The Rudolf Steiner Archive

“The part that interprets the evolution of humanity in symbolic terms”, as taught in the first degree.
Text based on the original manuscript by Rudolf Steiner.

At the beginning of the evolution of the earth, one of the spirits of light or Elohim descended from the realm of the sun to the earthly realm and united with Eve, the primal mother of all that lives. From this union arose Cain, the first of the earth-dwellers. Thereafter, another of the Elohim, Jahve or Jehovah, formed Adam; and from the union of Adam and Eve arose Abel, Cain's stepbrother. The inequality of descent between Cain and Abel (sexual and asexual descent) caused discord between Cain and Abel. And Cain slew Abel. Abel had lost his connection to the spiritual world through sexual descent, Cain through the moral fall. Jehovah gave Seth, a substitute son, to Abel's parents as compensation. Two types of people descended from Cain and Seth. The descendants of Seth were able to see into the spiritual world in special (dream-like) states of consciousness. The descendants of Cain had lost this ability completely. They had to work their way up through the generations by gradually developing the human powers of the earth in order to regain their spiritual abilities.

One of the descendants of Abel-Seth was the wise Solomon. He had inherited the gift of dream-like clairvoyance; indeed, he had inherited it to a particular degree as a disposition; so it was that his wisdom was so widely known that it is symbolically reported of him that he sat on a throne of gold and ivory (gold and ivory symbols of wisdom).

From the line of Cain came men who, in the course of time, were increasingly concerned with the upward development of human powers on earth. One of these men was Lamech, the keeper of the T-books, in which, as far as was possible for human powers, original wisdom was restored, so that these books are incomprehensible to uninitiated people. Another descendant of the Cain humanity is Tubalkain, who made great progress in the working of metals, and even knew how to form metals into musical instruments in an artistic way. And as a contemporary of Solomon, Hiram Abiff or Adoniram, a descendant of Cain, lived who had advanced so far in his art that it bordered directly on the vision of the higher worlds, and for him there was only a thin wall to break through to initiation.

The wise Solomon conceived the plan of a temple, the formal parts of which were to symbolize the development of mankind. Through his dream wisdom, he was able to conceive the thoughts of this temple in every detail; but he lacked the knowledge of the earth forces for the actual construction, which could only be gained through the training of the earth forces in the Cain race. Therefore, Solomon connected with Hiram-Abiff. He now built the temple that symbolized the development of humanity.

Solomon's fame had reached as far as the Queen of Sheba, Balkis. One day she went to the court of Solomon in order to marry him. She was shown all the glories of Solomon's court, including the mighty temple. From the mental images she had formed up to that point, she could not comprehend how a master builder who had only human powers at his disposal could have accomplished such a thing. She had only learned that the leaders of workers, through the possession of atavistic magical powers, were able to gather sufficient crowds of workers to erect the old, mighty buildings. She demanded to see the strange, remarkable master builder. When he met her, his eye immediately made a deeply significant impression on her. Then he was to show her how he led the workers by mere human agreement. He took his hammer, climbed a hill, and at a sign with the hammer, large crowds of workers rushed to the scene. The Queen of Sheba realized that human powers could develop to such significance.

Soon afterward, the queen and her nurse (the nurse is symbolic of a prophetic person) were walking outside the city gates. They encountered Hiram Abiff. At the moment the two women saw the master builder, the bird Had-Had flew out of the air onto the arm of the Queen of Sheba.

The prophetic nurse interpreted this to mean that the Queen of Sheba was not destined for Solomon, but for Hiram Abiff. From that moment on, the queen thought only of how she could break off her engagement to Solomon. It is further related that now, “in her intoxication,” the engagement ring was pulled from the king's finger, so that the queen could now consider herself the bride destined for Hiram Abiff. (The significance of this feature of the legend lies in the fact that in the Queen of Sheba we see the ancient wisdom of the stars, which was connected with the ancient atavistic soul powers symbolized in Solomon. Occult legends express this in the symbols of female persons, and wisdom is that which can unite with the male part of the soul. The time of Solomon marks the epoch in which this wisdom is to pass over from the atavistic old forces to the newly acquired powers of the I on earth. The “ring” is always the symbol of the “I”. Solomon is still conceived as having a not fully human ego, but one that is only the reflection of the “higher ego” of the angels in the atavistic dream-clairvoyant consciousness. The “intoxication” indicates that this ego is lost again within the semi-conscious soul forces through which it was acquired. Hiram is only in possession of a real-human “I”.)

From this point on, King Solomon is seized by a violent jealousy against his master builder. Therefore, three treacherous companions find it easy to gain the ear of the king for an act by which they want to destroy Hiram Abiff. They are his opponents because they had to be rejected by him when they demanded the master's degree and the master's word, for which they are not ready.

These three traitorous fellows now decide to spoil the work for Hiram Abiff, which he is to accomplish as the crowning achievement of his work at the court of Solomon. This is the casting of the “Brazen Sea”. This is an artificial casting made of the seven basic metals (lead, copper, tin, mercury, iron, silver, gold) in such proportions that it is completely transparent. The thing was finished, except for one very last impact, which was to be made before the assembled court - also before the Queen of Sheba - and by which the still cloudy substance was to be transformed to complete clarity. Now the three treacherous journeymen mixed something wrong into the casting, so that instead of it clearing, sparks of fire sprayed out of it. Hiram Abiff tried to calm the fire with water. This did not work, but the flames leapt in all directions. The assembled people scattered in all directions. But Hiram Abiff heard a voice from the flames and the glowing mass: “Plunge into the sea of flames; you are invulnerable.” He plunged into the flames and soon realized that his path was heading towards the center of the earth. Halfway there, he met his ancestor Tubalkain. The latter led him to the center of the earth, where the great ancestor Cain was, in the state he was in before the sin. Here Hiram Abiff received from Cain the explanation that the vigorous development of human powers on earth would ultimately lead to the height of initiation, and that the initiation attained in this way would replace the vision of the Abel-Seth sons in the course of the earth, which would disappear. Symbolically, the power to confer the Mother Gift, which Hiram Abiff receives from Cain, is expressed by the statement that Hiram received a new hammer from Cain, with which he returned to the earth's surface, touched the Sea of Bronze, and thereby brought about its complete transparency. (This symbolism is given by that which, in appropriate meditation, elevates to the imagination the inner essence of human development on earth. The Iron Sea can be seen as a symbol of what man would have become if the three treacherous forces in the soul had not taken hold: doubt, superstition, and the illusion of the personal self. Through these forces, the evolution of mankind on earth has come to a display of fire in the Lemurian period, which cannot be dampened by the watery evolution of the Atlantean period. Rather, such an evolution of human forces on earth must take place that the original state is restored in the soul, which was present in Cain before the fratricide. The dream-like soul powers of the children of Abel-Seth cannot prevail against the powers of the earth, but only the descendants of Cain, who have come to full, real development of the ego.)

A further transcript of the Temple Legend
Text according to the original manuscript by Rudolf Steiner

[The first part is missing]

From this time on, Solomon became jealous of his master builder. Three treacherous journeymen, who in their vanity had demanded the master builder's word and degree from the master builder, whom he could not give them because they were still immature, supported him in this. They decided to take revenge in the following way.

Hiram Abiff was to perform the so-called Sea of Bronze as the crowning glory of his work at the court of Solomon. It was to be a wonderful metal casting in which all the metals of the earth were poured in such harmony that a magnificent, harmonious whole resulted. Everything about it was completed by Hiram Abiff, down to the last move. This was to be done at a special celebration. The entire court was assembled for the occasion, including the Queen of Sheba. At the decisive moment, the three treacherous journeymen added an unrighteous touch to the casting; and instead of the whole thing bringing itself to a harmonious conclusion, sparks flew out of the casting. Hiram Abiff tried to calm the flames by adding water. But then terrible masses of flames arose from the casting. Everything that had been gathered by people scattered. But Hiram Abiff heard a voice from the fire that told him: do not be afraid, plunge into the flames; you are invulnerable. He plunged into the sea of flames. He soon realized that his flight was to the center of the earth. Halfway there he met Tubalkain, who led him to his ancestor Cain in the center of the earth. Cain was in the form before the commission of sin. He gave Hiram Abiff a new T-sign and told him that with it he would restore the casting when he returned to the surface of the earth. And from him would come a race that would conquer Adam's children on earth and reintroduce the great service of fire, as well as lead mankind back to the divine word of creation.

There is also a deeper meaning in this part of the legend. Before man descended from the bosom of the deity into earthly embodiments, he was in a spiritual environment that he could perceive. He heard the divine creative word. He embodied himself in the metal masses, which were still liquid in the fire at that time. Before this happened, three companions could not harm him: doubt, superstition and the illusion of personal self. He could not have doubt about the spiritual world, because it was around him. He could not be overcome by superstition, because he saw the spiritual in its true form. But superstition consists in the mental image of the spiritual in the wrong form. The illusion of personal self could not affect him, because he knew himself in the general spirituality; he was not yet separated from this general spirituality by being enclosed in his body. If these three treacherous companions had not been on his heels, his body would have become a pure harmonious connection of substances. They mixed in the impact that made him forget the divine-spiritual creative word. The casting was destroyed by this. The descent of Hiram Abiff into the center of the earth then represents man's advance on the occult path. In this way mankind comes into possession of the T, the divine creative word, and gets to know human nature (Cain) as it was before the Fall and how it can create in purity.

Another imagination is the following:

The eye is the divine eye of power behind all transient existence, even behind the seven-part nature of man. One can form a mental image of this if one recalls the words of St. Augustine:

"Man sees things as they are.

They are as God sees them.

Human vision is passive; things must be there for a person to see them. God's vision creates things in the act of looking. The triangle around the eye is

spirit itself (manas)
spirit of life (budhi)
spirit man (atma)

The rays are the “I” - the upper trinity shines through the I into the lower members of human nature.

These are symbolized:

1. by the illuminated part of the clouds: the astral body
2. by the unilluminated part of the clouds: the etheric body
3. the surrounding darkness: the physical body.

The temple legend and this radiant eye should be a constant subject of meditation for the*. He should remember them again and again; see them as images (imaginations) in his mind. Then, if he devotes the necessary energy and patience to them, he will become aware that they awaken forces and abilities that were dormant in him, and by awakening them he can see into the higher worlds. For man does not attain to the supersensible organs of perception through tumultuous, external means, but through such intimate means as those mentioned, which are applied in inner, quiet soul work, inwardly restlessly and energetically.

Acquire expressions
for: right angle
turn direction
alternately speaking letters

holy. word
password
apron
trowel and trowel tape.

This is presumably a transcription by Rudolf Steiner, but the original document is missing. Text based on a typewritten template.

If we direct our gaze to the essence of evolution, we find everywhere that life reveals itself, whether in the course of world evolution or that of the individual human being, two great currents that symbolically represent themselves as a line rising and a line descending, which reveal themselves in time and space and transform into one another. The forces themselves on which these currents are based transcend all manifestation and project into them in such a way that the whole process of evolution is interwoven with them. It proceeds through these two lines as through a portal.

In every planetary state of development of the earth, from its first embodiment as ancient Saturn, these two forces are active. There is a period when the upward striving forces are mainly at work, they produce a state of awakening, of blossoming, until at a certain point the forces begin to reveal themselves that are connected with falling asleep, with dying. There is always a period of blossoming first, which then reaches its peak, and then a period follows in which everything dissolves again and the whole thing breaks down. The same thing can be found in every period of development on earth: something new blossoms, unfolds to a certain height, then decays and gradually dies. Every condition on earth during a certain period of time can be explained by the interaction and weaving of forces, those that flourish and those that die, those that belong to the ascending and those that belong to the descending line. Dawn and dusk and in between the height of noon, where the two forces combine and merge.

Seen from his horizon, man sees the stars rising in the east and rising higher and higher until they reach their zenith in the south. From there on, they sink down until they set in the west. And even though the stars in the west disappear from his view, he must still say to himself: The true point of setting lies in the south and coincides with the zenith, just as the true point of rising lies in the north and coincides with the nadir, because that is where the rising begins. This describes a cycle that can be divided into two halves by a vertical line running from south to north. In the part where the East Point lies, the ascending forces are active; in the part where the West Point lies, the descending forces are active. The East and West Points cut the semicircle right through the middle. These are the two points where the manifestation of the forces begins and ends for the physical, sensory eye of man. They form his horizon. (See drawing on page 387.)

The same cycle that is perceptible in the macrocosm can be found again in the physical body of man as the bloodstream. There, those forces that are related to blossoming and life are at work first in the red blood as it flows out of the heart. Then, as the red blood transforms into the blue, the forces associated with dying and death gradually reveal their effect. This bloodstream could also be divided into a semicircle, which belongs to the ascending forces, and one, which belongs to the descending forces.

It is the same in the life of a human being. During the day, he is active in the physical-sensual world, living out his impulses and consuming the forces that he draws from the cosmos during sleep at night. Just as the red blood flows out of the heart, having been refreshed by the oxygen that he takes in from the outside world with his lungs, so the human being wakes up in the morning with new strength. And just as the red blood, on its journey through the physical body, gives up its vital forces and gradually becomes blue, dead blood, so too, in waking consciousness, man lives out his forces and must sink into the state of sleep so that he can gather new forces from his environment, the macrocosm. The states of sleep and waking are like the inhaling and exhaling of the human being. During the night it inhales new forces, which it exhales during the day.

The development of the human individuality in a physical embodiment on earth also falls into these two forces, in that the human being develops the limbs of his being out of himself until he is about 35 years old, and thereby increasingly settles into the physical-sensual world. It is like an exhalation of his being on the physical plane. Then follows the period when man develops nothing new and begins to withdraw more and more from the physical-sensual world. As a physical man he gradually dies, an inhalation of his being takes place. In the first half of his life the constructive forces are so predominant that there is always an abundance of those forces, and man grows in his nature as an earth man. In the second half, however, the destructive forces are more active, and something remains that can no longer be replenished. This gradually causes the decay and death of the physical body.

