Mystery School tradition

This covers the tradition in the ancient Mysteries and Mystery Schools from the Atlantean epoch through the various cultural ages of the current epoch, with a distinction of Initiation before and after the Mystery of Golgotha, as also covered in the Mysteries of the Spirit, the Son and the Father and related to the Michaelic Stream.

The goal of the Mystery Schools was to establish, maintain and develop the link between humanity and the spiritual guidance of mankind, to assure Mankind is aware of the origin and future goal of evolution (see also Occult Atom). This requires a connection with the spiritual reality, hence the focus on initiation as the various and evolving ways for Man to connect and reach into this spiritual reality and communicate with spiritual beings.

The initiatory processes, rituals and traditions have always been tuned to the specific maturity of Man's bodily principles in each time period, and hence related to the culture of the age and it's natural state of consciousness - influencing the state of soul of 'how Man stood in the world'. For more context see also the Development of the I and the Current Postatlantean epoch. This means that Mystery school tradition is a broad subject that evolved tremendously over the millenia along with humanity, from times long before the current written languages.

After the Atlantean oracles as mystery schools, in the first to fourth cultural ages of the current Postatlantean epoch one could distinguish a Northern and Southern stream - see Two streams of development, with

• Northern Mysteries - see Scandinavian and Germanic mythology, Druidic and Trotten mysteries, Hibernian mysteries, etc - 'nature mysteries', intimately bound up with nature, the Earth's growth forces and the stars, how the whole evolution of the universe was connected with (what came from) the Earth.
• Southern Mysteries or 'temple mysteries', based on the soul-experience and representation in symbols of the spiritual divine. For example gnostic wisdom, inspired by the cosmos, was connected with the world of the spirit and what took place in the far reaches of the universe.

.

After the Mystery of Golgotha and the merging of streams, the situation changed due to the new state of the consciousness soul and its fructification by the Christ Impulse (see Schema FMC00.438 and Schema FMC00.468) and a new initiation approach with rosecrucianism at the start of the current fifth cultural age in the 15th century. A further step took place with the end of the dark age Kali yuga around the year 1900: in the 20th century the teachings of spiritual science and self-initiation were made public.

Aspects

• Mystery Schools
  • were like the 'schooling for humanity' by the White Lodge, based on the spiritual maturity of selected groups - hence also lesser and greater mysteries
  • combined art, religion, and science
  • for sources of the most ancient 'information' or 'knowledge', see the Book of Ten Pages and the Book of Dzyan
• The Michaelic stream connecting the thread of Mystery School teachings across the ages
• Midsummer and midwinter mysteries and the course of the year in ancient times (1922-12-23-GA219 and 1922-12-24-GA219)
• Master lodges of the Mysteries include:
  • Turanian mysteries: School of Turanian Adepts (1907-02-18-GA096)
  • Externsteine near Teutoburg Forest in Germany - see Druidic and Trotten mysteries#3.2 - Externsteine (Germany)
  • Druidic and Trotten mysteries:
    • mother lodge in Scandinavia 'Druid' or ‘Drottes’ Lodge (1904-09-30-GA093), Jutland Mystery center in Denmark (see 1916-12-GA173 lectures on Nerthus)
    • an important initiatiate School of Trotten Mysteries in the North of present-day Russia (1906-07-29-GA097)
  • important Lodge by the Black Sea, see also Colchis Mysteries (1912-05-29-GA155, 1923-09-10-GA228)
  • Mystery School in current Burgenland
    • .. where around 2500 BC, Gilgamesh was brought to the great Atlantean being, Xisuthros, who belonged to higher hierarchies and who during the Atlantean time lived in the sphere of humanity but was afterwards transported from the world of men to dwell in higher regions (see lecture extracts covering Gilgamesh and Eabani on Individuality of Rudolf Steiner)

greater and lesser mysteries

• synthetic summary from: 1904-12-19-GA090A, 1906-07-29-GA097, 1906-12-17-GA096, 1906-12-15-GA097, whereby Rudolf Steiner mentions “I can only describe the lesser Mysteries”
• The mysteries were training centers where people learned wisdom, rites were enacted “surrender and a faith that is both knowledge and insight”. There were greater and lesser mysteries, the process of initiation and spiritual transformation was presented in  the mysteries, “as images in the lesser mysteries, and inside the human being in the greater mysteries”. This was the same in all Mysteries, in the Egyptian Mysteries, the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Mysteries of Asia Minor, of Babylon and Chaldea, the Mithras-cult the Indian Mysteries of Brahman.
• The lesser Mysteries:
  • the spiritual experience/transformation of the greater mysteries were an ideal for those in the lesser mysteries, something they might hope to achieve, some sooner and some later: “for you too the great moment will come; today you see a picture only; later on, what you now see as a picture will be an actual experience”
  • were for those who were not yet ready to participate in the sacred enactment of the greater mysteries, the process/experience was presented as a (outer) pictures (symbolic imagery)
  • the lesser mysteries used only symbolic actions (for example bread and wine were outward symbols .. two preparations were substances were given to initiates drinking them from the chalice of Ceridwen); “pictures were presented of what the candidate for initiation was subsequently to experience as reality”.
  • in the lesser mysteries the experience of the inner Christ was shown at a particular time of the year, when the sun gives least light to the Earth, in the longest night of winter (see descriptions in 1906-12-15-GA097 and 1903-12-21-GA088). "Everywhere the same experiences were undergone by the pupils of these Mysteries at the midnight hour of the Holy Night.
• The greater Mysteries:
  • were only for chosen candidates who were ready in terms of spiritual maturity
  • focused on inner experience and birth of their higher self, opening the eyes of the spirit to the world of the spirit (and providing a completely new and much wider view than the physical world)
  • the same events (as in the lesser mysteries) took place as events in the astral world

initiation

• in ancient times an initiator pulled the etheric body out of the pupil's physical body to imprint experiences from spiritual worlds into it. From trances to three and one-half day temple sleeps, it was always the hierophant who mediated everything into the pupil's consciousness (1909-05-05-GA266)
• purpose of ancient initiation was also to get the people over the fear of becoming mortal in their soul.
  • in ancient mystery schools, initiation was a life or death procedure, with trials to concur fear of death. This required both skill and great courage. Those who did not make it were killed. The ones who surpassed all trials became 'newborn' (1910-06-18-GA266/2, also Bardon in Frabato)
  • Because of the prevailing group soul, the initiation of single person sufficed to have an effect on their surrounding (1921-06-28-GA205)

Other

• pagan Attis cult, (GA148, GA149, GA175 - see some references here, and wikipedia topic page)
  • and Phrygian Easter festival (note: Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey)

Timeline

Atlantean epoch

• Atlantean oracles of the seven planets (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) - as well as the secret Vulcan Oracle
  • see Atlantean epoch#Atlantean Oracles and link to the planets
• Turanian mysteries (1907-02-17-GA097 and 1907-02-18-GA096 on School of Turanian Adepts)
• descriptions: see 1907-03-07-GA097

Current Postatlantean epoch

• In the Atlantean epoch teachers placed their stu­dents into a hypnotic trance and used this sleep state to enlighten their students. Astral bodies were identical enough so as to bring to all people one primal wisdom. After the flood, in the Current Postatlantean epoch, such unified wisdom was no longer possible and one has different teachings per geographical and cultural age. (1907-02-17-GA097)
• The Southern stream and Northern stream, see also Christ Impulse - meeting of two streams#Southern and Northern streams
• Sources of spiritual science providing a concise view on sources of the last 2500 years, from the Greek culture onwards

Northern stream

• ancient Northern and Middle-European European Mysteries: Hibernian, Druidic, Trotten mysteries
  • Druidic and Trotten mysteries
  • Hibernian Mysteries
  • for context see also Germanic mythology
• Colchis Mysteries - Black Sea area

Southern stream

• Persian Mysteries
  • Mythras cult and bull mysteries
• Egyptian Mysteries: (see also Egyptian mythology)
  • Isis and Osiris cult
  • Hermes initiation
• Mysteries of Adonis
• Greek Mysteries:
  • Orphic mysteries (or Orpheus)
  • Ephesian (Mysteries of Artemis)
  • Eleusian
  • Chthonic
  • Samothracian mysteries (Kabiri)
• other
  • school of St. Paul and Dionysius the Areopagite in the 1st century in Greece, tradition upto the 6th century
• Europe in middle ages - before the fifth cultural age
  • the school of Mysteries of the Holy Grail, the Arthur stream, and the meeting of these two streams in the 9th century
  • School of Chartres in France around the 12th century (1924-07-13-GA237)
  • the transition phase in the middle ages from around 1200 to 1400 (1923-12-23-GA232, 1924-01-04-GA233A and 1924-01-05-GA233A) and the time of transition (1923-12-22-GA232 and 1924-01-06-GA233A)

After merging streams

• note: the Two streams of development were merged in the Central European cultural basin; for context see those two topic pages
• current Anglo-German cultural age:
  • Rosecrucian schooling
  • contemporary spiritual science after 1879
  • see more coverage in the 'Positioning' section on Free Man Creator schooling

Inspirational quotes

1909-05-06-GA057

.. the Mysteries are schools for the training of those faculties which enable the soul of man to have actual vision of the spiritual worlds. They are schools, where in a methodical and systematic way, man's soul is so guided and trained that he can finally perceive the higher worlds with spiritual eyes and ears.

Although modern scholarship knows little of the Mysteries, they are nevertheless still in existence today and are the means whereby Man can be led consciously to the spiritual worlds. And the whole content of spiritual science, everything that is communicated in spiritual science, is, in its essence, Mystery-wisdom.

The Man who so trains his soul that he can perceive in higher worlds, is an Initiate. Through all the ages there have been centres for developing the faculty of fully conscious clairvoyance ..

1916-12-21-GA173

Mystery-truths are not the trifles certain mystic sects play around with today. Mystery-truths are grand and powerful impulses within human evolution. ... For the sake of self-knowledge it is necessary for mankind today to know what lived in such Mysteries. .. The mystery of mankind in its connection to all the mysteries of the cosmos, how it works when Man enters on the physical Earth into his physical existence, all this, at a certain period of earthly evolution, lay more deeply than anywhere else at the basis of these ancient northern Mysteries.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.607: provides an overview of how the law of evolution applies to the development and spiritual guidance of mankind, with a focus on the evolution between the previous Atlantean epoch towards the next Sixth epoch. As development is only possible through differentiation, different segments at various stages of karmic development or spiritual maturity must be separated in order to develop further. Examples of this separation were the different Mysteries and Oracles in the Atlantean epoch, and the castes in India and other areas incl. Egypt. In the future, moral castes will develop based on spiritual maturity as part of the separation of mankind into good and evil segments or sub-races (190X-XX-XX-GA097, 1908-06-21-GA104, 1910-GA013)

The Current Postatlantean epoch is a gradual training to independence for humanity. This is depicted below with a transfer of the guidance of mankind by leaders not part of humanity, that developed on other planets (see also Three Classes of Buddhas) .. to - in the Sixth epoch - the leadership of mankind by the most advanced humans who developed on Eart . The schema shows the gradual evolution of these trends across the cultural ages, and how the sixth cultural age will seed the sixth epoch with the appearance of these moral castes and the fact that the Masters of the White Lodge will become publicly known as leaders of humanity.

Notes for Schema commentary page:

• regarding boxes on the lower left:
  • examples of priests and priest-kings: Zarathustra in the Ancient Persian cultural age, the Egyptian Pharaohs
  • further coverage of these stages in 1919-10-27-GA193 (and 1919-10-19-GA191) - see Contemporary worldview war#1919-10-27-GA193
    • first: Egyptian Pharaohs, Babylonian rulers, Asiatic rulers .. were initiates
    • then : "the priest-type emerged as ruler and was really the ruler right up to the Reformation and the Renaissance"
    • since that time: the economist has been in command, rulers are merely the handymen,of the economists.
      • has become an impersonal ahrimanic force/entity as in the 19th century due to evolution of banking

• regarding castes in India
  • the castes in India should not be related to the first Ancient Indian cultural age .. they appeared later and lasted at least until the fourth cultural age
  • the lecture references given for the castes in India couples karma-based segmentation to the number of incarnations, hence the term 'spiritual maturity'
• the Southern stream of development consisted of the four most advanced segments or castes from the Atlantean epoch
• 1912-05-29-GA155 describes the Two streams of development as an excellent illustration of the two arms of the spiral of development, the need for two concurrent streams of development whereby a second one first stays behind, in order to be able to fructify and merge and grow further beyond the development of the first.
• for the development of moral castes, see also Moral idea'"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000000-QINU`"'ls and Schema FMC00.188 and variants (on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension) that depicts how 'a new center is created' through this.
• compare this Schema also with
  • Schema FMC00.594 and the process of Individuation as central to the development of mankind in the Earth planetary stage of evolution; see narrative Unification#Individuation and differentiation
  • Schema FMC00.591 showing a more high-level view on why the period between the third and sixth epochs is thé crucial phase for the development of mankind, whereby Schema FMC00.052 zooms in to state the fifth and sixth cultural ages are the decisive ones, and Schema FMC00.422A on how only one third reaches the goal at the end of the fifth epoch
• physiognomy will become more important again in the next cultural ages and Sixth epoch, as a reflection of the soul and spiritual maturity: the outer physiognomy will directly mirror one's karma (1904-11-11-GA093) .. the physical body will become a 'stamp' of one's morality (1915-10-31-GA254, 1915-11-07-GA254) and "in the sixth epoch men will show good and evil on their faces" (1908-06-25-GA104)

Schema FMC00.432 shows a geographical view on the Current Postatlantean epoch, with the center of culture over millenia moving across the Southern most advanced stream described extensively by spiritual science. Meanwhile the Northern stream developed differently, as expressed in the Northern Scandinavian and Germanic mythology and ancient Mystery tradition, with initiation centers such as the Hibernian, Druidic and Trotten Mysteries (see Schema FMC00.437).

