle is also the symbol of the Holy Grail.
[It seems that the texts at this point have not been clearly conceived. It is significant that only the triangle is mentioned and nothing is said of the hexagram. But after the words in Seiler's shorthand copy: ‘The medieval occultist expressed the symbol of the Grail ... in the form of a triangle,’ he has drawn a hexagram which could only have been inserted at the time he was writing.
The two triangles and hexagram have been reproduced in the present volume as taken from Reebstein's text (d) which provides the greatest number of diagrams.
In text (f) the diagram with its pertinent text are rendered thus: Text (f) also contains a variant which is not found in the other texts: ‘Everything which is expressed through art, science and religion, inasmuch as it is not given by the gods — and therefore standing under the sign of the Cross — is derived from Freemasonry.
Hence, therefore, the sign of Freemasonry:
The other texts have none of these diagrams. For an explanation of the hexagram as a symbol see Rudolf Steiner's lecture of 12th January 1924, contained in Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1965.
A personal remark relating to the hexagram was recorded by Alexander Strakosch (Mitteilungen aus der anthroposophischen Arbeit in Deutschland, Christmas, 1958). In the house which was built for the anthroposophical work in Stuttgart, Landhausstrasse 70, in 1911, the hexagram was displayed in the upper parts of the windows of the main hall. Strakosch, who had expected to find the pentagram, asked Rudolf Steiner about it and received the reply: ‘The hexagram is actually the sign for the Christ and the Venus evolution.’]
The medieval occultist expressed the symbol of the Grail — the symbol for awakening perfection in the living — in the form of a triangle... the power of the Holy Grail must be awakened in each individual... This pilgrimage of the soul is expressed in the person of Parsifal, who seeks the Holy Grail. This is one of the manifold deeper meanings of the figure of Parsifal.
What is expressed by the Tau is a driving force which can only be set in motion by the power of selfless love. It will be possible to use this power to drive machines, which will, however, cease to function if egoistical people make use of them. [This energy is purified etheric energy, also known as Vril from Zanoni or Prana.]
The mechanical and the moral must interpenetrate each other, because the mechanical is nothing without the moral. Today we stand hard on this frontier. In the future machines will be driven not only by water and steam, but by spiritual force, by spiritual morality.
This power is symbolised by the Tau sign and was indeed poetically symbolised by the image of the Holy Grail. Man is no longer merely dependent on what Nature will freely give him to use; he can shape and transform Nature, he has become the master craftsman of the inanimate. In the same way he will become the master craftsman of what is living.
What manifested itself for the first time in the Reformation was already inherent in the symbol of the Holy Grail. Whoever has a feeling for the great meaning of what can confront us in this symbolism, will understand its great and deep cultural value. The great things of the world are not born in noise and tumult, but in intimacy and stillness. Mankind is not brought forward in its development by the thunder of cannons, but through the strength of what is born in the intimacy of such secret brotherhoods, through the strength of what is expressed in such world-embracing symbols, which inspire mankind.
However, what will appear less fantastic is the fact that today the first dawn is already beginning, for the use of these living forces in the affairs of social life- that is the real secret surrounding the Grail.
The last event brought about in the social sphere by the old Freemasonry was the French Revolution, in which the basic idea of the old Freemasonry came into the open in the social sphere with the ideas of equality, liberty and fraternity as its corollaries.
Whoever knows this also knows that the ideas which emanated from the Grail were propagated through innumerable channels, and constituted the really active force in the French Revolution.
What is today called socialism exists only as an abortive and impossible experiment, as a final, I may say desperate, struggle in a receding wave of humanity's [development]. It cannot bring about any really positive result. What it sets out to achieve, can only be achieved through living activity; the pillar of strength is not enough. Socialism can no longer be controlled with inanimate forces.
The ideas of the French Revolution — liberty, equality, fraternity were the last ideas to flow out of the inanimate. Everything that still runs on that track is fruitless and doomed to die. For the great evil existing in the world today, the dreadful misery that expresses itself with such frightful force, that is called the social question, can no longer be controlled by the inanimate. A Royal Art is needed for that; and it is this Royal Art which was inaugurated in the symbol of the Holy Grail.
Through this Royal Art, man must acquire control of something similar to the force which sprouts in the plant, the same force that the occultist uses when he accelerates the growth of a plant in front of him. In a similar way, a part of this force must be used for social salvation.
This power, which is described by those who know something of the Rosicrucian mysteries — as for example did Bulwer Lytton in his futuristic novel Vril is at present still in an elementary, germinal, stage. In the Freemasonry of the future, it will be the real content of the higher degrees. The Royal Art will in the future be a social art. [The Power of Kundalini]
Again, I have to tell you something which will seem fantastic to the uninitiated, on account, I may say, of the comprehensive, all-embracing range of the idea.
What man prints as a form deriving from his soul on the matter of this earth Round is eternal, it will not pass away. Even though the matter thus given form outwardly decays, what the Royal Art has given form to, in pyramids, temples and churches, is imperishable. What the human spirit has given shape to, in matter, will remain present in the world as a continuing force. That is completely clear to those who are initiated in such matters.
Cologne's Gothic cathedral will, for example, pass away; but it is of far reaching significance that the atoms were once in this form. This form itself is the imperishable thing that will henceforth participate in the ongoing evolutionary process of humanity, just as the living force that is in the plant participates in the evolution of Nature!
The painter, who paints a picture today, who prints dead matter with his soul's blood, is also creating something which will sooner or later be disposed in thousands of atoms. What has imperishable and continuing value, what is eternal, is that he has created, that something from his soul has flowed into matter.