Long before a person begins life as an earthly human being in a physical embodiment, so to speak appearing on the horizon, his being is already being built by divine spiritual forces from the macrocosm. This began at the point that lies deepest below the horizon, the nadir. As a microcosm, it actually rises in the eastern point, experiences its peak at around the 35th year of life in the south, and sets with death in the west. But then, for a long time, divine spiritual forces from the cosmos are still at work in its decline.

Thus the semicircle between the eastern and western points and through the south belongs to the conscious active life of the microcosm, and the semicircle from west to east through the north to the working of macrocosmic forces in the microcosm. The first is therefore the light half for the earthman, for it is here that he himself lives and works with his waking day consciousness. In the second, dark half, everything in him works subconsciously, because he has no self-awareness while he sleeps. In both halves, in the light as well as in the dark, the constructive and the destructive forces are effective. Thus the whole circle is divided into four parts and two right angles arise, both in the microcosm and in the macrocosm; one in which the life forces work, as in red blood, and another in which the death forces work, as in blue blood. Likewise, in every cosmic manifestation, in every state of planetary evolution of the present earth, there is a period when the constructive forces predominate and a period when the destructive forces are more active. This is the inhaling and exhaling in relation to physical-sensory manifestation. Thus, there is also a rising and setting to be perceived.

In evolution, it is the case that from the very beginning, where the constructive forces reveal themselves, the destructive forces are also at work at the same time, just as in the red blood at the moment when it leaves the heart, the killing element begins to work. Every life contains the germ of death at its beginning, although its effect only manifests itself later. The point of origin is at the same time the low point, just as the high point is the point of destruction. This is the case in man and also in the cosmos.

Because these destructive forces are also active from the beginning, much falls prey to these forces even before the certain peak of a certain development is reached, before that which should be developed has been achieved. So then something always remains behind, which then needs a new opportunity to develop further. When a new state of development is created, a certain culmination is determined for it, which is a continuation of the previous one, because there too a continuous build-up takes place up to a certain point. What has been left behind must then, under new conditions, further develop that which was not achieved under the previous state of development. If this were not the case, each state of development would be self-contained and, when it was over, there would be no occasion for a subsequent one. But now, in one state of development, the germ is laid for the following one through that which has been left behind; it strings these states together.

In the development of human individuality, it shows itself in the successive embodiments on earth. That which did not develop to the intended peak of perfection in one embodiment will be further developed in subsequent earthly lives. Thus, from the beginning, the powers left over from earlier earthly lives live and weave into human life from earlier earthly lives. As the new develops, the old lives in it, adapted to the changed conditions, because the normal degree of perfection to be attained is different for every human embodiment. Like something dark that opposes the new and blossoming, it lives itself into the new embodiment. It is the same in the cosmos. It shows itself in the beings that remain behind at every planetary state of development of today's earth. By placing themselves in the course of normal evolution as something that does not belong to this evolution, they form a contrast that lies outside the normal of this evolution, an outside world for that which develops as normal in a certain period. Thus evolution is divided into that which lives and flourishes within, and that which forces its way in from earlier states and actually lies outside evolution, and has a dying direction.

From the very beginning, both reveal themselves in a developmental period, and in the evolution of the earth, which has the internalization of the macrocosm into the microcosm as its task, the construction of human individuality, only that which has reached the specific peak of development in each [previous] planetary state belongs to the ascending line. The other falls prey to the disintegrating forces, it does not gradually internalize itself into the microcosm, it remains behind in the macrocosm. Thus, from the very beginning, an inner world and an outer world are predisposed by the action of the two forces. Thus there are Saturn beings that are still active in the solar state during the development of the physical, without being able to achieve what is the task for the solar state, the development of the etheric alongside the physical. In the lunar state, there are beings that first develop the physical, and others that develop the etheric, while the task there is the development of the astral. In the earthly state, beings are active that first develop the physical, then those that develop the ethereal and others that develop the astral, while the normal task is the development of the ego principle in the physical, ethereal and astral [body]. Thus there are beings at every level who have remained behind. For those beings who developed their sense of self on earth within the three sheaths, the human beings, these remaining beings express themselves through the physical, sensual outer world, their environment on earth. They are outside the normal process of development, which is that of the human being, and present themselves to him as something that does not belong to his nature. They have a different pace, in that they are an expression of what projects from earlier states into today's earthly development. However, they cannot fully participate in this and belong to the descending line of development.

Just as these retarded forces express themselves physically and sensually on earth as the external world in relation to the human being, so too the effect of retarded forces can be recognized in the spiritual. There too, the activity of the retarded beings intrudes into the work of those beings who direct and guide the normal course of evolution for a certain period. They form a counterpoise and a foundation for the activity of the more advanced beings, and just as the physical-sensual man cannot live and develop on earth without his environment, so the more highly developed beings cannot accomplish their work unless the retarded beings with their powers oppose them, thus forming a contrast. Therefore, from the very beginning there must be beings that work primarily in the constructive forces and others that reveal themselves in the destructive forces. Evolution can only take place between these two forces. Thus there were beings who increasingly internalized themselves in human individuality and revealed their powers from the inside out in human deeds; they reached the definite high point of evolution on earth, the development of consciousness of the ego in the three microcosmic sheaths. They then lived and revealed themselves in the active work of the power of the I in the outer world. These spiritual beings are active in the human I, as it lives in its three sheaths and pours its power into the environment. The human being perceives them during his waking day life, they are active while he lives self-consciously in the luminous semicircle. Those forces of light and warmth that have followed the normal course of evolution are at work within the human being himself. They have become internalized in the microcosm, and from there they radiate into the environment. But there is also a part in the luminous semi-circle that belongs to the destructive forces, in the eastern and western half. Those forces which during the day, as light and warmth, stream from the outside into the earth from the sun, are those that have not undergone the process of development in relation to the internalization of macrocosmic forces into the microcosm. Even during the moon condition, when the sun and moon separated, these forces had remained on the level of the sun's evolution; they did not participate in the further evolution of the old moon. They remained in the macrocosm, not internalizing further into the microcosm.

This was repeated in the state of the earth when the sun again separated and its light shone in from the outside. The heavenly body that we see as the sun belongs, in terms of microcosmic development, to the descending line. That which has internalized solar forces in the microcosm belongs to the ascending line. Everything that surrounds the human being, be it physical or spiritual, belongs to the forces that are destructive, because it has only internalized itself to a certain extent. As [environment] it then participates in the development, building up from the outside in into the microcosm. That which has become more and more internalized in the microcosm and has thus gone through the whole process of earthly development belongs to the constructive forces. Through them, a center is formed in the macrocosm, from which forces radiate into the environment, which initially have a destructive effect, for this center develops as a microcosm at the expense of its environment. It draws its nourishment from the physical environment. In the spiritual world there must be macrocosmic beings that pour new forces into him from outside as nourishment, so that he can continue to develop.

Those forces that did not follow the normal course of development, that did not internalize themselves into a microcosm, are active in man during the night. They had not gone through the development of the ego and the astral body in man, they had remained there, therefore they can only work in the microcosm when the ego and the astral body have separated out, that is during the state of sleep. In the microcosmic ego and astral body they had not internalized themselves, there they were outside, remaining in the macrocosm. Now they could only internalize themselves from the macrocosm into a microcosm, which consisted of an etheric and physical principle. There they are like an external world, internalizing themselves in the microcosm, like the substances and forces that serve as food for the human being are absorbed into him from the external world. Subconscious activity, without human self-awareness, can only take place. For just as the beings that live in the physical and sensory environment of man have not developed an individual sense of self, just as little have these macrocosmic beings developed the sense of self from his spiritual environment as man has. These forces belong to the dark half-circle. During the day and night, the beings that belong to the ascending forces alternate with those that belong to the descending forces in their work on the microcosm. During the day, the ascending forces in his ego consciousness are at work in him, while during the night they are poured out with his ego into the macrocosm. During the night, those forces are at work in the microcosm that pour out into the macrocosm during the day. When the human being sleeps, the macrocosm within him awakens; when the microcosm awakens, the macrocosm around him sleeps.

Something similar to what happened in the development of the old moon, when the sun and moon separated, and which is repeated in the development of the earth, takes place when the moon separates from the earth. Beings from the moon's development also remain behind, they fall back on the descending line of development because they cannot reach the certain high point of the earth's development. That which had followed the normal course during the lunar state and reached the corresponding climax could now absorb the power of the ego within itself and develop it further in the microcosm. But that which had remained behind at that time still had to develop the astral during the earthly state; it had not internalized itself accordingly and could only influence the microcosm from the outside as a lunar element. The beings from the lunar evolution that were left behind could not work their way into the ego forces of the earthman, they work in the day-consciousness of man down to his astral body. They do not take part in the highpoint of earth evolution, they belong to the forces of the descending line. Their effect on earth evolution occurs where the blossoming of the ego power begins. That was in the Lemurian period, when the I is internalized in the microcosm, and the effect of the retarded forces from the lunar state, the luciferic beings, begins in the astral body of man.

Alongside the new in evolution, there arises that which, as the old, projects out of the preceding state. Both develop side by side for a time, then comes the moment when the old must die, as the new unfolds further.

The development of those forces that were to take shape in the earthly state, and those that belong to an earlier state and continue their development under new conditions and therefore, at their level, are more highly evolved than that which is only beginning, is symbolically represented in the legend of the temple. It is told therein: One of the Elohim descended, took as his wife Eve, the Earth Mother, and from this union was born Cain, the first Earth man. Another of the Elohim created Adam, and from the union of Adam with Eve was born Abel.

The Cain-man is the son of divine spiritual forces, which influenced the development of the earth in such a way that they could bring forth a microcosm in which the macrocosmic forces internalized themselves. He belongs to those forces which were able to reach a certain high point during the development of the earth by inducing and later developing the power of the I in man.

The Abel-man belongs to other macrocosmic forces. They could not so directly internalize the power of the I in him. Through the mediation of two human beings, the macrocosm had an effect. He was not so directly a bearer of the macrocosmic forces as the Cain-man. They worked more from the outside in on him, not in him, but through the mediation of two human beings. He had to pass through sexuality. The Abel-man belongs to those forces which, out of an earlier evolution, reach into the earthly state. In him, forces from the evolution of the moon are at work that did not reach the appropriate climax at that time and therefore cannot internalize themselves further in the microcosm on earth than the astral body. Therefore, they could only have a creative effect on the development of the earth through the mediation of a human couple. What they creatively effected had to pass through the sexual sphere, because they could work only in this power, which belongs to the evolution of the moon. In the lunar state, the principle of duality was active, as two forces that creatively interacted as solar and lunar forces. This was part of what was to be formed at that particular peak of development. The retarded forces, which manifested themselves at the same time in the state of the earth when the development of the power of the I began to flourish in man, brought these lunar forces into the evolution of the earth and internalized them there in the microcosm, so that a duality arose in it, whereby either the sun or the moon influence was predominant in his physical or etheric body. Thus the two sexes came into being.

The Cain-man, who belonged to the actual evolution of the earth, did not need to go through sexuality. Just as the principle of duality applied on the old moon, so a trinity was destined for the earth: sun, moon and earth. Man on earth could contain within himself the forces of both sexes, just as the earth bears within itself the forces of the sun and the moon. He could work creatively through that which is developed on earth, the power of the I.

But the legend continues by telling how Cain became guilty through killing his brother Abel. In doing so, he became involved with the forces that work in Abel, the retarded forces from the development of the moon. Thus, these could also take hold in him. By bringing about death, he made himself guilty of the forces that lead to death, the descending, degenerative forces.

The Temple Legend further teaches: Cain became a tiller of the soil, Abel-Seth, the replacement son of Adam and Eve, became a herdsman. The Cain man lives in the evolution of the earth, he builds that which bears fruit, he works his way up with the ascending line of development. He must work with the forces that have internalized in him, in his environment on earth.

In the Abel-man, the cosmic forces have not internalized so much, they radiate even more from the outside into him, it flows to him from the macrocosm that which the Cain-man must conquer with his own forces from his environment. He does not become a farmer because he cannot work in the earth's evolution as does the Cain man, who belongs to this evolution. He becomes a shepherd, works with the astral, and herds the animals.

The currents of the Cain and Abel men continue to have an effect in the evolution of the earth. The temple legend continues to tell how there was a time when the great King Solomon, a descendant of the Abel current, and his great master builder Hiram Abiff, a descendant of the Cain current, lived at the same time.

King Solomon had the wisdom that flowed to him from the spiritual world, the macrocosm. His master builder constructed works of art through his own powers. His greatest work of art was to be the building of a temple that would contain everything that was in the outside world; the temple was to be an image of this outside world. King Solomon could think up the plan for this temple, but he could not build it. As an Abel human, he could not work down to the physical. The Master Builder was able to build the Temple, for as a Cain-man he had learned to work with and to control the material substance of the Earth. The Cain-man was able to build the Temple of the Microcosm, in which were internalized all the forces that work in the external world; the Abel-man only attained the pictorial mental image of the Temple.

The great final work of art of the Master Builder, so it was said, was to be the casting of the Sea of Bronze. In it were to be mixed the seven metals of the earth in such a way that a transparent liquid was formed. In the seven metals (copper, tin, gold, lead, iron, mercury, silver) the seven forces are at work, which find expression in the seven planets. Where they unite in harmony, they form a radiant unity that contains all of them, just as white light contains the seven colors of the spectrum.

The Cain man can work with his ego power so harmoniously in these planetary forces, which live out in him as the seven limbs of his nature (three higher, four lower), that they join together to form a human essence that looks through the physical-sensual world into a spiritual world. That was the last great work of art.