For more on the northern and southern streams, see Christ Impulse - meeting of two streams#Southern and Northern streams

It is important to realize that the development of humanity was not limited to the key cultures highlighted in the descriptive labels given to characterize each cultural age. For example the Mayan and Jewish cultures also belong to the third 'Egypto-Chaldean' cultural age. Also the Chinese culture is not a focus in the descriptions of the development of humanity.

Also shown are for reference are the Gobi desert and Tibet, see the migrations on Schemas FMC00.205 and variants on Atlantean epoch. For the geographical movement of the epicentrum of cultural height across the globe, see Schema FMC00.211 on Human races.

Schema FMC00.437 provides a simple overview positioning key Mysteries of the Northern stream, with - in red - a few of the important Mystery Centers as described by Rudolf Steiner (see quotes and references on the right). The dotted line represents the Southern stream in the fourth cultural age of the current Postatlantean epoch. The arrows represent the impulse for the age of the intellectual soul coming from the Colchis Mysteries (to both south and north).

Schema FMC00.545 provides an overview of a selection of well known historical sites with remnants dating back from ancient cultures. Most belong to the Current Postatlantean epoch. Some contain remnants of ancient cultures from migrated cultures of the Atlantean epoch.

Sources of spiritual science have pointed out that certain sites date from Atlantean or Lemurian cultures or epochs [eg Externsteine (Germany) or Eastern Island], and quite some of them have been initiation sites or temples related to the ancient Mysteries.

See also Schema FMC00.214E on Atlantean epoch for the notes to that Schema, and compare the geographic location of underwater sites such as Yonaguni or Bimini Road.

Note and disclaimer: the intention of this Schema cannot be to be exhaustive, it merely provides a sample as an entry point and reference point for exploring further.

Various authors have gathered Rudolf Steiner's hints on this topic, see ao Gsänger, Wachsmuth. Recently also various documentaries have become available online that provide (irrespective of storytelling and interpretations) some beautiful imagery, eg BAM Builders of the Ancient Mysteries (2020) or Graham Hancock's Ancient Apocalyse (2022).

Lecture coverage and references

Coverage overview

Rudolf Steiner spends a whole series of lectures on the Mysteries in December 1923. They are published spread over GA232 and GA233, depending on the edition.

The cycle 1923-12-GA233 is called 'World History in the light of Anthroposophy'

• Ephesian Mysteries of Artemis (1923-11-30-GA233?, 1923-12-02-GA323 also 1923-12-02-GA323)
  • extra on Mysteries Ephese in 1923-12-28-GA233
• Hibernian Mysteries (1923-12-07-GA323, 1923-12-08-GA323, 1923-12-09-GA323)
• Mysteries of the Samothracian Kabiri (1923-12-21-GA232) - these are also covered in 1924-09-05-GA346
  • wikipidia on: Samothrace temple complex and Kabiri (or Cabeiri)
• Chthonic and Eleusinian Mysteries (1923-12-14-GA323)
  • Chtonic: also references in GA214 and GA346
  • Eulesian mysteries: wikipedia on Eleusinian Mysteries

further also

• Mysteries of Hybernia and Ephese (1923-12-27-GA233)
• Transition for ancient Mysteries to Mysteries of the middle ages (1923-12-22-GA233)

Continuing in 1924:

• the Karmic Relationship lectures 1924-GA23x discuss the School of Chartres.

Furthermore 1924-01-GA233A 'Rosicrucianism and Modern Initiation' complementary covers:

• middle-ages (1924-01-04-GA233A, 1924-01-05-GA233A)
• Mysteries of Adonis - and the link to Easter and the festivals (1924-01-19-GA233A)
  • wikipedia: Adonis
• 18-19th century schools (1924-01-12-GA233A)

Source extracts

1907-02-17-GA097

In those past ages teaching was a pouring out of wisdom; it came from within, not from outside the human being. Between that age and ours, there was an intervening age, the Atlantean epoch. In the middle of this age human beings could begin to see the outlines of things and beings. Everything was still enveloped in a vague mist of color, penetrated by sounds that had something to say, sounds that were wise. A teaching arose at that time, which was developed later into religious teaching. Vast ages ago there was a great school of adepts there. All that we learn today began with them, the Turanian adepts.

[Note: see ao Turanian stream#1910-09-01-GA123]

It has been transmitted down through the ages to the present day. Teaching was very different than it is today. We must bear in mind that humanity was in a stage of transition. The wisest of those people would be unable to count to five. But if one focused on the inner life, one could enlighten them and teach them wisdom through imagery. One could not have explained a doctrine of wis­dom to them; they would have failed to understand such a thing.

The people of that time did not have the kind of clear day con­sciousness we have. Rather, they could return easily to a state where God could illuminate them from within.

Teachers placed their stu­dents into a hypnotic trance. It was not the same hypnosis with which so much nonsense is done today, but it was something similar. The teachers used this sleep state to enlighten their students.

At that time they had an esoteric script, or esoteric language. There are mantras today that contain more than their thought value alone, but, com­pared to the sound and tone combinations of the past, they are mere shadows. These tone combinations were simple; but when such a tone was struck it reinstated a lost capacity to illuminate. That world of inner enlightenment then entered human beings synthetically, and they could see the spirits of the world at work just as before.

The disciples received formulas and certain signs from their teachers, and they then could perceive the secrets of the world directly. For exam­ple, this sign told them how a plant comes into being out of a seed.

[illustration of a spiral]

If not explained, a modern person would neither think of anything in particular nor feel anything when viewing this sign. It directly effected the people of that age, however, when they saw it or when it was formed in front of them. The formulas used at that time were taught to the peoples who came later by the founders of religions.

As we go farther back in time, the world soul was more unified.

During sleep, the astral bodies of all human beings are still somewhat similar; but during the Atlantean age, astral bodies were always the same. One could bring to all people one primal wisdom. After the great flood had passed over Atlantean humanity, a unified wisdom was no longer possible. One had to teach in India according to what the Indian body required, differently in Persia, differently in Egypt, differ­ently with the Greeks and Romans, and differently again with the ancient Germanic races. Nevertheless, within all true forms of reli­gion, the common element from which each had arisen continued to live.

In Atlantis enlightenment meant imparting life, not teaching. The sign of the spiral awakened an immediate feeling sensation. Today feelings must first be awakened by thoughts.

The seven peti­tions of the Lord's Prayer were also once given in the form of a scale of seven tones, together with seven specific colors and fragrances. In this way, disciples in Atlantis experienced the sevenfold essence of the human being.

Christ, the greatest of the religious teachers, poured this into the Lord's Prayer. Everyone who prays the Lord's Prayer is affected by it. It is not really a mantra, though it may have mantric powers. It is a "thought mantra." Of course, its greatest power was in the original human language, but because it is precisely a thought mantra, it will not lose its power even when translated into a thousand languages. We can digest food without knowing the laws of digestion; similarly, we have the fruit of the Lord's Prayer without knowledge. One who has the higher knowledge, however, will receive an entirely different fruit from it.

Religious truths followed such paths. Our souls were all asleep at one time within the soul of the world, which was then divided into many members and drawn down into many bodies. Spiritual percep­tion was darkened as was the possibility of invoking the original state. Religious teachings are only a weak echo in thoughts and words, especially the religious forms and rules derived from the spiritual world. The wisdom of the Old Testament still speaks of ideas, even the original ideas. A dim reflection of the original ideas lives in these ideas; but that ancient wisdom is not lost but still sleeps within our souls. Lifting it into clear consciousness is the task of spiritual sci­ence. After their final incarnation, when human beings have come to know all of the external world, they will be lifted to their original clairvoyance, bringing new enlightenment, in clear consciousness, with them.

1908-05-19-GA103

is about the Esoteric School of Paul and Dionysius the Areopagite

If we have now understood this properly, we come to a deeper comprehension of the present human being and we are in a position to repeat and to understand better what has been taught in Esoteric Christianity from the beginning. This Esoteric Christianity has always been fostered alongside the outer Christian exoteric teaching.

I have often pointed out that Paul, the great apostle of Christianity, used his powerful, fiery gift of eloquence to teach Christianity to the people, but that at the same time he founded an esoteric school, the director of which was Dionysius, the Areopagite, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. In this Christian Esoteric School at Athens which was directly founded by Paul himself, the purest Spiritual Science was taught.

And now, having brought together the necessary material in the above observations, we shall be able to place before our souls what was taught there.

This school also taught that …

1908-05-23-GA103

Each age must have its special function, its special truths.

Why is it that we can speak today of reincarnation, etc.? Why are we able to sit together in such an assembly as this and foster spiritual science?

We can do so, because all of the souls which are present within you today have been incarnated upon the Earth in so and so many bodies and so and so many times. Very many of the souls which are within you now lived at one time in the Germanic countries where the Druid priests walked among you and brought to your souls spiritual wisdom in the form of myth and saga. And because your soul received it in that form at that time, it is now in the position to receive it in another form, the anthroposophical. At that time it was in the form of pictures—today it is in the form of anthroposophy.

But then it would not have been possible to impart truth in its present form. Do not imagine that the ancient Druid priest would have been able to impart the truth in the form in which it is presented today. Anthroposophy is the form befitting the humanity of the present or of the immediate future. In later incarnations truth will be proclaimed, and men will work for it in quite different forms, and what is now called Anthroposophy will be related as something remembered, just as we now relate the sagas and fairy-tales.

Anthroposophists should not be foolish enough to say that in ancient times there existed only stupidities and childish ideas, and that we alone have advanced the world so gloriously. Those, for example, who pretend to be monists do this. But we are working in spiritual science in preparation for the next age. For if our present age were not here, the next would likewise not come. ...

So we must understand clearly that there is nothing absolutely fixed in the forms of truth, but that what corresponds to a particular age of human evolution, always becomes known. That greatest impulse of evolution had, as it were, to descend even into the life customs of that time. For it had to clothe the highest truth in language and functions befitting the understanding of the particular period in question.

Therefore by means of a kind of Dionysian rite or wine sacrifice, the Christ had to tell how mankind could raise itself to the Godhead. One should not fanatically ask why Christ changed the water into wine. The age should be taken into consideration. Through a sort of Dionysian rite, Christ had to prepare for what was to come.

1909-05-06-GA057

is called 'The European Mysteries and Their Initiates'

In ancient times a kind of natural clairvoyance was a common heritage of the European peoples. Indeed Man's consciousness as it is today has evolved from that earlier state of clairvoyant consciousness. With these ancient clairvoyant faculties, Man was able to perceive certain connections of his life, and what he so perceived was then expressed in the legends and myths which speak of goblins, elfin-beings, dwarfs and the like. Now these legends and myths are very different in character. They were based on what Man was able to see with his clairvoyant faculties, but when we study them we find on the one hand certain resemblances and on the other outstanding differences, simply because the clairvoyant powers of men were by no means the same. There is a much greater similarity in the more important mythological figures — the figures of Gods and Heroes in the sagas. These sagas, too, were the outcome of clairvoyance, but in a different sense.

The great mythological figures lead us back to the experiences of those who were Initiates in the ancient Mysteries. It is not easy for our present consciousness to form a true conception of these ancient Mysteries and their Initiates, for the nature of our education and the knowledge resulting therefrom does not conduce to an understanding of the nature of Initiation — far from it!

If we were to speak of the nature of the Mysteries and their Initiates in the language of current thought, we should say that the Mysteries are schools for the training of those faculties which enable the soul of man to have actual vision of the spiritual worlds. They are schools, where in a methodical and systematic way, man's soul is so guided and trained that he can finally perceive the higher worlds with spiritual eyes and ears. Although modern scholarship knows little of the Mysteries, they are nevertheless still in existence to-day and are the means whereby man can be led consciously to the spiritual worlds. And the whole content of spiritual science, everything that is communicated in spiritual science, is, in its essence, Mystery-wisdom.

