Mithras

The Mithras or Mithra cult or worship is an ancient tradition that goes back to the Persian Mithraic Mysteries, and that was brought across from Asia into Europe, and was still widespread in Europe upto the Roman age whenleaders and warriors were filled with the Mithraic service. The Mithra cult was only exterminated around the sixth century AD.

The cultic image is Man who is victorious over the bull: a bull is ridden by a Man thrusting a sword into the bull's neck, whereas below a scorpion or serpent is biting the bull. The picture is surrounded by the firmament and the signs of the zodiac.

Mithras is a symbol for the sun force in Man, rebelling against the planetary and terrestrial aspects.

Mithras ministry is based on the fact that the old, primitive clairvoyance was still present in a large number of people. A process through which a soul became a door for the entrance of the Godhead into human evolution on Earth.

Aspects

• symbolic picture of the cult is explained in 1923-09-30-GA223
• the essence, meaning and feeling, as a symbol, and link with Christianity (1911-10-04-GA131, 1921-04-15-GA204)
  • Mithras was the sun force in Man. Mithras was the human being who rebelled against the merely planetary and terrestrial aspects.
• places: Mithras rites and observations were made and held in caves as they needed the stillness and quiet of a cave in the rocks. They did not need the outer light of the sun but the spiritual influences of the sun and the stars go into those places as well. (1924-09-10-GA350)
• timing
  • Mithraic rites were common in the region of the Danube, Bavaria and this part of Switzerland. It continued for a long time even when Christianity was coming to these regions. The last remnants were still to be found when Christianity had come to those regions, especially the Danube region (1924-09-10-GA350)
  • in or around the sixth century, in regard to the cultic aspect, the Mithras worship was exterminated (1921-04-15-GA204)

• location - geographically:
  • the Mithraic were diffused from Persia as far as the Caspian Sea, along the Danube into Germany, and even to the South of France, to Spain and to England. Europe was permeated by the Mithraic Mysteries (1911-10-04-GA131)
  • another stream of revelation ran parallel to the stream of Christian life from east to west, more in the north, across the Black Sea, along the Danube up to the Rhine, right into Western Europe (1914-12-26-GA156)
  • finding their way from Asia into Europe .. extending from East to West .. through the countries of the Danube as far as the regions of the Rhine and on into France (1921-04-15-GA204)

Lecture coverage and references

1911-10-04-GA131

Thus the Greek Mysteries, as also those of Isis and Osiris in the Egyptian Mysteries, worked outwards from the inmost nature of man and sought to lead him into the spiritual worlds. It was a living apprehension of the “God in Man.” A real acquaintance was formed between man and God, and immortality ranked not as mere abstract theory and philosophy but as something known, something as firmly grounded as the knowledge of external colours, and this was experienced as an intimate connection with external things.

With no less certainty was this experienced also in the Persian or Mithraic Mysteries. Whereas Man was led in the Greek and Egyptian Mysteries through the unfettering of his soul-powers, he was confronted at once with the Universe itself in the Mithraic Mysteries; not only did the Universe work upon him through the great and mighty Nature which is overlooked by those who regard the world in its external aspect, but by gaining a deep intimacy with Nature, he could gaze upon phenomena that lay outside the limits of the human understanding. By the methods then used the most terrible and magnificent powers were brought before the pupil from Universal Space. Whereas the Greek disciple was affected by a deep feeling of reverence, to the Mithraic disciple alone was given the knowledge of the terrible and awe-inspiring powers in Nature so that he felt himself infinitesimally small in comparison. So powerful was this impression, consequent upon his alienation from the primal source of being, that he felt that in its vastness the Universe could at any moment overwhelm and annihilate him. The first impulse came from his being led through a comprehensive astronomy and science away from external things to the greatness of the phenomena of the Universe, and what he further developed in the Mysteries was then more a consequence of the Truth in all its ramifications when Nature in her details (science in the old sense of the word) worked upon his soul. The Greek disciple became fearless through the setting free of his powers. The Mithraic disciple was brought so far that he drank in the greatness of Cosmic Thought, and thereby his soul also became strong and courageous. A knowledge of the dignity and value of a human being was gained, and with it a feeling for truth and fidelity; the disciple learned to recognize that man must always hold himself under control during his earthly existence.