States and all other human communities come and go before our eyes. But what men have formed out of their souls, as such communities, constitute humanly-conceived ideas of eternal value, with an eternally enduring significance. And when this human race once again appears on the earth in a new form, then it will see the fruits of these elements of eternal value.
Today, whoever turns his gaze upwards to the starry heavens sees a wonderful harmony. This harmony has evolved, it was not always there. When we build a cathedral we place stone upon stone, when we paint a picture we place colour next to colour, when we organise a community we make law upon law; in exactly the same way, creative beings once worked upon what confronts us today as the cosmos. Neither moon nor sun would shine, no animal, no plant, would reproduce itself, unless everything we face in the cosmos had been worked upon by beings, unless there were such beings who worked as we work today on the remodelling of the cosmos. Just as we work on the cosmos today through wisdom, beauty and strength, so too did beings who do not belong to our present human Kingdom once work on the cosmos.
Everything must in the end undergo a schooling. The last four hundred years were in fact a schooling for humanity — the school of godlessness, in which there was purely human experimentation, a return to chaos if seen from a particular point of view. Everyone is experimenting today, without being aware of the connection with higher worlds — apart from those who have once more sought and found that connection with spiritual realms. Nearly everyone lives entirely for himself today, without perceiving anything of the real and all-penetrating common design. That of course is the cause of the dreadful dissatisfaction everywhere.
What we need is a renewal of the Grail Chivalry in a modern form. Anyone who can approach this will thereby come to know the real forces which today are still lying hidden in the course of human evolution.
Today we stand hard on this frontier. In the future machines will be driven not only by water and steam, but by spiritual force, by spiritual morality. This power is symbolised by the Tau sign and was indeed poetically symbolised by the image of the Holy Grail. Man is no longer merely dependent on what Nature will freely give him to use; he can shape and transform Nature, he has become the master craftsman of the inanimate. In the same way he will become the master craftsman of what is living [Ether energy.]
During the Middle Ages a number of Brotherhoods saw in this Gospel the essential source of Christian truth. Such Brotherhoods were the Brothers of St. John, the Albigenses, the Catharists, the Templars and the Rosicrucians. All were engaged in practical occultism and looked to this Gospel as to their Bible. It may be said in a sense that the legend of the Grail, Parsifal and Lohengrin emanated from these Brotherhoods and that it was the popular expression of the secret doctrines. All the members of these different parent Orders were considered to possess the secret. They were the precursors of a Christianity which should spread over the world in later times.
In the Gospel of St. John they found the secret, for its words contained eternal truth — truth applicable to all times. Such truth as this regenerates the souls of all who become aware of it in the depths of their being. The Gospel was never regarded or read merely as a gem of literature. It was used as an instrument for developing the mystic life of the soul...
The first fourteen verses of this Gospel were the subject of daily meditation among the Rosicrucians. These verses were held to possess a magical power — a fact well known to occultists. By repeating these verses at the same hour, day by day without intermission, the Rosicrucians began to see in dream-visions all the events recorded in the Gospel and lived through them in inner experience. Thus in spiritual vision the Rosicrucians saw the life of Christ — nay indeed the Christ Himself being born in the depths of the soul. They believed, of course, in the actual and historic existence of the Christ, for to know the inner Christ is also to recognise the outer Christ.
Those who called themselves the Johannine Christians and whose symbol was the Rose Cross held that precisely what was reborn for mankind as the secret of its higher "I" has been preserved — preserved by the close community which grew out of Rosicrucianism. This continuity is symbolically indicated by that sacred vessel from which Christ Jesus ate and drank with His disciples, and in which Joseph of Arimathia caught the blood that flowed from the wound — the Holy Grail which, as the story is told, was brought to Europe by Angels. A temple was built to contain this vessel, and the Rosicrucians became the guardians of what it contained, namely, the essence of the reborn God.
The mystery of the reborn God had its being in humanity. It is the Mystery of the Grail, a mystery propounded like a new Gospel, proclaiming: We look up to a sage such as the writer of the John Gospel who was able to say:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and a God was the Word.
That which was with God in the beginning was born again in Him Whom we have seen suffer and die on Golgotha, and Who is arisen. — This continuity throughout all time of the divine principle and its rebirth, that is what the author of the John Gospel aimed to set forth. Something known to all those who endeavored to proclaim this truth was that what was in the beginning has been preserved.
In the beginning was the mystery of the higher "I"; it was preserved in the Grail; with the Grail it has remained linked.
And in the Grail lives the "I" united with the eternal and immortal, just as the lower "I" is bound to the ephemeral and mortal.
He who knows the secret of the Holy Grail knows that from the wood of the Cross there springs ever new life, the immortal "I", symbolized by the roses on the black wood of the cross.
The secret of the Rose Cross can thus appear like a continuation of the John Gospel; and in reference to the latter and to its continuation it can truly be said:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and a God was the Word. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by It; [Luther="it", James="he", but "it" is right] and without It was not any thing made that was made. In It was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Only a few men — those who possessed something of what is not born of the flesh — comprehended the light that shone in the darkness. But then the light became flesh and dwelt among men in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Here we can say, wholly within the meaning of the John Gospel:
That which dwelt as the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth was the higher divine "I" of all humanity, of the reborn God Who, in Adam, as His image, became earthly.
This reborn human "I" was perpetuated as a holy secret, was preserved under the symbol of the Rose Cross, and is now proclaimed as the secret of the Holy Grail, as the Rose Cross.
