The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Greek Mythology

Ladies and gentlemen!

[ 1 ] Eight days ago today, I attempted to portray Heraclitus in light of the Greek mystery traditions, because it seems to me beyond doubt that this figure and his worldview can only be understood from this perspective. I mean, when one is faced with such a figure from the [transition from the sixth to the] fifth century B.C. and has only a series of fragmentary sayings from his life at one’s disposal, and when one then attempts to form a picture of this figure’s worldview, and views this worldview from the standpoint one gains by starting from ordinary philosophy, and find that one does not know what to make of this worldview, whereas with contemporary, earlier, and later Greek philosophers one is quite capable of arriving at a deeper understanding without further, more profound insights—this must give one pause, and one must seek the source elsewhere than in the realm of reflection and pure science. I have said that the source that provides us with the conviction that Heraclitus drew from the immense depths of the Hellenic worldview is nothing other than what Heraclitus alludes to when he says: ‘If one looks around and views the mystery cult through the eyes of the layperson, it might seem that the mystery cult contains nothing special, nothing other than a cult of the joy of life, of sensual pleasure, a cult of the urge toward the continual rejuvenation of existence. — There is no doubt: among the masses, the god Dionysus was worshipped as nothing other than the god of exuberant zest for life. When we look at Nietzsche, this Dionysian deity appears to us—admittedly serene and profound—but only in the form in which the scholar of Greek culture can perceive it. One can see what kind of ideas one might form [about] the god Dionysus if one does not delve deeper.

[ 2 ] I would like to say a few words about Nietzsche’s conception of the god Dionysus. Together with his friend Erwin Rohde, the [philologist], he was the first to challenge the view [prevailing] throughout the nineteenth century that the Greeks were a people of childhood, living in eternal cheerfulness, for whom the whole of daily life unfolded like a game. They challenged this view of the Greeks because they saw that this immersion in beauty, this pursuit of playful activity, rested on a deeper foundation. Thus Nietzsche came to interpret Greek tragedy and Greek art not as it had been done up to Rohde’s time, but in an entirely different way. Until Nietzsche, people had not properly understood the saying: “The worst thing that could have happened to a human being is that he lives at all; and the best thing would be that he had never been born at all. But since he is born, the best thing is to die.”—It is to the credit of Rohde and Nietzsche that they correctly grasped this saying and interpreted Greek culture in this way. This is not pessimism. Nietzsche calls his first work The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music because music serves only as a symbol of the beautiful, of the conception of the world as a work of art. Together with Rohde, Nietzsche grasped the idea that even the Greeks could not find satisfaction in everyday life, but that they, too, had to rise above their unsatisfying existence. That is why Nietzsche says he wanted to regard it as an urge not to perceive the world as it appears to us, but as a work of art. And as such, the world is bearable, as we see it in the Greeks. He perceived life—the everyday—as a tragedy. And one can only endure this, he argued, by seeing it in the mirror image [of art]. What the world is as a work of art is that which is meant to offer solace from the world of everyday life. Nietzsche understands this function as the cult of Dionysus. For Nietzsche, the urge toward the life of appearance, of reflection, was the Dionysian urge. This is the source of Nietzsche’s entire will to live, which continued to develop in him later on. The idea of the eternal recurrence [of the same] should not be confused with the idea of reincarnation. If one equates Nietzsche’s idea with the latter, it appears very bleak. Nietzsche says that everything that unfolds here before our eyes has already unfolded an infinite number of times and will unfold in the same way an infinite number of times yet to come. Nietzsche developed the idea of the eternal recurrence of the same from his own life. This is a specifically Nietzschean form of the will to life. This Nietzschean idea is a retrospective construction that he arrived at through the observation of external phenomena.

[ 3 ] But if we begin at the point we emphasized last time—that the cult of Dionysus can only be understood if one knows that the Greeks also worshiped [Hades], the god of death and the underworld, within it— then we also gain an understanding of what to make of Heraclitus, who was deeply initiated into the meaning of the mystery cults and possessed a grasp of the very concept of mystery cults—a grasp that enabled him to convey an image of those great truths which later reappeared among our German mystics, among all those who were at all capable of living within the mystical realm of the imagination. Thus, death is also the root of all life, as expressed in Jakob Böhme’s statement: “Whoever does not die before he dies will perish when he dies.” What I am saying now is intended to introduce you to what the Greek cults sought to convey. This is not easy to explain, nor can it be done briefly.