Such were the benefits obtained especially through the Mithraic Mysteries, and whereas the Greek and Egyptian Mysteries are to be found spread over Greece and Egypt, the Mithraic are diffused from Persia as far as the Caspian Sea, along the Danube into Germany, and even to the South of France, to Spain and to England. Europe was indeed permeated by the Mithraic Mysteries, and everywhere it was seen clearly that something streamed into man from the Universe if only he could learn to understand it, and this that could be received was Mithra, the God that streams through the world in all worlds.

It was through this power of action that courage was aroused: the warriors, the Roman legionaries, were filled with the Mithraic service or cult of Mithra. Both leaders and men were initiated into the Mysteries. Thus was God sought on the one hand by the freeing of the individual soul-powers, and it was quite evident that through this process something streamed out from the depths of the soul. On the other hand, however, it was equally evident that when man sought God by devoting himself to the great cosmic phenomena, something streamed into his soul as the essence, the finest life-sap contained in the world. There were found the primordial forces of the Universe. God came as it were into human souls through this development which was attained in the Mystery schools. A veritable process is to be seen here: each soul became a door for the entrance of the Godhead into human evolution on Earth. Few were able to undergo such a development, and a special preparation for it was necessary. The teaching consisted in showing that what was hidden in external nature (Mithra) as also in the inner man of the Greek, poured through the world as a stream of divine consecration.

...

[Christianity]

He who had the profoundest knowledge of this fact of Christianity was Paul. The Apostle recognized that as men looked to Adam as their physical progenitor they could, through the Christ Impulse, look to the Christ as the Great Example, and so attain to what was striven for in the Mysteries and must be born again if they were to know their own original nature. The knowledge that was kept within the recesses of the Temples, and could only be attained after ascetic training, was set forth neither in mundane document nor as some external fact but as having been accomplished as a mystical fact, the God Who pervaded the world having actually appeared in one single Form. What the disciples of the Mithraic Mysteries acquired through looking upon the Greatest Model had now been attained through Christ. The courage, self control and energy acquired by those disciples had also to be acquired by those who could no longer be initiated in the old Mithraic sense; through the Model of the historical Christ and the gazing upon Him the impulse towards this fortitude was now to pour itself out upon the soul. In the Mithraic Mysteries, as has been shown, the whole Universe was in a certain sense born in the soul of the disciple, and the courageous soul was fired with all the inner forces of initiative. In the Baptism of John something was poured down from above of which human nature could be the vehicle; when a man was permeated with the thought that his nature was capable of assimilating the profoundest harmony of the Universe, the view of the Baptism aroused within him the understanding that Mithra could be born in human nature. Those, therefore, who grasped the original meaning of Christianity, acknowledged that the end of the Mysteries had come: the God Who formerly had poured Himself into the Mysteries had now flowed directly into the being of the Earth through the Personality Who stood at the beginning of a new era (our present one).

The connection with the Greek or Dionysian Mysteries has now to be considered. Through the fact that the human gaze was guided to Jesus of Nazareth in Whom Mithra lived and Who then passed through death, an indication was given that Mithra (the bestower of courage, self control and energy) had Himself died with the death of Jesus. It was further seen that because Mithra had so vanished that which man found in his deepest nature, and had attained earlier through the Dionysian Mysteries, had now become in Jesus of Nazareth the immortal conqueror over death. Herein lies the true Christian meaning of the Resurrection if it is grasped in its spiritually scientific sense. The Baptism by John in [the] Jordan demonstrated that the old Mithra had entered into man, that thereby human nature had won the victory over death, and that by the example so created the soul could unite itself in the deepest love in order to come to that which lived in its own depths. In the Risen Christ was seen the fact that man, by living according to the event that had taken place in history, could rise above the level of ordinary humanity.

1914-12-26-GA156

DE version

(poor) internet translation:

In the course of the last year we have often spoken about how we actually have to celebrate not just one Jesus child, but two Jesus children on our spiritual-scientific basis, and it can be said that the fact that the spiritual-scientific consideration of this revealed the mystery of the two Jesus boys, a weak beginning has been made for a new understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha.

This Mystery of Golgotha ​​was only able to take hold of people's hearts slowly and gradually. Our souls can see how it entered the human spirit when we consider, for example, that what Christians today have struggled to achieve in the vision of the Christmas child had to make its way from East to West going through other conceptions of a divine mediator between the highest divine-spiritual beings and the human soul.