From the side of King Solomon, something is done to prevent this casting. Three treacherous journeymen mix something into the casting that destroys everything. Because Cain once became guilty by killing his brother Abel and thereby took in those forces that belonged to the descending line, the Cain-man could now approach from the side of the Abel-man this end of destruction, which turned out to be destructive in the work of building. It is further related how the builder is rescued during the catastrophe that arises from this and led through the fire to his great ancestor Cain in the center of the earth. There he receives a new hammer and begins his work anew, then he succeeds. The Cain man is guided through the blood of the generations to his great ancestor with the power of the ego, which finds expression in the blood and in the fire. There he looks into the spiritual, in that he sees as the center of the development of the earth the world I, which has internalized its power in him. Through this he receives new strength to continue to fulfill his task.

Then a new working period also begins for him, in that the wisdom connects with him, which previously flowed from the spiritual world to the Abel human being. This is what the legend tells as the engagement of the Queen of Sheba with the great master builder, who should have united with King Solomon before. From that time on, the forces that work in the Abel current decrease, having reached their peak in earthly development.

A certain peak is determined for every development; that is when the task for this development is achieved. This point can be designated as the height at noon. Until then the forces flourish, from then on they decline. This height at noon is determined from the horizon, the forces that reveal themselves in the east reach their greatest development; until then work is done in a constructive sense, from then on the work of dismantling begins, towards the west. Those forces that project from earlier states of development into the new ones cannot reach the definite height of noon; they are like the heavenly bodies that have a short diurnal arc and a long nocturnal arc. They remain for a shorter time in the light half of the circle, and for a longer time in the dark half. Their height at noon (in relation to the horizon) is low, their orbits extend only a little beyond the horizon. Thus they mainly work in the dark half of the circle. In the evolution of the earth through its earlier planetary states into the earth state itself, macrocosmic forces should gradually internalize themselves into the microcosm. Those forces that remained behind had not internalized themselves in this way; they remained in the macrocosm while the microcosm developed its sense of self. Therefore, they could only work in the microcosm itself in that half of the circle that belongs to the subconscious life of the microcosm. Their work is mainly below the horizon. In the conscious day-life of the microcosm, beyond the horizon, they could only work outside the microcosm. The lines, which are formed by the horizon from east to west, and the certain height at noon, perpendicular to it, together form the symbolic figure of the Tao sign. It is the hammer that is given for the construction of a certain developmental period. With this hammer the temple of the microcosm was built out of the macrocosm and is further worked on that temple. Its power manifests itself in the three points of the east, south and west in the light half of the circle, where the microcosm can consciously work with the internalized powers, there its beat sounds.

In the evolution of the earth, when the divine spiritual forces from the macrocosm had become internalized in the microcosm, the greatest internalization took place when God Himself lived in the microcosm. The highest point of the evolution of the earth had been reached. From that time forth the powers must gradually reveal themselves which, in relation to the microcosm, have a disintegrating effect. Then the whole course of evolution is reversed. From this point onwards, the microcosm must expand to become the macrocosm. Until then, everything that had come with evolution had become internalized in the microcosm. Now the microcosm is to absorb into itself that which always remained behind so that evolution could proceed. The divine spiritual beings had to gradually withdraw from the human being; then he himself should begin to influence the macrocosm. Instead of taking, he should begin to give. He must then approach those beings who kept their distance and stayed behind so that man could develop, so that he can also connect his consciousness with theirs.

The Cain-man should work on the construction of the microcosm until the climax is reached, and build into it all the forces from the macrocosm. In the light half of the circle he should work in microcosmic consciousness. But then the time comes when the task of his work changes so that he is to work from the temple of the microcosm on the outer world, so that his forces flow into the dark half of the circle, where the macrocosmic forces work in him subconsciously. Then, through his work in the temple of the microcosm, the darkness that surrounds him as an environment and that which lives in him as subconsciousness will be illuminated with the light of understanding. His consciousness will extend beyond his environment. Microcosm and macrocosm unite, the light and the dark halves form a circle in which the human being can be consciously active when he feels himself as macrocosm in the microcosm. The constructive and destructive forces, life and death, become one, they transform into each other. Thus he consciously passes through the ascending and descending lines of development, through the portal that leads to the divine spirit itself, which reveals itself in these forces.

Text from a duplicated template entitled “On Penetrating the First Degree”

It is necessary to appropriate the Temple Legend as an imaginative impulse for knowledge. This legend is arranged in such a way that, through the penetration of the soul with its images, an independent view of the evolution of humanity is formed through the continued meditation of the legend, independent of the physical apparatus of knowledge. In the following, the legend is to be given as it should form the basis of meditation if the desired effect is to be achieved.

At the beginning of the earth's evolution, one of the light-spirits or Elohim descended from spiritual heights and united with Eve, the earth mother. From this union arose Cain, the first earth man, living essentially in such a way that his breathing consisted of absorbing and emitting warmth substance.

Eve, the Earth Mother, lived as a being weaving in the element of air. Meditation should focus on the extent to which

air in combination with light produces the breath of warmth.

Then another of the spirits of light, Jahve, descended from spiritual heights and formed Adam from the atomized element of the earth (earth dust). From the union of Adam and Eve, Abel was born, Cain's stepbrother.

The meditation should focus on the question of how the human being of the element of earth, in connection with the air being Eve, gives birth to Abel, whose material element is atomized water.

A dispute arose between Cain, the fire being, and Abel, the water being. And Cain killed Abel.

The fire element creature withdrew the water element creature from the earth planet.

Cain had a realization that originally penetrated things as a fire element; this was clairvoyant knowledge. Through the contact with Abel - the water-human-being - Cain's clairvoyance darkened. From him come the earth-men, who must work their way up out of darkness into the light in progressive evolution.

Yahweh gave Seth to Adam and Eve as a replacement. Abel-Seth is now the progenitor of the priestly lineages, who are indeed earthmen, but breathe in the element of air. In these patriarchs of humanity, the breathing of the air spiritualizes through the indwelling of Yahweh into a primitive kind of clairvoyance. In dreams, the divine secrets are revealed.

The content of this evolution of mankind is to be meditated upon by means of the following occult symbol.

1. Upper breathing process, spiritual part
2. Breathing
3. Lower breathing process, material part

The spiritualized breathing process, which enters the space of the head as an ascending current of breathing, comes to the consciousness of the primal fathers as an imaginative process of knowledge.

These images contain in mystery form all the processes by which the two evolutionary currents of mankind developed. The cognitive apparatus of the sons of Cain, formed more from the element of fire, took in sensory perceptions and processed them intellectually. The clairvoyant apparatus of the sons of Abel-Seth, formed from the element of water, was less attuned to sensory perception. Their cognitive apparatus expressed itself in visions, which were able to bring spiritual experiences to consciousness without direct sensory perception.

The following diagram provides an insight into these processes:

The original processes sketched here for imaginative knowledge live on within the human being. They cannot be fully explained in abstract terms because these are rough and incomplete in relation to the complexity of the real processes. But as the presentation is given here, it can be vividly brought to life in the soul. Then the pictures work in the soul. And since the soul contains the elements that give the truth, the images gradually awaken the living intuition. In this way one gains direct knowledge of what has happened.

It is good to take the given images as a basis for joint discussion at F.M. meetings. The group then first familiarizes itself with the images. In the meantime, until the next meeting, each member meditates on the images. Then, in the next meeting, the results gained through meditation are shared and discussed. In this way one can gain a more exact and extended insight into the content of the images. With this extension one then meditates again in the meantime until the next meeting. This process is continued. One will only gain a satisfactory result after a larger series of meetings.

This is one of the ways – and a very sure one – to approach imaginative knowledge. This has been attained when the images have become so identified with the inner activity of the soul that one perceives these images in the soul as an inner element of life and knowledge.

One should actually begin with this small piece of the Temple Legend and thus initiate the imaginative process of knowledge.

Then one can meditate on the following occult character, which can become an important basis for knowledge in the soul:

Another copy of the text reproduces the drawing like this:

(numbers and arrows not reliably accurate!)

Instruction lesson Berlin, March 1908 (without date)

When it says that the Elohim united with Eve, we do not have to believe that Eve is anything like the present woman. Eve was the human race of the polar race, one very different from present-day humanity, namely, one much simpler. When we think of the warmth of the blood and everything else suggests to us, when we think of this [blood heat] pulsating in every corner and every corner of our body from head to toe, when we imagine [it] in every detail of our body, but think that everything else has disappeared and nothing is left but this blood-warm human, then we can form a mental image of what the Eve looked like, with whom the Elohim united. The earth was dark then, but in the second or Hyperborean epoch, the sun spirits imbued this dark Eve with light, and these sunbeams contained not only light, they also contained nourishment, and what was not used as nourishment to sustain humanity or Eve was available for the purpose of procreation, and in this way Cain came into being from the union of the Elohim with Eve.

In the Lemurian or lunar epoch, the Elohim Jahve, who was also one of the sun spirits and had been sent to lead the lunar evolution, created Adam, that is, he divided humanity into sexes, and when it says that Adam married Eve, it means that the two sexes united for the purpose of reproduction, and from this union Abel was born.

The originally united solar and reproductive forces had separated and produced two classes of people. Cain and Abel fight each other day after day in our bodies, even hourly they quarrel with each other, because Abel is represented by the blood of the arteries that comes from the lungs and from the heart, filled with the life-giving spirit of the air, the pure and invigorating oxygen. Cain, on the other hand, is represented by the venous blood, which is filled with the poisonous, deadly carbonic acid.

If that had been all, then humanity would have ceased to exist at that time. But Abel lives on in Seth, the rejuvenated Abel, who received the breath of life again, the oxygen in his lungs. That is why, whenever Abel is killed, Seth takes his place.

When the solar power divided, the Abel-Seth race became the bearers of divine wisdom and intuition, and its members were priests and kings “by the grace of God”.

Physically, they are negative or feminine (not necessarily physically feminine).

The Cain gender possesses the power of reproduction (not necessarily sexual) instead of intuitive wisdom. They are positive, male (not necessarily physically male) and are the world workers, the scientific researchers and so on. This may be more understandable from the following diagram:

Sons of God...¹ physically female, etherically male, have intuition: Abel

The power of the sun contains nourishment, intuition and reproduction

Daughters of men... physically male, ethereally female, possess the power of reproduction: Cain.

In Atlantean times, an attempt was made to unite these two classes, but this led to black magic of the worst kind. This is hinted at in the Bible passage: “The sons of God married the daughters of men.”

The arrival of the Queen of Sheba signifies the attempt of the present time. Science, represented by Hiram, can now unite with the wisdom of the soul, symbolized by the Queen of Sheba. The nurse is the prophet who sees into the future, the bird Had-Had is a spirit of intelligence that descends to the soul and turns it away from revelation, as represented by Solomon, and towards self-acquired knowledge, which finds expression in Hiram.

The Temple represents the evolution of the Earth. Solomon is like a mirror that reflects cosmic wisdom without any effort of his own. Hiram, on the other hand, sees the image and elaborates it. He does not possess the ability to draw directly from the divine source; he is the material knowledge that can objectify what Solomon can only see.

Therefore Belkis, the Soul, becomes discontented and breaks her connection with Solomon when she recognizes the beauty of Hiram, and she wins back the ring from Solomon's hand when he is drunk.

The fact that Hiram wields the dew hammer to summon Balkis' workers symbolizes the way in which all great, world-shaking events were brought about when they worked like ants for years to achieve a specific purpose: through the power of mass suggestion. This was used to make them come to work as if they were acting on their own initiative. It would be wrong to use such power now, but in those days people were not as individualized as they are today, and if temples were to be built to serve the progress of humanity, the priests of that time quite rightly needed such means to achieve their purpose. The Crusades and Joan of Arc's army are other examples of such mass suggestion. Sometimes fanatics, some of whom are unbalanced, are very strong in this direction.

When Hiram throws himself into the fire, he meets Tubal-Cain on the way. Tubal-Cain leads Hiram to the center of the earth (where the I-plant grows; Cain was a farmer), and there they find Cain in his innocent state. Cain gives Hiram a new hammer and a new word.

From various participant notes (without further details)

When the preparation of the earth's development had progressed so far that the soul of man could be placed in it, the sun had emerged and shone with its rays on the earth, which was a ball of fire surrounded by a warm atmosphere or aura of warmth. In the globe, the physical and etheric bodies grew out of the earth like a plant, and as the sun radiated the warmth atmosphere, the warmth penetrated the human physical and etheric bodies and formed the astral body, the human soul. This irradiation from the sun beings onto the human forms brought the wisdom powers of these sun beings into man, and that became man's higher selfhood. This is an innate divine wisdom that makes him a spiritually cognizing being. All this must be thought of as the effects or deeds of divine beings. The solar beings, the Elohim, sent their rays to Earth through the archangels and they caused currents in the human forms, which brought light through the aura of warmth and became the human brain, in which intellect and spirituality can reveal themselves, and at the same time currents that became human blood; in this way the universal warmth becomes inner warmth. The first current represents the active power of the archangels, the second the passive power. The stream that formed the brain out of the light was Cain, the fire-earth man; the accompanying stream that brought the blood into man is Abel, who came into being through Adam. The watery substance was the blood. This is the water man.

In Cain, we have the being who possesses all the abilities to penetrate to world wisdom by means of the mind that works in the dark; in Abel, the being who has absorbed the watery element, the blood, with the light and thus has attained a different kind of contact with the spiritual beings, the passive side of the light.