[ 4 ] What we can express in words about what still underlies all this is what we find in Aristotle. These are not insights that can be put into words, but rather the experience of having participated in the cults and having experienced these truths for oneself. We also know that those who imparted the mysteries say that the one who was initiated into the mysteries was freed from all ruin, that he was a participant in eternal life, and that he praised the initiation as the highest bliss of his life. Plato does the same. And this would be recognized by anyone capable of grasping his theory of ideas—which, however, is something entirely different from what it is commonly taken to be. So what is the nature of those who were initiated? Aeschylus was the forerunner of the Greek tragedians. Aeschylus was accused of having betrayed the Greek mysteries. The penalty for betraying the secrets was death. He was also convicted. He was able to save himself only by proving that he had never been initiated into the mysteries at all. What does this mean, then? Is this [story] to be taken as it is told to us? Was he really not initiated into the mysteries? Anyone who knows how to interpret such a tradition to some extent will see that this [story] is not a literal account but has an allegorical meaning. The entire [story]—that he was accused of betraying the mysteries and then provided proof that he had never been initiated at all—is to be taken as an allegory. What does it mean that Aeschylus was in fact deeply involved in the Mysteries and, as far as one can know at all about this wisdom, was initiated? And what does it mean that he proved he was not initiated? He demonstrated that what he said was not Mysterial wisdom at all; it did not pertain to Mysterial wisdom. Aeschylus, who was initiated, could reveal nothing. The wisdom of the Mysteries could not be revealed. One could say something about the wisdom of the Mysteries to this or that person. But anyone who does not begin to truly enter into it hears the words but does not understand their meaning.

[ 5 ] For Aristotle, it is not a matter of this or that truth, but rather that those who participate in the mystery cults live these mysteries and absorb them as wisdom within themselves. Then it is revealed as the greatest mystery that could be imparted to them: that, in fact, the very thing one can seek is nothing other than the human being itself. The human being is the highest and, at the same time, the deepest; it is that which reveals itself to the participant in the secret teachings. The task now is to explain what it means: [“Man, know thyself!”].

[ 6 ] We will adhere to the external tradition here. There is also an immense amount to be learned from it. We cannot participate directly in the Mysteries, at least not in the way it was understood when, in Greek, it was said that “man is the mystery.” This teaching, it was said, was a pernicious truth. It was viewed as destroying everything that existed in the realm of Greek religious truths. That is what is emphasized here. It must not be brought among the people, because it was capable of overthrowing all the ancient deities. We hear that something was being done that was capable of destroying the entire pantheon.

[ 7 ] Well, let us stick to the truths of the Mysteries. If these were to have been capable of destroying the people’s religious world—this world of gods—they must have had some connection to it. They could have emerged and had to have some connection, and indeed they did have a connection. Once we are clear about the relationship between the mysteries and religious concepts, we can proceed from our most trivial concepts within our own worldview.

[ 8 ] We always hear that humans anthropomorphize—or humanize—the processes in their environment. It simply cannot be any other way. It is said that the pagan anthropomorphizes thunder and lightning, that he views the alternation of day and night as a battle among the gods, and that he imagines the gods interacting with one another just as humans do. In this way, nature becomes humanized. Humans humanize it. As we progress toward scientific concepts, we simply cannot do otherwise. Often, we are not even aware that we are doing this.

[ 9 ] The natural scientist will not conceive of the sun as a [divine] light. His ideas have been refined. However, they have become so refined that he no longer realizes he is still at the level of pagan mythology. Let us take the concept of a collision as an example. Atoms collide with one another in space. This appears very scientific, very advanced. But if we go back to the collision of two bodies, it is nothing other than an anthropomorphism. We project our subjective power onto the entity outside ourselves, [even] when we are [often not] clear [about it] and no longer keep in mind how we derived these concepts from nature. All of this is not merely a crude description, a crude enumeration of what the eye sees: a ball rolls this far and strikes another there; then this one comes to a stop and the other rolls on. If you take just one more step, you have anthropomorphized nature; you have done the same thing as the pagan “researchers.” We encounter such anthropomorphizations in the natural sciences. Human beings project their own nature out into the world as pure facts. We must hold fast to the fact that in pagan religion and in scientific concepts, when we speak of the external world, we are speaking of nothing other than this: we are digging our own inner life into the external world and the external world into our inner world, and then we see the entire inner and external world coming toward us in harmony. So if we want to make the external world understandable and worthy of reverence, it is our inner world.