We have also often noticed that another stream of revelation ran parallel to the stream of Christian life from east to west, more in the north, across the Black Sea, along the Danube up to the Rhine, right into Western Europe. That ministry which we know as the Mithraic ministry disappeared after the first centuries of the Christian era. But by the first centuries of the Christian era it had gripped as many hearts in Europe as Christianity itself, had made a deep imprint and spread throughout the regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Mithras appeared to those who professed him to be just as lofty and great as the divine mediator who descended from spiritual heights entered earthly existence as Christ appeared to Christians. Likewise we hear how the entry of Mithras into earthly existence was celebrated in the winter Christmas Eve of the shortest day; likewise we hear that he was born hidden in a cave, that shepherds first heard his song of praise. Like other Christian holidays, Sunday was dedicated to him.

What is characteristic of the descent of this Mithraic figure?

Just as Christ was presented in Jesus, so Mithras was not presented. If you made an image, a pictorial idea of ​​him, you knew that you were only having a symbolic idea. The real Mithras could only be seen by those who had clairvoyant vision. It is true that he was presented as a mediator between men and the spiritual hierarchies; but he was not presented as having incarnated in a human being. He was conceived as descending to earth in his true essence only to be seen by the initiates, only by those who had psychic vision. That the divine-spiritual being who is to be represented as a mediator between the spiritual hierarchies and the human soul is embodied in an earthly body as a child was not yet present in the Mithras ministry. For what Mithras ministry is based on the fact that the old, primitive clairvoyance was still present in a large number of people. If we examine the path of the Mithraic service from east to west, we find among the people who became Mithraic servants a large number of those who could see in those intermediate states between waking and sleeping, where the soul is not in dreams but in spiritual Reality lives, the descent of Mithras from eon to eon, from stage to stage, from the spiritual world down to earth. And the others were carried away by these seers. Many were able to testify that such a mediator has arisen for men, a mediator in the spiritual worlds. What one had as a Mithraic cult was just an external, more or less pictorial representation of what the seers saw.

What is it actually what confronts us in this Mithraic mistery?

We must not believe - this is evident from our whole world view - that anything about Christ has only been known since the Mystery of Golgotha. In the pre-Christian times, the initiates and their disciples knew him well as the spirit that was to come. The initiates have repeatedly referred to the one whom they saw descending from the heights as a sun spirit, who was approaching the earth to set up his dwelling in the earth. They designated him as the one who was to come, the one who was to come. They knew him in spirit and saw him descending. Then came the Mystery of Golgotha. We know what it means. We know that through this Mystery of Golgotha ​​the spirit through which the earth got its meaning moved into a human body. We know how this spirit has been connected to the earth ever since, and we also know how humanity is to develop so that in the not so distant future we will again be able to see Christ in the spirit who, through the Mystery of Golgotha, lived his own life united with the life of mankind on earth.

1921-04-15-GA204

Now we can also turn our attention to what has remained of those ancient times in cultic practices and religious ceremonies. The religious ceremonies were mainly made available to the masses; what I have just been describing was predominantly considered to be a treasure of wisdom belonging to centers of learning. Those cultic practices that found their way from Asia into Europe and that, insofar as they are religious endeavors, correspond to the view I have just explained, are known as Mithras worship.

It is a worship we find even as late as the first Christian centuries extending from East to West; we can follow its path through the countries of the Danube as far as the regions of the Rhine and on into France.

This Mithras worship, familiar to you as far as its outer forms are concerned, may be briefly characterized by saying that along with the earthly and cosmic context the conqueror of the Mithras-Bull was depicted imaginatively and pictorially in the human being, riding on the bull and vanquishing the bull-forces.

Nowadays, we are easily inclined to think that such images — all cultic pictures, religious symbolizations which, if we may say so, have emerged organically out of the ancient wisdom teachings — are simply the abstract, symbolic product of those teachings. But it would be absolutely false if we were to believe that the ancient sages sat down and said, Now we must figure out a symbol. For ourselves we have the teaching of wisdom; for the ignorant masses we have to think up symbols that can then be employed in their ceremonial rites, and so on. Such assumptions would be totally wrong. An assumption approximately like that is entertained by modern Freemasons; they have similar thoughts about the nature of their own symbolism. But this was certainly not the view of the ancient teachers of wisdom.