The principle which can be born in every human soul as the higher "I" points to the rebirth of the divine "I", in the evolution of mankind in its entirety, through the Event of Palestine. Just as the higher "I" is born in the individual, so the higher "I" of all mankind, the divine "I", was born in Palestine; and it is preserved and developed in what lives concealed in the sign of the Rose Cross.
But if we study the evolution of man we find not only this one great event, the rebirth of the higher "I", but a number of lesser ones as well.
Before the higher "I" can be born, before this mighty, comprehensive, pervasive experience can come to the soul — the birth of the immortal "I" in the mortal "I" — extensive preparatory stages must have been passed through.
A man must prepare himself in many different ways. And after the great experience has come to him that enables him to say to himself, Now I feel within myself something that looks down from above on my ordinary "I", just as my ordinary "I" looks upon the things of the senses; now I am a second being within my first; now I have attained to the realms in which I am united with the divine beings — when the human being has had this experience, then he faces further stages that must be passed through, stages differing in their nature from the preparatory ones, but which none the less must be traversed.
Whoever knows the mystery of the Holy Grail knows that from the wood of the Cross springs living, budding life, the immortal self symbolized by the roses on the dark wood of the Cross. Thus the mystery of the Rosy Cross may be regarded as a continuation of the Gospel of St. John and, in this respect, we may truly speak the following words:
‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him was no thing made. In Him was the Life and the Life was the Light of men. And the Light shone in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. Only a few, in whom something lived that was not born of the flesh, comprehended the Light that shone in the Darkness. Then the Light became flesh and dwelt among men in the likeness of Jesus of Nazareth.’
Now we might continue:
‘And in Christ who dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth we see none but the higher, divine self of all mankind, the God who came down to earth in Adam and was born again. This reborn human self was continued as a sacred mystery; it was preserved under the symbol of the Rosy Cross and is annunciated today as the mystery of the Holy Grail and the Rosy Cross.’
This symbol is the same as the sun sign and the symbol of Atlantis, its city with the four streams.
It also connects to the Zodiac, in the start there was only four star signs, Man, Ox, Lion and Eagle, what is also symbolized with the wheel.
From The Mysteries of Light, of Space, and of the EarthThis is the way the man of the Middle Ages conceived his ideal cathedral. If east is here and west here (see drawing), then we should have north and south here. And then in the north, south, and west there would b three doors, and here in the east would be a sort of lateral high altar, and a kind of altar at each pillar; but-here, where the beams of the cross intersect, would have to stand the temple of the temple, the cathedral of the cathedral — a sort of epitome of the whole, a representation in miniature of the whole. We should say in modern speech, which has become abstract: here would stand a little tabernacle, but in the form of the whole.
What I have drawn for you here you should imagine in a style of architecture which only approximates the real Gothic, which still includes all sorts of Romanesque forms, but which has throughout the orientation I have indicated. In this I have drawn for you at the same time the sketch of the Grail-temple, as conceived by the man of the Middle Ages, that Grail-temple which was, so to speak, the ideal of construction toward the end of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, — a cathedral in which the longings of all humanity orientated to Christ flowed together — just as in the single cathedral the longings of the members of the congregation flowed together; and just as in the Greek temple the people felt them-selves united even when they were not in it — for the Greek temple demands only that the god or goddess be in it, not the people — in other words, as the Greek people of a certain territory felt that they were united through their temple with their god or goddess. If we wish to speak in accordance with the facts, we can say: When the Greek de-scribed his relation to the temple, he did it in somewhat the following way: When he said in speaking of any person — say Pericles — “Pericles dwells in this house,” this was not intended to mean that the man him-self who uttered it had a relation of ownership or any other relation to the house; but he simply realized the fact of his union with Pericles when he said: “Pericles dwells in this house.” With exactly the same shade of feeling the Greek would also have expressed his relation to what was to be deciphered in the style of architecture, thus: “Athene dwells in this house,” — it is the abode of the goddess — or, “Apollo dwells in this house!”
The congregation of the Middle Ages could not say that with regard to their cathedral, because it was not the house in which the divine-spiritual being dwelt; it was the house which expressed in every single form the gathering-place where the people attuned their souls to the mysteriously divine. Therefore, in what I might call the prototype-temple, at the end of the fourth post-Atlantean period, there stood in the center the temple of the temple, the cathedral of the cathedral; and of the whole one might say: “If anyone enters here, he will be able herein to lift himself to the mysteries of the universe.” It was necessary to enter the cathedral. Of the Greek temple it was only necessary to say: “That is the house of Apollo; that is the house of Pallas.” And at the central point in that prototype-temple, where the beams of the cross intersect — at the central point the Holy Grail was enshrined, there it was preserved.
Still another element pierced through all the clouds of obscurity that covered the ancient traditions. Something else was passed on to these European sages, something that, it is true, had had its origin in the Orient but penetrated through the cloud cover and was understood by some individuals.
This other mystery, which was linked with the mystery of the bread, was the mystery of the holy vessel in which Joseph of Arimathea had caught the blood flowing down from Christ Jesus. This was the other aspect of the cosmic mystery. Just as the bread was regarded a concentrated extract of the cosmos, so the blood was regarded as the extract of the nature and being of man. In bread and blood — of which wine is merely the outer symbol — this extract expressed itself for these European sages.
They had truly stepped forth as if out of the hidden places of the mysteries and towered far above the masses of the European population who could only hear the facts of Palestine, and who, if they advanced to scholarliness, found their way only slowly into the abstract fantasy of Arabism.
