The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. On Heraclitus

Ladies and gentlemen!

[ 1 ] Since I have the pleasure of continuing this winter the lectures I was able to begin last year, I have set myself the task of making the period preceding the one I examined last year the subject of our consideration—examining it insofar as the seeds of everything that later medieval mysticism brought forth lie within this period.

[ 2 ] [The little book of last year’s lectures, which is now being published, deals with German mysticism from Meister Eckhart to Angelus Silesius.] Mysticism must be understood in and of itself through the extraordinarily exalted spirits of the individuals who belong to this tradition. If one delves into the peculiarities of the mystical teachings at all, if one comes to know the character of these teachings, the German mystics and their contemporaries—one can understand them personally and their teachings from within themselves. However, a completely different light is cast upon this later mysticism and its teachings—which are, at their core, thoroughly esoteric—when one considers the preconditions underlying the Greek mysteries and the mysteries of the early Christian centuries.

[ 3 ] Above all, German mysticism draws on the teachings of the mysteries—not only on what St. Augustine teaches, but also on the teachings of Scotus Eriugena, who was, in essence, more or less unconsciously, the great teacher of these mystics—Nicholas of Cusa, Angelus Silesius, and Meister Eckhart. So I believe one gets a completely different picture when one considers the matter from the perspective of the Greek mysteries. Greek mysticism is an ancient, primordial doctrine whose origins in Greece itself date back to the eighth century B.C.

[ 4 ] However, these mystery teachings have been significantly influenced by all mystery traditions: the Egyptian, Persian, and Indian mystery traditions.

[ 5 ] The Greek mystery teachings are very complex. To gain some insight, [I will first] offer a historical overview, because it is only through reliable historical facts that one can penetrate to the true, fundamental wisdom of these teachings. I would therefore like to proceed from the outside in: first, the historically established facts, and then delve deeper and deeper into the actual secret knowledge of these Greek mysteries.

[ 6 ] If we look at the matter historically, there were enormous difficulties until just a few decades ago, because although we knew what a tremendous impression had been made on those who had been touched by [the Mysteries], we had no testimony from those who had been initiated. A testimony that would satisfy everyone would be that people living in the Greek and Latin eras had witnessed their wisdom. But until recently, we were unable to fully understand what the foundation of this primordial wisdom might have been.

[ 7 ] It is therefore easier for us to [understand this] because we know how to view one of these spirits—who was deeply initiated—in the proper light; a spirit who was formerly regarded, at least from our Western perspective, as a philosophical thinker, but who, according to our current knowledge, was by no means merely that.

[ 8 ] I am referring to Heraclitus, who lived around the year 500 B.C. and who provides a deep introduction to the Greek mystery teachings, because he was one of the initiates in Ephesus. Today, we have a completely different understanding of why this Heraclitus has been called the “Obscure One” right up to our own time. It is difficult to understand. Difficult, not because he wrote in a language that is hard to understand. For it is not his language that is difficult, but the actual inner meaning of what he has to convey. He is not difficult in the sense that one cannot understand what he says literally, but rather because one must know the primordial wisdom from which his teachings sprang. One must know from what primordial wisdom his teachings were born if one wishes to understand them.

[ 9 ] He thus lived [during the transition from the sixth to the fifth century] before the birth of Christ. What is said about him is that he taught that fire was the primal principle, just as Thales posited water as the primal principle. He is also said to have taught that everything “is in a state of eternal flux; there is no ‘being,’ but rather an eternal ‘becoming.’ This is illustrated by his statement that one cannot step into the same river twice. And so it is with all events in the world, with all facts.

[ 10 ] Human beings, too, are in a state of “eternal becoming.” At this very moment, they are different from what they were a quarter of an hour ago. Everything is in perpetual motion, in an “eternal flow.” This is what is usually attributed to Heraclitus.