I should now like to describe the view of these sages of old by referring in particular to the connections of the Mithra worship to the world view I have just outlined above. A fundamentally important question could still be raised by those who had retained a vivid view of how the human being is received into the planetary world with his etheric body, of how man is subsequently received into the sphere of earthly elements into warmth or fire, air, water, and earth, of how through the effects of these elements on the human etheric being black gall, white gall, phlegm, and blood are formed. They asked themselves a question that can occur now to a person who truly possesses Imaginative perception. In those times, the answer to this question was based on instinctive Imaginative perception, but we can repeat it today in full consciousness. If we develop an Imaginative conception of this entrance of the human being from the spiritual world through the planetary sphere into the terrestrial sphere of fire, air, water, and earth, we arrive at the realization that if something enters from the spheres beyond into the planetary sphere, hence into the earth's sphere, and is received there, this will not become a true human being. If we develop a picture of what is actually evolving there, if we have an Imaginative view of what can be beheld in purely Imaginative perception outside the planetary sphere, then enters into and is received by the planetary sphere and is subsequently taken hold of by the influences emanating from the earth sphere, we see that this does not become a human being. We do not arrive at a view of man; instead we attain to a conception that can be most clearly represented if we picture not a human being but a bull, an ox.

The ancient teachers of wisdom knew that no human beings would exist on earth if there were nothing besides this extraplanetary being that descends into the planetary sphere of evolution. They saw that at first glance one does arrive at the conception of the gradual approach of an entity out of extraplanetary spheres into the planetary and hence the earth sphere. But if one then proceeds from the content of these conceptions and tries to form a vivid Imaginative view, it does not turn into a human being; it becomes a mere bull. And if one comprehends nothing more in the human being but this, one merely comprehends what is bull-like in human beings. The ancient teachers of wisdom formed this conception. Now they said to themselves, In that case, human beings must struggle against this bull-like nature with something still higher. They must overcome the view given by this wisdom. As human beings, they are more than beings that merely come from the extra-planetary sphere, enter into the planetary sphere, and from there are taken hold of by the terrestrial elements. They have something within them that is more than this.

It is possible to say that these teachers of wisdom came as far as this concept. This was the reason they then developed the image of the bull and placed Mithras on top of it, the human being who struggles to overcome the bull, and who says of himself, I must be of far loftier origin than the being that was pictured according to the ancient teaching of wisdom.

Now these sages realized that their ancient teaching of wisdom contained an indication of what is important here.

[essence]

For this teaching did look upon the planetary sphere, upon Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus, moon, and so on. It also said that as the human being approaches the Earth, he is constantly lifted up by the sun so as not to be submerged completely in the terrestrial elements, so as not to remain merely what proceeds from the etheric body and the mixture of black and white gall, phlegm, and blood when it is received by the planetary sphere and when the astral body is received by the other planetary sphere through Mercury, Venus, moon. What lifts man upward dwells in the sun. Therefore, these sages said, Let us call Man's attention to the sun forces dwelling in him; then he will turn into Mithras who is victorious over the bull!

This then was the cultic image. It was not meant to be merely a thought-out symbol but was actually to represent the cosmological fact.

The religious ceremony was more than a mere outer sign; it was something that was extracted, as it were, out of the essence of the cosmos itself.

This cultic form was something that had existed since very ancient times and had been brought across from Asia to Europe. It was, in a sense, Christianity viewed from one side, viewed from the external, astronomical side, for Mithras was the sun force in man. Mithras was the human being who rebelled against the merely planetary and terrestrial aspects.

[Connecting Mithras with Christianity]

Now, a certain endeavor arose, traces of which can be observed everywhere when we look back at the first Christian centuries. The tendency arose to connect the historical fact, the Mystery of Golgotha, with the Mithras worship. Great were the numbers of people at that time, especially among the Roman Legions, who brought with them into the lands on the Danube and far into central Europe, indeed even into western Europe, what they had experienced in Asia and the Orient in general. In what they brought across as the Mithras worship there lived feelings that, without reflecting the Mystery of Golgotha, definitely contained Christian views and Christian sentiments. The worship of Mithras was considered as a concrete worship relating to the sun forces in Man. The only thing this Mithras worship did not perceive was the fact that in the Mystery of Golgotha this sun force itself had descended as a spiritual entity and had united itself with the human being Jesus of Nazareth.

Now there existed schools of wisdom in the East up until the fourth century A.D. that by and by received reports and became aware of the Mystery of Golgotha, of Christ. The further East we go in our investigations, the clearer this becomes. These schools then attempted to spread a certain teaching throughout the world, and for a time there was a tendency to let flow into the Mithras cult what agrees with the following supersensory perception: The true Mithras is the Christ; Mithras is his predecessor. The Christ force must be poured into those forces in Man that vanquish the bull.