In these wise men, who distinguished themselves by something that was like the overripe fruit of Oriental wisdom and at the same time the ripest fruit of European perception and feeling, there developed what they called the Mystery of the Grail. But, so they told themselves, the Mystery of the Grail is not to be found on earth.
People have grown accustomed to developing the kind of intelligence that found its highest form in Arabism. They are in the habit of not looking for the meaning of external facts, but are satisfied with being told of these outer facts from the aspect of sensory reality. One must penetrate to an understanding of the Mystery of the Bread, which is said to have been broken by Christ Jesus in the same chalice in which Joseph of Arimathea caught His blood.
As legend tells it, this chalice was then removed to Europe, but was preserved by angels in a region high above the surface of the earth until the arrival of Titurel who created for this Grail, this sacred chalice, a temple on Mont Salvat.
Through the clouds of abstraction and narrations of mere facts, those who had become European mystery sages in the manner described above wished to behold in a sacred, spiritual temple the Mystery of the Grail, the mystery of the cosmos that had disappeared along with etheric astronomy and the Mystery of the Blood that had vanished along with the ancient view of medicine. For just as the ancient medicine had fallen victim to abstract thinking, the old etheric astronomy, too, had passed over into abstract thought.
It was out of such prerequisite feelings that the conception of the Holy Grail developed. The invisible Church, the super-sensible Church, which is nevertheless to be found on earth — this was what concealed itself in the Mystery of the Grail. It was an immediate presence that cannot be discovered, however, by those who turn their mind indifferently to the world.
In ancient times, the priests of the mysteries went out into the world, looked around among human beings, and based on seeing their auras, concluded, Here is one we must receive into the mysteries; there is another one we must accept into the mysteries. People did not need to ask; they were chosen. Inner initiative on the part of the individual was not required; one was chosen and bidden to enter the sacred mystery centers. This age was over already around the eleventh, twelfth, and ninth and tenth centuries.
The impulse urging a person to ask, What are the secrets of existence? had to be grounded in the human being through the Christ force, which had moved into European civilization. No one could approach the Grail who passed through the outer world with a drowsy, apathetic mind. It was said that he alone could penetrate into the miracles, that is, the mysteries of the Holy Grail, who in his soul felt the inclination to ask about the secrets of existence, both the cosmic secrets and those of man's inner being. Fundamentally speaking, it has remained so ever since.
After the first half of the Middle Ages, however, when human beings had been earnestly directed to pose questions, had been told that they should indeed ask questions, a great reaction set in beginning with the first third of the fourteenth century. By that time, those who asked about the Mysteries of the Holy Grail had become fewer and fewer in number, and inertia was creeping into the souls of men. They turned their attention wholly to the outer forms of human life on earth, to all that may be seen, counted, weighed, measured, and calculated in the cosmos.
People in antiquity possessed an astronomy inbued with life and medical knowledge filled with life. Once again, our quest must be for a living astronomy, a living medicine.
Just as a living astronomy will reveal to us a heaven, a cosmos, that is truly pervaded by a spirituality and from where the Christ could descend, so an enlivened medicine will present to us the being of man in a way that enables us to penetrate with insight and understanding to the Mystery of the Blood, to the organic inner sphere where the forces of the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego transform themselves into the physical blood.
When a true medical knowledge has grasped the Mystery of the Blood and a spiritualized astronomy has understood the cosmic spheres, we shall comprehend how it was possible for the Christ to descend from these cosmic spheres to the earth, how He could find on earth the human body that could receive Him with its blood.
It is the Mystery of the Grail that in all earnestness must be sought in this manner, namely, by setting out on the path to the spiritual Jerusalem with all that we are as human beings, with head and heart. This, indeed, is the task of modern humanity.
For man must discover his ego by means of his physical organization. This I, which discovers itself through the physical organization, must in turn raise itself up by its own power in order to behold itself where, even in the early Greek culture, this self was still beheld, in super-sensible worlds. The I must first lift itself up in order to recognize itself as something super-sensible.
In the ancient Orient, people saw what occurred in the astral body; the consequences of former earth lives were beheld in it. This is why one spoke of karma. In Greece, this conception was already obscured. The cosmic events were observed only with dim astral vision. This is why people spoke vaguely of destiny, of fate. This view of destiny is only a diminished, weaker form of the fully concrete conception held by the ancient Orient concerning man's passage through repeated earth lives, the consequences of which make themselves known to experience within the astral body, though only instinctively. Thus, the ancient Orientals could speak of karma developing in the recurring incarnations on earth, the consequences of which were simply present in astral experience.
Now the development moved westward to the ego experience. This experience of the ego was initially tied to the physical body. It was egotistically self-enclosed. The first ego experience dwelled in dullness, even when it contained a strong impulse towards the super-sensible worlds.
Parsifal, who undertook his pilgrimage to the Holy Grail, is described as a dim-witted man. It must be clearly understood that when the Mithras worship spread across the West from the Orient, it was rejected by the West; it was not comprehended. For he who sat on the bull, who was to become the victor over the base forces [Sentient Soul development,] experienced himself, after all, as emerging from these lower forces. If Western man beheld Mithras riding on the bull, he did not comprehend this being, for this being could not be the one the ego felt and experienced out of its own physical organization. An understanding for this riding Mithras faded away and disappeared.
Human beings must learn to understand why an impassable region surrounds the Castle of the Grail, why the path between birth and death is difficult terrain.
When they understand why it is difficult, when they grasp that the ego experiences itself based on the physical organization, when they sense how impossible a merely physical astronomy, a merely physical medicine are, then they themselves will clear the paths. Then people will bring something into this hitherto difficult terrain between birth and death that comes into being through their own soul efforts.