In the Six Day Work cycle ² is hinted at, as at a certain moment in the development of the earth, forces radiate out from the center of the fiery globe into space and from there radiate back again to the center point. The warm atmosphere arises from this; a kind of medium that offers resistance. As the inhalation and exhalation takes place, resistance arises in the warm atmosphere and the sun beings can no longer send their rays directly through the warm atmosphere down to the earth as they did in the beginning. While the beings that grew in the substance of the earth received the pure fire of wisdom, which became the first rudiment of the brain, the fire was later darkened by the resistance and came as air to the earth beings, resulting in a different formation of the brain. So we find Eve, the Earth Mother, now consisting of more atomized matter, after she has given birth to Cain, in union with Adam, the darkened stream of the solar beings, which makes the Earth Beings Abel with breathing of air. During the general condensation through the air, Cain also experiences resistance; the direct contact with breathing fire darkens, and that is the killing of Abel by Cain. Cain is now cut off from the fire gods, but has within him the ability to develop the fire of wisdom from within himself by means of the intellect, which he was able to transform into wisdom.

What is meant by the dust of the earth from which Adam was formed? All evolution in a particular epoch is condensation, working towards shaping. Thus, the preparation for the earthly state is also a working towards the form, the condensing and combining of spiritual forces.

When Eve, the earth mother, came into being through the activity of the Thrones and the Elohim, the first formative process took place in Cain. Then the active aspect of this formation has awakened the fiery element, and the passive aspect causes the condensation according to the material aspect, towards the air element. In other, simpler words: the material, which they will influence from now on, has condensed by having been worked on before; it has become more physical, but has been permeated by an effective spirit. From this more condensed interaction, Adam arises, and the product of Adam and Eve's interaction is Abel, the watery or airy being. The meeting of the fiery and airy elements causes dispute and resistance; the fiery element is darkened and absorbs the dark element into itself.

The characters of Cain and Abel already showed two distinct directions: Cain was a farmer, he wrestled with the earth to get its yield; Abel was a shepherd, he effortlessly took what the flock gave him. Subsequently, these two tendencies became clearly defined among the descendants of the two brothers, so that humanity split into two directions, the Cainite and the Abel-Sethite. The former were those who rose up by their own efforts, the artists in all fields of human endeavor. The others received their knowledge as a gift. The initiated priest-kings came from the latter, “by the grace of God”.

The fratricide also means: the blue blood killed the red blood.

Personal note from Rudolf Steiner to a participant, dated Stuttgart, February 21, 1912.

Solomon possessed three secrets: the two columns of Hercules, the trinity of wisdom, beauty and strength, and the secret of light and darkness.

The natural Hiram is in all of us; we must resurrect it within ourselves.

• 1. The dots are in this order in the template.
• 2. , “The Secrets of the Biblical Creation Story. The Six Day Work in Genesis 1», GA 122.

Instruction session without location or date given

The “Iron Sea” refers to pure, untroubled human nature. The three treacherous companions are doubt, superstition and the illusion of the personal self. By descending into earthly incarnation, man came to doubt his spiritual nature, to have false mental images. That is superstition, for example the idea that he is a being standing alone, not part of the great whole, the illusion of the personal self. These three traitors destroy the originally pure human nature. The fire of passions springs from it.

From the 22nd lesson in Cologne, December 22, 1907.

The Iron Sea, if it had come about, would have made the Earth a transparent, clear planet. Now the three companions have destroyed the casting. Doubt, superstition and belief in the personal self have clouded the casting. In the human etheric body, there are three points - heart, spleen and in the back - that are particularly significant. The one at the back means the Iron Sea in the microcosm. In the case of a person who still has doubts, superstition and belief in the personal self, this point is clouded, traversed by clouds, like a smoky topaz. Our task is to transform it into a radiant, clear one.

Cain, in the center of the earth, still possesses the pure divine Elohim power. Hiram Abiff descends to him and receives the original creator word, written on the golden triangle.

Place and date of these remarks unknown, according to a transcript by Mathilde Scholl, dated Landin, August 31, 1906.

Hiram Abiff could not create the Iron Sea until man had passed through the fire of passion, until he had not completely descended into the earthly fire. Until then, the Sea of Bronze could not become firm. It had to remain billowing, for if one wanted to solidify it in this way, it would have to burst. Passion, having become power, is the destructive principle that leads everything to ruin. But after Hiram Abiff had plunged into the fire, into the embers of the Sea of Bronze, and emerged from it again, bringing with him the Golden Triangle - the higher principles of wisdom, beauty and power (Manas, Budhi, Atma) - he was able to lead the Sea of Bronze to completion. The Iron Sea is the fusion of the lower and higher principles in physical existence, in the mineral round. It could only be fully restored after a complete descent into the mineral world, into the solidification of the physical.

The Iron Sea is the solidification of the astral. The astral was not allowed to solidify as it was before the physical solidified. By passing through the solidified physical, the astral was so purified that it could emerge pure afterwards, and only then was it allowed to solidify. Only then can the word be found that stands on the golden triangle. For only when the astral has been purified can the word arise anew, the etheric body in its new form, expressing the Christ principle.

Man's education is one of freedom. In order for the I to dwell in man and develop his individuality, it was necessary for it to take hold of a part of all the world's forces. That is why the development of egoism was a necessity from the middle of the Lemurian race onwards. Until the development of egoism, man had no kama of his own; all kama was only present cosmically. After the division into two sexes, the Kamic entered into the individual human being; the superfluous Kama was excreted in the moon. Now the development of Kama took place in the individual human being. The more the human being solidified physically, the more concentrated the Kama became in him, because he now increasingly confronted the outside world, increasingly learning to distinguish his ego from the rest of the world. He finally forgot that he was part of the rest of the world and therefore treated his environment as an enemy. (Cain kills his brother Abel.) From then on, he wanted to have everything for himself, to take possession of everything, because he felt the great difference between what he himself was and what did not belong to him, what belonged to his environment. This is how the power of Kama was taken to extremes.

While, on the one hand, man became more and more violent in his greed for possessions, he had to learn, on the other hand, that he cannot possess everything. He had to learn to renounce many things. He had to learn that in this way, as he wanted it - outwardly - he could never take possession of everything, and through death he was shown that even if he can apparently take possession of many things, he must renounce everything again when death tears him away from the physical world. So man learned resignation. Through many lives he had to learn the difference between the transitory and the eternal. He had to learn that all external possessions are impermanent. Then he looked for the imperishable, which he found in the higher worlds. Thus he learned to direct his desire to the imperishable. He learned to renounce external possessions. Now he began to build himself up inwardly. But as long as there was still any desire for his own possessions, he could not bring this work of inner development to completion.

First, the power of the kamasutra had to be pushed to the extreme by entering into mineral solidification, but then, precisely by passing through the mineral-objective world, it had to be purified again and emerge as selfless human love. Thus, cosmic warmth became individual warmth, individual power. This is initially found in devotion. Devotion brings order to unbridled passion. It shapes it into harmony and beauty. Devotion was the missing beam on the Temple of Solomon that was to connect the two columns. It had to be found before the temple could be built. Only after man had attained piety, devotion to the Higher, could humanity be led to perfection. He could only learn this devotion to the Higher by passing through the consciousness of the ego and by solidifying it in the physical world. Piety also leads him to find the Master Word, which leads him to perfection. After he has brought his astral body into harmony through devotion, he has attained the Master Word, the wisdom with which he transforms his etheric body into an eternal one, into the sounding word, which is productive.

Man was given the columns of Boaz (strength, physical body) and Jakin (wisdom, etheric body) and also the means to achieve his own perfection (astral body Kama - the fire).

He had to learn to work with fire: outside in nature with physical fire and inside in man with the soul fire (Kama). Outside, with the help of physical fire, he had to work with the mineral kingdom, shaping it into harmony, into a work of art; in the soul, with the help of the power of Kama, he had to develop first self-awareness and then inner harmony, devotion, enthusiasm (to be in God), to dive completely into passion and then emerge again like Hiram Abiff with the golden triangle, the higher forces. Only after he had transformed passion into devotion within and fire into beauty without, could he connect the columns Jakin and Boas. That is, he could develop himself up to wisdom and strength, to Budhi and Atma, because he had worked through Kama manasically. He attains wisdom by purifying his kama through devotion. In this way, his kama becomes pure human love and, on the other hand, he transforms it into enthusiasm by permeating his manas, the power of knowledge, with the purified kama. Thus, the kama is illuminated by manas, and the warmth of the kama moves into the manasic.

Thus the crossbeam laid across the two columns leads on the one hand to higher wisdom (Budhi) through piety, love, Christ, and on the other hand to creative power (Atma) through knowledge, enthusiasm, Lucifer. Thus the two columns of the temple are connected.

The transformation of the mineral kingdom into an outer temple goes hand in hand with the transformation of the surging astral body into harmonious human love. Thus the iron sea is built in the outer and in the inner. The mineral world will ultimately become an expression of human love. Love within, beauty without: that will become the image of the world.

The following is added to the above notes under the heading “Supplement”:

The three companions of Hiram Abiff are the three lower principles; Hiram Abiff is the I. These three must help him, but they must not become masters. They destroy the iron sea. The three lower principles are initially an obstacle for man in building up the higher, in developing the ego to freedom. Hiram Abiff plunges down into the interior of the earth by throwing himself into the sea of fire. He descends through the kamic fire into the physical. There he is endowed with the three higher principles: the Golden Triangle. But when he comes up again, he is attacked and killed by the three companions. This represents the struggle that the three lower principles wage against the higher ones in man. The I is the East through which the higher principles enter. (Like the sun, they rise in man.) The three companions come from the three other quarters of heaven.

Before he dies, Hiram Abiff writes the Master Key on the Golden Triangle and sinks it into a deep well. He thus points to the time when man will have purified his astral body to such an extent that the iron sea is fixed, that passion rests and his physical and astral body then forms the solid ground on which he can stand in his further development. At the time of Hiram Abiff, just after the emergence of the ego with self-consciousness, when the environment became objective, the Golden Triangle could not yet be erected over the Iron Sea. This could only happen after the complete purification of the astral body.

I. Instruction Class, Berlin, April 15, 1908

Based on John, chapter 11.

Easter is not only celebrated at this time because it is the beginning of spring; it has a much deeper significance. In ancient times, the group ego, the tribal ego, lived in people. In the initiated (Moses, Hermes, Buddha, Krishna, Zarathustra), the consciousness of the entire tribe was reflected. When they were initiated, they were out of the physical body with their etheric body and saw the essence of the entire tribe. On their return, they then laid this down in the law that they gave to their people. As a result, they became responsible for the sins committed against this law and had to reincarnate among their people until the people's karma was paid off. This was the case for all initiates before Christ, who received the revelation from within in the initiation sleep. Solomon, who was of the Abel-Seth people, belonged to this type of initiate. With these ancient initiates, the group soul of the people united with their etheric body during the initiation. It also lived in them afterwards. Therefore, they all had to undergo many incarnations.

Those who were not initiates in ancient times and did not belong to a people who received the revelations through such initiates - who lived scattered, who had to gather knowledge even from the physical world, were the Cain sons. One such was Hiram Abiff, who had gathered knowledge through life in the physical body and elevated it to wisdom. He expressed his wisdom in the building of temples. It was not the God within who revealed the wisdom to him, as it did to the descendants of the Abel-Seth sons, but it was the knowledge gained in physical existence. The Abel-Seth initiates were under the influence of Jehovah. In the twilight of their consciousness they were given the higher knowledge under the influence of the moon deity (Yahweh).

At that time, Hiram Abiff reached the limit of initiation. But he was only initiated later. For this, the spiritual sun had to come down to earth. This descended into the physical plane in the Christ. Only He could initiate Hiram Abiff. The clear [spiritual] Sun had to shine upon him at the initiation. He was Lazarus, who after the resurrection was called John. He was initiated by the Christ Jesus. That which Hiram Abiff had acquired through his life in the physical had to remain. Not the life of the group, but each individual incarnation should now become important. Every single incarnation was to add a leaf to the Book of Life, a leaf whose content was taken over into the spiritual, something that remained, that could no longer pass away, but was to remain until all future times. This is what Hiram Abiff represents.

Emphasis is placed not on an inner experience, in which the tribal nature is manifested, but on the one incarnation that has significance for all of the future.

Before this initiation of Hiram Abiff by Christ Jesus could take place, the spiritual sun, the sun, had to appear in spring and the old principle had to recede. The sun had to shine first with its light on the full moon, only then could the day of resurrection take place. Christ brought the new principle in place of the old Jehovah principle, that is why the Pharisees hated him, the representatives of the old principle. And when they realized that He represented this new teaching and brought the new initiation, they sought to kill Him after the resurrection of Lazarus. (“This man performs many signs and wonders.”)

In Christ Jesus, the soul of all mankind united with the Jesus bodies. The Christ was only once incarnated in the flesh. He will come again, but no longer in the flesh, only when humanity will recognize him in his etheric body.¹

Note: The folk spirit that united with Moses at the initiation and then lived in him was Michael.

II. Instruction lesson Berlin, April 15, 1908 (notes from another hand)

1. The resurrection of Lazarus

2. Why did the Pharisees want to seize and kill Christ afterwards?

3. Why does Easter fall on the first Sunday after the moon has become full after the spring equinox, March 21?

The resurrection of Lazarus is a kind of climax of the Gospel of John. It is an initiation, the course of which is told here - but a very special, very unique initiation. The initiations that had been carried out in the depths of the mystery centers in the pre-Christian era were of a completely different nature. In these pre-Christian times there were great, high initiates and also lesser ones. The greatest initiates: Moses, Hermes, Zoroaster – also Buddha and Krishna, who were also the lawgivers of their people, had undergone their initiation in such a way that the etheric body was taken out of the physical body for a period of three and a half days, and during this time the person to be initiated experienced the spiritual worlds in his etheric body.