To turn the Mithras worship into a worship of Christ was something that was intensely alive in the first Christian centuries up until the fourth century. One might say that the stream intending to Christianize this Mithras worship followed after the spreading of the latter. A synthesis between Christendom and the Mithras worship was striven for. An ancient, significant image of man's being — Mithras riding on and vanquishing the bull — was to be brought into relationship with the Christ Being. One might say that a quite glorious endeavor existed in this direction, and in a certain respect it was a powerful one.

Anyone who follows the spread of Eastern Christianity and the spread of Arianism can see a Mithras element in it, even though in already quite weakened form. Any translation of the Ulfilas-Bible into modern languages remains imperfect if one is unaware that Mithras elements still play into the terminology of Ulfilas (or Wulfila). But who pays heed nowadays to these deeper relationships in the linguistic element? As late as in the fourth century, there were philosophers in Greece who worked on bringing the ancient etheric astronomy into harmony with Christianity. From this effort then arose the true Gnosis, which was thoroughly eradicated by later Christianity, so that only a few fragments of the literary samples of this Gnosis have remained.

...

Then, in the sixth century, the attempt was made to obliterate the traces even of the more ancient teachings by Dionysius the Areopagite. They were altered in such a way that they now represented merely an abstract teaching of the spirit. In the form in which the teaching of Dionysius the Areopagite has come down to us, it is a spiritual teaching that no longer has much to do with etheric astronomy. This is the reason he is then called the “Pseudo-Dionysius.” In this manner, the decline of the teaching of wisdom was brought about. On the one hand, the teachings of Dionysius were distorted; on the other hand, the truly alive teaching in Athens that had tried to unite etheric astronomy with Christianity was eradicated. Finally, in regard to the cultic aspect, the Mithras worship was exterminated.

1921-04-16-GA204

continuation and closure of the day before

Yesterday I referred to the significant turning point in the development of occidental civilization in the fourth century A.D. I pointed out that,

• on the one hand, this was the time when Greek wisdom disappeared from European culture, wisdom through which people had tried to bring to expression the depths of Christianity in a wisdom-imbued way. The time of the outer expression of this disappearance falls somewhat later, namely, when Emperor Justinian declared the writings of Origen heretical, abolished Roman consulship, and closed the Greek Academy of Philosophy at Athens. The guardians of Greek wisdom thus had to flee to the Orient, withdrawing, as it were, from European civilization. The wisdom teaching that had extended from the East as far west as Greece and had assumed its special form there, is one aspect of the picture.
• On the other hand, the Mithras worship was supposed to indicate in a significant external ritual how, with their soul-spiritual nature, human beings were to raise themselves above all that could be comprehended through the interplay of beings of the planetary sphere with terrestrial forces, how the human being could sense his full humanity. This was the object of the Mithras cult. This Mithras worship, which was intended to reveal to Man his own being, likewise disappeared after it had spread through the regions along the Danube and on into central and western Europe.

These two streams, one a cultic stream, the other a stream of wisdom, were replaced in Europe by factual narrations of the events of Palestine. Thus, one has to say that neither a cultic worship, which would have recognized in Christ Jesus the victor over all the human being, was meant to bring under his control in the course of world evolution, nor a wisdom that would have tried to grasp the actual mysteries of Christendom in a wise manner were able to enter Europe. Instead, the superficial narration of the events of Palestine became popular. The concepts that should have been found in these happenings in Palestine were instead steeped in the flood of juristic thinking, which replaced the investigation of cosmic secrets with the determination of dogmas by means of majority resolutions in Church Councils, and so forth.

This very fact indicates that a change of great and far-reaching significance had taken place in the fourth century A.D. in the development of Western civilization, and consequently in the evolution of the whole of mankind. Proceeding from the Orient, all the influences that had laid hold of eastern European civilization were in a sense pushed back again towards the Orient. Only the increasing tendency towards abstract thinking in the Roman world maintained itself in the occident alongside the comprehension of the external, sensory world of facts.

1923-09-30-GA223

.. all through Central Europe, in parts of Germany, in the Rhineland, even in western France, relics and reminders of the ancient Mithras Cult are to be found.

The outer symbol of the Mithras Cult is always a bull ridden by a man thrusting a sword into the bull's neck; below, a scorpion biting the bull, or, a serpent; but whenever the representation is complete you will see this picture of bull and man surrounded by the firmament, and particularly the signs of the zodiac.

What does this picture express?