[ 11 ] We now have two books that still [mark a beginning] but also already demonstrate a deeper understanding. These are the German book by Lassalle and the book by [Bywater]. One must consult both if one wishes to understand Heraclitus. However, Pfleiderer wrote what forms the foundation for understanding Heraclitus. He was able to write this because he still came from the Hegelian school and therefore still had an understanding of it. Pfleiderer pointed out in a truly forceful manner that Heraclitus was not a philosopher like Anaxagoras, Parmenides, or others. Those were thinkers whom we can compare to other debtors. Heraclitus simply must not be placed in this category, but must be understood within the context of the entire Greek spirit. He himself belonged to the [Kodriden] family; he was the head of a branch of the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which the purest and most distinguished cult practices of that century were cultivated. These mysteries, which we will gradually come to know, were regarded by contemporaries who knew anything about them as places where one could find the greatest possible satisfaction of all human spiritual needs.

[ 12 ] We have a [comprehensive] account of the impressions of contemporaries regarding what could be gained from the Mysteries. Above all, however, I consider a testimony by Plutarch to be particularly important; he draws attention to this and states that, in fact, these Mysteries had merely been reduced to a certain level of humanity. [Plato says]: Whoever is initiated into the Mysteries shares in eternal life, while the others, when they die, must simply sink into the [mud].

[ 13 ] We gain an understanding of how they viewed the relationship between the Mysteries and scientific teachings from several passages in Aristotle. He says: Participants in the Mysteries were less required to acquire a specific body of knowledge, less required to absorb specific truths regarding content. These could also be acquired in other ways. They were more required to live within a certain way of life and to absorb these things. — Therefore, he knew that it was not a matter of teaching truth, but of experiencing truth. It is not, then, a matter of having received truths as a hand-me-down, but of having lived them in a certain way for a certain length of time and of having lived with the truth under such circumstances. It is life itself that was cultivated within the mysteries. That is what Aristotle tells us.

[ 14 ] Even though [Pfleiderer] mentions that [Heraclitus] handed over the leadership of the Eleusinian Mysteries branch to his brother, we may nevertheless assume that he was to be regarded as a leading figure—and indeed was one. And there is evidence suggesting that he was among the initiates. In particular, a work—or rather, certain passages from this work—point to this. The work was probably titled “On Nature.” From this, we can form an idea of what he said. He deposited this work in the Temple of Artemis in [Ephesus], because he was convinced that he could find true understanding only among those around him. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that Heraclitus was not the sort of person who wished to engage with the views of the marketplace—with the views that prevail among the masses. He was not referring merely to the utterly banal truths of everyday common sense, which he wanted nothing to do with and considered trivial; rather, he understood this to mean something far removed from the truth of an initiate. He also included in this everything Homer says and the entire body of Greek mythological teachings, which he rejected outright. He believed it was best not to concern oneself with Homer at all. Heraclitus is to be understood as having abhorred the “great rabble” and having led a secluded life.

[ 15 ] We gain a better understanding when we examine individual sentences from this work and analyze them. Here is one that can instantly shed light on Heraclitus’s entire mindset: The senses—the eyes and ears—are actually liars, and those who seek to know only through their eyes and ears will never know anything, because they are barbarians of the soul!

[ 16 ] We must not think that Heraclitus believes the senses deceive us. No, he expressly emphasizes that it is through our eyes and ears that we perceive everything. We find mysteries everywhere, wherever we turn our steps. He took the “everyday.” That was mysterious enough to him, so that he had little desire to seek out the rarities, the oddities, and the solitudes of life. He believed that anyone who, like a blind person or a sleepwalker, sees and hears only with their eyes and ears is a barbarian of the soul, incapable of awakening the soul to a higher existence. Heraclitus was convinced that all the views held by the masses are nothing more than those derived from the external senses.