The Man who so trains his soul that he can perceive in higher worlds, is an Initiate. Through all the ages there have been centres for developing the faculty of fully conscious clairvoyance and the aim of the present lecture is to give a cursory survey of the European Mysteries.

For this purpose we must go back to ancient pre-Christian times and try to visualise what went on in the occult schools of Initiation and how they influenced civilisation and culture in general. You have often heard how man to-day can be led to the Initiates, how his thinking, feeling and willing can be so trained that he can set out on the path leading to the 'Mothers'. This is the path which the pupils of all the Mysteries have had to tread in quest of fully conscious clairvoyance.

more on: Druidic and Trotten mysteries#1909-05-06-GA057

1909-07-01-GA112

describes the Bull, Lion, Eagle initiation in ancient mysteries, in context of the different evangelists of the gospels

If we now wish to understand the position of the other Evangelists in this matter we must recall various points that have already been established in the previous lectures. We learned, for example, that there existed certain lofty spiritual beings who transferred their sphere of action to the sun when the latter detached itself from the earth; and it was pointed out that their outer astral form was in a sense the counterpart of certain animal forms here on earth.

• There was first, the form of the Bull spirit, the spiritual counterpart of those animal natures the essence of whose development lies in what could be called the nutritional and digestive organization. The spiritual counterpart is naturally of a lofty spiritual nature, however inferior the earthly image may appear. So we have certain exalted spiritual beings who transferred their sphere to the sun whence they influenced the earth sphere, appearing there as the Bull spirits.
• Others appear as the Lion spirits, whose counterpart lives in animal natures pre-eminently developed as to their heart and organs of circulation.
• Then we have spiritual beings who are the counterparts of what we meet in the animal kingdom as eagle natures, the Eagle spirits.
• And finally there are those that harmoniously unite, as it were, the other natures as in a great synthesis, the Man spirits. These were in a sense the most advanced.

[initiation - Atlantean oracles and Postatlantean mysteries]

Passing now to the old initiation, we find that this offered the possibility of beholding, face to face, the exalted spiritual beings that had outstripped man. But the manner in which primitive men had to be initiated, in accord with the demands of those ancient times, depended upon the origin of their descent — that is, whether from Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus. Even in Atlantis, therefore, there existed oracles in manifold variety. Some had adjusted their spiritual vision primarily to the beholding of what we have described as the Eagle spirits, while others saw the Lion spirits, the Bull spirits, or the Man spirits: the initiation accorded with the specific traits of the candidate. This differentiation was one of the characteristics of the Atlantean age, and certain echos of it have persisted into our own Post-Atlantean time. Thus you could find Mystery temples in Asia Minor, or in Egypt, where the initiation took a form that brought about the vision of the lofty spiritual beings as Bull spirits, or as Eagle spirits. And it was in the Mysteries that outer culture had its source.

• The initiates who saw the lion form in the exalted spiritual beings conjured up in the lion body a sort of image of what they had beheld; but they saw as well that these spirits take part in the evolution of man. That is why they assigned a human head to the lion body, a concept that later became the sphinx.
• Those who saw the spiritual counterparts as Bull spirits bore testimony to the spiritual world by introducing a Bull worship, which led on the one hand to the Apis Bull worship in Egypt, and on the other, to the worship of the Persian Mithras Bull; for everything we find in the way of outer cult usages among the different peoples derived from the initiation rites. There were initiates everywhere whose spiritual vision was focussed principally on the Bull spirits, others attuned primarily to the Eagle spirits, and so on.

To a certain extent we can even indicate the differences in the various modes of initiation. Those initiated, for example, in such a way that the spiritual beings appeared to them in the form of Bull spirits were informed principally concerning the secrets connected with man's glandular system, with what pertains to the etheric principle. And there is still another branch of the nature of Man into which they were initiated: the human properties that are firmly attached to the earth — welded to it, as it were. All this was grasped by those initiated in the Bull Mysteries.

Let us try to experience the soul mood of such initiates.

• From their great teachers they had learned, in effect, that Man had descended from divine heights, that the primordial human beings were the descendants of divine-spiritual beings and that therefore they traced the first Man back to his Father-God. Thus Man came down to earth and passed from one Earth form to another. These men were primarily interested in what was bound to the Earth, as well as in all that men had experienced when they had thought of divine-spiritual beings as their ancestors. That was the attitude of the Bull initiates.
• The Eagle initiates constituted a different case. These envisioned those spiritual beings who bear a most peculiar relation to the human being; but in order to understand this a few words must be said concerning the spiritual character of the bird nature.

Animals rank below human beings by reason of their inferior functions, and they represent, as you know, beings that solidified too early, having failed to retain the softness and flexibility of their body substance until such time as they might have been able to embody in human form. But in the bird nature we have beings that did not assume the lowest functions: instead they overshot the mark in the opposite direction. They failed to descend far enough, as it were; they remained in unduly soft substances, while the others lived in substances that were too hard. But as evolution continued, outer conditions compelled them to solidify; hence they hardened in a manner incompatible with a nature that had descended to the earth, being too soft. That is a rough description in untechnical terms, but it gives the facts. The archetypes of these bird natures are those spiritual beings who likewise overshot the mark, who remained in a substance too soft, and who consequently were carried, as it were, beyond what they might have become at a certain point of their development. They deviated from the normal development in an upward direction, while the rest diverged downwards.

The middle position is in a certain sense occupied by the Lion spirits, as well as by the harmonious ones, the Man spirits, who grasped the right moment to incorporate.

...

We have already seen how the Christ event was received by those in whom there lived something of the old initiation. According to the nature of their specific initiation they had been able in the past to see into the spiritual world; and those who had received the Bull initiation — throughout a great part of Egypt, for example — were aware of the following: We can gaze up into the spiritual world, and therefore the lofty spiritual beings appear to us as the counterparts of the Bull nature in man.

It was definitely prescribed in each of these initiation Mysteries how the candidate should be led up into the spiritual world, and the rites varied according to the manner in which he was to enter it. There were Mysteries of many different shades, especially in Asia Minor and in Egypt, where it was customary to guide the initiates in such a way as to bring them eventually to the Bull nature, or to a vision of the Lion spirits, as the case might have been. With this in mind let us now consider those who, as a result of many different kinds of initiations in the past, had become capable of sensing the Christ impulse, of comprehending Christ in the right way.

1910-06-18-GA266/2

translation A

In the ancient Egyptian mystery schools, those being prepared for initiation intended that the Incarnation was to be dedicated entirely to initiation, for it was a life or death procedure. They had to undergo trials that placed great demands on their courage, for example. They were shown things that could so stir up their fear that they fell over dead. If they lived through these trials, then they had arrived on the other shore, and were newborn. They had descended to the god in their inner being; they had encountered the drives, desires, and passion and their own bodies, and had victoriously withstood the encounter. They could now say of themselves : Ex Deo nascimur.

Now, one could ask about the evil that was encountered on the path to the inner god: does that also come from the gods? Here we must always say that it was originally something divine; that only we human beings made it into something evil.

The path of ecstasy was followed in the Druid mysteries. Those being initiated united themselves with the spirit that held sway every where in nature: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

In the Rosicrucian path the two paths are united; that is, from each was taken what is beneficial for us. The modern human being can no longer be initiated unconsciously. Since the advent of the Christ-principle, the human being must be present with his or her waking consciousness.

The meditations given to us by the Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings are all directed toward the Christ, even though His name might not appear in them...

translation B

In ancient mystery schools, candidates resolved to devote their incarnation entirely to initiation, for it was a do or die procedure. They had to undergo trials that required great courage. Terrifying things were shown that killed some of them. But if they survived, they had come to the other shore and were reborn. They had descended to the God within them, had encountered drives, desires and passions in their bodies and had passed the test. Then they would say of themselves: Ex Deo nascimur. Well, one could ask: Does this evil that one encounters on the way to the inner God also come from the Gods? Here we must tell ourselves that it was originally something divine which we made into something evil.

Men trod the path of ecstasy in the Druidic mysteries. The candidate united himself with the spirit that worked everywhere in nature: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

These two paths are united in the Rosicrucian path, that is, what's good for us is taken from both. One can no longer initiate a modern unconsciously. Since the breaking in of the Christ-principle, a man must be there with his waking consciousness.

The meditations that the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings have given us are all directed towards the Christ, even if his name doesn't occur in them. The words: In the pure rays of light are arranged in such a way that if one makes oneself deaf and blind for one's immediate environment, one slowly lifts one's etheric body out of the physical one, and thereby one unites oneself with the Christ-etheric aura, which is now our earth's aura. If we would lift ourselves out of the body without our meditation's content, then our soul would be alone with itself. But now it's permeated by Christ and it experiences what Paul called “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.”

In the pure love for all beings. These words remind us that all soul things are woven out of love. This meditation is a slow dying of the lower ego. And we have the connection between the two paths in this dying into Christ and coming to life in him in: In Christo morimur. It's a conscious coming to life in the Christ spirit. That's why we've added the word Sanctum to the words Per Spiritum.

1912-04-12-GA136

In past times it was a strict rule—and this is still the case today for many initiations which still exist in the world—it was a strict rule that anyone who went in search of the path leading to initiation had to have a kind of guide, who was called in certain circles the spiritual guide, the guru.

What is the task of a guru? We have seen that in the course of development described above, we encounter certain dangers, dangers against which we must be warned. In the initiations of the past, which have been handed down traditionally, the guru's chief task was to warn against dangers. A guru may do this even today, if he or she is simply a person whom we consider as a kind of teacher as in ordinary science—a person whom we can trust. But it can easily happen that the new guru wants to be what the old guru had to be, even though the guru today cannot be allowed to have that relationship with the pupil, and this will be increasingly the case the more initiation adapts itself to the progressive course of human development.

Initiation really began everywhere in the manner described above. Rules were given, and each person had a personal guide and was told: Now you must concentrate upon this thing, and now upon that; now you must do this exercise, and now that. Under strict guidance, a condition was produced in which the world of imagination appeared.

The modern person on the other hand—for that is the very nature of the modern human being—must pass over from imagination to inspiration through a strong effort of his or her own will, where in olden times this task was taken over by the guru who led the pupil from the stage of imagination to that of inspiration by means of certain influences to which the pupil was more easily amenable after having been led up to this stage of initiation.

What I have described to you, as something lying concealed in every human being, became an impulse which the guru transmitted to the pupil. This brought the pupil's imaginative, visionary life into order. But, in the process, the guru would gain complete control over the pupil who would become, as it were, an instrument in the teacher's hands. Therefore in all initiations of the past, and they are really the source of every religious faith, there was therefore a strict requirement that the guru, the initiator, should be above the possibility of exercising an immoral or unjust influence over the pupil. In his or her whole inner attitude the guru had to be above every kind of deceit, and success depended upon the guru's having attained to this stage of development. The guru had to use influence only to the extent of transmitting to the pupil the truth-images of the higher world that he or she had gained, thus rendering the pupil's path more easy.

1916-12-21-GA173

[Northern Mysteries - connection with Earthly, vs South Gnosis and cosmos]

These northern Mysteries were founded on something utterly different from the foundation of the Mysteries of Asia Minor, the Mysteries of the South. These Mysteries of the North were founded on something that was more intimately bound up with the life of the stars, with nature, with the Earth's growth forces, rather than that which was shown in the symbols of a temple.

Mystery-truths are not the trifles certain mystic sects play around with today. Mystery-truths are grand and powerful impulses within human evolution. Just as we cannot find our way back today through anthroposophy to gnosis, to the ancient gnostics, neither can mankind return to what the ancient Mysteries of the North once meant for human evolution. It would be a foolish misunderstanding to believe that such Mystery-truths are being revealed now because of a desire to return in some way to what lived in them. For the sake of self-knowledge it is necessary for mankind today to know what lived in such Mysteries.

For what in the northern Mysteries involved the whole evolution of the universe was connected with what came from the Earth, whereas the gnostic wisdom inspired by the cosmos was connected with what took place in the far reaches of the universe. The mystery of mankind in its connection to all the mysteries of the cosmos, how it works when Man enters on the physical earth into his physical existence, all this, at a certain period of earthly evolution, lay more deeply than anywhere else at the basis of these ancient northern Mysteries.

more on: Nerthus#1916-12-21-GA173

1923-02-02-GA221

If we look back to ancient times in human history we shall find, scattered about the inhabited earth, what are know as the Mysteries. We find that various groups of people, living their lives scattered about the earth, develop under the influence of the Mysteries. They do so outwardly—but more particularly in regard to culture and the life of the soul. We find that individuals are accepted into the Mysteries, according to their degree of maturity. There they undergo further development, which is to lead them to a particular grade of knowledge, of feeling, and willing. Then, when they have advanced in knowledge, in higher feeling, and higher willing, they step out again and move among the majority of mankind, giving guidance for the details of daily life, for the strengthening of the soul's inner work and of their will, their actual deeds. With regard to past ages of man, the best place in which to study such guidelines is actually the training of those preparing for initiation in the Mysteries.