The answer will never be found by an external, antiquated science of history, because the latter has no means of establishing the interrelationships that can provide clues to the meaning of this man on the bull. In order to arrive at the solution one must know the nature of the training undergone by those who served the Mithras Cult. The whole ceremony could, of course, be run off in such a way as to be beautiful — or ugly, if you like — without anything intelligent transpiring. Only one who had passed through a certain training could make sense of it. That is why all the descriptions of the Mithras Mysteries are really twaddle, although the pictures give promise of yielding so much.

[the heart as a sense organ]

The service of the Mithras Cult demanded in the neophyte a very fine and sensitive development of the capacity for receptive sentience. Everything depended upon the development of this faculty in him.

I said yesterday in the public lecture that the human heart is really a subconscious sense organ: subconsciously the head perceives through the heart what goes on in the physical functions of the lower body and the chest. Just as we perceive outer events in the sense-world through the eye, so the human heart is in reality a sense organ in its relation to the functions mentioned. Subconsciously by means of the heart, the head, and particularly the cerebellum, perceives the blood being nourished by the transformed foodstuffs, perceives the functioning of the kidneys, the liver, and other processes of the organism. The heart is the sense organ for perceiving all this in the upper portion of the human being.

Now, to raise this heart as a sense organ to a certain degree of consciousness was the object in the schooling of those who were to be engaged in the Mithras cult. They had to develop a sensitive, conscious feeling for the processes in the liver, kidneys, spleen, etc., in the human organism. The upper man, the headman, had to sense very delicately what went on in the chest-man and the limb-man.

In older epochs that sort of schooling was not the mental training to which we are accustomed today, but a schooling of the whole human being, appealing in the main to the capacity for feeling. And just as we say, on the basis of outer optical perception, There are rain clouds or, the sky is blue, so the sufficiently matured disciple could say, Now the metabolism in my organism is of this nature, now it is of that. Actually, the processes within the human organism seem the same the year round only to the abstractionist. When science will once more have advanced to real truths concerning these things, men will be amazed to learn how they can establish, by means very different from the crude methods of our modern precision instruments, how the condition of our blood varies and the digestion functions differently in January from September, and in what way the heart as a sense organ is a marvelous barometer for the course of the seasons within the human limb-metabolic organism. The Mithras disciple was taught to perceive the course of the seasons within himself by means of his heart organization, his heart-science, which transmitted to him the passage of food transformed by digestion and taken into the blood. And what was there perceived really showed in man — in the motion of the inner Man — the whole course of outer nature.

What does our abstract science amount to, no matter how accurately we describe plants and plant cells, animals and animal tissues, compared with what once was present instinctively by reason of man's ability to make his entire being into an organ of perception, to develop his capacity for feeling into an organ capable of gleaning knowledge!

• Man bears within him the animal nature, and truly he does so more intensively than is usually imagined; and what the ancient Mithras followers perceived by means of their heart-science could not be represented otherwise than by the bull.
• The forces working through the metabolic-limb man, and tamed only by the upper man, are indicated by all that figures as the scorpion and the serpent winding around the bull.
• And the human being proper, in all his frailty, is mounted above in his primitive might, thrusting the sword of Michael into the neck of the bull.

But what it was that must thus be conquered, and how it manifests itself in the course of the seasons, was known only to those who had been schooled in these matters.

Here the symbol begins to take on significance. By means of ordinary human knowledge no amount of observation or picturesque presentation will make anything of it. It can only be understood if one knows something about the heart-science of the old Mithras pupils; for what they really studied when they looked at themselves through their heart was the spirit of the sun's annual passage through the zodiac. In this way the human being experienced himself as a higher being, riding on his lower nature; and therefore it was fitting that the cosmos should be arranged in a circle around him; in this manner cosmic spirituality was experienced.

The more a renascent spiritual science makes it possible for us to examine what was brought to light by an ancient semi-conscious, dreamlike clairvoyance — but clairvoyance, nevertheless — the greater becomes our respect for it. A spirit of reverence for the ancient cultures pervades us when we see deeper into them and rediscover, for example, that the purpose of the Mithras cult was to enable the priest, by penetrating the secrets of the seasons' cycle, to tell the members of his community what should be done on each day of the year. The Mithras cult served to elicit from the heavens the knowledge of what should take place on Earth. How infinitely greater is the enthusiasm, the incentive, for what must be done on earth if a man feels himself to be active in such a way that into his activity there flow the impulses deciphered from the great cosmic script he had read in the universe; that he made such knowledge his starting point and employed the resulting impulses in the ordinary affairs of daily life! However little this may accord with our modern concepts — naturally it does not — it was good and right according to the old ones. But in making this reservation we must clearly understand what it means to read in the universe what should be done in the lives of men on earth, thereby knowing ourself to be one with the divine in us — as over against debating the needs of the social life in the vein of Adam Smith or Karl Marx. Only one who can visualize this contrast is able to see clearly into the nature of the new impulses demanded by the social life of our time.