Lohengrin is an ambassador of the Grail; he is Parzival's son.
Now what actually is the Grail community? Those who knew the mystery of the Grail did not look on the Grail temple as a place solely for the chosen knights of the Grail. They saw that all those who were pure in heart and Christian in the true sense went to the Grail while they slept — while they were between sleeping and waking.
The Grail was seen as the place where all truly Christian souls gathered while they slept at night. There was a desire to be apart from the earth. So those who were the rulers of the Grail also had to be apart from earthly life. Lohengrin, the son of Parzival, was one of these. Those who desired to work in accordance with the Grail impulse had to feel themselves entirely within the spiritual world. They had to feel that they belonged entirely to the spiritual world and certainly not at all to the earthly world. In a certain sense you could say that they had to drink the draught of forgetfulness.
Lohengrin is sent down from the Grail castle. He unites with Elsa of Brabant, that is with the people of Brabant. In the train of Heinrich I he sets out to fight the Hungarians. In other words, at the instigation of the Grail he carries out important impulses of world history. The strength he has from the Grail temple enables him to do this.
The most significant spiritual weapons of all were used by knights of the Grail, such as Lohengrin. But he was only able to use them if he was not met with recollections of his external origins, his external name, his external family.
He had to transport himself into a realm in which he could be entirely devoted to the spiritual world and in which his intercourse with the external world was limited to what he perceived with his senses, devoid of any memories. He had to accomplish his deeds under the influence of the draught of forgetfulness. He was not allowed to be reminded. His soul was not permitted to remember: This is my name and I am a scion of this or that family.
So this is why Elsa of Brabant is not allowed to question him. When she does, he is forced to remember. The effect on his deeds is the same as if his sword had been smashed.
Before you stands a knight, a rich knight, who has turned away from God, who in his soul has lost his links with the spiritual world, and who thus experiences this moment of atheism which has come over him as a physical illness, a kind of leprosy. Everyone avoids him. No physician can cure him.
Then he meets a clever doctor in Salerno who tells him that no physical medicine can do him any good. His only hope of a cure lies in finding a pure virgin who is prepared to be slain for his sake. The blood of a pure virgin can cure him of his illness.
He sells all his possessions and lives alone on a smallholding cared for by the tenant farmer. The farmer has a daughter. She falls in love with the leprous knight, discovers what it is that alone can cure him, and decides to die for him. He goes with her to the doctor in Salerno.
But then he starts to pity her, preferring to keep his illness rather than accept her sacrifice. But even her willingness to make the sacrifice is enough. Gradually he is healed.
When the astral soul [ego] is ready to die, ie. there is no karma back, it's a pure virgin, they are ready for the initiation.
The social separation between one human being and another is a phenomenon of intellectualism. The more intellectualism flourishes and the less an effort is made to find what can work against it — namely the spiritual element — the more will this intellectualism divide one individuality from another.
This feeling, that the dead are here, was present, was incredibly strong, in the time that followed the fourth century, when the northern culture mixed with the Roman. You see, the northern peoples took Christ into this way of perceiving. They looked first at this world of the dead, who were actually the truly living [Living in Etheric bodies.] They saw hovering above them entire populations of the dead, and they beheld these dead as being actually more alive than themselves. They did not seek Christ here on the earth among people walking in the physical world; they sought Christ there where these living dead were. There they sought him as one who is really present above the earth. And you will only get the proper feeling concerning the Heliand, which was supposedly written by a Saxon priest, if you develop these ways of perceiving. The descriptions in the Heliand follow these old German customs. You will understand the Heliand's concrete description of Christ among living human beings only if you understand that actually the scenes are to be transplanted half into the kingdom of shadows where the living dead are dwelling. You will understand much more, if you truly grasp this predisposition, this ability, which came about through the mixing of the northern with the Roman peoples.
There is something recorded in literary history to which people should actually give a great deal of thought. However, people of the present age have almost entirely given up the ability to think about such clearly startling phenomena found in the life of humanity. But pursuing literary history, you will find, for example, writings in which Charlemagne (742–814) is mentioned as a leader in the Crusades. Charlemagne is simply listed as a leader in the Crusades. Indeed, you will find Charlemagne described as a living person again and again throughout the entire time that followed the ninth century. People everywhere called upon him. He is described as if he were there. And when the crusades began, centuries after his death, poems were written describing Charlemagne as if he were with the crusaders marching against the infidels.
We only understand such writings properly if we know that in the so-called dark centuries of the Middle Ages, the true history of which is entirely obliterated, there was this awareness of the living multitudes of the dead, who lived on as shadows. It was only later that Charlemagne was placed in the Untersberg. Much later, when the spirit of intellectualism had grown strong enough for this life in the shadows to have ceased, then Charlemagne was transplanted into the Untersberg (and, as another example, Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, into Kyffhaeuserberg). Until that time people knew that Charlemagne was still living among them.
But wherein did these people, who atavistically saw the dead living above them, wherein did these people seek their Christianity, their Christology, their Christian way of seeing? They sought it in this way: they directed their sight toward what results when a living dead person like Charlemagne, who was revered in life, came before their souls with all those who were still his followers. And so through long ages Charlemagne was seen undertaking the first crusade against the infidels in Spain. But he was seen in such a way that the entire crusade was actually transplanted into the shadow world. The people of that time saw this crusade in the shadow world after it had been undertaken on the physical plane; they let it continue working in the shadow world — as an image of the Christ who works in the world. Therefore, Christ was described riding south toward Spain among the twelve paladins, one of whom was a Judas who eventually betrayed the entire endeavor. So we see how clairvoyant perception was directed toward the outside of the spiritual world — not, as in earlier times, toward the inside — but rather now toward the outside, toward that which results when one looks at the spirits from the outside just as one looked at them earlier from the inside. Now, the splendor of the Christ event was reflected onto all the most important things that took place in the world of shadows.