[ 17 ] We must be clear that even the religious views of Homer, Hesiod, and other Greek poets can be traced back to deeper teachings of wisdom found within the mysteries and preserved there. But we must also remember that these teachings had taken on a different form. Heraclitus reproached Hesiod in particular for the fact that he, along with other Greek poets, had taken refuge in external forms and purely sensory truths, rather than upholding the teachings of wisdom that the mysteries could have handed down to them. Heraclitus was initiated into the primordial form of the teachings of wisdom from which Greek mythology derives. As a leader, Heraclitus was initiated into the ancient cults, in which one came to know the deepest foundations of Greek mythology in a completely different form.

[ 18 ] We already have some idea of what the fundamental nature of the initiation actually was, even though there were people who did not yet know much about it; we arrive at this idea when we consider what is meant by the Greek mysteries. We learn there [from Cicero] that these were not divine truths, but “natural” ones. We must not misunderstand this. When it is said that these were not divine truths, we must realize that they could only have concerned Greek gods. However, they were meant to represent deeper forces of nature—the greatest experience a human being can have in a symbolic form, namely the form in which the very drama of human existence was experienced in the Greek Mysteries. What was to be revealed was the human being, self-knowledge.

[ 19 ] This perception of the whole human being was a necessity: “Know thyself.” That was the task the mystery cults had set for themselves. Heraclitus was part of these mystery cults, and I therefore cite him in order to gradually delve into the mystery cults. I regard Heraclitus as an exceptional figure who was particularly deeply initiated into the secrets of the mysteries. And on the other hand, he possessed a special ability to express these secrets in a clear and classical manner.

[ 20 ] However, one can only understand Heraclitus if one considers him in light of what the Mysteries had offered him. The Mysteries were accessible only to select minds. [Those mysteries, however], of which we are told, were popular cults. The Eleusinian, the Orphic, and so on—these were popular forms. This is why it could have led to the misconception that Heraclitus wanted nothing to do with the whole mystery tradition. There are passages where he speaks out against the mysteries just as sharply as he did against Homer, Hesiod, and others. On the one hand, he dedicates his work in the temple of Artemis; on the other hand, he rejects these mystery cults.

[ 21 ] If we now consider his words: The Greeks celebrate Dionysus and depict him in obscene scenes—so that anyone who did not look more deeply could really see nothing but something shameless in them. Heraclitus, however, expressly emphasizes that these shameless scenes only appear shameless when viewed in their popular form, but that something important underlies them. — They are to be forgiven, because this Dionysus is none other than Hades.

[ 22 ] On the one hand, Dionysus is the god of perpetual growth, the god of life, of revelry, and of dissolute sexual activity. On the other hand, he also calls him the god of the underworld, the god of Hades. He regards these two as one and the same. The fact that Heraclitus regards the god of burgeoning life and the god of death as one and the same entity is something he experienced within the mystery cults. The mystery cults sought to instill the idea that the common belief—that life is in a state of perpetual oscillation—must be overcome. Life comes and is succeeded by death.

[ 23 ] This conception, which human beings initially form based on their sensory impressions, is a first stage. This stage must be transcended. The matter will become even clearer to us if we consider a later statement that I already cited last year from Jakob Böhme. It became apparent there that this statement is nothing other than an interpretation of the Indian mysteries: “And so death is the root of all life.”

[ 24 ] Heraclitus saw that death is the same as life, and therefore he also saw the god of death in the god of life. He saw that there is no such distinction between life and death; he saw that death is merely another form of life. This is something that lives in the Mysteries and also lives in Heraclitus. That is why Heraclitus says: By living [and by dying], we have life and death within us. — Life is in death, and death is in life.

[ 25 ] Heraclitus says, as do the initiates: “We do not come into being and pass away all at once, but we are in a state of eternal transformation, in an eternal ebb and flow of all things.” This is also how our senses convey it to us. But he does not stop there; rather, he says he sees how something new comes into being. He sees how death is merely the great artifice by which life is continually awakened in the cosmos.