In the past, the common bond of love was based on shared blood: People who belonged to the same tribe loved each other. The I of the tribe went through many generations; the individual human being had no validity. Everyone looked up to the patriarch - the Jew, for example, to his patriarch Abraham. One felt that one belonged to him as a Jew, one said: I am nothing - I and Father Abraham are one. This sense of belonging went from the individual member of the tribe to the patriarch like a ray of light. The initiate saw this ray of light, he saw the whole nation as embedded in its spiritual essence, which was expressed in the peculiarities of the nation and emanated from the patriarch. He saw all this clearly before him as he lay in the sleep of death. Yes, even more: the group soul of his people entered into him. He was now the group soul of the people. Thus, during his initiation, Moses was united with Michael. The laws that such an initiate then gave to his people were born out of the soul of the people themselves. And in formulating them, in setting them forth, the initiate became responsible for them. He had to incarnate again and again within his people. And the sins of his people against the law were his sins. He was karmically linked to them. The sins of the people lay on his karma. These great initiates who took this on were fully aware of this.

All these ancient initiates belonged to the Abel-Seth line. That is to say, they received enlightenment from above. The enlightenment came to them from the lunar forces. It was the forces of Yahweh that they received. And they received them not in the bright light of the sun, but in the darkness. Their etheric body received these Yahweh forces from the spiritual world, while the physical body lay as if in a sleep of death.

This was now to change. The people of the Cain current, those who had worked their way up from below through the work of their hands, had come so far that they could elevate the science they had gained for themselves to wisdom, that is, they could be initiated. The physical body had imprinted its impressions on their etheric bodies. Through their own labor they had purified, ennobled, spiritualized their physical bodies and their souls. These children of Cain were scattered throughout the world, and Hiram Abiff is named as the first of these scattered children of Cain in the world who had worked his way up so far. Hiram Abiff, the lonely hermit, stood before initiation. In his next incarnation he received it. Then he was called “Lazarus” - for in his previous incarnation, Lazarus was Hiram Abiff.

And this initiation of Lazarus was different from all previous ones. Until then, the initiates had received the lunar-Yahweh forces, that is, the forces concerning the mystery of birth and procreation, and each had received the forces of the people to which he belonged. But now the lunar force was no longer to be effective. Now the time had come when the all-embracing power of the sun, the Christ power, which is the power of all humanity, was to be bestowed upon humanity. This power of all humanity was to initiate Lazarus. The lunar forces were to be defeated by the more comprehensive solar power, which shines for all people. No longer should only blood count, flowing through the tribe, the people. From now on, only that which each individual human being works for in his soul should count. Every single human being within his incarnation should from now on have value, the individual incarnation should be consecrated to the striving for sanctification, spiritualization, no matter what name a person is called. This is the deepest idea of Christianity.

From now on, each incarnation should be like a leaf on which the eternal values of the struggling, striving human soul can be recorded. And at the end of such an incarnation, such a leaf should be placed in the Book of Eternity, which should contain ever greater values, ever deeper meanings, ever greater enrichments for each individual human being. These are the fruits of life that each individual human being should work for in his or her individuality, alone in constant striving. And then he should deposit these fruits of life in the bosom of all humanity, so that they can be integrated into the progress of all humanity.

The Christ is the great divine individuality who once appeared on earth in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth, and once lived an incarnation that all striving, seeking human souls can look to as the great model and ideal for their individual striving. The Christ appeared in the flesh only once! But he will appear on earth again! He will reappear in a spiritual body, and those people who, through the striving of their souls, have spiritualized themselves to such an extent, will recognize him in his spiritual body and will be able to live with him.

This Christ, the high sun spirit, initiated Lazarus, the reincarnated Hiram-Abiff.

This meant, however, a radical break with the previous initiation principle. This was fully recognized by the Pharisees, who were also initiates, and this filled them with fear and terror. They recognized what was going on, but they also saw that from now on, if this new principle were to prevail, their own power would be over. From that time forth, they sought to destroy the bearer of the new principle of initiation, and it is they who finally made it possible for the Christ to be led to his death.

It is said of Lazarus that he was the disciple whom the Lord loved. And later it is said that John was the one who rested on the Lord's breast. There is a profound secret of soul development hidden behind these two statements, which we find in the Gospel of John.

Now we also understand why Easter falls at the time of each year when the young spring sun looks the moon full at the spring equinox in the face. She is said to be victorious over the lunar forces. Christ, the Sun-God, conquers the Moon-God! Therefore, in spring, when the sun has regained its full strength, the moon must look the sun full in the face before it is conquered by it. Thus Easter is a festival that reminds us that the human soul rises from the sleep of death within matter, looking up to the Christ-Sun, living in its light, striving in its love, can receive the new life, the resurrection life.

III. Instruction lesson without place or date given with the heading “The mission of man on earth”

When a person begins to ask himself who he actually is, how he can feel this way inside, it must gradually become clear to him that he feels like an ego-entity, and that everything he experiences in terms of joys and pains, everything that drives him to act, is grouped around this center and receives its true impulse from there. Separated from other beings, different from them, is the human being in his sense of self; and yet it is only through this sense of self that it is possible for him to consciously connect with his environment. With regard to the physical body, which visibly, perceptibly represents to the outside world what the human being feels inside as being on one's own, as if he were a being separated from the environment, it becomes clear to him that the heart is the actual center. The heart animates the other organs, in that the invigorating blood is sent from there to the smallest parts of the physical body.

Just as the I is the inner center from which all impulses for the revelation of the human being flow out into the environment, and to which all sensations from the outside world return, being absorbed and processed there, so the invigorating blood flows from the heart through the whole body and then returns to this center. The heart represents an expression of the I-effectiveness in the physical body.

There are two kinds of activity in both the human ego and the physical heart: outward sending and inward receiving and reworking. Just as the returning blue blood is transformed back into red living blood with the help of the breathing process through the lungs, so the experiences that the human ego absorbs from the environment must pass through the feelings and sensations of the astral body and thereby become stimuli for new activity. The human heart accomplishes its effect according to a certain tempo; a short while, a period of time, passes between the successive heartbeats. Thus, the human ego also needs a certain period of time between the arising of the impulse to act and the processing of the sensations, which thereby react from the outside world onto the ego. This tempo will be different for each person, depending on their individual disposition and level of development.

But if a person wants to gradually penetrate to the knowledge of their own being, they must try to understand their own appropriate tempo, listen to their own heartbeat and get to know the inner life of their being. He must be able to see his own being as if it did not belong to him. He must learn to observe it as something external to him, and only then can he gradually descend into it. Just as he previously sent his impulses out into the world around him, he will then transform his powers and turn them inwards instead of outwards. In this way, the inner world becomes the outer world for him.

What man finds when descending into his own interior, first into his three bodily sheaths, is beautifully described in the legend of the temple handed down to mankind from ancient times, in which is symbolically laid the whole course of the evolution of the earth in relation to the building of the temple of the human body - and the evolution of the human ego.

It is told how the great master builder Hiram Abiff wanted to enter the temple once more to see his work. When he wanted to leave the temple again, the first of the three treacherous journeymen met him at the first gate and struck him on the left temple so that the blood flowed down onto his shoulder. Then the Master turned to the other gate, where the second of the treacherous companions struck him and gave him a blow to the right temple, so that the blood flowed down. Then the Master turned to the last of the gates, where the third of the treacherous companions struck him with a blow to the forehead, so that the Master fell dead to the ground.

When the human ego descends into its three sheaths, it first encounters the astral body. It senses this astral body as it truly is. As if by a blow, the ego becomes aware and recognizes itself in this astral sheath. It encounters doubt in everything and in itself. Through this, it is attacked. This is the first of the treacherous companions.

Next, the person then encounters his etheric body, into which he descends. And again he comes to know himself as he is in this body, as if it is suddenly brought to his attention. Then superstition confronts him: all beliefs, all opinions that have been acquired through education. This is the second of the treacherous companions.

Then the person descends into his physical body and gets to know the illusion of the personal self. This is the third of the treacherous companions. When he encounters this, the possibility of feeling himself in his own self as separate from the outside world or his environment is taken away from him in one fell swoop. He learns to recognize appearance and truth, and he steps out of his narrow limitation. No longer enclosed by the three sheaths, the human being steps freely out of himself into the environment and recognizes himself as a microcosm in the macrocosm.

When man is symbolically represented as the pentagram, he must be regarded as encompassing the three lower kingdoms on earth. The mineral kingdom has only the physical body on earth, and can be indicated symbolically by a single line. The plant kingdom has in addition a second principle, the etheric body, and this must therefore be indicated by two lines touching one another. The animal kingdom has a third principle, the astral body. This can be indicated by three lines: (X with line connecting the upper edges) p 414

The etheric body contains the principle of growth. In the plant form, leaf would always appear after leaf if it were not for the astral body coming from above, which causes the flower to emerge. The etheric principle, which in plants would cause continuous growth, is partially transformed in animals, so that it exercises its powers more internally as a receiver of the astral body. The straight line of the etheric is closed and bent by a new line, which symbolically represents the astral principle, and this new line then bends the physical principle again on the other side. Hence the physical form, which in plants represents a vertical line, is bent and has become horizontal in animals. The animal can therefore be symbolically indicated with the three lines; in man, the I is added to the three principles. This I can be symbolically represented as a point above the three lines X, which pours its power into the etheric body and the physical body through two lines that pass through the astral, acting on the one hand through light and on the other through warmth. Through this influence of the I, the human form is raised to an upright line again, and so the symbol of the pentagram arises.

If man is the pentagram himself and lives entirely within it, he will not be able to see himself as such. He will only be able to consciously survey that part of his being that is below his ego, that which he has outgrown. These are the three lines that represent the symbol for the animal. That is why man only sees that part of his physical body that is below the shoulders from the front.

But if he really wants to know himself as an ego, then he must step out of himself, so that he also gets to know the upper part of the pentagram. He must create for himself a new center of perception, which lies outside the pentagram; he must be able to take a superhuman standpoint, which lies outside the ego and yet is a center of consciousness.

The Temple Legend tells how the Master received the first blow on the left temple, the second blow on the right temple, so that the blood ran down upon the shoulder, and the third blow on the forehead. Then physical death sets in. This indicates the upper part of the pentagram. With physical death, the human being steps out of his personal self and experiences himself in the macrocosm. The Temple Legend tells us how the Master's body was buried by the three companions, how the Master himself, reborn in the cosmos, experienced the developmental states of the earth as the old moon, as the sun with the seven planets and as Saturn with the twelve signs of the zodiac. When man has emerged from his three shells and experiences himself in the cosmos, as if newly born, the first thing he feels is the essence of the great mother, the earth mother, from whom he has grown out. He experiences earlier developmental states in which he was more dependent and intimately connected to the earth. He experiences this as the moon state, sun state and Saturn state.

What the great master builder Hiram Abiff could not experience at that time, because – as the temple legend says – he lived before the Christ event on earth, was the light and warmth of the Christ-being in the earth aura. For this being had not yet connected with the earth at that time. It could be seen in the sun, as Zarathustra had once seen it as Ahura Mazdao, the great aura, as the cosmic heart, when it was revealed to him that this sun being would one day live on earth in a human body. His great mission became clear to him, to work through many incarnations and in various ways to prepare such a human body that was capable of carrying the spirit of the sun within itself. He should tune his own individual pace of his ego so that it was in harmony with this higher ego of humanity. The sound and rhythm of his heartbeat should coincide with the sound and rhythm of the great cosmic heart, only then could the sublime sun being live in a human body.

When the great Master Builder, Hiram Abiff, lived on earth, this mighty fact had not yet been accomplished. But the individuality of Hiram Abiff lived on and was reborn on earth at the time when the Christ-being, the great Sun Spirit, lived in Jesus of Nazareth. Once the great master builder, Hiram Abiff, was led to his ancestor in order to receive the new hammer with which he was to continue his work. He was led to him through the fire. At that time, the human ego had to rise through the blood of the generations to the ancestors in order to attain higher wisdom. But now that the great spirit of the Sun had descended to Earth and lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ Jesus Himself placed the seed of the new life in the heart of the reborn Hiram Abiff. Through Him, he was raised to spiritual life; he was born again in the disciple whom the Lord loved. The human ego was quickened by the divine ego and raised to a higher existence. Thereafter this disciple could become the writer of the Gospel which has as its starting point the human and the divine ego. And it was revealed to him how the development of this human ego through the post-Atlantean cultural periods extended into the future, until the end of the days on earth, as he portrayed it in the Apocalypse. And in his Gospel it is said how Christ Jesus, with his last words from the cross, handed this disciple over to his mother, who was not his natural mother. As a son he gives the human ego to the Earth Mother, after he has quickened it with his powers, so that she may guard and care for it. As mother, He gives the Earth to this I, so that the son may give his powers to the mother. The human I shall redeem the Earth, uplift it with its powers into spiritual regions, with the full consciousness that without this Earth it could not develop into what it is and is to become.

With the event at Golgotha, when the blood flowed from the wounds of the great redeemer, when the cosmic heart's blood permeated the earth and its powers poured into the center, the earth became radiant, radiating light out into its surroundings from within. Then the possibility was also given for every human individuality to experience this light within itself. When the Earth became the body of the great Sun Spirit by permeating it with his spiritual powers, all beings on Earth were also endowed with these powers. The seed for the reunification of the Sun and the Earth had been sown. The physical body of Jesus of Nazareth was the mediator through which the cosmic powers united with the Earth aura. And when the blood flowed from this body on Golgotha, the Earth was again absorbed into the power of the Sun. Since then, this Christ power radiates from its center into the surrounding area, and from the Sun the Christ power radiates into the Earth. Man can experience this power and this light in himself as an earthly human being when he recognizes himself as a part of the earth, which, as the physical body of Christ, is permeated by His Being. Then the white light shines from within him, as it radiates from the center of the earth.

A person can also experience the power and light of Christ as it radiates from the outside and permeates him with higher life. Then it surrounds and permeates him, just as it passes through the earth, radiating from the sun. Then the human being feels united in spirit with this solar power; he feels himself growing together with the great cosmic heart from the depth of his heart. As a higher being, living in this spiritual sun, he recognizes his true self, as connected to it as he, as an earthly human being, is connected to the earth itself. And just as the sun's forces permeate and give life to the earth, so this higher being permeates and lives through the earthly human being with his powers.

