The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Platonic Mystics and Docta Ignorantia I

[ 1 ] At the dawn of what we call Christian mysticism, during the Gnostic era, mysticism was known as “Mathesis.” It was a broad understanding of the world, structured along the lines of mathematics. The mystic seeks not merely to understand external space according to laws derived from within, but to understand all of life; he engages in the study of the laws of all life. Starting from the simplest things, he ascends to the perfect. The foundation of mystical thought, the basic concepts of mysticism, and the content of what is called mysticism are little understood—not merely because they are judged solely by their outward words. When one reads descriptions of mysticism, it is as if one were reading a description that speaks of angles and corners in a house, whereas the mathematician actually means mathematical angles and corners. The words of mysticism, however, refer to the interrelationships of life.

[ 2 ] We will now examine the development of mystical thought up to Meister Eckhart in the 13th and 14th centuries, whose sermons inspired all later mystics. We must begin with a figure who is often overlooked: Dionysius the Areopagite. The Acts of the Apostles tells of a Dionysius who is said to have been a disciple of the Apostle Paul. In the 6th century, several writings emerged that are extraordinarily inspiring for those who seek a religion of the heart. They were translated from Greek into Latin, thereby introducing them to Western intellectual life. This took place at the court of Charles the Bald through the theologian Scotus Erigena.

[ 3 ] In scholarly writings today, the works of Dionysius are usually referred to as those of Pseudo-Dionysius. There is no evidence of these writings dating back further than the 6th century. However, since they were transmitted through tradition, it can be assumed with certainty that the writings existed in the earliest times of the Western world. It was likely not until the 6th century, however, that they were first put into writing.

[ 4 ] The mystic thinks differently than the rationalist and the materialist do. The mystic says: I look out into space, see the world of laws by which the stars move; I grasp these laws and recreate them. Thus, there is a recreative power of the spirit. For the mystic, thought is not merely something imaginary. The thought that lives within a person is nothing but a re-creative thought, in which the person relives what is being created out there in the world. The Spirit that creates out there in the universe is the same Spirit that reflects upon its laws within me. It sees speaking thoughts out there in the world. The creative forces of the universe have imprinted the laws upon the paths of the stars. This Spirit celebrates its self-knowledge, its rebirth in the human spirit. The mystic said to himself: In the universe out there, thought creates. As man recognizes, he recognizes the objective thought out there. In man, it becomes subjective thought. There is a connecting link which, at the same time, separates man in his inner experience from the external thought and causes the thought to flow into him from without.

[ 5 ] When we look at a crystal, the idea of a cube—or some other idea—is realized within it. If I want to understand this idea, I must reconstruct it and relive it. The way in which what exists in the external world relates to me occurs through inner sensation, through the eye—the sensation that relives the thought.

[ 6 ] We must therefore distinguish between: first, the creative thought in the universe; second, the physicality or corporeality of the human being as the connecting link; and third, the thought that lives on within the human being. — The human body opens the gateway through which the creative thought flows in from the outside and thereby shines forth again within. The human body serves as the mediator between the two thoughts: the creative thought and the thought that lives on. Human beings call that which is, in nature, first and foremost the creative thought, the “spirit.” They call that which perceives the thought the “body.” They call that which lives out the thought the “soul.” — The spirit is the creator of thought. The body is the recipient of thought. The soul is the experiencer of thought.

[ 7 ] The mystic conceives of the creative spirit in the external world in terms of three concepts. This is clearly explained by Aristotle. He has a quite remarkable conception of the Creator of the universe. He says, in fact, that this Creator cannot be found directly; yet He is contained within every thing. If the divine spirit were to exist somewhere today in any form, and if we were to form an image of the Creator based on that, we would still have only an imperfect image of him. We must not form a specific, limited image of the world spirit. Only in the future will we recognize what actually drives the world and sets it in motion. The world is in a state of constant perfection. The One who creates in the world is the true mover, the primal mover, the unmoved mover. We must look up to Him and recognize in Him the primal force that lives in all things. Aristotle’s primal spirit moves everything in the world, yet it does not fully manifest itself in any single being; it is the creative spirit that moves and shapes the outer world.

[ 8 ] Something has always already been realized in the world. We lift our gaze to the stars of a solar system. There we find great perfection. From the perspective of the theory of evolution, we must understand that this solar system has not always existed, but that it has come into being. No matter where we look out into the universe, we must acknowledge that it has developed to a certain degree of perfection. What has been achieved—in varying degrees of perfection—exists through the Unmoved Mover. Everywhere, one can always distinguish between what already exists—what has been realized—and the distant, divine goal. But why does a world system, an Earth, move toward this distant goal? It must possess within itself a striving toward the Unmoved Mover. In mysticism, a term is needed to describe this striving within the individual world system. People asked themselves: by what means has humanity striven toward this Unmoved Mover? It has directed its mind toward it. The expression of this orientation has always been present in the content of its religious creeds, in which the guidance for reaching the Unmoved Mover is still found today. In the Indian world, the expression of this striving was called the Veda, or Word. Among the Greeks, it was called the Logos, or Word. It is humanity’s striving toward the Unmoved Mover, who draws us to Himself. That which is realized is called, in the early days of Christian mysticism, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The striving itself is the Word. In Gnosticism and in Augustine, the Holy Spirit is the thought that shapes the entire universe. That which strives in all things to attain the form of the Spirit is called the Logos or Word. The third is the Unmoved Mover itself, which early Christian mysticism of the first centuries calls the Father. This is the threefold aspect through which the Idea manifests itself in the external world. Early Christian mysticism stated: God manifests Himself in three masks—mask = persona, from personare, “to resound through”—that is, in three masks or three persons of the divine Spirit. Through these three masks, the Spirit reveals Himself in the universe.

[ 9 ] What lives as spirit within a person is the soul. This soul cannot create a thought on its own. It must first have a sensation of the object. Only then can it mentally recreate the object within itself. Then we have the idea in the soul; then we become conscious of the idea. We can describe what lives in the soul from two perspectives: the perspective of sensation, the great inspirer, the great fertilizer; then comes what shines forth in the soul as a concept; this is the resting part of the soul, which receives its content from the outside. The resting soul, which allows itself to be fertilized by impressions from the world, is the mother. The sum of sensations from the universe is the soul’s masculine aspect, the father. That which allows itself to be fertilized is the soul’s feminine aspect, the mother soul, the eternal feminine. That through which the human being becomes conscious of itself is what the mystic calls the son.

[ 10 ] The aspects of the soul are: Father, Mother, and Son. They correspond to the three aspects of the cosmos: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the aspects of the World Spirit.

[ 11 ] By allowing his soul to be nourished through sensation, man gives birth once more to the entire universe from within his soul as a son. The mystic calls this universe, born from the soul as mother, the Christ. The person who draws closer to the ideal of becoming ever more conscious of the universe draws closer to what the mystic calls the Christ within humanity. Meister Eckhart says that Christ is born in the soul. Likewise, Tauler says: Christ is the universe reborn in every human being. This trinity existed in ancient Egypt: Osiris, Isis, and Horus.

[ 12 ] Third, the mystic contemplates the physical self. The mystic distinguishes, as part of his experience, the three persons of universal spiritual life: the Father, the Mother, and the Son. Meister Eckhart must be read in this light. For Meister Eckhart, this realization is a resurrection. He says that God created an eye within him with which He can behold Himself. When a person feels himself to be an organ of the Divinity, through which the Divinity beholds itself, then he has become a mystic; a higher understanding has then dawned upon him.