Though not of course in the abstract, intellectual manner of today, the pupils in the Mysteries were led to know the world about them. Most importantly, they learned to know the so-called three kingdoms of nature and all that lives in them. In the lowest classes of our schools we learn, by way of all sorts of concepts and pictures, how we stand within the three realms of nature. Through concepts and ideas we learn to know mineral, plant and animal. We then seek there the key to understanding human life itself. Such concepts, with the intellectual soul-content imparted to people these days, did not exist among those working for initiation in the ancient Mysteries. Concepts did exist then; but they were not won, as today, through the exercise of observation and logic. Rather, people had to exercise their souls inwardly, so as to arrive eventually at inner pictures of mineral, of plant, and animal. These people did not absorb the abstract concepts of today but experienced pictures—pictures that intellectual modern man might find fantastic but, nevertheless, pictures. And man knew from direct experience that what he discovered, when he experienced these pictures, actually yielded him something that lived in the mineral, plant or animal—of what grew there, took form, and unfolded within them. This he knew: and he knew it from those pictures which to modern man would appear fantastic myths.

Ancient man knew that reality expressed itself in things which today are considered mere mythology. He could certainly say: ‘The animal before me has firm visible outlines.’ But these firm outlines were not what he tried to grasp or understand. He tried rather to follow the flowing, mobile, fluid quality of its life. He could not do this, however, in sharp outlines, in sharply defined concepts. He had to teach in pictures that were fluid, metamorphosing, changing. And thus it was taught in the Mysteries.

But when, on the basis of this Mystery-knowledge, a man was to rise to self-knowledge, he underwent a significant crisis in his soul. According to the type of knowledge available in those ancient times, early man obtained pictures of mineral, plant and animal. With his dreamlike consciousness, he could then see, as it were, into the inner realms of nature. From the content of the Mysteries he also received the guiding principles of self-knowledge, much as he did in later times. ‘Know Thyself’ has been an ideal in all civilizations, in all ages of human cultural development. But in progressing from his kind of imaginative, natural knowledge towards knowledge of himself, ancient man underwent an inner crisis of the soul. I can only describe the nature of the crisis by saying that when he learned to look at the nature of the mineral as it was spread before him man found fulfillment in his soul-life. He bore in himself the effects of physical-mineral processes. He bore in himself pictures of interweaving vegetative life, and also of animal life. In his world he was able to bring all these together: mineral, plant and animal. Looking back from the vantage point of the world around him into his own inwardness, he had, in his primitive type of memory, an inner picture of mineral, plant and animal, and of how they worked together.

1923-12-21-GA323

talks about the evocation of the kabiri in the Samothracian Mysteries. The same is also stated in 1922-12-04-GA218: a picture of the godhead appeared in the sacrificial smoke. See also evocation in

Then the pupil understood why on the altar there were placed before him three symbolic vessels or jars.

We once made use of a copy of these vessels here in an Eurhythmy presentation of Faust, and as you saw these three vessels, so they were seen in the Samothracian Mysteries, the Northern Greek Mysteries; but the essential thing was that through these vessels, these pitchers, in their whole symbolic form, a sacrificial ritual, a ritual of consecration took place.

A kind of incense was put into these three vessels, which was then kindled, and when the smoke poured out, three words of which we shall speak further tomorrow were uttered with mantric power by the celebrant. These words were uttered [sung] into the smoke which rose up above the vessels, and then there appeared the forms of the three Kabiri They appeared because the human breath breathed out through the mantric words, fashioned itself, and then imparted its form to the rising smoke, the incense arising from the substance which was incorporated into these symbolic vessels. While the pupil learnt to read in this way what was written in the smoke by his, own breathing, he learnt to read, at the same time, what the mysterious planets spoke to him from out of the great universe.

Now he knew that

• the form assumed by the first of the Kabiri through the mantric word and its power represented the reality behind Mercury; in
• the form assumed by the second Kabiri he learnt the reality of Mars; and
• in that of the third Kabiri he learnt the reality of Apollo, the Sun.

Note: in a verse exchanged by Rudolf Steiner to Ita Wegman about their earlier incarnations together, it is mentioned ..

1923-12-22-GA232

Transition for ancient Mysteries to Mysteries of the middle ages

1924-01-12-GA233A

relates the way how students were taught in the past, with a narrative describing various aspects such as how students were taught to 'feel' the meaning of the six pointed star and the two etheric streams with their body, see the link between their body and the macrocosmos (eg nerves relation to the moon and sun), etc.

1924-09-05-GA346

Then came the mysteries which are reflected in the modem mass. The Catholic mass, the Armenian mass and other masses arose from the half new mysteries in a very complicated way, and even though they have become externalized, they still contain the complete initiation principle. What man can perceive when magical words awaken within him began to be present in these half new mysteries, instead of the god's presence in the ancient mysteries and the presence of forces which the gods sent in the semi-ancient mysteries. These words enable one to acquire very profound knowledge of the inner nature of sound, and intense feelings resound in them.

During the time of the half new mysteries human language and cultic language were two different things, and remnants of the latter are still present in individual religious confessions. In this cultic language everything depends upon rhythm, a deep understanding of sounds and an understanding of the way that sounds from the priest's mouth penetrate human hearts. The intonation of magical cultic words in sacred places enabled people to ascend to the forces of the gods for the first time.

• The first human period — ancient mysteries — the gods descend.
• Second human period — semi-ancient mysteries — the gods send their forces down.
• Third human period — half new mysteries — man learns a magical language and begins to ascend to the forces of the divine world through the intonation of magical words.

This is why words were intoned during the third period of acts of consecration of man. The Kabiri element lived in all religious cults which arose during this third period. For the Kabiri services and sacrifices which were celebrated in Samothrace were brought into all of the half way new ceremonies in the act of consecration of man and into all the ceremonies which belong to This.

Let's place the Kabiri altar at Samothrace before our souls. The Kabirs who stood upon it as external relics were sacrificial urns that contained no ferments, but substances which men find if they can penetrate the inner spiritual aspect of matter. The sacrificial urns contained such substances. The sacrificial substances in the urns were ignited, and smoke ascended. The magical language created an Imagination of the intoned words in the rising smoke. Thus the way up to divine forces was outwardly visible in the sacrificial smoke. The priests who were surrounded by this smoke knew that they were in the right atmosphere for carrying out a transubstantiation.

As Aristotle explained to Alexander, the substances were mixed in such a way that a sacred Imagination emerged from the sacrificial smoke, and this showed one the way to the, gods. If people found this way, the priest's transubstantiation was a right one and the act of consecration of man was executed correctly. Those who celebrated and participated in it knew that it was an organ of cognition. For when the ceremonially shaped, magical words and prayers flamed up in the sacrificial smoke and streamed up to the gods, an apocalyptic revelation came down from above as a gift of grace. This was the third stage in the development of apocalyptic things and of an act of consecration of man.

1924-07-13-GA237

is on the School of Chartres. For an illustration of the four areas listed below, see Schemas FMC00.260B (table) and FMC00.260 (BBD illustration)

• .. from the 6th, 7th or 8th century onwards — there was no direct connection with the spiritual world, nevertheless a certain awareness of this connection still found a haven of refuge, if I may put it so, in isolated centres of learning. In isolated centres of learning men still spoke, in knowledge, in the way they had spoken in the first Christian centuries. Nay more, it was possible for single, chosen human beings to receive deep inner impulses from the way in which the spiritual world was spoken of, — impulses enabling them, at certain times at least, to break through into the spiritual world. There were indeed isolated centres where teachings were given in a manner of which the people of today can have no conception.
• This only came to an end in the 12th, 13th century .. Human beings on the earth had lost, to some extent, the connection with the spiritual world. And in those who lived above — who, while on earth, had still experienced such a connection, — the earthly conditions which they now beheld called forth a strangely painful feeling. They saw the slow death of what they themselves had still experienced on earth. Then from the super-sensible world they enthused-inspired-inspirited — certain individualities in the world of sense, so that here or there at any rate there might arise a home and centre for the real connection of man with the spiritual world.

• Even until the 7th or 8th century — in a kind of echo of pre-Christian Initiation — Christianity was taught in centres that had remained as the high places of knowledge, relics of the ancient Mysteries. In those centres human beings were prepared, not so much by way of instruction, but by an education towards the Spirit — a training both bodily and spiritual.
  • 1- They were prepared for the moment when they might have at least a delicate vision of the spirituality that can manifest itself in the environment of man on earth. Then they looked outward to the realms of mineral and plant-nature and to all that lives in the animal and human kingdoms. And they saw, springing forth like an aura and fertilised in turn out of the cosmos, the spiritual-elemental beings that lived in all Nature. Then above all there appeared to them as a living Being, whom they addressed as they would address a human being — only it was a being of a higher kind, — the Goddess Natura. She was the Goddess whom they saw before them in her full radiance, in full reality of soul. They did not speak of abstract laws of Nature, they spoke of the creative power of the Goddess Natura, working creatively in all external Nature. She was the metamorphosis of Proserpine of antiquity. She was the ever-creating Goddess with whom he who would seek for knowledge must in a certain way unite himself. She appeared to him — appeared to him from every mineral, from every plant, from every creeping beast, from the clouds, the mountains, the river-springs. Of this Goddess who alternately in winter and in summer creates above the earth and beneath, — of this Goddess they felt: She is the hand-maid of that Divinity of whom the Gospels tell. She it is who fulfils the divine behests.
  • 2 - And when the seeker after knowledge had been sufficiently instructed by the Goddess about the mineral and plant and animal natures, when he was introduced into the living forces, then he learned to know from her the nature of the four Elements: — Earth, Water, Air and Fire. He learned to know the waving and weaving within the mineral and animal and plant kingdoms of the four Elements which pour themselves in all reality throughout the world: — Earth, Water, Fire, Air. He felt himself with his etheric body interwoven with the life of the Earth in its gravity, Water in its life-giving power, Air in its power to awaken sentient consciousness, Fire in its power to kindle the flame of the I. In all this he felt his human being interwoven, and he felt: This was the gift of instruction from the Goddess Natura — the successor, the metamorphosis of Proserpine. The teachers saw to it that their disciples should gain a feeling, an idea of this living intercourse with Nature — Nature filled with divine forces, filled with divine substance. They saw to it that their pupils should penetrate to the living and weaving of the Elements.
  • 3 - Then when they had reached this point, they were introduced to the planetary system. They learnt how with the knowledge of the planetary system there arises at the same time the knowledge of the human soul. “Learn to know how the wandering stars hold sway in the heavens, and thou shalt know how thine own soul works and weaves and lives within thee.” This was placed before the pupils.
  • 4 - And at length they were led to approach what was called “The Great Ocean,” — but it was the Cosmic Ocean, which leads from the planets, from the wandering stars, to the fixed stars. Thus at length they penetrated into the secrets of the I, by learning the secrets of the universe of the fixed stars.

Mankind today has forgotten that such instructions were ever given; but they were:

• A living knowledge of this kind was cultivated until the 7th or 8th century in the last relics of the ancient Mysteries.
• And as a doctrine, as a theory, it was still cultivated even until that turn of the 14th and 15th centuries of which we have so often spoken. In certain centres we still see these old teachings cultivated, though with the   greatest imaginable difficulties. They were well-nigh shadowed-down to concepts and ideas; yet the concepts and ideas were still living enough to kindle, in one man and another, the upward vision of all the realities of   which I spoke just now.

●In the 11th and especially the 12th century, reaching on to the 13th, a truly wonderful School existed. In this School there were teachers who still knew how the pupils in preceding centuries had been led to a conscious experience of the Spirit. It was the great School of Chartres. Here there flowed together all the conceptions that had issued from the living spiritual life which I have described.

1924-09-14-GA238

is on the school of Chartres

Greater and Lesser Mysteries

1904-12-19-GA090A

Let us understand this whole course of evolution correctly. After the duality of good and evil had been comprehended in human consciousness, the concept of the trinity arose and appeared in various religions. We recognize it in the Mithraic Mysteries that existed in many Mediterranean countries.

Let us look at one of these Mystery temples. Only a symbolic action was performed for those who participated in the lesser Mysteries, but for those who were permitted to participate in the greater Mysteries, the same events also took place as an event in the astral world. I can only describe the lesser Mysteries of the Mithraic cult now.

1906-07-29-GA097

To say what lies at the base of the mysteries of which I have been speaking, it was knowledge of the fluid that streams in animal and human veins. Quite rightly, Goethe wrote ‘Blood is a sap of very special kind’ in his Faust.¹⁹¹ Many things are connected with the blood. We shall understand what blood signifies if we grasp and understand the tremendous revolution that has occurred in the mysteries. In earlier times, it was known among the European people that important things depend on the way people are related by blood. Because of this, progress and development was never left to chance in those times. All these things were arranged out of occult wisdom. It was known that if the development of small tribal communities was limited to that community, with no one coming in from outside, individuals born within that community would have special powers. The consequences of letting different kinds of blood come together were known in the mysteries. They also knew exactly which tribe was right for a particular area. They knew that common blood was the source of specific human powers.