In the temple of the human body there is a holiest of the holy. Many people live in the temple without knowing it. But those who have an inkling of it receive the strength to purify themselves to such an extent that they may enter this Holy of Holies. There is the sacred vessel, which has been prepared throughout the ages so that when the time came, it could be capable of containing the blood of Christ, the Christ-life. When man has entered, he has also found the way to the Holy of Holies in the great temple of the earth. There are many on earth who live without knowing it, but when man has found himself in his innermost sanctuary, he will also be allowed to enter there and find the Holy Grail. The vessel will at first appear to him as if it were cut out of wonderfully sparkling crystals, forming symbols and letters, until he gradually senses the sacred contents, so that it shines for him in a golden splendor. A human being enters the sanctuary of his own heart, then a divine being emerges from this sanctuary and unites with the God outside, with the Christ-being. He lives in the spiritual light that radiates into the vessel and thereby sanctifies it.

Because man lives as a twofold being, he can pour the spiritual power of the sun into the earth and be a connecting link between the sun and the earth. Just as from the center of life, the heart, the invigorating blood flows and pours through the entire physical organism into the bone system, which - as an external solidification and congealing in the organism - can be seen as the opposite of the living, ever active heart, so each human individuality must become a channel for the blood flowing from the cosmic center of life, permeating the solidified earth with life. The earth can be thought of as a cosmic skeletal system. It would be completely ossified and dried up if the cosmic heart had not poured out its life blood through a human body, thereby reviving it anew.

Once upon a time, the great spirit of the sun lived in a human body as an example for humanity, and every human being is meant to follow suit. Through Him the possibility for this has been given. To be imbued with the Christ-spirit, to know oneself as a center, to live in this spirit, through which spiritual light, spiritual power and spiritual warmth can stream into the earth, that is the mission of the individual human being and of all humanity, for in this way will they be able to redeem the earth and uplift it to spiritual regions.

IV Authentic information handed down.

Lazarus, the favorite disciple of Jesus Christ, who later became the author of the Gospel of John, is the re-embodied Hiram Abiff.

Adam-Eva -> Cain

Abel Seth -> Lamech, Hiram Abiff

Solomon -> Lazarus-John.¹

The individuality, which had been re-embodied as Hiram Abiff and Lazarus-Johannes, was initiated anew in its embodiments in the 13th and 14th centuries and has since borne the name Christian Rosenkreutz. ²

From the instruction session in Berlin, February 10, 1913 for the 3rd

The legend, the seven-step ladder ² And each of us should keep these things in mind during the day. Then, as a consequence, if the things we do here are done right, we will feel that the right forces are flowing in.

During the night, the human being can then come close to Hiram Abiff or Adoniram, Lazarus, who was initiated by the Lord Himself. Meditation is given for this purpose: “I am not only in the world for myself, but to become similar to my archetype.

This striving is a duty, not selfishness. These things are given in the first scenes of “Examination of the Soul” and “The Guardian of the Threshold”, as in the three dramas in general, much, much meditation material is given.

You should not forget that the spiritual powers are counting on you in the leadership of mankind.

Every person is a citizen of the spiritual world, but you should be aware of it! At night, you are always in a spiritual world, interacting with beings and judging. This can suddenly come to a person's awareness when waking up or at other times during the day: “I have to educate myself to become a revealer of the divine archetype within me.”

Meditate on death; this is a very important matter.

• 1. See the detailed descriptions in the volume 'The Event of the Appearance of the Christ in the Ethereal World', CW 118.
• 1. Record by Rudolf Steiner for Helene Röchling as a supplement to the temple legend.
• 2. Rudolf Steiner's message conveyed by Marie Steiner in the context of the Knowledge Cult; see the appendix to this section on page 423ff.
• 2. The so-called Jacob's ladder. Schauberg (“Comparative Handbook of the Symbolism of Freemasonry...”) II. Band S. 402f.): “The Persian symbol of the entrance of the soul of the deceased into heaven through the seven planetary spheres is said to have been a staircase or ladder leading to seven different doors. (...) According to Origen, the Egyptians used a similar symbol to represent the descent of heavenly souls in the Milky Way through the seven planetary spheres, namely a ladder that reached from heaven to earth and was divided into seven steps, each with a gate. (...) The ladder that Jacob saw in the famous dream and that also reached from earth to heaven was probably this Egyptian ladder that led the souls of men from heaven to earth and from there back to heaven again, which thus had not just three steps, as is generally the case. 2

by Hella Wiesberger

The information contained in the section 'Notes on the Temple Legend' about the re-embodiments of Hiram Abiff as Lazarus-Johannes and as Christian Rosenkreutz needs to be supplemented, since it only forms part of what can be called Rudolf Steiner's research on Hiram and Johannes in the field of reincarnation. For it is not only concerned with the individuality of Lazarus-Johannes, the evangelist and apocalypticist, but also with that of John the Baptist, as well as the mysterious connection between the two.

These reincarnation research findings, which encompass both John figures equally, occupy a prominent position in the biography of his work because they stand at the beginning and end of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual scientific lecturing activity and also run like a “red thread” through his entire work (Marie Steiner).

The first of these research results can be found at the beginning of Steiner's spiritual scientific lectures (1901/02) in connection with the threefold approach to justifying Christianity as a mystical fact and as the central event of human history: the lecture cycle “From Buddha to Christ” in the Berlin literary avant-garde circle “Die Kommenden”; the lecture series on Egyptian and Greek mystery religions and Christianity in the circle of Berlin theosophists; and the essay “Christianity as Mystical Fact”. All three presentations culminated in the interpretation of the Gospel of John, beginning with the raising of Lazarus as an initiation performed by Christ Jesus and in the conclusion that the raised Lazarus was the author of the Gospel of John. The cycle 'From Buddha to Christ', of which there are no transcripts, ended, according to Rudolf Steiner's statement in his lecture Dornach, June 11, 1923, with this motif; in the transcripts of the lecture series to the Theosophists, it is found under the date of March 15, 1902. In the writing 'Christianity as a Mystical Fact' does not state directly that Lazarus is the author of the Gospel of John, but it follows from the whole presentation.¹

Immediately after the attempt to justify Christianity, Rudolf Steiner also began to introduce the teachings of reincarnation and karma into European intellectual life, since all spiritual scientific research is based on them. ² This applies particularly to those on history; after all, history is brought about by the re-embodied human souls, in that they carry over the results of their lives in one epoch into their lives in other epochs. And because this also applies to the spiritual guides of humanity, an essential chapter is devoted to their impulses in the various ages in the wide-ranging subject of history and reincarnation. The two John figures are given a great deal of space in it.

The first communications from earlier lives on earth of these two Christian leaders were made by Rudolf Steiner in 1904, beginning with John the Baptist. In the public lecture on Christianity and Reincarnation held in Berlin on January 4, 1904, it is stated that reincarnation was taught in the mysteries at all times, including by Christ, who, as it is already stated in the Gospel, pointed out to his trusted disciples that John the Baptist was the reincarnated prophet Elijah. Further messages followed at the turn of the year 1908/09. The background to this is described by Marie Steiner in an essay written after Rudolf Steiner's death:

"It was at the time when Rudolf Steiner encouraged me to come forward more and more with the recitation. At the time, I was trying to work my way through to Novalis. I told him that it was not easy for me, that I had not yet found the key to Novalis. He advised me to put myself in the place of the holy nuns. The nuns did not help me. On the contrary. I didn't really know what to do with them. Then suddenly it brightened up: Raphael's figures surrounded me. The child, with his deep, profound eyes, shone in his mother's arms. “I see you in a thousand images, Maria, sweetly expressed...” A resounding ocean all around, harmonies of color. I said to Rudolf Steiner: The nuns did not do it. But someone else helped: Raphael. Now Novalis is completely transparent to me. A glow passed over Rudolf Steiner's mild countenance. A few days later, he revealed the secret of Novalis, Raphael and John Elias to us for the first time.3 From “On the Eve of Michaelmas Day” in “What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society. News for its members”, 2nd year 1925.

This “a few days later” cannot be dated exactly.⁴ The first fixed date is handed down through the recollections of a Novalis event that took place in Munich on January 6, 1909, and which is described as follows: “I saw and heard Marie von Sivers for the first time under the Christmas tree in the Munich branch's room, when she, surrounded by colorful afterimages of Raphael's paintings, recited verses by Novalis. It was around New Year 1908/09. The whole room was lined with rose-red satin, a rose cross – at that time still with twelve red roses – hung in the middle above the lectern, from where we have just heard through Rudolf Steiner about the being that was incarnated as Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, Novalis.” ⁵

It must therefore have been a very solemn event. The same applies to a half-year later event, when, in the middle of the lecture cycle on the Gospel of John in relation to the three other Gospels, a Novalis matinee took place again in Kassel (Kassel, July 4, 1909). Again, we have only the later written memory of a participant: “After a musical introduction, Rudolf Steiner announced that Marie von Sivers would recite some poems by Novalis. With deep empathy, Marie von Sivers spoke in the speech formation that was already her own. After that, Rudolf Steiner began his lecture, in which he presented the incarnations of Elijah-John the Baptist-Raphael-Novalis as a sequence of lives of the same individuality. ... Rudolf Steiner spoke in accordance with the mood of this recitation, in an extremely warm, insistent, even solemn manner. The lecture had an almost sacred character. ... And so at the end of the lecture - the only subject of which was this series of re-embodiments - there was a deep sense of emotion among the audience and many a eye shimmered with restrained tears among the men and welling tears among the women.6From Rudolf Toepel's memoirs for the Rudolf Steiner estate administration archive.

The fact that the process of re-embodiment is not as simple as one might imagine has already been pointed out:

"People, even theosophists, usually have far too simple a mental image of the secrets of reincarnation. One must not imagine that any soul that is embodied today in its three bodies simply embodied itself in a previous incarnation and then again in a previous incarnation, which was then preceded by another one, always according to the same pattern. The secrets are much more complicated. (...) We often cannot fit a historical figure into such a scheme if we want to understand them correctly. We have to approach it in a much more complicated way.” (Leipzig, September 12, 1908)

This was, so to speak, the announcement of what was then begun at the end of 1908 as a higher chapter of the doctrine of re-embodiment. Using concrete examples of historical figures, it was shown how, due to the law of spiritual economy for the preservation of what is valuable in spiritual terms, not only the human ego but also other aspects of the being can be re-embodied, and in other individualities. The descriptions of such interpenetrating embodiments in great spiritual teachers, the highest of whom are the so-called bodhisattvas, were one of the main themes of the years 1909 to 1914.⁷

Among the figures presented in this way, John the Baptist appears again and again. In particular, in the lecture cycle “The Gospel of Mark” (September 1912), not only is he given a great deal of space, but there is also a reference to an incarnation that predates the time of Elijah. Since then, five incarnations in spiritual history have been recognized: Phinehas (in the time of Moses), Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, Novalis. It is therefore all the more surprising that in the lectures on the “Fifth Gospel” (1913/14), delivered a year later, the following remark is made with reference to John the Baptist: “I am not saying this now from the Fifth Gospel” - by which he meant the results of the Akasha research on the figures of the Gospels - ‘because, with regard to the Fifth Gospel, it has not yet reached the figure of John the Baptist; but I am saying it from what might otherwise arise.’ (Berlin, January 13, 1914). In view of the amount of research that had already been done on John the Baptist, this remark can only refer to the research into the interpenetration of the embodied beings, as it had already been researched and presented for other figures in the Gospels. The reason why this research on John the Baptist could only be carried out years later is explained by the tradition that Rudolf Steiner was once asked during the war of 1914-1918 whether the reflections on the Fifth Gospel could not be continued and that he replied that the spiritual atmosphere was much too unsettled for such research as a result of the war; and when the question was repeated after the war, the answer was that other tasks were now more urgent.⁸The fact that a possibility must have arisen later is shown by Rudolf Steiner's last address, given on September 28, 1924.

Five incarnations of spiritual-historical significance had also been communicated over the years, also starting in 1904, by the other John figure, Lazarus John: Hiram Abiff, Lazarus John, Christian Rosenkreutz in the 13th and 14th centuries, and the Count of St. Germain in the 18th century. ⁹ In the Berlin lecture of November 4, 1904, it was stated that the Count of St. Germain was a re-embodiment of Christian Rosenkreutz, and the connection of this incarnation with Hiram Abiff is evident from the general tenor of the entire lecture, even if it is not explicitly stated. The reincarnation of Hiram as Lazarus-Johannes was probably first mentioned in the context of the work of the Erkenntnis cult in the time of Austria in 1908; in the two lectures of September 27 and 28, 1911, in Neuchâtel, the two incarnations of Christian Rosenkreutz in the 13th and 14th centuries were described. It is not possible to say exactly when the connection between the incarnations of Lazarus and Johannes and Christian Rosenkreutz was first mentioned, because it was passed on orally without a precise date.¹⁰

Even before Lazarus was spoken of as the reincarnation of Hiram Abiff in the Erkenntniskultischer working group at Easter 1908, the Lazarus-Johannes research had been documented in a special way by the initiation experiences of Lazarus-Johannes from his apocalypse being designed into images of occult seals and columns for the Munich Whitsun Congress in 1907, which at the same time formed the basic elements of the new building idea. Furthermore, it was manifested in word and picture that the path of schooling that is decisive for the West is the Christian-Rosicrucian one founded by Christian Rosenkreutz.¹¹

The extent to which the individuality of John the Baptist can also be seen in connection with the building idea can be seen from the following events. When the laying of the foundation stone for the building originally planned in Munich was scheduled for May 16, 1912, Rudolf Steiner spoke again and repeatedly on his journey there about the already known four incarnations: Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, Novalis; last in Munich, on the same day that the laying of the foundation stone should have taken place there. Due to difficulties caused by the authorities, the laying of the foundation stone did not take place. However, in the summer, the artistic-dramatic realization of the idea behind the building - to create a modern, and that means public, mystery center - was embodied in the first great scene of the new mystery drama “The Guardian of the Threshold”. This scene takes place in the anteroom to the rooms of a mystery society, where several people have been summoned to be informed that a major scientific work that has just been published has created the necessary condition for people who were previously not allowed to do so because they had not been initiated to now be able to appear at the place of initiation. The Grand Master of the Mystical Union explains this in a speech about the continuity of the spiritual leadership of humanity, which is given according to a stage direction by Rudolf Steiner in front of the four portraits of Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael and Novalis, and begins with the words:

In the name of that spirit which

---

in our place of worship, we appear at this moment before people who have not yet been allowed to hear the word that sounds here mysteriously...