[ 10 ] Everything I have said about the humanization of the external world is found in religion; it is what I have called the “conception of the masses,” which humanity has sought to transcend. Is what Heraclitus sought anything different? It is something that stands in a certain contrast to the worldview [of the masses]. The mysteries are something entirely different, something exactly opposite to the exoteric religions, which view the world as I have just described. The mysteries begin with simple truths, with simple insights, so that what I have said applies to them as well. I mean that simple truth—be it primitive religion or science—arises from the convergence of the spiritual and the material, of what lies subjectively within us and of what lies outside us. Human beings must make this first truth clear to themselves. Once he feels this truth, he must ask: How do I perceive that which I seek as truth from my concepts in its pure form? At this preliminary stage, I have humanized the world for myself. Now I must perceive that which I have defiled within myself—in relation to real existence, to that which exists in the external world—in its purity.

[ 11 ] Now comes the big hurdle: it is now possible that you might try to break free from a worldview filled with the content of mythology, yet see absolutely nothing. This is because people tell themselves they see nothing but gray, abstract, and general concepts. Just as someone whose eyes are unable to perceive colors sees the world as shades of gray—that is, not in colors—so it is with those who have moved beyond the first stage and still wish to retain meaning, even when they no longer rely on their senses, their eyes and ears.

[ 12 ] So the really big question is this—and a figure like Heraclitus must ask it: If I set aside everything I perceive through the senses, do I still have any content at all? And if so, then this content cannot be sensory, but only spiritual. This gift is called intuition, genius, grace, and so on. But the fundamental level is this: the ability to experience something even when the entire external world—as perceived by the eyes and ears—fades away.

[ 13 ] This refers to a true understanding of the word: the experience of insight. — “Experience” means not having gained the insight through external sensory impressions, nor through religious means, but rather allowing spiritual insight to shine forth from within—to be reborn from within into a state of consciousness that is higher than the everyday one and which, at the same time, has absorbed the ordinary state of consciousness so that it is no longer there but is found reborn on a higher level. He is spiritually reborn, and this is a purely inner state of consciousness. But once he has attained such a state of consciousness, he must go through the same process again; he must go through the process from the external worldview to the inner worldview once more; he must be born again. And once this has taken place, he will no longer be born as a human being, but on the higher plane, where the human being is no longer an individual entity, but is conscious of that which shines above every single thing, shines above all—and that this light is the light of which Heraclitus says: “Now I know everything.” — By this he did not mean that he knew all the details, but only that he had reached a state of consciousness in which it is not the individual human being but the eye of the primordial human who sees.

[ 14 ] We must therefore distinguish three stages: 1. ordinary worldly consciousness, interwoven with sensory perceptions; 2. consciousness that, while still sensory, has overcome the sensory; 3. purely spiritual consciousness, in which the human being still perceives what has been extinguished and swallowed up; all perception has become one with universal perception. — Heraclitus and his associates had these three states in mind—in mind as lived states that they had actually experienced.

[ 15 ] How do we conceive of these states that are experienced purely internally? We must conceive of them in a way that is entirely different from space and time. We can no longer say: “This is this person and that is that person.” In this third state of consciousness, there is no question of diversity, but only of the universal consciousness that lives—and sees—within each individual.

[ 16 ] Heraclitus and his associates also found this experience in the common notions of the people, in the common worldview. But the common worldview now stands in the opposite relationship to these inner experiences as these inner experiences once stood in relation to the external events in the world. When Heraclitus and his companions (those who had these experiences) went among the people, they were met with the doctrine of the gods as we find it in Hesiod and Homer. They spoke of the existence of gods. They spoke of Uranus and of how he had a wife, Gaia, and that this divine couple was then succeeded by Cronus and Rhea—not without Cronus and Rhea having defeated them. The third divine couple consists of Zeus and Hera, as Zeus was saved and defeated his father Cronus. We thus see a series of Greek divine lineages. They constitute the substance of the Greek consciousness of the gods. This consciousness of the gods relates to the inner experience of the myths in the inverse manner that external facts relate to internal ones. While the external facts are elevated so that they merge with the spiritual, [the myths] arise because all of this gradually emerges and is merely projected out into the world, and because nothing other than the inner experiences is reflected in the experiences of the gods.