When the ancient bonds of blood relationship were broken, something also happened in the mysteries. Purposes which before had been achieved by means of blood relationship were now replaced with two specific spiritual preparations in the great mysteries. The lesser mysteries had the outward symbols of these—bread and wine. The two preparations were substances which had an effect in the spirit that was similar to the physical effect of the blood in our veins. When the ancient clairvoyance had gone, these two preparations took its place. Having learned all of theosophical wisdom, initiates would then be given these symbols from the chalice of Ceridwen.¹⁹² The purified blood could then be given to human beings from the chalice opening up from above.

This is the true mystery, which at the time remained with a very small body of people.

1906-12-17-GA096

translation V1

The pupils of the Mysteries were prepared by these constantly inculcated teachings. Then they were led to the actual awakening. This was the moment when, as chosen ones, they experienced the spiritual light within them; their eyes of spirit were opened. This sacred moment came when the outer light was weakest, when the outer sun was shining with least strength. On that day the pupils were called together and the inner Light revealed itself to them.

To those who were not yet ready to participate in this sacred enactment, it was presented as a picture which made them realise: For you too the great moment will come; today you see a picture only; later on, what you now see as a picture will be an actual experience. Thus it was in the lesser Mysteries.

Pictures were presented of what the candidate for initiation was subsequently to experience as reality. Today we shall hear of the enactments in the lesser Mysteries.

Everywhere it was the same: in the Egyptian Mysteries, in the Eleusinian Mysteries, in the Mysteries of Asia Minor, of Babylon and Chaldea, as well as in the Mithras-cult and in the Indian Mysteries of Brahman. Everywhere the same experiences were undergone by the pupils of these Mysteries at the midnight hour of the Holy Night.

translation V2

This was where the human race began to evolve towards the future point in time when they would find the inner light shining again within them. Humanity had to gain knowledge of the things of this Earth, using the outer senses. Human evolution tended towards the time when the higher human being, the spirit human being, would once again be aglow and alight within. From the light through the darkness to the light—that is the course of human evolution.

When the pupils had been prepared they would be guided towards awakening at the moment in time when as a chosen group they were to have an inner experience of something which the rest of humanity is only to experience in the distant future. Then they would see the light of the spirit with eyes that had been opened in the spirit. This solemn moment was to come when outer light was weakest, on the day when the sun shone least in the outside world. Then, on that day, the pupils of the mysteries would be brought together, and the inner light would open up for them.

Others who were not yet able to take part in this celebration were to have at least an outer image that would tell them: ‘You, too, shall one day know this great moment. Today you see an image. Later you shall experience the event you now see in the image.’

Those were the lesser mysteries. They would show a reflection of what the initiate would experience at a later time.

Today we’ll share in the experience of what happened in the lesser mysteries around the midnight hour.

It was the same everywhere—in the Egyptian mysteries, the Eleusinian mysteries, the mysteries of Asia Minor, in the Babylonian and Chaldean mysteries and also in those of Persian Mithra worship and the Indian Brahma mysteries. Everywhere the pupils of those mystery centres would have the same experience around the midnight hour of that solemn night.

1906-12-15-GA097

And so it is not only the physical sun which is a reflection of the Christ spirit but indeed the waxing sun of the spirit. When all energies will be transformed and love is aglow everywhere in the earth's body, the Christ principle will flow through every part of the Earth. The light of Christmas is the symbol of this.

The three kings are symbols, as are their gifts, with gold the symbol of wisdom and kingly power, myrrh the symbol for overcoming death, incense the symbol for ether substances made spiritual in which the god enters into reality who has overcome death. With the three symbols we have Christ the king, the vanquisher of death, the fulfilment of all earthly evolution. That was the experience of the birth of the God child for every esoteric initiate, foreseen in the mysteries even before the Christ came and also experienced afterwards.

The mysteries were not church establishments or schools in the ordinary sense but places of training where rites were also observed, where people learned wisdom, surrender and a faith that is both knowledge and insight. There were greater and lesser mysteries.

In the lesser mysteries, people admitted after going through many trials would see dramatic presentations of the eternal truths which higher initiates experience in their own hearts.

The greatest elements of human evolution may be compared, on a small scale, with the experiences someone who was born blind has after an operation. A completely new world opens up. An initiate has the eyes of the spirit opened. A world of the spirit opens up in light and colour, completely new and much wider than the physical world with all its spirits and inhabitants. All things seem full of life to him. This is the moment when initiates experience the birth of their higher self. It was known as the inner Christ festival.

The experiences of those chosen people, experiences that can still be had by initiates today, were an ideal for those in the lesser mysteries, something they might hope to achieve, some sooner and some later.

Anyone who knows that everyone has to go through many lives may be certain that for him, too, this awakening, this initiation will be reality one day; that the awakening of the Christ will be achieved in him, the holy night when the light will shine within him. Then the words of John will be reversed: ‘And the light shall be comprehended in the darkness.’

This was also presented in the mysteries. The great Christian event was a physical recapitulation of events every initiate had known in the mysteries, as images presented in the lesser mysteries and inside the human being in the greater mysteries.

In the lesser mysteries the important experience of the inner Christ was shown at a particular time of the year, when the sun gives least light to the Earth, in the longest night of winter—as is still done today at Christmas.

Let us consider the image which symbolized the meaning of human inner development in the lesser mysteries.

• The people who were about to see it would be in a solemn mood, gathering in holy night, in the utter darkness of the midnight hour.
• Then a strangely booming, thundering sound would be heard, gradually changing into a wonderful rhythmic harmony—the music of the spheres.
• A faintly illumined body, a sphere shining dimly in the darkness would appear. This was meant to symbolize the Earth.
• Gradually rainbow-coloured rings, one merging into the other, would arise from the dimly lit earth disk, spreading in all directions—the divine iris. That is how the sun would be seen to shine in ancient Atlantis, in the Niflheim of Norse mythology.
• The colours would gradually grow brighter, with the seven colours slowly turning into a faint gold and a faint violet.
• And the form would shine more and more brightly, with the light getting stronger, until it was transformed into the most luminous of the heavenly bodies, into the sun.
• In the middle of this sun the name of Christ would appear, written in the language of the people who were there. It was then true to say of those who had been present that they had seen the sun at midnight. This means that a symbol of spiritual vision had appeared to them. When their spiritual eyes had been opened they found that all matter became transparent, they saw through the Earth, truly seeing the sun at midnight, having overcome matter. The sun at midnight would appear in reversed colour, a violet, reddish colour. For Christians, translated into human terms, the great cosmic symbol thus seen is Christ Jesus coming to the Earth. We shall all of us see the sun at midnight. This also does not contradict the New Testament.

1915-10-11-GA254

whereby RS quotes himself from 1900-1901

It is well known that the Eleusinian Initiates distinguished the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries; the Lesser were a preparation for the Greater.

... Positive philosophy is the necessary consequence of Negative philosophy when this is rightly understood. It may therefore be said:

• In Negative philosophy the Lesser Mysteries are celebrated,
• in Positive philosophy the Greater.’

Temple sleep

this section includes reference extracts for both

• healing through temple sleep in previous cultural ages such as Egypto-Chaldean cultural age
• the process of initiation

1907-03-17-GA097

Before Christian times, initiation was such that the pupil would first be prepared for everything occult science was able to offer, up to the point where he was familiar with all the concepts and ideas, all the habits and feelings that are needed for living in the higher worlds and be able to have perceptions in them.

Then came the ‘resurrection’, as it was called, taking three and a half days and three nights.

For this the temple priest used his arts to put the individual artificially into a death-like sleep for three and a half days.

Normally the physical and the ether body remain connected in sleep, but the art of the priest who performed the initiation caused the ether body of the initiand to be lifted out of the physical body for this period, leaving only a loose connection between the physical body and the other bodies. It was a deep trance sleep.

The initiand's I lived in the higher worlds during this time. The pupil knew his way about there because he had been given knowledge of the higher world. The priest would guide him. To begin with, the priest had to free the ether body of the lethargic physical body so that he might guide the pupil into the worlds of spirit. Human beings would not have been able to rise into those higher worlds in a fully conscious state. They had to be lifted out of that state.

The initiand would experience magnificent, tremendous things there, but he would be entirely in the hands of the priest. Another person had control over him, and that was the price that had to be paid for entering into the higher worlds.

You can imagine what he would be afterwards, if you remember that he was able to know his eternal principle on this occasion. He was rid of the part of his finite nature, of his physical body, which was of no use to him when he wanted to move in higher worlds. Such an individual would be a ‘knower’ after this, able to bear witness from personal vision of life's victory over death. Those were the initiates who could bear witness. The ether body had to be lifted out of the physical body to meet the Christos in the human being.

Those initiates were able to say: ‘I know from personal experience that there is a part of the human being that is eternal, continuing through all incarnations. I know this; I have had living experience of this eternal core of my self.’

To gain this prize, they had to enter into three days of total dream sleep.

1908-08-05-GA105

The unique fact lying at the foundation of temple-sleep is that among the Egyptian priests, and in ancient civilizations in general, wisdom was held to be very closely bound up with the art of healing and with health. ...

We must now sketch in a few words, and bring before your souls, the nature of temple-sleep, which was one of the remedies employed by the priests of Egypt. Anyone who had suffered loss of health in any way in those days was not treated as a rule with external remedies; there were only a few of these, and they were seldom used. Sufferers were in most cases taken to the temple and there put into a kind of sleep. It was not an ordinary sleep, but a kind of somnambulistic sleep which was so intensified that the patient became capable of having not chaotic dreams merely but of seeing orderly visions. During this sleep the patient perceived etheric forms in the spiritual world, and the wise priests understood the art of influencing these etheric pictures which passed before the sleeper; they could control and guide them.

Let us suppose that an invalid was put into a temple-sleep. The priest skilled in medicine was at his side when he fell into this somnambulistic sleep, the invalid then entered a world of etheric forms, and the priest, because of the power he possessed through his initiation (and which was only possible in those ancient times when conditions of existence were such as no longer or very seldom exist today), was able to control the entire sleep. He formed and fashioned the etheric visions and beings in such a way that there actually appeared before the sleeper, as if by magic, those forms which at one time the ancient Atlanteans had looked on as their Gods. These divine forms, concerning which the various peoples still possessed a remembrance, in the German and Norse, and the Greek mythologies, were now placed before the soul of the person who was in the temple-sleep. He saw in particular certain figures which were connected with the healing principle.

Had the patient remained conscious, as in the waking consciousness of today, it would not have been possible for such forces to act upon him; this was only possible in somnambulistic sleep.

The wise priest guided this dream-life in such a way that powerful forces were liberated during the etheric visions, and these restored to order and harmony the forces of the body which had fallen into disorder and discord. This was only possible when the self-consciousness of the patient had been suppressed. Temple sleep had therefore a very real significance, and we can see how the healing art of the priests was connected with knowledge only accessible to Man through initiation. The connection lies clearly before us. It was the priests who, through the revival of the ancient vision of higher worlds, possessed in their wisdom the forces which came from these worlds, whereby spirit could work upon spirit. They acquired the capacity of allowing spirit to work upon spirit, and through this wisdom was brought into inner connection with health.

...

When we rightly understand the effect of that which is spiritual we find that temple-sleep is not unintelligible to us.

What was it that was conjured up before the sleeper in the temple in his etheric visions?

It was the picture of the Atlantean Gods whom we once knew as etheric forms; among whom we once lived, when we were able to be conscious outside the physical body and could exercise etheric clairvoyance. If we go still farther back in human evolution, far beyond the Atlantean epoch, we reach a period in which Man first became what he now is, when he first appeared as the individual personality he is today. This period is called the Lemurian epoch.

...

These forces in Man were healthy, and so was that which, as his kind, he produced. The priests of ancient Egypt knew this, and they said:

The further we guide man's vision back into previous conditions the more do we bring him into conditions in which there is no disease. The vision of the old Atlantean Gods acted curatively, and this was still more the case when the priests guided these visions so that the temple-sleeper had before him those primeval forms which were fertilized, not from their like, but from that which was in their environment.

The invalid who lay in the temple-sleep beheld the form of her who was the mother of her kind without having received fertilization from her kind. Before him stood the generating woman, the woman with child, yet who is virgin; the Goddess who in the Lemurian epoch was the companion of man, and who has since disappeared from the sight of man. In ancient Egypt she was called Holy Isis. Isis could only be seen by men in a normal way when death had not as yet appeared on earth. At that time men were, in normal consciousness the companions of such forms as floated around them, and they brought forth their kind virginally.