[ 26 ] This seems very simple in the ordinary realm of the imagination. But the great depth of feeling was aroused by the fact that people witnessed events through which they were taught how something new arises from death. Such experiences are much more deeply ingrained when one has perceived them with the senses, seen them with one’s own eyes. Sensory experiences had thus been created in which one could recognize the great mystery of the equality of death and life.

[ 27 ] This eternal being, this eternal life that passes through life and death, is portrayed there. And when Heraclitus speaks of this and says that everything is in a state of eternal flux, this strikes us as a deep underlying current of his life. We also see that this “dark truth” has emerged from the deeper Greek mystery wisdom. This mystery wisdom sought to show that the sensory way of perceiving must first be transcended if the mystery-like nature of truth is to emerge. This is the statement: Life means nothing other than that we perceive with our eyes and ears what we are able to perceive. But we can also perceive this when we are enliveners of the soul.

[ 28 ] For those who seek deeper wisdom, a time now begins in which that which [is conveyed indirectly through the senses] is conveyed directly in legends and myths comes alive within them. Nature does not cease to exist for him; nature does not become colorless, as so many who cannot ascend believe, because they seek only to fill nature with dead, empty concepts. But Heraclitus says: One then receives a nature of the second degree, secondhand. - This is nothing other than what we later rediscover as nature reborn from the spirit, as it appears to us from the spirit of the German mystics. First it is gained from the outside; then the spirit sinks into it and emerges from it again.

[ 29 ] This reborn nature is what stands before Heraclitus as life, as a new nature. But there is no life within it that contains both death and life; rather, it is that which has overcome death and life. This is the living principle in which he can perceive, as a unity, his god Dionysus and his god Hades. That is why he can also say that these gods are difficult to understand, because they are the expression of deep, deep truths. But these deeper truths are accessible only to those who perceive more deeply. To those who perceive only with the senses, they will remain a mystery, just as it will remain a mystery to them that [Heraclitus’s] work had to be deposited in the temple of Artemis.

[ 30 ] In his writings on this subject, Pfleiderer has stated that Heraclitus derived such views from the Greek mysteries. And I can say that we find these views in Plato, and later also in Pythagoras and others. These views were then incorporated into later philosophical systems.

[ 31 ] Now something else comes into play. We hear Heraclitus speak of Pythagoras, just as he had spoken of Hesiod before. He says: “Much knowledge does not enlighten the mind; otherwise, it would have enlightened—and enlivened—Hesiod and Pythagoras.” Heraclitus was thus convinced that Pythagoras was not among those who had been initiated into the Greek mysteries. Pythagoras, [among all people], was the one most intent on inquiry, like a scholar. He sought to gather his own wisdom from it: “Being a know-it-all is a poor art.”

[ 32 ] However, we must be clear that what we know as Pythagorean teachings and mystery cults also contain wisdom, just as they do in the case of Heraclitus. Pfleiderer was unable to solve the riddle hidden here because he was unclear about the relationship between Heraclitus and Pythagoras and the mysteries of antiquity. Heraclitus was initiated into the ancient Greek mysteries—those cults that can be traced back to the eighth century B.C. and then disappeared, but which existed only in Greece itself. Heraclitus met Pythagoras when Pythagoras was nothing more than a scholar; Pythagoras [later] encountered the wisdom of the East and was inspired by it. Pythagoras then returned to Greece with this Eastern wisdom and was able to understand what Heraclitus meant. The same is true of Plato.

[ 33 ] Thus, in the case of the Greeks, we are dealing with a more comprehensive doctrine of the mysteries, whereas in the case of Heraclitus, we are dealing with the oldest and most primordial ones.

[ 34 ] Heraclitus is said to have regarded fire as the origin of all things—on the one hand; and the eternal becoming and surging, the eternal flow, the fundamental characteristic of the world—on the other.