And when, eight years later, in the fall of 1920, the building that had since been erected on the Dornach hill near Basel was put into operation, Rudolf Steiner reworked this same speech for the first building event in the first person, which appears extremely rarely in his poetry, and had Marie Steiner read it into the two domed rooms from the organ gallery at the festive opening ceremony:

In the name of that spirit which

---

in our striving proclaims itself,

---

I appear at this moment

---

before people who from now on want to hear

---

the word that sounds so earnestly here for the souls...

Through texts taken from the “Chymischen Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz anno 145% the other Johannes individuality, Lazarus-Johannes, was also included in this first building event.

Then, with the end of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual scientific lectures in September 1924, exactly four years after the first building event (in September 1920), the importance of the research on John was once again forcefully expressed. For when, on Sunday, September 28, 1924, on the eve of Michaelmas, he struggled to his feet, already seriously ill, to speak once more to the members present, what was his concern? The two Johannes individualities! In a deeply moving way, he spoke about the four incarnations of Elias, Johannes, Raffael, Novalis, in order to then actually lead up to the new result of the Johannes research: the mysterious connection between the two in the resurrection of Lazarus. However, his strength was no longer sufficient to present this new research result. It was only hinted at by not always mentioning John the Baptist, but Lazarus-John as the re-embodied Elijah. However, because it could not be further explained, an understanding difficulty arose for the audience. Some friends who were still able to ask him about it have handed down what he replied as follows:

In answer to the further question of how this connection between two individualities is to be understood in terms of further incarnations, Marie Steiner pointed out:

Thus Rudolf Steiner's Hiram-Johannes research, with the mystery of the connection between the two Johannes individualities, as hinted at in the last address, has become a spiritual legacy that calls for constant efforts to understand it, not least because the question of the two Johanneses is one whose solution is of particular importance for the future. This is a statement by Rudolf Steiner from the very last period of his life.¹⁵

Now, a fully valid answer to the question raised by Marie Steiner regarding the distinction between the secrets of incarnation and incorporation will have to be left to future spiritual research. However, the available research results can shed some light on the question of what meaning must be associated with the secret of the interpenetration of the two John individualities. Thus, if one brings together the descriptions that Rudolf Steiner gave in different contexts, it can be seen that a decisive part of this meaning must lie in the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha as “the conquest of earthly death through the life of the spirit” (Berlin, October 23, 1908). What this means can be seen from the following fundamental clarification of the relationship between individuality and personality:

"Today, it is easy to confuse the concepts of individuality and personality. Individuality is the eternal element that runs through life on earth from one incarnation to the next. Personality is what a person acquires in the course of one lifetime. If we wish to study individuality, we must look into the depths of the human soul; if we wish to study personality, we must see how the essential core lives. The essential core is born into the people, into the occupation. All this determines the inner being, depersonalizes it. In a person who is still at a lower level of development, little will be seen of the work on his inner being. The way he speaks, the way he gestures, and so on, is simply as his people have it. But those are the advanced people who give themselves the way of speaking and gesturing from their inner being. The more a person's inner being can work on his outer being, the more he develops as a human being. One could now say that this is how individuality is expressed in personality. The one who has his own gestures, his own physiognomy, even in his actions and in relation to his surroundings, has a distinct personality. Does all this get lost at death for later? No, it is not. Christianity knows very well that this is not the case. What is meant by the resurrection of the flesh or of the personality is nothing other than the preservation of the personal into all subsequent incarnations. What a person has achieved as a personality remains with him, because it is incorporated into the individuality and this carries it forward into the following incarnations. If we have done something with our body that has a unique character, then this body, this power that has worked, rises again. As much as we have worked on ourselves, as much as we have made of ourselves, is not lost on us.” (Berlin, March 15, 1906)

The real consciousness of immortality is thus connected with the depersonalization of the individuality, the higher spiritual faculties of man. And the fact that this process also means the permeation of man with Christ is indicated by the following brief commentary on a passage from the so-called Gospel of the Egyptians:

“There is an old writing in which the greatest ideal for the development of the ego, Christ Jesus, is characterized in such a way that it says: When the two become one, when the outer becomes like the inner, then man has attained Christ-likeness within himself. That is the meaning of a certain passage in the Egyptian Gospel.” (Munich, December 4, 1909)

The interpretation that Rudolf Steiner gives of the Provençal saga of Flor and Blancheflor in his lecture Berlin, May 6, 1909, shows even more clearly what is meant by the union of the inner and the outer, of individuality and personality. This saga - which is closely related to the Hiram Johannes research because it is said that the soul celebrated in Flor reappeared in the 13th and 14th centuries in the founder of Rosicrucianism, for the founding of a new mystery school, which has to cultivate the Christ secret in a new way that corresponds to modern times. It tells of a couple who were born on the same day, at the same hour, in the same house, and were raised together and were devoted to each other from the beginning in great love. Separated from each other due to a lack of understanding on the part of others, Flor sets out to find Blancheflor. After severe, life-threatening dangers, they were finally reunited until they also died on the same day.

Rudolf Steiner interprets these images as follows: Flor means something like the flower with the red leaves or the rose, Blancheflor means the flower with the white leaves or the lily. Flor or Rose is “the symbol of the human soul that has taken up the personality, the I-impulse within itself, that lets the spiritual work out of its individuality, that has brought the I-impulse into the red blood. But in the lily, one saw the symbol of the soul that can only remain spiritual by keeping the ego outside of it, only reaching to the boundary. Thus rose and lily are two opposites. The rose has self-awareness entirely within itself, the lily entirely without itself. But the union of the soul within and the soul without, as the world spirit animating the world, has existed. Flor and Blancheflor express the finding of the world soul, of the world I, by the human soul, the human I. (...) In the union of the lily soul and the rose soul, that was seen which can find connection with the Mystery of Golgotha. (Berlin, May 6, 1909)

When it is said that the union of the soul within and the soul without, which as the world spirit animates the world, has taken place, it is certainly meant that the Christ principle, as the highest spiritual, has united with the personality, the earthly body, of Jesus of Nazareth. For only by these two becoming completely one, right down to the physical, could earthly death truly be conquered.

The extent to which the contrast between Rose Soul and Lily Soul also applies to the two individualities of John can be seen from the fact that Hiram Lazarus is always characterized as a representative of the forces of personality, while the Elijah Soul is often described as such a highly spiritual being that it is only loosely connected from the outside with its earthly vehicles, including John the Baptist. was only loosely connected from the outside.¹⁶ If the union of Rose Soul and Lily Soul can lead to a connection with the Mystery of Golgotha, then, with regard to the union of the two John souls in the resurrection of Lazarus by Christ Jesus, it may be concluded that the disciple whom the Lord loved has become that being to whom the Christ-secret of the conquest of death has been transmitted and is carried forth by it, as is expressed in the saying about Christian Rosenkreutz: “With this individuality and its work since the 13th century” - in which it was allowed to experience a new initiation - ‘we connect everything that includes us, the continuation of the impulse that was given through the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth and through the accomplishment of the Mystery of Golgotha.’ (Berlin, December 22, 1912)

A further aspect arises when the words from the Gospel according to Egypt are added to the words: “When the two become one and the outside becomes like the inside” and the subsequent words: “and the male becomes like the female, so that there is neither male nor female”. This latter word indicates that there will be no more death if there is no more sexuality, since death and sexuality are mutually dependent. Hiram Abiff was already promised in the temple legend that a son would be born to him who, even if he could not see him himself, would bring forth a new race that, according to Rudolf Steiner, would no longer know death because reproduction would no longer take place through sexuality, which conditions death, but through the word connected with the heart, through speech (Berlin, October 23, 1905). Therefore, as stated in the lecture Cologne, December 2, 1906, the perfection of man will consist in the fact that the powers of reproduction will be raised from the heart to the heart and that “precisely the soul power of John” will cause the loving heart to send out “streams of spiritual love”. This is indicated in the Gospel by the fact that, in the description of the Last Supper, it is said that the disciple whom the Lord loved and who knew about this secret of development rose from the Lord's lap to his breast.

Seen in this light, all the documents the various incarnations of the Hiram-Lazarus-John individuality (the legend of the Temple, the Gospel of John, the saga of Flor and Blancheflor, the “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz in the year 1459”; also the cosmic deed of Christian Rosenkreutz at the beginning of the 17th century, was to make possible the overcoming of the Cain and Abel conflict both in the individual human being and in humanity as a whole.¹⁷ on the central Christian mystery of the overcoming of death.

Rudolf Steiner also saw the goal of his work in this line. This is evident from a statement he made when founding the Erkenntniskultischer (Cult of Knowledge) working group, when he spoke of the fact that the significance of the theorespekte or anthroposophical movement lies in the fact that, through its wisdom, which is neither purely male nor purely female, but transsexual, it is to prepare in the spiritual realm what will later happen on the physical plane: the reunion of the sexes (Berlin, October 23, 1905). This not only gives the full-fledged collaboration of men and women, which he practiced everywhere, including in the context of cultic work, but also the word spoken in the same lecture: “I have reserved for myself to achieve a unification between those of Abel's and those of Cain's sex” a very special biographical significance. And this in turn can help to explain why the Hiram-Johannes research is at the beginning and end of his spiritual scientific lecturing activities and runs like a “red thread” through his entire work.

• 1. This is indicated by Rudolf Steiner himself in his last address on September 28, 1924. In the lecture of July 25, 1904, it was stated that according to the Akasha Chronicle, the resurrected Lazarus was the writer of the Gospel of John, the same disciple whom the Lord loved and who stood beneath the cross.
• 2. See “Reincarnation and Karma”, GA 135.
• 4. The songs of Mary by Novalis were recited for the first time by Marie von Sivers at the Christmas celebration of the Berlin branch on December 22, 1908. Therefore, the “a few days later” could have been at the lecture on December 28, 1908, with which the theme was introduced, which was described as a higher chapter of spiritual science, but in which Rudolf Steiner had not allowed notes to be taken. The fact that it is unlikely that it was not spoken about in Berlin, the main place of activity at the time, also speaks for this date. For in Berlin lectures this series of incarnations is mentioned only much later and as already known. 4
• 5. Max Gümbel-Seiling in “Memorial Sheet for Marie Steiner-von Sivers”, Stuttgart 1949.
• 7. See “The Principle of Spiritual Economy in Connection with Questions of Re-embodiment” (1909), GA 109; “The Gospel of Luke” (1909), GA 114; “Esoteric Christianity and the Spiritual Guidance of Humanity” (1911/12), GA 130; “The Gospel of Mark” (1912), GA 139; “The Fifth Gospel” (1913/14), GA 148.
• 8. Friedrich Rittelmeyer in “Meine Lebensbegegnung mit Rudolf Steiner”, Stuttgart (1st edition 1928).
• 9. This name was also given to other people, “so that not everything that is said here or there about the Count of St. Germain in the outer world can also apply to the real Christian Rosenkreutz.” (Neuchâtel, September 27, 1911).
• 10. Marie Steiner told Günther Schubert personally, and he in turn told the editor of this volume. Later, in 1923, Rudolf Steiner spoke of it again in a small circle, cf. M. Kirchner-Bockholt in 'What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society. News for its members' 1963, nos. 48 and 49.
• 11. See “Images of Occult Seals and Columns. The Munich Congress Whitsun 1907 and its Effects», GA 284.

  In the lectures given at the congress and in the following lectures of 1907, there is repeated mention of this path of training and its founder, Christian Rosenkreutz, as the great spiritual leader of the West. It is said: «... he has always lived among us and is still with us today as a leader in spiritual life.” (Munich, June 1, 1907, esoteric lecture, in CW 264)

  The spiritual connection between this individuality and the new building idea, as manifested at the Munich Congress, shone forth again a few years later when Rudolf Steiner, also out of the building project,

  to found a mode of working that he said had as its direct starting point the individuality whom, “since Western times, we have known as Christian Rosenkreutz.” (Berlin, December 15, 1911, in GA 264). This founding attempt had already been solemnly proclaimed at a Knowledge Cult event in Stuttgart on November 27, 1911. Since nothing more is known about this event, we can only assume that the incarnation connection between Lazarus-Johannes and Christian Rosenkreutz was first communicated at that time - shortly after the two lectures on the life and work of Christian Rosenkreutz in the 13th and 14th centuries (September 1911).