When Isis was no longer the visible companion of humanity, when she was withdrawn into the circle of the Gods, she continued to interest herself in the health of mman from the Spiritual World so said the priests—and when a person was raised to the vision of those ancient forms in an abnormal way, as in temple-sleep, the pictured Isis still acted curatively on him. She is that principle in man which was present in him before he received his mortal covering. HER veil has no mortal raised, for she is the form which was there when death had not as yet come into the world. She is the ONE ROOTED IN THE ETERNAL; she is the great HEALING PRINCIPLE to which humanity will again attain, when it steeps itself anew in spiritual wisdom.

[editor: see further: Sistine Madonna]

1908-09-05-GA106

The ancient Egyptian physicians did something similar. They reduced the patient's consciousness to a sort of hypnotic sleep, during which they could govern the soul-pictures that arose around the patient. They guided these pictures in such a way that they were able to work back on the physical body and make it healthy.

This was the significance of the temple-sleep that was applied for internal ailments.

The patient was given no medicine, but was allowed to sleep in the temple.

His consciousness was damped down, and he was allowed to look into the spiritual worlds. Then his astral experiences were guided in such a way that they had the power to pour health into the body.

This is no superstition; it is a secret that was known to the initiates.

They introduced the spiritual into the patient's experiences. In this medical art, which we find so closely connected with the principle of initiation, the Atlantean conditions were artificially recreated during the healing. Since Man did not work against himself through his day-consciousness, those forces could be active that were necessary for healing. This is how the temple-sleep worked.

1908-11-16-GA107

I would have to tell you a great deal to portray for you the deeper meaning of the Egyptian temple sleep and how it affected the health of the people, if I were to describe what emanated from such a cult - the Apis cult, for example - in the way of popular medicines for their general well-being. The direction and guidance of the people depended upon the initiates in these cult centers to provide the elixirs of health. But now that was to change. The Jews were to become a nation of priests. Everyone should feel a spark of the Jehovah God within himself, should have a direct relationship to Him. No longer was the priest to be the sole mediator. That is why the people had to be so instructed. They had to be made aware that the false images, the lowlier images of the highest god are also destructive to health.

1909-05-05-GA266

Things were different in ancient times when an initiator pulled the etheric body out of the pupil's body to imprint experiences from spiritual worlds into it. From trances to three and one-half day temple sleeps, it was always the hierophant who mediated everything into the pupil's consciousness, whereas today the pupil tears out and elevates the etheric body himself and lets the master's teachings stream into him.

1910-09-10-GA123

The power of the soul and of the spirit had a far greater more momentary influence on the human body at one time than was later the case. As the body became denser the soul lost power over it. Therefore, healing through the soul was formerly more possible than it is today.

The soul had then far more power to permeate a disordered body with active health-giving forces drawn from the spiritual worlds, and to restore it to harmony from within itself.

With the progress of evolution the power of the soul over the body declined. Healing became less and less a spiritual process.

The physicians of those times, unlike those of today, were healers who worked on the body by influencing the soul. They purified the soul by their spiritual influences, filling it with healthy perceptions, impulses, and will-power. These were exercised either under the ordinary conditions of physical perception or through ‘temple sleep,’ which was but a means of rendering men clairvoyant.

In considering that ancient culture, we are obliged to say that those who were strong of soul and able to draw upon their own acquired resources could influence the souls of others, and through them their physical bodies to a considerable degree. These men, who were filled with spirit, so that they radiated healing forces, were called ‘Healers.’ Fundamentally, not the ‘Therapeutæ’ only, but also the Essenes, should be regarded as Healers.

[the meaning of the name or word Jesus]

We can go further: in a certain dialect of Asia Minor, where a language was spoken by those associated with the origin of Christianity, the word they employed, which we translate as ‘spiritual healer,’ was ‘Jesus,’ and means ‘Spiritual Physician.’ That is the actual meaning of ‘Jesus.’ It is the correct translation when one has a feeling for the value of words, and throws light on what was felt to exist in such names at a time when names still meant something.

1912-01-25-GA060

When we consider the sleep-state in the light of present-day spiritual science, we look upon it that while the human frame remains quiescent and sleeping, the actual centre of Man’s etheric Being is situated outside the recumbent figure, and that during such state the power of the true inner essence of this etheric nucleus is so low that unconsciousness supervenes, and the nucleus becomes, as it were, enveloped in darkness. The methods employed during these ancient mystic rites in order to affect the human soul were as follows:

Through the influence of certain advanced personalities, who had themselves passed through similar mystical initiation, a species of sleep-state was first induced. This was of such nature that the inner forces of the soul were thereby strengthened and intensified. When a certain stage was reached the soul left the body, which was then in a condition of deathlike sleep, and for a time entered upon a psychic existence, a kind of sleep-life, during which it could look upon the spirit world with full consciousness. While this sleep-life continued, the soul was able to realize its true position as an inhabitant of the spiritual realms.

When, in due course, the soul was brought back once again to ordinary mundane conditions, there came to it recollections of all those things which it had observed and experienced while freed from the body. It was then that it could [while active within the human form] come before the people and stand forth as a prophet, bringing to them proofs of the existence of a spirit world and of an eternal life to come.

In those olden days it was in the manner above indicated that the soul was enabled to take part in the life of the spiritual realms; and in the mysteries were found the canons to which it must submit, and for a long period, in order that the supreme spiritual leaders in the ancient Mystery Sanctuaries might bring about the final consummation of the soul’s desire.

We will now ask this question:

Whence came those ancient standards of human conduct which have been passed on by peoples spread throughout the world during the course of man’s evolution; and those flashes of spiritual enlightenment proclaiming his Godlike origin and the eternity of the soul?

The answer comes through Spiritual Science; from it we learn that this olden wisdom originated with those who had themselves undergone initiation after the manner we have outlined. There is a reflection of these primeval moral precedents, manifested in strange and curious fashion, in connection with Myths and Legends and various graphic portrayals of the past; for in these very fables we find depicted many of the same experiences which came, as if in a living dream, to the initiates in the Mystery-Sanctuaries.

Indeed, we first begin to understand Mythology rightly, when we regard the forms and figures there presented, as pictorial representations of things which appeared to the spiritual vision of the Initiates during the time of their participation in the secret rites. If we would establish a relation between the mythological conceptions of olden times and the religious teachings of an earlier age, we must hark back to the ancient mysteries and ponder upon all that lay concealed therein, deep hidden from a profane external world. Mysteries revealed to those alone, who, through severe trials and unswerving observance of that secrecy and restraint imposed upon all, had truly fitted themselves to take part in the dark ceremonies of initiation. We cannot, however, at this point enter into the actual circumstances which led to the close veiling of the mystic rites performed in that now remote grey past. But when we turn our gaze backward and follow the course of spiritual development in pre-Christian times, we realize that it was ever in the dim obscurity enshrouding the inscrutable observances of that by-gone age, that man’s soul unfolded and was strengthened.

The souls of men were not so fully developed in the past that they could of themselves and of their own efforts rise upward and enter the realms of the spirit, while merely dependent upon their immediate powers and unaided by the ministrations of the temple priests. In my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact, I have pointed out that even while external history ran its course a change was taking place; and it has there been my object to show how the whole plan and design underlying human evolution was such, that when the turning-point was reached which marked the birth of Christianity mankind was already prepared to enter upon a new era. This change had come about because of all that man had experienced and absorbed through repeated reincarnations, and through knowledge gained from initiates concerning the Spirit-World. From then on he would have the power of upliftment to spiritual heights within his own innermost soul, which could henceforth rise of its own effort, free from all external influence and unaided by those means which it was the custom to employ in the by-gone days of the mysteries.

According to the views which we now hold, the most outstanding event that came to pass in Palestine, in connection with the spiritual progress of mankind was the final perfecting of the soul, so that it should be fitted for what we might call Self-Initiation. This ultimate consummation had been approached gradually and the necessary preparation had extended over possibly hundreds of years; yet the end came just about the very time when that special turning-point was reached which marked the beginning of the Christian era. The soul was then so far perfected that it was ready for self-initiation, during which act it would be merely guided by those having knowledge of the true path and of the trials that must be endured; henceforth self-initiation might be achieved without external aid rendered by Temple priests, or by leaders having understanding of the mysteries. And further, through the founding of Christianity all those other rites and observances which were performed time and time again in the innermost sanctuaries of the Temples, memories of which are still preserved in Legends, Myths and Mythologies connected with folklore, are found to have a place in that Grand Plan which underlies the world’s history.

If we would indeed understand the Gospels, we should ask ourselves the following question:

‘What experiences were essential to a candidate for initiation in the days of the ancient Persians or Egyptians, who desired so to uplift his soul that it might gaze directly upon the Spirit-World?’

Injunctions concerning such matters were clearly set forth and formed the basis of what we might term a Ritual of Initiation. These commands and instructions covered a time extending from a certain event designated by some as The Baptism, and by others as The Temptation, up to that moment when the soul was led forth and blessed with a true discernment of the spiritual realms.

When we compare such Initiation Rituals with the most important statements contained in the Gospels, then (as I have shown in the book to which I have just referred) we find that in the Gospels there appear once again detailed narratives concerning ancient initiation ceremonies, but here the descriptions have reference to that great outstanding historical character, Jesus of Nazareth. It further becomes clear that whereas in previous times an Initiation Candidate was raised to spiritual heights in the seclusion of the Temples of the Mysteries, Jesus of Nazareth, because of the course which history had taken, was already so far advanced that He not only remembered His experiences in the Spirit-World and thus brought enlightenment to humanity, but He became unified in spirit with One, to Whom no earthly being had as yet become united, namely, The Christ-Being. Thus we find a great similarity between the narrative of the spiritual development of Jesus of Nazareth up to that moment when The Christ entered into His soul and during the following three years when He drew inspiration and wisdom from this Divine source, and the descriptions of the wonted course of the ancient forms of initiation.

In the accounts which tell us of all the trials and experiences which Jesus of Nazareth underwent in those olden days, we find the events connected with His initiation clearly marked by the magnitude and Godlike nature of the spiritual facts which underlie the historical descriptions. This is especially noticeable in the Gospel of St. John. While in previous times countless aspirants had taken part in the sacred rites, they had only advanced to that point when they could testify as follows:—‘The spiritual world is a reality, and to such a world does the human soul belong.’ But when it came to pass that Jesus was Himself initiated, He became actually unified and at one with the most significant and outstanding of all spiritual beings ever remembered by former initiates; and it was toward this supreme initiation that the ordered plan underlying all ancient forms and ceremonies had its trend.

1921-05-22-GA325

How mankind became aware of this inner nature and its strength can best be recognized by us when we examine from a definite point of view the highly developed Egyptian art of healing. It is quite different from our own medical science. For the illnesses existing in Egypt there were specialists, eye specialists in particular. The healers there made use of the so called temple sleep.

The sick were brought to the temple and put into a kind of sleep during which they entered a sort of dream condition. What they then remembered was studied in its pictorial characteristics by priests who were versed in such things. These priests found out what taught them pathology through the inner dramatic course of the dreams, through the character of the pictures, whether they were dark on light or dark following light and so on.

From another side they discovered indications for remedies in the particular configuration of the dreams.

Through observation of what men experienced inwardly and what in dream pictures presented itself to the inner sight, the inward bodily condition of human beings was studied in Egypt.

1922-10-05-GA217

.. it is historically true that vision into the spiritual world through sleep was a deliberate and conscious striving among human beings of past epochs, apart from the fact that the candidates for initiation: the students of those days were prepared in a sacred way for the temple-sleep in which they were made aware of Man's participation in the spiritual world.

Discussion

Note 1 - Rudolf Steiner's new Mysteries and the Foundation Stone

At the end of 1923, Rudolf Steiner made a pivotal move by connecting his Personality and thus his Individuality to the re-founded Anthroposophical Society, whereas upto then he had been a teacher of the movement, without taking earthly responsibilities for the society. This re-founding of the Anthroposopical Society is referenced through the ritual event of the Foundation Stone whereby a Foundation Stone meditation was given by Rudolf Steiner. This was to be a new start in the anthroposopical movement, to provide the new mysteries for our age also through the society.

The Foundation Stone (event, intentions, meditation) and the events of the next decades within the Anthroposophical Society have been subject of much study and debate.

For literature on the topic, see 'Further reading' section below, and also Polarization and polemics within the anthroposophical movement.

Some still adhere faithfully to the original intentions and see this as what is needed in the world as the 'new mysteries'. For others the whole initiative clairly failed due to what happened within the Anthroposophical Society after the death of Rudolf Steiner, relating it to the maturity (and karma) of individuals specifically and community in general.

Irrespective of which position one takes, it is interesting to observe a lack of objective analysis and positioning that combines the two dimensions required: 'perspective based on insight' with the 'reality context' of one century since 1922.