[ 35 ] That was difficult to understand. It went so far that even Lassalle could not explain why Heraclitus understood fire as a symbol of something other than the becoming of the world. It is meant to symbolize the external ebb and flow. However, he believes that fire should be nothing more than an external symbol. Just as one uses a lion as a symbol to express bravery, so Heraclitus would have meant, through fire, the inner restlessness—the very spiritual essence of things. People have never quite moved beyond this conception because they have not fully grasped the full significance of the fact that Heraclitus stood on the foundation of the wisdom of the Mysteries. But if we attempt to do so, we come to understand how he came to the conclusion not to make the seemingly external matter the primordial source of the world. It only becomes clear to us why Heraclitus turned to fire when we delve into the mysteries. We need only look to the external Orphic mysteries. We then find that, since the eighth century B.C., the view prevailed there that fire sprang from eternity—from the eternity beheld in the spirit. This fire is regarded not only as external matter but, at the same time, as the spirit permeating the entire world: love on the one hand, spirit on the other. “In the Greek Mysteries, fire is also called ‘love’ and ‘spirit.’ There was nothing other than this conception, and the notion that outward talk [about] such a restless element as fire is overcome when one no longer sees merely with the senses, but also sees with the spirit and comprehends the spiritual. Thus, for those seeking truth in the Mysteries, [everything] was transformed into a supersensible, spiritual element. When they spoke of fire, they were no longer speaking of something they could see with their eyes or hear with their ears, but rather they were referring to the love that permeates the entire world; [into it] it would have evaporated. Therefore, it must be clear to us that when Heraclitus speaks of fire, he does not mean ordinary fire. When Thales speaks of water, he is speaking of actual water. But when Heraclitus speaks of fire, we must not understand it to be a substance like the water Thales refers to. We must seek out the meaning of it in order to know what he means by it. He speaks of nothing other than this nature reborn in the spirit. He expresses this only with the time-honored word “fire,” and its meaning can be understood by those who know the Greek mysteries. Only when one understands the matter in this way does one have a correct conception of it.

[ 36 ] German scholars such as Schleiermacher, Pfleiderer, Teichmüller, and others have long pondered this question. They have been unable to find a satisfactory explanation for how this inner, spiritualized doctrine relates to Heraclitus’s view that everything derives from fire. But if one assumes that the world is founded on fire, then this poses no further difficulty.

[ 37 ] We can only truly understand Heraclitus if we regard him as one who was initiated into the world of the Greek mysteries; conversely, we can regain an understanding of what the mystery cults sought if we interpret Heraclitus’s teachings correctly.

[ 38 ] Now one will also understand what Heraclitus means when he speaks of fire, and why he criticizes the Greek poets for perceiving and describing the world in a purely superficial way. He criticizes Homer because Homer describes the world as a place of strife, whereas people should strive for peace, since a peaceful state should be established in the world.

[ 39 ] Heraclitus held yet another view that sprang from the mysteries. In addition to the eternal One—eternal love—he posited that strife, the “struggle,” is born from primordial being. Where opposites exist, balance can only be found in a higher harmony. Conflict, says Heraclitus, is the father of all things. — Only from conflict can a higher harmony emerge. The image [of the lyre and the bow, the image in which] forces that strive against one another [find their harmony] in a higher harmony—this image becomes for him the image of the world. Thus, Heraclitus does not seek the origin of the world in an empty, harmonious unity. Rather, he seeks the greatest possible opposites and seeks to resolve them into a higher harmony. Now he reproaches the Greek poets for describing day and night, war and peace, and so on. [For] Heraclitus says: God is day and night; God is war and peace; hunger and satiety, and so on. But God is in a state of flux. His views are like [embers] mixed with incense. One aspect is called fire, love; the other is called struggle and strife. — [Heraclitus has been called “the Obscure One”; this is likely related to fire. One person may have called him that, another something else.]