[ 17 ] Uranus and Gaia are the first consciousness. It was devoured by the second consciousness, by Cronus and Rhea. And the third is the universal light of the world, which shines forth in human beings and finds its outward projection in Zeus and Hera, who cause all earlier generations of gods to sink into the night. Just as the individual consciousness sinks into the night, so do they. Just as the individual consciousness is immersed in the outer world, so are they immersed in the inner world. Exactly the opposite process is at work. Therefore, the teachings of the gods initially appear as something unknown to those who have them before them only as teachings of the gods—just as the one who dreams does not know the origin of the dream, but knows only the dream itself. Anyone who saw only the images of the dream would rightly take them for reality. Anyone who lives solely in the outer projection may take it for reality—and rightly so. But anyone who has seen through it and realizes that these are nothing more than projections will no longer regard them as reality.

[ 18 ] That is why the mystery tradition is a meaningful allegory. For the mystic, the world of the gods is dead. The mystery cult represents the twilight of the gods. The external conception of the gods is, in fact, an inner state of consciousness. That which burns away the external conception of the gods and allows it to reappear as a purely spiritual state of consciousness—this primordial element of the world is the very thing that Heraclitus also knew; it is what he and his like-minded companions called the “fire” that brings about the great conflagration of the world. The Twilight of the Gods consists in everything being burned in order to dissolve it and allow it to reappear on a higher level.

[ 19 ] When we observe our inner state of consciousness, we are always faced with two aspects. First, we must consider the content of what lives within us; and then we must turn our attention to that which encompasses this content. In other words: We must distinguish between the spiritual, which is absorbed by us and is constantly reborn at a higher level, and the power that lies behind this activity of birth and rebirth. We have the spiritual on the one hand and consciousness on the other. We must distinguish between the world and the senses that perceive this world, and then the senses reborn in the spirit and consciousness itself. Consciousness itself and that which stands at the highest level of consciousness are one and the same as what is seen. At the highest level, they are one and the same. We must always distinguish between these two forces, these two powers: that which constitutes the content—that which fills consciousness—and that into which this content must submerge and through which it is reborn.

[ 20 ] The Greek pantheon also offers a personification—a clear expression—of this inner process, of this division of spiritual life into two powers. Otherwise, we would be puzzled as to why the Greek pantheon always places a goddess alongside a god—for example, Gaia alongside Uranus. If we limit ourselves to the outer layer of mythology, we find no real reason for this. But we must not view the matter so superficially. We must be clear that when we project our inner consciousness into the outer world, this fact—that we are dealing with two kinds of forces, with two powers—enters our consciousness as that which is [devoured] and that which is reborn. This fact is expressed in the two genders, in Uranus and Gaia, Cronus and Rhea, Jupiter or Zeus and Hera. The feminine in mythology signifies nothing other than consciousness. A woman, when she appears in mythology, signifies consciousness. The masculine signifies that which is absorbed by consciousness. The feminine is always the driving force. The woman is that which saves Zeus. Likewise, consciousness is the true driving force; it is that which brings about the various successive states. Now we will also understand why the deepest mystery—the symbol of the deepest mystery—which was revealed to those initiated into the Mysteries, is represented by the human being. This is nothing other than the highest stage of consciousness’s development. Then he has answered this “Know thyself” for himself. Therefore, the human being must also be regarded by him as the symbolic solution to the riddle of the world. And this human being who stands before him is no longer bisexual but unisexual. It is just as with the content of consciousness and the consciousness that has always opposed it as bisexual. Just as this then presents itself as unisex, so too does no further separation appear in consciousness; rather, to put it in the words of Meister Eckhart, that which sees and that which is seen are one and the same. The primordial being sees itself. It has to do only with itself. In this, the highest solution to the mystery of the world presents itself as a being that is both male and female at the same time.