From the fourth to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there lived in Europe the idea that people who had died, if they had accomplished important deeds in life, arranged their afterlife so as to enable themselves to be seen with something like a reflected splendor, an image, of the Christ event. One saw everywhere the continuation of the Christ event — if I may express myself so — as shadows in the air. If people had spoken of the things they felt, they would have said: Above us the Christ stream still hovers; Charlemagne undertook to place himself in this Christ stream and with his paladins he created an image of Christ with the twelve apostles; the deeds of Christ were continued by Charlemagne in the true spiritual world.
This was how people thought of these things in the so-called dark time of the Middle Ages. There was the spiritual world, seen from without, I would like to say, as if imaged after the sense world, like a shadow picture of the sense world (whereas in the earlier times, of which the old theology was only a weak reflection, the spiritual world was seen from within). For merely intellectual human beings the difference between this physical world and the spiritual world is such that an abyss exists between the two. This difference did not exist in the first centuries of the Middle Ages, in the so-called Dark Ages. The dead remained with the living. During the first period after their death, after they had been born into the spiritual world, especially outstanding and revered personalities underwent a novitiate to become saints.
For the people of those times to speak of these living dead as if they were real personalities after they had been born into the spiritual world — this was not unusual. And you see, a number of these living dead, especially chosen ones, were called to become guardians of the
Holy Grail. Specially chosen living dead were designated as guardians of the Holy Grail. And the Grail legend could never be completely understood without the knowledge of who these guardians of the Grail actually were. To say: “Then the
guardians of the Grail weren't real people” would have seemed laughable to the people of that time. For they would have said: Do you who are only shadow figures walking on the earth really believe that you are more real than those who have died and now are gathered around the Grail? To those who lived in those times it would have appeared laughable for the little figures here on the earth to consider themselves more real than the living dead. We must feel our way into the souls of that time, and this is simply how those souls felt. Their consciousness of this connection with the spiritual world meant much for the world, and much for their souls. They would have said to themselves: To begin with, the people here on the earth consist of nothing more than what they are, right now, directly here. But a human being of the present will only become something proper and good if he takes into himself what one of the living dead can give him.
In a certain sense, physical human beings on the earth were seen as though they were merely vehicles for the outer working of the living dead. It was a peculiarity of those centuries that one said: If the living dead want to accomplish something here on earth, for which hands are needed, then they enter into a physically incarnated human being and do it through him. Not only that, but there were, furthermore, people in those times who said to themselves: One can do no better than to provide a vehicle for human beings who were revered while living on the earth and who have now become beings of such importance in the realm of the living dead that it is granted to them to guard the Holy Grail. And the view existed among the people of those times that individuals could dedicate themselves to the Order of the Swan. Those people dedicated themselves to the Order of the Swan who wanted the knights of the Grail to be able to work through them here in the physical world. A human being through whom a knight of the Grail was working here in the physical world was called a Swan.
Now, think of the Lohengrin legend. When Elsa of Brabant is in great need, the swan comes. The swan who appears is a member of the Knights of the Swan, who has received into himself a companion of the circle of the Holy Grail. One is not permitted to ask him about his secret. In that century, and also in the following centuries, princes such as Henry I of Saxony were happiest of all when, as in his campaign into Hungary, he was able to have this Knight of the Swan, this Lohengrin, in his army.
While conversing with Parsifal, the Fisher-King hands him a sword, a gift from his niece. Then there appears first in the room a page carrying a spear; the spear is bleeding and the blood runs down over the page's hand; and then a maiden with the Holy Grail, which is a kind of dish. But such glory streams forth from it that all the lights in the hall are outshone by the light of the Holy Grail, just as the stars are overpowered by the light of sun and moon. And then we learn how in the Holy Grail there is something with which the Fisher-King's aged father is nourished in a separate room. He has no need of the sumptuously appointed meal of which the Fisher-King and Parsifal partake. These two nourish themselves with earthly food. But each time a Dew course — as we should say nowadays — is served, the Holy Grail withdraws into the room of the Fisher-King's aged father, whose only nourishment comes from that which is within the Holy Grail [Prana.]
Now when I tried to accompany Parsifal to the hermit, a saying was disclosed to me — a saying which in the words I have to use for it, in accordance with spiritual-scientific investigation, is nowhere recorded — but I am able to give you the full truth of it. It was spoken — and it made a deep impression on me — by the old hermit to Parsifal, after he had made him acquainted, as far as he could, with the Mystery of Golgotha, of which Parsifal knew little, although he had arrived there on a Good Friday.
The old hermit then uttered this saying (I shall use words that are current among us today and are perfectly faithful to the sense of the utterance): “Think of what happened on the occasion of the Mystery of Golgotha! Raise your eyes to the Christ hanging on the Cross, at the moment when He said, ‘From this hour on, there is your mother’; and John left her not. But you” — said the old hermit to Parsifal — “you have left your mother, Herzeleide. It was on your account that she passed from this world.” [The etheric body.]