• 12. A certain justification for this supposition could be seen in the triptych “Gral” by the painter Anna May, which, according to a statement by Marie Steiner, was created after the lectures in Neuchâtel. The central section shows the events of Golgotha and Joseph of Arimathea collecting the blood of Christ; on the left wing are the figures from the Temple Legend of King Solomon, the Queen of Sheba and Hiram Abiff; on the right wing is the 13th-century initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz, as first described by Rudolf Steiner in Neuchâtel. Rudolf Steiner is said to have given Anna May some information about this. See Margarete Hauschka in “Das Goetheanum” 1975, No. 24 with a black and white illustration of the painting.
• 13. See the last address of September 28, 1924 with the associated additions in “Esoteric Reflections on Karmic Connections” IV. See also the study by Adolf Arenson, “Elias-Johannes-Lazarus” in “Ergebnisse aus dem Studium der Geisteswissenschaft Rudolf Steiners”, Freiburg i.Br. 1980, as well as the article by M. Kirchner-Bockholt in “Was in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft vorgeht. News for its Members, 1963, No. 48 and 49.
• 14. Cf. footnote 1 on page 425.
• 15. Related by Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz from his conversation with Rudolf Steiner on March 3, 1925.
• 16. See lecture Berlin, December 14, 1911, and “The Gospel of Mark,” GA 139.
• 17. See “Esoteric Christianity and the Spiritual Guidance of Humanity”, GA 130.

The way this armed conflict (of the First World War) was such that it cannot be compared with anything in history so far, it will be followed by a spiritual battle that will also be unlike anything in history. ... It will be seen that the whole earth will take part in this spiritual struggle, and that in this spiritual struggle Orient and Occident will stand in spiritual and soulful contrasts such as have never been seen before. (Stuttgart, June 15, 1919)

From the new approaches after the First World War to the reestablishment of the Esoteric School as the “Free University for Spiritual Science”

For Rudolf Steiner, the First World War was a blazing sign that completely new forms had to be found for a fruitful further development of general and esoteric social life. Far more than before the war, he must therefore have been under the strain of the tension that necessarily arose from the opposing efforts to maintain continuity with the hitherto valid hierarchical principle on the one hand, and to meet the demands of the new era on the other, that is, to introduce the democratic principle, i.e. publicness, into esoteric work. This is made clear by the following two statements. While one of them reads (it was made in the lecture Dornach, December 20, 1918, i.e. immediately after the end of the war): “In order to maintain the continuity of human development, it is still necessary today to take up ritual and symbolism, so to speak.” The other (it was said in connection with a description of Freemasonry in response to a question from workers on the Goetheanum construction site): ”In today's world, all such things are actually no longer appropriate. For, isn't it true that what we have to reject most of all in such things today is isolation? This soon leads to the emergence of a spiritual aristocracy, which should not exist. And the democratic principle, which must be given more and more scope, is completely opposed to both the freemasons' union and the closed priesthoods.

At the time of this latter utterance, Rudolf Steiner had already tackled the reorganization of the Society and the esoteric school, by means of which he evidently wanted to bring the contrast between the old hierarchical mode of working and the demand of the new time for democracy to a higher synthesis. The steps he took in this direction from the end of the war until his death were, broadly speaking, the following.

When he was asked several times immediately after the end of the war in the late fall of 1918 to resume esoteric teaching, he initially refused completely. This was partly due to the inappropriate behavior that had often occurred in the past, but also because the new forms necessary for the times had not yet been developed. But when, a year later, at the end of 1919, the question was put to him at the Stuttgart School as to whether a religious celebration could be arranged for the students of free religious education on Sundays, he replied that it would have to be a cult and added: If this cult could be given, it would at the same time be the first reconnection with the esotericism interrupted by the war.¹ - obviously insofar as it should again be a non-ecclesiastical cult.

Shortly after this ritual, the “Sunday ritual”, had been created and performed for the first time (February 1, 1920), ² - from the teachers' conference in Stuttgart on November 16, 1921, the sentence is handed down: “A cult is the most esoteric thing one can imagine.” - Rudolf Steiner now resumed the esoteric work within the Anthroposophical Society. Initially in Dornach with two esoteric lessons on February 9 and 17, 1920. Although it was intended, it was not continued because various members had again behaved inappropriately. At the teachers' conference on November 16, 1921, when the question of esoteric lessons was raised, he said that it would be very difficult to do so and that he had to refrain from doing so because everything esoteric had been “disgracefully abused” so far. Esotericism is a “painful” chapter in the anthroposophical movement. ³ Nevertheless, shortly afterwards, on December 4, 1921, in Norway, where lectures could be held again for the first time since the outbreak of the war in the summer of 1914, he gave an esoteric lecture. Furthermore, there was also a meeting with the members of the department of the cult of knowledge, at which - although two or three new members were admitted - the circle was solemnly dissolved (p. 451), just as it had been immediately after the outbreak of the war in the summer of 1914 (p. 114). But that does not mean that the old is dead – he explained in Kristiania – but will be resurrected in a metamorphosed form. In the course of 1922, two esoteric hours also took place in England (London), one during the April stay and the other during the November stay. Shortly before, in October, in connection with the pedagogical youth course that took place in Stuttgart, ⁴ young anthroposophists approached Rudolf Steiner with the request for esoteric teachings to strengthen and deepen their community. The so-called esoteric youth group was formed, and it also received esoteric lessons. In the course of 1923 and early 1924, the following esoteric lessons also took place: in Kristiania in May 1923; in Dornach on May 27, October 23, 1923 and January 3, 1924 for the circle named by Rudolf Steiner after its initiators, the “Wachsmuth-Lerchenfeld Group” ; in Stuttgart on July 13 and October 13 for the esoteric youth group; in Vienna on September 30, 1923 for a small group that had come together at the request of Polzer-Hoditz.

Of the notes handed down from these hours, only those that reveal a relationship in content to the earlier esoteric cult of knowledge have been included in the present volume. These are the two hours in Kristiania and the three in Dornach that are thought to be for the 'Wachsmuth-Lerchenfeld Group'.⁵

The metamorphosis of esoteric, especially of the cult of knowledge, which has become necessary due to the changed conditions of the times, as indicated in Kristiania in December 1921 on the occasion of the formal dissolution of the circle, can already be found addressed immediately after the end of the war in the Dornach lecture of December 20, 1918. It was already stated at that time that the progress of time requires that many things must be renewed. For from the present time on and in the future, ever more clearly, new revelations break through the veils of events into the spiritual and mental horizon of human beings. Since these new revelations are the expression of a new creative principle, borne by the spirits of personality, the future will be increasingly determined by the expression of the impulses of personality. In this context, the fundamental difference between old and new revelation was explained and the nature of symbols and rituals was characterized as a form of expression of the old revelation, through which man was formerly addressed. The old symbolism did not play a significant role in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. When reference was made to symbols, it was in the sense of “symbols of allegiance” to exemplify this or that or to demonstrate the “concordance” between “what is newly discovered, what can serve the new humanity, and what has been antiquated from ancient times.”

The style of this lecture, in which anthroposophical spiritual science is most emphatically described as a form of expression of the new revelation, was evidently influenced by the request of various friends to resume the esoteric work, especially the work of the cult of knowledge. The words seem to indicate this:

"There are a certain number of you who know that in our circles, too, those who seek have truly not been kept from the exposition of the symbolic and ritualistic traditions that have come down to us from ancient times, but always in a different spirit than is otherwise cultivated where symbols and ritual are valued in an antiquated sense. In order to maintain the continuity of human development, it is still necessary today to take up ritual and symbolism, so to speak. But in our circles, ritual and symbolism have never been presented as anything other than what is now supposed to lead to spiritual reality, to the direct integration of spiritual reality into contemporary values. Therefore, especially within anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, the explanation for many, actually for all ritual and symbolic aspects of the past. One can show how, on other paths, a wisdom that is antiquated today has been received by humanity, which has, so to speak, brought people into a state of bondage, but how today other paths of wisdom must be taken. ... It is extremely important to bear this in mind. To be able to be a human being in the innermost, deepest sense, connecting with what new revelations from the heavens want in terms of the evolution of the earth, that is what matters today.

Therefore, in the future it would no longer be acceptable to understand everyday life only as the poor, profane life and then to withdraw into the church or the mason temple, leaving these two worlds completely separate from each other.

Since then, Rudolf Steiner must have reflected on how esoteric work could be given a contemporary form, how the “old antiquated secret motif” could be replaced by something else (Dornach, December 20, 1918). Marie Steiner reports that at this time he often reflected on the nature that the new would have to take, that it would have to be “something binding, firm, overcoming lukewarmness and yet compatible with the freedom of each individual”: “He did not believe that one could still practice esotericism as in earlier times, in deepest seclusion, with strictly binding vows. These are no longer compatible with the sense of freedom of the individual. The soul must come before its own higher self and recognize what it owes to this self and to the spiritual world in reverent silence.“ ⁶

These considerations, which arose from the changed conditions of the time, the tragic loss of the Goetheanum building due to the fire on New Year's Eve 1922, the necessary but so difficult reorganization of the Society, led in the course of 1923 to the decision to found the Society anew at Christmas 1923, not only to constitute the Society as a completely public one, but also to give the esoteric school a form appropriate to the new consciousness of the times. It was anchored in the statutes of the Society as a “Free University for Spiritual Science”, which was to be built up in three classes and various scientific and artistic sections, and each member was granted the right to apply for admission after a certain period of belonging to the Society. In several essays Steiner characterized how he wanted this new esoteric school to be understood as a “Free University for Spiritual Science”. He stated that this university would not be like ordinary universities and would therefore not strive to compete with them or replace them. But what cannot be found at ordinary universities, the esoteric deepening that the soul seeks in its quest for knowledge, should be possible to obtain. The General Section should be there for those who want to seek the paths to the spiritual world in a general, human way; for those who seek an esoteric deepening in a specific scientific, artistic and so on direction, the other sections will endeavor to show the ways. In this way, every seeker will find at the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum what they need to strive for in their particular circumstances. The School should not be a purely scientific institution, but a completely human one that also fully meets the esoteric needs of scientists and artists. Steiner said that he would ensure that the School's work would always be known in the broadest sense. ⁷

Due to his immense overwork and his serious illness that began in the fall of 1924, only the first of the three classes could be established, along with a few scientific and artistic sections. We only have a hint of how the second and third classes would have been designed and that the cultic element should also figure in them. Much later, Marie Steiner once mentioned in a letter that he had told her that 'in Class II much of what he gave us in M.E. would flow pictorially into it and that in Class III this would have been transformed into moral power'. ⁸ And in her notes for an address at the celebration commemorating the anniversary of Rudolf Steiner's death on March 30, 1926, she wrote ⁹ :

"He left us before he was able to finish the work he had begun, before he was able to give us what he referred to as the second and third classes. In the second class, he wanted to give us the spiritual practice that would have corresponded to what the revelations that flowed forth in imaginations were of the supersensible school of Michael from... [end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century].” ¹⁰

Rudolf Steiner died a few months after making these suggestions. He had been exhausted for a long time and on March 30, 1925, he succumbed to the excessive efforts he had taken upon himself since Christmas 1923 as a result of his decision to to reshape society and the esoteric school in such a way that the abyss between the aristocratic nature of the spiritual and the ever-increasing demands of the new age for democracy, which he had spoken of in the esoteric hour of October 27, 1923 as a “heroic tragedy in the history of mankind,” could be bridged. Fate did not allow him to complete this large-scale work of the future. Nevertheless, it was “set up on earth as an example” in the sense of a word from his mystery dramas and “will continue to work spiritually in life, even if it does not persist in the sense being. A part of the power will be created in him that must ultimately lead to the marriage of spiritual goals and deeds of the senses.“¹¹

• 1. From one of the first two RE teachers, Herbert Hahn, handed down.
• 2. See “Conferences with the teachers of the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart from 1919 to 1924”, Volume I (Introduction), GA 300a-c
• 3. Desgl., Band II.
• 4. See “Geistige Wirkenskräfte im Zusammenleben von alter und junger Generation. Pedagogical Youth Course», GA 217.
• 5. The remaining notes handed down are planned for a later volume.
• 6. Marie Steiner in ‘Remembrance’ for the first edition of the lectures ”Esoteric Reflections on Karmic Connections. The karmic connections of the Anthroposophical Movement), Dornach 1926; reprinted in “Nachrichten der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlaßverwaltung” no. 23, Christmas 1968.
  6
• 7. See “The Constitution of the General Anthroposophical Society and the School of Spiritual Science - The Rebuilding of the Goetheanum”, CW 260a.
• 8. In a letter dated November 8, 1947, to Helga Geelmuyden in Norway.
• 9. In notebook archive number 133.
• 10. Cf. page 120f.
• 11. See ‘The Awakening of the Soul’ (Scene 1).

Handwritten note in notebook, archive number 98, no dates given, presumably for Kristiania (Oslo), December 1921.

Brothers of the past

Brothers of the present
As you are wiser than us, let
your wisdom flow into our
souls, that we may become members
of your divine thoughts.

Brothers of the future
If you carry the plan of the building in your
will, let your strength flow into our members,
so that
we may become the body of the great souls.

M.E.

2

Master of the Past:

Master of the present:
In willing devotion
Hear my soul's ear
Your creative word
So that not forever lost
Man from the world's goal
And Lucifer must perish.

Apprentice of the world and of life
We lose ourselves.

Comrade of men
Find the other.

Master of himself.

The wavering column of light
The firm column of darkness.

memorial report by Ingeborg Möller-Lindholm in a letter from Föllebü dated February 20, 1952

In 1923, Dr. Steiner gave an esoteric lecture, but not an M.D. (formerly F.M.). However, he did so in 1921, when he came back to Norway after seven years (the First World War and the first post-war years had separated him from us). At that time, he gathered all the former members of M.D., but without ritual and without the cultic clothing. At that hour, he formally dissolved the old M.D. – it would no longer be possible (for many reasons) to continue working according to the previous guidelines. The changed times demanded something different. But the old would not be dead – it would rise again in a metamorphosed form, even up here with us, he said. He probably meant the 2nd and 3rd class, which however never appeared on earth because death took him away before.

As far as I remember, the Temple Legend was not told in 1921. That only happened during the “introductions” to the first degree, not later.

I have no notes from the esoteric lesson (called E.S. and not to be confused with M.D.) in Oslo – we were not allowed to write.