[ 40 ] However, Heraclitus also expresses the view that, above the multitude of ideas that humans can form about the fundamental principles of existence, there is essentially only one unified, primordial, universal being; that above the greatest opposites of existence, only the greatest unity reigns. Thus, on the one hand, he regards conflict as the essence of all things. In conflict, opposites struggle against one another, yet they dissolve into the highest harmony. Heraclitus sees this ultimate insight as realized only in true self-knowledge. In this respect, Heraclitus is the first great figure to have recognized that self-knowledge is the highest knowledge of the world. That is why we find in Heraclitus—long before the West—the first significant figure to hold the view that the highest truths can be found within human beings themselves, [that the true self is not the individual self. One has become a mystic.] Then Heraclitus explains what the individual self is, and continues: Ever since I became a man, it is not the individual human being who speaks, but rather the universal spirit of the world, the Logos, that speaks within me. The Logos begins to speak when nature has been reborn into a higher nature. It then manifests as self-knowledge. But this does not reveal the self of the human being, but rather the essence that underlies everything. That is why he says: “The universal world reason, the Logos, speaks through me.”—And whoever has risen to this level is worth ten thousand to him. He also says that he listens only to those who are [excellent].

[ 41 ] Now, with Heraclitus, too, we encounter what we encounter with all such figures—[and what may sound like arrogance and immodesty]—when he utters the statement: “I know everything.” However, he probably means nothing other than the following: When I was still a boy and a young man, I saw with my physical eyes and heard with my physical ears; I perceived through my senses. When I became a man, I saw things [as they are] in their second nature, [as they are] in the Logos. - But he was still limited. He therefore says: I did not mean that I was always filled with all wisdom. I meant: I know how one must view the universe. - [He did not mean that he sees everything, nor that he sees more; he merely meant] that what others see in a sensory way, he sees in a different, spiritual way. This was made possible through self-transformation—through the transformation of the individual self into the universal self. He looked from the universe into the universe. This is what Heraclitus believed he had achieved when he said: “I [now] know everything within myself.” - At the same time, he had reached the point where he could declare that he had attained that intimate union with the higher Self—where knowledge has been transformed, where it is no longer an external observation of the things that stand before one, but has taken on a different form—where knowledge has taken the form of his being intimately united with things. [Lower knowledge consists in our standing as individual human beings within external space. The other consists in our standing outside of space, in seeing with the eyes of the universe], so that this small self expands into the universal Self of the world. Here we can apply Goethe’s words [with which he responds to that philistine saying] “No created spirit penetrates into the innermost depths of nature,” etc.: [“We think: place by place, we are within.” He thus says:] There is no inside and no outside; what is inside is outside, and no outside; what is inside is outside.

[ 42 ] Heraclitus had reached this level of insight. He expresses it through a metaphor, [by] saying that whoever sees as he does sees the world [through the eyes] of a child at play. These words have often been misunderstood. That the world is for him as the playing child perceives it is to be understood in this way: just as the playing child is concerned with nothing but itself—so that the toy, as it were, belongs to it, and it accomplishes with it nothing other than what it itself needs, having no other purposes to fulfill— so too is the human being who has reached a higher level merely subject and object, which are engaged with one another, which are inwardly [enclosed] within one another. Heraclitus compares this to the image of the playing child. This is often interpreted to mean that he believes one must view the world aesthetically, as an artist. This is also the case in Kühnemann’s book, where the matter is presented as if Heraclitus had professed only aesthetic views. This image [of the playing child] is meant to represent nothing other than the point at which the dividing wall between the personal self and the universal self no longer exists.

[ 43 ] Thus we have come to know a figure who inspires immense interest, who appears to possess immense profundity and the greatest acumen for that era, but who is of great value precisely because what has been handed down to us about this figure gives us the first insights into the Greek mysteries and shows how they manifested themselves over the centuries. It sheds light on the ancient Greeks’ search for truth.

[ 44 ] Behind the outer Greek mysteries—and also behind the inner ones—there are still mysteries that exist to this day.

[ 45 ] From a historical perspective, the matter must be considered up to Philo; it is only from Philo onward that one can also consider it from an internal perspective.