Then come the conversations between Parsifal and the hermit of which I have spoken already. And when I sought to accompany Parsifal in spirit during his return to the Grail, it was often as though there shone forth in the soul how he traveled by day and by night, how he devoted himself to nature by day and to the stars by night, as if the stellar script had spoken to his unconscious self and as if this was a prophecy of that which the holy company of Knights who came from the Grail to meet him had said: “Thy name shines forth in radiance from the Grail.” But Parsifal, quite clearly, did not know what to make of the message of the stars, for it remained in his unconscious being, and therefore one cannot so very well interpret it, however much one may try to immerse oneself in it through spiritual research.
Then I tried once more to get back to Kyot, and behold — a particular thing said about him by Wolfram von Eschenbach made a deep impression on me and I felt I had to relate it to the ‘ganganda greida’. The connection seemed inevitable. I had to relate it also to the image of the woman holding her dead bridegroom on her lap. And then, when I was not in the least looking for it, I came upon a saying by Kyot: “er jach, ez hiez ein dinc der gral” — “he said, a thing was called the Grail.”
Now exoteric research itself tells us how Kyot came to these words — “er jach, ez hiez ein dinc der gral.” He acquired a book by Flegetanis in Spain — an astrological book. No doubt about it, one may say: Kyot is the man who stimulated by Flegetanis — whom he calls Flegetanis and in whom lives a certain knowledge of the stellar script — Kyot is the man who, stimulated by this revived astrology, sees the thing called the Grail. Then I knew that Kyot is not to be given up; I knew that he discloses an important clue if one is searching in the sense of Spiritual Science: he at least has seen the Grail.
Where, then, is the Grail, which today must be found in such a way that the name of Parsifal stands upon it? Where can it be found? Now in the course of my researches it had been shown to me that the name — that is the first thing — must be sought for in the stellar script. And then, on a day which I must regard as specially significant for me, I was shown where the gold-gleaming vessel in its reality is to be found, so that through it — through its symbolical expression in the stellar script — we are led to the secret of the Grail. And then I saw in the stellar script something that anyone can see — only he will not immediately discern the secret.
For one day, while I was following with inner sight the gold-gleaming sickle of the moon, as it appeared in the heavens, with the dark moon like a great disc dimly visible within it ... so that with physical sight one saw the gold-gleaming moon — ganganda greida, the journeying viaticum — and within it the large Host, the dark disc. This is not to be seen if one merely glances superficially at the moon, but it is evident if one looks closely — and there, in wonderful letters of the occult script, was the name Parsifal!
I have said that the stellar script is to be found in the heavens, but it is not in any sense the Grail and it does not yield us the Grail. I have expressly emphasised — and I beg you to take this emphasis very seriously — that the name of the Grail is to be found through the stellar script, not the Grail itself. I have pointed to the fact that in the gold-gleaming sickle of the moon — as any close observer can see — the dark part of the moon emerges and is as though marked off from the bright sickle; and there, in occult writing, is to be found the name of Parsifal.
Now before we go further and try to interpret this sign in the heavens, I must draw your attention to an important law, an important fact. The gold-gleaming sickle becomes apparent because the physical rays of the sun fall on the moon. The illuminated part of the moon shines out as the gold-gleaming vessel. Within it rests the dark Host: physically, this is the dark part not reached by the sun's rays; spiritually, there is something else.
When the rays of the sun fall on part of the moon and are reflected in gleaming light, something does nevertheless pass through the physical matter. This something is the spiritual element that lives in the sun's rays. The spiritual power of the sun is not held back and reflected, as the sun's physical power is; it goes through; and because it is resisted by the power of the moon, what we see at rest in the golden vessel is actually the spiritual power of the sun.
So we can say: In the dark part of the moon we are looking at the spiritual power of the sun. In the gold-gleaming part, the vessel, we see reflected the physical power of the sun. The Spirit of the sun rests in the vessel of the sun's physical power. So in truth the Spirit of the sun rests in the vessel of the moon. And if we now recollect all that we have ever said about this Sun-spirit in relation to the Christ, then in what the moon does physically an important symbol will be manifest.
Because the moon reflects the sun's rays and in this way brings into being the gold-gleaming vessel, it appears to us as the bearer of the Sun-spirit, for the Sun-spirit appears within the moon's vessel in the form of the wafer-like disc.
And let us remember that in the Parsifal saga it is emphasised that on every Good Friday, and thus during the Easter festival, the Host descends from Heaven into the Grail and is renewed; it sinks into the Grail like a rejuvenating nourishment — at the Easter festival, when Parsifal is again directed towards the Grail by the hermit; at the Easter festival, whose significance for the Grail has also been brought nearer to mankind again through Wagner's Parsifal.
Now let us recall how in accordance with an old tradition — one of those traditions of which I spoke yesterday as having arisen from the working of the Christ Impulse in the depths of the soul — the date of the Easter festival was established. Which is the day appointed for the Easter festival? The day when the vernal sun, which means the sun that is gathering strength — our symbol for the Christ — reaches the first Sunday after the full moon.
How does the vernal full moon stand in the heavens at the Easter festival — how must it stand? It must begin, at least a little, to become a sickle. Something must be visible of the dark part; something of the Sun-spirit, Who has gained his vernal strength, must be within it. This means that, according to an ancient tradition, the picture of the Holy Grail must appear in the heavens at the Easter festival. It must be so. At the Easter festival, therefore, everyone can see this picture of the Holy Grail. According to a very ancient tradition, the date of the Easter festival is regulated with this in view.