...

We have often heard that in olden times men had not only that instinctive wisdom of which I have spoken: they had beings as teachers who never descended into physical bodies — higher beings who occupied etheric bodies only, and whose instruction was imparted to men not by speaking, as we speak today, but by transmitting the wisdom in an inner way, as though inoculating the etheric body with it. People knew of the existence of these higher beings, just as we know that some physical teacher is present; but they also knew that these beings surrounded them in a strictly spiritual state. Everything connected with that “primordial wisdom,” recognized even by the Catholic Church — the primordial wisdom that once was available, and of which even the Vedas and the sublime Vedanta philosophy are but faint reverberations — all this can be traced back to the teaching of these higher spiritual beings. That wisdom, which was never written down, was not thought out by man: it grew in him. We must not think of the influence exerted by those primordial teachers as any sort of demonstrating instruction. Just as today, we learn to speak when we are children by imitating the older people, without any particular instruction — as indeed we develop a great deal as though through inner growth — so the primordial teachers exerted a mysterious influence on people of that ancient time, without any abstract instruction; with the result that at a certain age a man simply knew himself to be knowledgeable. Just as today a child gets his second teeth or reaches puberty at a certain age, so men of old became enlightened in the same way. Doubtless many a modern college student would be delighted if this sort of thing still happened — if the light of wisdom simply flared up in him without his having to exert himself particularly!

What a very different wisdom that was from anything we have today! It was an organic force in man, related to growth, and other forces. It was simply wisdom of an entirely different nature, and what took place in connection with it I can best explain by a comparison. Suppose I pour some sort of liquid into a glass and then add salt. When the salt is dissolved it leaves the liquid cloudy. Then I add an ingredient that will precipitate the salt, leaving the liquid purer, clearer, while the sediment is denser. Very well: if I want to describe what permeated men during the period of primordial wisdom, I must say it is a mixture of what is spiritually wholly pure and of a physical animalistic element. What nowadays we think, we imagine our abstract thoughts simply as functioning and holding sway without having any being in us: or again, breathing and the circulation seem like something by themselves, apart. But for primeval man in earlier earth epochs, that was all one: it was simply a case of his having to breathe and of his blood circulating in him; and it was in his circulation that he willed.

Then came the time when human thinking moved higher up toward the head and became purer, like the liquid in the glass, while the sediment, as we may call it, formed below. This occurred when the primordial teachers withdrew more and more from the earth, when this primal wisdom was no longer imparted in the old way. And whither did these primordial teachers withdraw?

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Now to another rite, remnants of which you still find above all in Central Europe where you find sacred sites and specific images. The images show a bull, with a kind of rider on the bull wearing a Phrygian cap, a kind of revol­utionary cap. This was later adopted from those origins. And down below in the same picture you'd see a kind of scorpion which is biting into the bull's genitals. Then one also sees the individual who is sitting on top thrusting a sword into the front part of the bull's body. And if it is like this [drawing on the board], with this rider up there, the scorpion here, there the thrusting sword, you see from it how the starry heavens are configured up above. Up there are the starry heavens. These rites were known as Mithraic rites. So the first ones were Druid rites, and what I am describing now are the Mithraic rites, as they were called. The Druid rites were on the west coast — one does also find them in other areas, but I have just been telling you of an area where I have been able to see this for myself. These other rites, the Mithraic rites, once spread from Asia across and along the whole of the Danube, through southern Russia as we know it today, Bulgaria, Hungary, Bavaria, the Odenwald, Black Forest areas, and so on. And this meant something quite specific. For you see, why did they have a bull just there? This is the first question we have to ask ourselves.

I have told you that the sun rises in a particular con­stellation in the zodiac in spring, today essentially in the Fishes. The astronomers still give the Ram. This is wrong, however, for in reality it is the Fishes. For a long time, a period of 2.000 years, the sun would rise in the constellation of the Ram, and before that in the Bull. And people would then say to themselves: 'In the spring, when things begin to grow, the sun always rises in the Bull.' and they quite rightly connected the principle that above all has to do with growth in the human body—not in the head, but in the rest of the body — with the fact that the sun's rays change, and that behind this is the constellation of the Bull. And so they would say: `If we want to refer to the animal human being, we have to draw a bull, with the actual human being, who is governed by his head, sitting on the bull.' The bull thus represents the lower, animal human being, and the one who is sitting up there, wearing his Phrygian cap, represents the higher human being. The whole is however really just one human being — lower human being and higher human being.