See commentary in coverage on: Druidic and Trotten mysteries#Note 4 - Commentary on Rudolf Steiner in 1923-1924 (and 1923-09-09)

Note 2 - Schema FMC00.545 epoch remnants or 'old stones'

Introduction

There are so many questions that megalithic sites trigger:

1 - How the stones of upto 40 tons were manipulated (manpower and/or magic),

2 - From where they got these huge heavy stones also in rural areas without mountains or rocks (and if these were really 'lying around' as the hypothesis says)

and more esoteric technically,

3 - The importance of the types of granite used (and the link with the quartz forces),

4 - The possible functions and workings of the stone constellations in large rectangles (such as the ones around Visbek) or rows (like Carnac),

5 - Hypothesis of any potential use as fluid condensor (or not), etc.

Alignment to solstices and equinoxes

Ancient cultures were much more connected with the macrocosmos and path of the Sun and Moon. A characteristics of ancient sites and stone monuments is that they are aligned with the solstices and equinoxes (which happen simultaneously around the world across time zones as these astronomical events are based on our planet’s orbit around the Sun and tilt on its axis).

See also: Rhythm of a year

Examples:

• Newgrange: during the winter solstice, a beam of sunlight exactly illuminates a small room inside the mound at dawn
• Chaco Canyon (New Mexico): during summer and winter solstices, a stone called the Sun Dagger is exactly illuminated at mid day

Characteristics of stones

René Querido

in interview with Thomas Meyer:

TM: If I remember correctly, you also met Pierre Morisot , an important Chartres researcher and French student of R. Steiner? RQ: I met Pierre Morisot on several occasions in Paris, from 1954 until his death. We used to chat in a bistro in the Latin Quarter. He dealt deeply with the Grail legend of Chrestien de Troyes. He spoke variously of Marie de Champagne, who was Chrestien's inspirer. He was also linked to Chartres - and helped me understand the geology of the rocky plateau on which the cathedral was built – a mixture of granite and the region's limestone. "Typical of old Druid circles," he said. Morisot was a friendly, highly educated French gentleman who spoke softly but firmly. He had been an engineer.

William Mistele

Mull Island stone circle:

Coming over on the ferry from Oban, (West coast of Scotland)  Saturday, April 20, 1991, I bought in the shop on the ferry a number of books, maps, etc. of Mull and Iona.  One description was of Moy Castle, a small stone pre-Christian fortress. The last paragraph on the castle mentioned that the best example of standig stones was walking distance from the castle.

...

So off in the field,  cow manuer everywhere, were the nine stones in a twenty-two foot circle.  Outside the circle to the South was a nice nine foot stone.  Asking permission, I touched it and asked  what it's energy was.  This stone said to me that the organizing principle here was to unite with the dense  deep magnetic life force of the planet Earth - which I stepped into briefly to get the feel of.

Then, I proceeded around the circle clockwise.  Each stone had it's  own specific energy.  

• The first stone on the left was the energy for me of a masculine  occultist, very intense yang controlling energy.  
• The second stone, by contrast,  (which  I skipped the first time I went around the circle),  was very yin - it was the embodiment of softness. I  contacted the feeling of the stone  and then spontaneously projected  that feeling as a female image.  And then we talked back and forth.  I think this stone of them all was the one I was most  in  need  of as a balancing  energy.  The  soft,  flowing, watery,  all-acceptance,  deep  as a bottomless lake,  gentle  as forest  pool,  flowing as a mountain stream. Just the kind of emotional  quality the fiery,  desert scorced quality of my  life with  Mars directly opposite Pluto in Leo has rarely  encountered in an abundance. Even now,  as I write this,  I can reach out and touch this stone psychically  and hear her voice saying that in my Soul there is a stone  circle  where  the  beginnings and the  ends  of  all  the mysteries of life are present and celebrated.   And that in  this quiet, seemingly abandoned spot, half a world away from beauty of Hawaii  or the violence of Detroit where I was born,  this circle has  in it's own way been waiting for me. For it has both  been there  for thousands of years and yet is also  somehow  a  real marker  on the inward landscape across which I travel to meet  my inner self.
• The third stone had the feeling for me of a needy woman,  loving, and  yet somehow torn within as if in great need. Perhaps  this was to foreshadow my next job which is currently counseling woman who  have  been  battered by men and training the men in anger management and unlearning  power  and  control tactics in relationships. Talking to her, she tells me that her gift is to be a true soul friend but that when violence is  present, her feminine beauty becomes wounded and is torn.
• The next stone, short and round, is like the akashic awareness of the  earth element. This stone seemed to carry an awareness of the valley, the mountains, the seasons, the pastures, of the land itself.
• The fifth stone had the quality of a warrior woman,  strong, martial, and confident.
• The  sixth stone, for  me, had something of the quality of enlightenment,  feminine  and  yet bright like the sun rising up above the horizon at dawn.
• The  seventh stone was somehow the compliment to the  first  one. Whereas the first had the control and occult knowledge,  this one was  like a female Bardic magician. She is full of  enchantment and  magic  and  knowledge of and stories  about  the  mysterious forces  which  move  in the human soul and the way  these  forces manifest  and unfold within the passions of  every  person.  Her  insight is not into how this cause produces that effect  but rather  how every thread and desire in a person is an  interwoven tapestry whose design is only faintly and occasionally  glimpsed. It is not the knowledge of power but the presence of beauty which in her mind is the real guide and guardian of life's journey.
• The  eighth stone is like a Lord of solar light,  a presence  of great  radiant power,  who in order to be present in the  circle, cloaks most of his light so as not to disturb the harmony of  the circle. When the light is too bright, it is not possible to see anything  else  in  the world,  so this one  must  be  approached carefully  lest  the  every day work and tasks of  the world be neglected.
• The ninth stone, for me, is like the goddess kundalini, intensely energetic,  wild,  ecstatic,  primal.  Serpentlike, blissful, and dangerous.  This stone was the second most attractive to me after the flowing,  watery stone.   Her knowledge is of the  sensations and  experiences which arise as primal energy passes through  and opens up the nervous system and chakras throughout the body.

To  the  east side outside of the circle was a small stone  which was like a spiritual guide, very clear in it's energy.

As I meditated more, I came to realize that the stones had within them the energies of different cosmic letters. Franz Bardon mentions that the druids also possessed the cosmic language. Long ago some man or woman from some tradition placed within these stones these cosmic energies perhaps as a message or as an inheritance for a future generation to discover.

Following the stones in  the same direction clockwise, the letters are K, M, J, E, N, C, L, R, and H.

A reader wrote (RH, 2023-06-28 and 09-08)

In my 20s, I visited “all” megalithic places, mainly in the west. In 1971, I was with a friend in the Hebrides and in Ireland. At that time, many monuments were still freely accessible, such as in Callanish. In France, I mainly visit all the known and lesser-known places, even on private property. I am convinced that megalithic stone settings were not only found in these places, but everywhere. Today they can mostly only be found in places that were used extensively for agriculture, such as in the Lazarc and the Cevennes in southern France, but also in the Pyrenees, often high up, in Spain and France.

A person with psychic abilities once told me, “the atmosphere in these places is always the same or similar; if you know one place, you know them all.”

Still I was at a few megalithic sites in the Pyrenees five years ago where I had the feeling that this was a place of an outsider or “dissident,” perhaps even a “criminal,” perhaps a separate group.

I do believe that in northern Germany and as far as the Münsterland region, these large stones are witnesses to the Ice Age, stones that were transported on the back of glaciers to this area. With many stones, one could determine where in Scandinavia they came from.

Granite is acidic, cosmic, condensed from the atmosphere, so to speak. ... the three components of granite ... feldspar, quartz and mica, I'll never forget them;

...

I know that granite is a receiver of cosmic forces and basalt of telluric forces. Granite and silicon is described as acidic, basalt as alkaline. 

Dolmens of granite served in ancient times as "solar filters", the physical light was blocked, the spiritual light and the descending Christ could thus be perceived without interference from the physical light. 

In the Esoteric School the first mantram was a translation of the English mantram "Purer than the light...", in Steiner's first own mantram it says "In the pure rays of light the Godhead of the world shines...". Thus it is not light that is God, nor is God in the rays of light, nor are the pure rays of light God, but rather "In the pure rays of light the divinity of the world shines forth..." So only the radiance, the reflection of the Godhead.

Examples sites

• Germany:
  • above Munster and Vechta area, some places with special energy: Visbeker_Brautigam, Heidenopfertisch, Visbeker Braut
  • Kreisgrabenanlage von Goseck
  • wooden constructs (Goseck with 6900 years is estimated older than stonehenge 5000 years)
    • Himmelsscheibe von Nebra
    • Kreisgrabenanlage von_P%C3%B6mmelte
• Russia: Stone labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky Island

.

Note 3 - On Lesser and Greater Mysteries

Introduction

DRAFT WIP - area with copy/paste text from exchanges 

Rudolf Steiner and Franz Bardon

Context - forum questions as trigger

Question:

What role do spiritual forces play in bringing about the consciousness soul in this age?

For a long time I couldn't make sense of the huge chasm developing between individuals, in anthroposophy, in regards to how the world is viewed. Conversations can be difficult, if not impossible, to reach any sort of consensus.

I finally realized that these difficulties can be a gift for us to take the next step to develop the consciousness soul.

The downside is that these difficulties can also make one/us sink towards the abyss. In trying to take a real conscious interest in our respective processes brings clarity as to what is happening. By looking at both the positive and negative processes we don't have to be seduced into these rabbit holes but rise into a new level of consciousness.

What are some of the processes used which can facilitate better understanding and what are the processes that can lead downwards ?

Answers

one:

the answer in one word, is initiation .. or self-initiation

spend less time online and more to 'know thyself' .. daily practice of initiation exercises

"initiation is the only possibility for the further progress of humanity .. there is no sense in talking about the continued progress of human evolution through purely natural means. Evolution can take a step forward only when humanity is fructified by initiation" science (1920-01-17-GA196)

two

a few considerations:

- we can hope that more fruit on the tree will continue to ripe, it may be a matter of spiritual maturity .. we are just at the beginning, in a way, the spiritual is to fructify the consciousness soul first, then ripple through to intellectual and sentient souls. So we can think of centuries for sure, and maybe millenia even.

- let's never loose sight of the pie chart with different segments of the overall population .. some tentative visualizations in the schemas below .. there will always be a minority in this epoch to make up the seeds for the next epoch, the majority is not the measure. See eg FMC wiki page 'Spiritual minority in a materialistic world'

- also Bardon's three books and especially the first have also seen adoption following the 33 years cycles, a first following has already developed the last decades, and I am convinced this (or any equivalent next future book or guide for self-initiation) will find growth in the future and at some stage be adopted by a larger segment of the population. However this is the true stuff initiation on steroids, the direct way, not for everyone for sure.

- imho things will only get rougher, not easier, we're in for hefty times ahead .. compare it to a distillation column, or chemo .. humanity will have to learn a great deal more and hit the wall seriously, as has been predicted by various sources through the ages, also Beinsa Douno, Steiner and others.

Now I know, all these are very broad and high level considerations of course, not down to concrete practical day-to-day reality as you write in your comment. That being said, I believe that with mobile phone internet technology and social media, we are living and witnessing a special age .. and an attack on the human (consciousness) soul of Gen-Z and what follows .. which I would not have believed if it had been written about decades ago. And then people wonder about 1998? Is this not a much more ambitous and successful attack than Gondishapur?

- the news doesn't stop there .. if one adds the rise in drugs worldwide with a similar stunting effect, and more broadly our materialistic culture and societal system of education that is bound to have dramatic effect in mental epidemics in the future. All this not to be negative, but to be serious and awake in earnest about the times we are living, and how important our actions and lives are to contribute in the best way possible.

https://anthroposophy.eu/File:FMC00.422A.jpg

https://anthroposophy.eu/File:FMC00.562.jpg

Question: What value does spiritual science (theosophy, anthroposophy) have for a student of Franz Bardon 's initiation system?

Answers

one:

you can see it as background information, which shaped the occult philosophy of nearly every practitioner in the first halt of the 20th century. So by reading you‘ll understand Bardons sources better, but you don’t need it for the practice itself…

two

Agree it does not impact the practice of IIH.

Spiritual science (as in theosophy and anthroposophy) is a knowledge framework, information for our thinking capability. Our faculty of 'thinking' should not distract our 'willing' away from focus on initiation exercises and IIH. However it does or can offer a broader worldview understanding for our intellect .. and a shared understanding allowing communication - as an antidote for our materialistic world, with all its implications. In short: "it helps to understand.

My experience has been that there's seems to be like a gradient or spectrum .. for large groups of people it's still the center of activity to try and grasp and debate thought forms, whereas those who have committed to practice and/or have had the experience, they don't find this exciting or interesting any more. So imho it appears as if people tend to naturally gravitate to one or the other rather than balancing thinking, feeling and willing and applying in the world like the rosecrucian tradition, or combining study with practice like the alchemists say 'ora et labora'. Maybe to do with spiritual maturity and our karmic history in one or the other stream. But that's not a judgement or assessment, just a personal perspective or opinion.