From Christ and the Spiritual World: The Search for the Holy Grail, Lecture 7 (1914)
During the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, the power of the stars receded in face of the elements which surround the Earth in the atmosphere and everywhere else. The influx of the elements was felt in such a way that anyone who understood the spirit of the age, especially as the fourth epoch advanced further and further, was constrained to say to himself: “Let us guard ourselves against the influence that plays into the elements from the stars: it produces something like the unlawful Sibylline forces.” Through the Christ Impulse having poured itself out into the Earth's aura, the Sibylline forces were to be harmonised and rendered capable of again yielding lawful revelations. Never willingly did the true initiate of Hebrew antiquity look to the stars when he wished for a revelation of the spirit. He had vowed himself to the Jahve-god who belongs to the evolution of the Earth and (as I have shown in Occult Science) had become a moon god only in order to help the Earth forward.
In the moon festivals of the Jews it was made clear that the ‘Lord of the Earth’ shines down symbolically in his reflection from the moon. “But go no further” — that was the warning given by old Hebrew tradition to the pupil — “Go no further! Be content with what Jahve reveals in his moon symbol — go no further! The time has not yet come for drawing out of the elements anything more than is expressed in the moon symbol. Anything more would belong to the unlawful Sibylline forces.”
When all that has come over into Earth evolution from the Saturn, Sun and Moon periods is grasped in its natural aspect, then we find it symbolised in the old Hebrew tradition through Eve. Eve — the vowels are never clearly pronounced — Eve! Add to it the sign for the divine Being of Hebrew antiquity who is the Ruler of Earth-history, and we have a form which is quite as valid as any other — Jehve-Jahve, the ruler of the Earth who has his symbol in the moon.
If we bring this into conjunction with what has come over from the Moon period and with its outcome for Earth evolution, we have the Ruler of the Earth united with the Earth Mother, whose powers are a result of the Moon period ... Jahve! Hence out of Hebrew antiquity there emerges this mysterious connection of the Moon forces, which have left their remains in the moon known to astronomy and their human forces in the female element in human life.
The connection of the Ruler of the Earth with the Moon Mother is given to us in the name Jahve.
I will not repeat here what can be read in history books; anyone who has listened to these lectures can see that something like a modern Sibyl emerged in the Maid of Orleans. It was the time — the fifteenth century — when the fifth post-Atlantean epoch begins; a time when the Christ Impulse had to emerge more and more from the subconscious depths of the soul. We can see in what a gentle, tender form, imbued with the noblest qualities of the human soul, the Sibylline power of the Maid of Orleans is revealed.
Over against the contrast set up by Hebrew antiquity, another contrast had to be created. Hebrew antiquity had rigorously insisted: “Nothing of the Sibylline forces, which were justified at one time in Astrology — nothing of them! Let us cleave to our earth-god, Jahve!” From this came a denial of all revelations from above and an acceptance of revelations from below; a fear of all that reveals itself from the heavens. This outlook had to prevail on Earth for a season; a certain opposition to anything that came from above had to establish itself. And in such forces as those of the Sibyls people saw the unlawful Luciferic forces coming from above. But presently, after the Christ had descended into the body of Jesus of Nazareth, that which came from above was imbued with the Christ Impulse; men could venture again to look up to the heavens. And something else had come about through the union of the Ruler of Earth with the Moon-Mother.
For the Christ, Who had poured Himself out into the Earth's aura, had become the Lord of the Earth.
Let us set before us the Virgin Mother with the Christ upon her knees and let us then express it thus: He who can feel the holiness of this picture will feel the same for the Holy Grail. Above all other lights, all other gods, shines the Holy Vessel — the Moon-Mother now touched by Christ, the new Eve, the bearer of the Sun-spirit, Christ.
The expression occurs in an old legend of Parsifal written in the Nordic language (akin to modern Icelandic). The legend originated in the 13th century and was probably based on Chrestien de Troyes. The Grail is here called “ganganda greida” — from gehend, moving or going about, and greida, meaning literally “things” and in this context indicating “provisions” or “nourishment”.
The legend is from a collection entitled Riddararsögur (Rittersagen = Legends of Knighthood), ed. by Dr. Eugen Kölbing, Strassburg, 1872.
For readers of German a most valuable book on the tremendous subject of the Grail is Dey Gral und seine Hüter (The Grail and its Guardians) by Dr. Rudolf Meyer (Verlag Urachhaus, Stuttgart, 1956). See pages 25 and 289.
The following passages from lectures 6 and 7 of the lecture-course given by Dr. Steiner at The Hague, March 1913 (The Effect of Occult Development upon the Self and the Sheaths of Man) help to convey the aspect of the Grail specifically conveyed in the expression “ganganda greida” — i.e. Wegzehrnug, nourishment or food while journeying along a path:
“The legend of the Holy Grail tells us of that miraculous food which is prepared from the finest activities of the sense-impressions and the finest activities of the mineral, extracts, whose purpose it is to nourish the noblest part of man all through the life he spends on earth; for it would be killed by anything else. This heavenly food is what is contained in the Holy Grail ...” (from lecture 6.)
“... We have heard what the Holy Grail contains. It contains that by which the physical instrument of man on earth must be nourished: the extract, the pure mineral extract which is obtained from all foods and which unites in the purest part of the human brain with the purest sense-impressions, impressions which come to us through our senses. Now, to whom is this food to be handed? It is really to be handed — as is revealed to us when from the exoteric story we enter into the esoteric presentation of it in the Mysteries — it is really to be handed to the human being who has obtained the understanding of what makes man mature enough gradually to raise himself consciously to what the Holy Grail is ...” (from lecture 7.)