And the people would say to themselves: 'Oh, it is bad when the lower human being rules, when the human being gives himself up completely to his animal drives, only obeying his passions which come from the belly, from his sexuality and so on. The higher human being must govern the lower one.' And they would put it like this: 'This one, who rides on top, has the sword and thrusts it into the flanks of the lower human being. This means that the lower human being has to grow small compared to the higher human being. And then there is also the scorpion, biting into the genitals to show that if the lower human being is not made small by the higher one, lower human nature also harms itself, for the powers of outer nature come upon him and destroy him.' The image therefore showed the whole of this human destiny between the lower and the higher human being.

Above were the starry heavens. It is highly significant that the starry heavens spread above. The sun rises in a particular point in the spring, in those days in the constellation of the Bull. But it moves on a little bit day by day. This movement happens in two ways. In the first place the spring point moves on. The following spring the sun will rise a little bit further along from the point where it rose the previous spring, so that 3.000 years ago it would have risen in the Ram, and even earlier than that in the Bull. Today it rises in the Fishes in spring. And so it gradually goes all the way round. In the course of 25.920 years the sun goes right round. But it also goes around within each year, so that it will not rise in the spring point the next day—it only rises there on 21 March—the next day it will have moved on a little, and so on. It also moves through all the constellations of the zodiac in the course of a year.

Now the people who served in the Mithraic rites had to observe when the lower human being, the animal human being, was more difficult to control—when the sun was in the Bull, that is, encouraging mainly the powers of growth. Yet when the sun was in the Virgin, let us say, which would be in October — at that time more towards December, actually — the lower human being would not be so powerful, and less control would be needed. The people in general had no feeling for these things, but those who observed the Mithraic rites had to know them. And so the people who served in the Mithraic rites were able to say: 'It is more difficult to control the lower human being now that it is spring; and now again it is easier, for it is a particular time in winter.' And so the human being himself was used in those rites to get to know the seasons of the year, and of course the whole way the sun and moon would move through the zodiac. With the Druids, it was more the outer signs that were used, the shadows; here, in the Mithraic rites, it was more the effect on the human being which was used. And so the Mithraic service was also very much related to life.

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All kinds of different rites thus existed. We have to understand of course that to observe the kind of thing the Druids once observed one needs to have quite specific regions on earth. You can still see this today. Living over there in Wales — the course of lectures took a fortnight — one always had rapid changes in the weather from small cloudbursts, I'd say, to sunshine and back again. It changes by the hour, so that the air there is quite different from the way it is here; it is always more full of water. If you have air like it is over there, where the Druids were, you can make such observations. You could not have made such obser­vations in the regions where the Mithraic rite was more widespread, for there the climate would be different, and you had to take your observations more from the inner human being. People were more sensitive to such things then. And the rites therefore differed according to the region.

The Mithraic rites were common in the region of the Danube, in Bavaria and also in this part of Switzerland, though less so, even in earlier times, I think. It continued for a long time even when Christianity was coming to these regions. The last remnants were still to be found when Christianity had come to those regions, especially the Danube region. You still find these images in caves there, in the rocks. For those observations and rites were made and held in caves. They did not need the outer light of the sun but the stillness and quiet of a cave in the rocks. The spiritual influences of the sun and the stars go into those places as well.

Related pages

• Mystery School tradition
• Ancient history of myths and legends
• Persian cultural age

References and further reading

• Franz Cumont (1868-1947)
  • 'The mysteries of Mithra' (1956 in EN after first English translation in 1903, original 'Les mystères de Mithra' (1900 in FR, 2nd edition 1901), in DE as 'Die Mysterien des Mithra' (1900))
  • the study that made his international reputation, by its originality and massive documentation.
• Albrecht Dieterich: Eine Mithrasliturgie (1902)
• Der Mithrakult: seine Anfänge, Entwicklungsgeschichte und seine Denkmäler (1911)
• Alfred Schütze: Mithras-Mysterien und Urchristentum (1937, 1960)
• M.J. Vermaseren: 'Mithras, de geheimzinnige god' (1959)

Various

• mithra-project.eu