Follow up discussions

one question still remains: "initiation is the only possibility'

my own observation is that there is a lot of talk about this but very little practical culture for this. Even Class readers don't know how to meditate properly. So if initiation is to come about there needs to a be a real cluture of a balanced pathway of self development.

I teach meditation and self development but  I'm a work in progress in this field in being able to reach  out to seeking individuals whereby they eventually take up these practices for themselves. However not many individuals  see the necessity of teaching these practices , even though ,  without these practices there can be  no initiation ( exceptions of course). I've found that face to face teaching can work but just reading a book like KHW without been shown how to do the practices does not work.

one can observe in the forum participants they seem are often stuck in thought forms .. some write long messages full of concepts they picked up and read, like pinball on and on .. but it's clear it does not go through to the feeling .. at all, or .. enough .. to build a reservoir of will power to then go and act .. change one's time expenditure and choices ..

the missing block is .. if you want to change the world, change yourself .. Lao Tzu .. that is the greatest leverage one has

I have spoken with dozens of people who get lost in Steiner's meditations .. and researched that .. believe Bardon's IIH is the real thing from the teacher who came just for that, initiation to adeptship .. (you may be aware that RS said he would write a follow up after KHW but never did .. it also corresponds in timing, if one researches there are more things coming together) .. however that being said we can also see RS has a huge following, more accessible, popular .. in the sense that the GA offers readable materials on worldview issues and spiritual science that are like the first step, so much needed in these times .. but then there is a gap ..

RS himself said that after his death anthroposophy would intellectualize strongly/completely .. and 100 years later look what happened .. RS's students did the exercises .. how many on facebook forums do? they seem stuck in thought .. in thinking without the feeling. And initiation requires a maturity of soul (karmic, from earlier incarnations), and/or an integrative feeling about the reality and state of things in the world (there can be life changing events that lead to this (*) .. that brings one to commit to meditation and daily exercises. But the soul mood has to be ready and mature enough .. if one has expectations for quick results, is not able to live feeling-wise into true prayer .. then one can easily disconnect.

now between RS and his following today one century later where we ended up .. and Bardon II, there is a clearly a gap .. the latter is less known, speaks a different language, and there is no bridge ..

tried this bridge on the FMC page 'initiation exercises' where the IIH steps are commented upon with RS quotes, etc, but that's another problem.

Structurally one might argue that it is because the RS wave ran dry on thought, that the bridge to inner fire and will for initiation is lacking .. the bridge being 'feeling one-self into all that is in GA and on the FMC' taken together, realized, and then having that in one's soul with enough gravitas .. what I tried to sketch, the dry thoughts of anthroposophy do not suffice .. another state of soul is missing that connects us as a human being microcosm to all we experience around us, and the maturity to make choices as 'free man creator' in and with our own life/lives

See Schema FMC00.336 on 'Overview Free Man Creator' which depicts .. all this study work has to lead to initiation ultimately. we need an energy reservoir to fire the engine and will power to take on the great Work. If one stays stuck in thought patterns there is a big chasm between thinking and willing. This is the interesting gap indeed,

it would be interesting to have a few people who would have the openness of mind to be in both communities, for example people coming from Steiner, would notice that in Bardon community people don't discuss conceptual stuff from the 90.000 pages of the GA .. they don't talk about the elements but about experiencing the elements, not about lucifer & ahriman but about self-transformation of the soul mirrors .. and they actively make this the core of their daily work .. IIH step 10 reaches God consciousness or unity, higher spirit world, and so some initiates talk about their experiences there, but in their own language .. you see one can almost map the whole of Steiner's worlds to the experiential steps in IIH .. but obviously people talk a different language, and people who are 'too much only into RS' have a blind spot in that respect (like blinders) .. whereas people who do the real Work are not scholars, and often they don't care much about concepts or steiner quotes at all

I'm using the juxtaposition here to address the essence

One of Steiner's main practices is what I call active meditation eg the seed exercise is an example, which I have not found in Bardon yet. I believe that there are occcult hinderances which have  prevented Anthroposophists in taking up these practices as Steiner had intended.

Linking between Steiner and Bardon as Lesser and Greater Mysteries

the page below provides quotes and lecture extracts by Rudolf Steiner and others related to the first steps in Bardon's IIH - so from there linking to the knowledge framework of anthroposophy/theosophy. The page is work in progress, and all suggestions and contributions are welcomed. The two URLs are to the same site

• https://freemancreator.org/Initiation_exercises
• https://anthroposophy.eu/Initiation_exercises

.. the first three steps of Bardon's first book more or less correspond to Steiner's KHW, only in a more systematic way. In the first step, when reaching VOM (vacancy of mind, no thoughts), one disconnects from the physical brain .. that is the freedom Rudolf Steiner was talking about.

And the concentration exercises then train our faculties for sense-free imagination. But the astral mirror character transformation in step 1 and 2 is for example much more important, explicit, and rigorous. KHW was mentioned by the majority of people who answered Rawn Clark's questionnaire (Schema FMC00.487).

Some important points are that

• a) Bardon's books are the way to adeptship, steps 8-10 are the secure pathway to astral and mental travel and the 'God-experience' of unity .. and from there all the way to the third book and the 'language of creation'
• b) the system is proven by many who went before us .. ànd there is an open community of practitioners who actually do this .. but the work is done in one's personal life and home .. true self-initiation.
• c) 'magic' is the use of the feedback mechanism of the faculties one develops, to do self-assessment and move to the next step

What is interesting is, that people who pick this up really don't need to be convinced or not interested in conceptualizing about spiritual science. In fact the further one progresses, the less interesting or relevant conceptual knowledge becomes because one has the experience. It's like reading many books about the experience in water standing by the pool versus being in the pool or sea swimming.

Related pages

• Initiation before and after the Mystery of Golgotha
• Christ Module 5: Initiation and spiritualization
• Mysteries of the Spirit, the Son and the Father
• Initiation
• Druidic and Trotten mysteries
• Hibernian Mysteries
• Greek mysteries
• The Michaelic Stream
• Free Man Creator school

References and further reading

• Hermann Beckh: 'From the Mysteries: Genesis – Zarathustra' (2020)
  • includes: Our Origin in the Light (Genesis 1–9) (1924); Zarathustra (1927) and From the World of the Mysteries (1927), and more.
• Hans Wohlbold (1877 - 1949)
  • Mysterienweisheit: Menschheitsentwicklung vom Mytos zum Christentum (1927)
• Guenther Wachsmuth: 'Mysterien - und Geisteschichte der Menschheit' (1938)
  • with over 130 illustrations
  • Ch. 1: Ireland, Malta
  • Ch. 2: Mexico, Toltecs
  • Ch. 3&4: Egypt
  • Ch. 7: Druids, Mithras cult, northern and southern mysteries
• Hans Gsänger (1906-1976)
  • see profile page on: biographien.kulturimpuls.org, from which the following excerpt (edited internet translation)
    • ".. the subject that wouldn't let him go until his end of life was the history of the mysteries of humanity in the light of Rudolf Steiner's explanations. He started traveling and publishing. ... and as has he needed new knowledge he studied history, religious history, archeology and mythology. Numerous essays and monographs were created. He collected a readership around him that burned to travel with him. He undertook well over 30 trips, and .. in the face of the holy sites, he found words that only the Genius Loci could inspire. Fellow travelers came from his generation and formed a travel community, familiar with eachother and loyal to his death."
  • his books are in the 'Further reading' sections on the topic pages for the different Mysteries (Greek, Hibernian, ..), but there are also:
    • 'Atlantis. Der Beginn der Mysterien' (1975)
    • 'Mysteriengeschichte der Menschheit. Von der Atlantis bis zur Gegenwart' (1977)
• Max Guilmot: 'The Initiatory Process in Ancient Egypt' (1978)
  • freely downloadable
• Bernard Lievegoed: Mystery streams in Europe and the new mysteries (1982)
• Adalbert von Keyserlingk
  • Vergessene Kulturen im Monte Gargano (1970 second edition also 1987 as 'Monte Gargano. Europas ältestes Michaelsheiligtum')
    • Monte Gargano is a sub-region in the province of Foggia, Apulia, southeast Italy .. story is that in the 5^th century the archangel Michael appeared to a bishop who had taken shelter in an underground cave, requesting the cave would be turned into a place of worship.
  • 'Und sie erstarrten in Stein. Frühe Mysterienstätten in Korsika als Keime unserer Zeit (1983)
• Markus Osterrieder: 'Sonnenkreuz und Lebensbaum: Irland, der Schwarzmeer-Raum und die Christianisierung der europäischen Mitte' (1995)
• Ita Wegman: The Mysteries (1995, compiled and translated by Crispian Villeneuve)
• Frank Teichmann (1937–2006)
  • 'The Origins of the Anthroposophical Society in the Light of the Ancient Mysteries' (2020 in EN, in DE as 'Die Entstehung der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft auf mysteriengeschichtlichem Hintergrund')
  • 'The Sacred Mysteries of Egypt. The Flowering of an Ancient Civilisation' (2016 in EN, in DE in 1999 as 'Die ägyptischen Mysterien. Quellen einer Hochkultur')
  • Die griechischen Mysterien: Quellen für ein Verständnis des Christentums
  • series: 'Der Mensch und sein Tempel' (The human being and his temple)
    • Ägypten
    • Megalithkultur in Irland, England und der Bretagne (1983)
    • Griechenland (1980)
    • Chartres

More

• S.F. Dunlap (1825-1905): The Mysteries of Adoni (1861)
• Dudley Wright: The Eleusian mysteries and rites (1919)
  • online version
• George E. Mylonas: 'Eleusis and the Eleusinian mysteries' (1961)
• Walter Burkert (1931-2015)
  • Greek Religion (1985)
    • chapter on 'The Kabeiroi and Samothrace'
  • Ancient Mystery Cults (1987)
• Michael B. Cosmopoulos (editor): 'Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults' (2003)
  • Albert Schachter: 'Evolutions of a Mystery Cult: The Theban Kabiroi'
• Grace F. Knoche: The mystery schools (1999, in NL in 2001 as 'De mysteriescholen door de eeuwen heen')
• Hugh Bowden: 'Mystery Cults of the Ancient World (2010)

• Guy Maclean Rogers: The Mysteries of Artemis of Ephesos (2012)
  • freely available online on academia.edu
• Jan N. Bremmer: 'Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World' (2014)
  • freely available in PDF on degruyter.com

School of Chartres

• Karl Heyer: Das Wunder von Chartres (1926)
• Gottfried Richter: Die Herrlichkeit der Kathedrale (1982)
• Rene Querido: 'The Golden Age of Chartres: The Teachings of a Mystery School ' (1987)
• Frank Teichmann: Chartres; Kathedrale und Schule (1991)
• Michael Ladwein: Chartres: Ein Führer durch die Kathedrale (1998, in NL 2000 as 'Chartres: complete gids voor de kathedraal')

Rudolf Steiner

School of Spiritual Science

• Johannes Kühl, Bodo v Plato: 'The School of Spiritual Science: An Orientation and Introduction' (2010)
• Johannes Kiersch: 'A History of the School of Spiritual Science - The First Class' (2006)

The Foundation Stone

• Rudolf Steiner
  • The Foundation Stone Meditation: see GA260
  • The Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society 1923-1924
• Valentin Tomberg Studies on the Foundation Stone Meditation
  • published in critical years of world history (1936-1939), were written just a few years after Tomberg's spiritual awakening. They penetrate into the Mystery of Christs Second Coming by offering the reader access from within to the Foundation Stone meditation given to humanity by Christ through Rudolf Steiner. More info here.
• Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven: The Foundation Stone (2002 in EN, original in DE as 'Der Grundstein' (1956) and translated in NL as 'De grondsteen' (1977, 1989)
  • analysis of the text by Rudolf Steiner on the day of the laying of the foundation stone for the new anthroposophical society in 1923.
• Mark Willan: 'Dornach: The centre for spiritual science?' (2001 with update 2006)
• Peter Selg: 'Rudolf Steiner's Foundation Stone Meditation: And the Destruction of the Twentieth Century (EN in 2013)

• Bill Trusiewicz: 'The Foundation Stone Meditation as the Being of Isis/Sophia: Some Results from Working with the Foundation Stone Meditation' (published 2017 in Starlight Journal of the Sophia Foundation; and Being Human, see online here)
• Adriana Koulias: 'The Foundation Stone Meditation: as a protection against evil' (2019)

• The Foundation Stone Meditation and the Challenges of Our Time (2021)
  • editors: Arie van Amerigen, Christiane Haid
  • fourteen contributions, for list of essays, see contents here

and

• Sergei O. Prokofieff:
  • Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries (1994)
  • Foundation Stone Meditation: A Key to the Christian Mysteries (2006)
  • Relating to Rudolf Steiner: And the Mystery of the Laying of the Foundation Stone (2008)