[ 21 ] These are the various clues that clearly show us that [in Greek mythology] we are dealing with a projection of inner states of consciousness. Added to this is the myth of Dionysus, which has made its way through various channels. In Egypt in particular, we are dealing with the Osiris and Isis myth. However, we cannot go into details here. Dionysus is the son of Persephone. Persephone is the daughter of Demeter—these are nothing other than states of consciousness; [Dionysus] is overcome and dismembered by the Titans. Only his heart is saved. Zeus brings the heart back to life. The limbs of Dionysus, the brother of Persephone, are buried, and from them humanity arises. We see, then, that this myth unites humanity with the highest deity, which is nothing other than human consciousness itself. Persephone is a daughter of Demeter, who is herself a daughter of Cronus. From the lower state of consciousness, a higher one emerges. This is represented to us in Demeter. In Persephone, an even higher level of knowledge is revealed to us. From this highly developed stage emerges human consciousness—the answer to the question “Know thyself.” But this answer represents such an immense chasm, presents itself as so incomprehensible, that humanity cannot bear it; thus, humanity first breaks down the human being it understands—that is, it seeks to comprehend the human being within the general world consciousness.

[ 22 ] From the general world consciousness, from the phenomena of nature, he first reconstructs humanity. He must first bury this first human—who passed on the questions to him—in the world, and then construct the younger Dionysus from the entirety of world consciousness. Thus, the latter is saved by Zeus from the substance of the former. This expresses nothing other than the various experiences and transformations found in individual Greek myths. Thus we now understand why knowledge of the world of the Greek mysteries would have meant the death of the people’s external beliefs.

[ 23 ] We must also realize that only those who were able to undergo this inner state of consciousness were ready to overcome the gods. One had to experience Dionysus oneself, to be torn apart oneself, and to gather up the pieces in order to reassemble the younger Dionysus. To pass this on to someone standing from an external perspective would have been poison for that person—and thus for the masses. One would merely have taken from them something that could not have been replaced. Had one taken the gods from them, they would have stood before absolute nothingness. Nothing else would have given them other conceptions of the gods, other commandments. This is shown to us by Aeschylus’s saying: It is impossible to speak of the [Mysteries] and to guess or reveal anything about these things. — The mysteries, he says, would be nothing more than a communication of things that can only be experienced, not expressed in words. What is expressed in the mysteries is a projection of the inner self outward. That was the urge to know humanity, the flash of insight into the great question “Know thyself,” since humanity’s greatest mystery was humanity itself.

[ 24 ] At the same time, this was accompanied by the massive destruction of this fundamental conception of humanity—the dismemberment and fragmentation of Dionysus into the world, his gathering, and his rebirth at a higher level of existence. If one holds such a view, then many things become understandable that otherwise sound like empty words and cannot be understood. Everything must be taken as fact. One of life’s most difficult tasks is to bring the details back together. This is nothing other than what the Greek mystics expressed with the words: [gap in the transcript]

Q&A

[ 25 ] And what Goethe expresses in his Faust is almost the same: “All that is transitory is but a parable.” [Goethe] means nothing other than that the world of sensory existence is merely a parable for those who set out on the path to a higher consciousness. This world is coming to an end. “The inadequate—here it becomes [an event]; the indescribable—here it is accomplished”—that is, what cannot be described but must be experienced—here it is accomplished. A special light is then shed on the closing words of the Chorus mysticus: “The Eternal Feminine draws us upward.” The Eternal Feminine means nothing other than the higher state of consciousness, consciousness itself. And throughout Greek mythology, this drawing upward from one state of consciousness to another was conceived through the image of the goddess, through the image of the woman. Goethe expresses this drawing upward with those words. Thus, the stage from Heraclitus leads him to the mystery being, and having attained the stage of Heraclitus means for him having attained the first stage toward the mystery being itself. He believes he has shown that when Heraclitus says, “The world arose from fire”—this means nothing other than: “The world arose from the mystery.”

[ 26 ] And the Mystery constantly reverses the concept of the relationship between becoming and passing away—namely, so that the transitory is submerged into the imperishable. And now consciousness reverses that. The world must be remolded in fire in order to submerge, through its consciousness, into the very core of the state of consciousness. For those who look outward, matter gives birth to the feminine—everything that is power, shape, form, and mineral existence.

[ 27 ] Paracelsus marks a transition.

[ 28 ] Nikolaus Cusanus is the forerunner of modern worldviews. At the same time, he possesses a profound understanding of the world.

[ 29 ] Opposites always resolve themselves at the next higher level. All knowledge boils down to this: to destroy in order to be reborn at a higher level. The entire process is, as it were, illuminated from behind once again. Those who lose themselves in the sciences flutter away too easily.

[ 30 ] Heraclitus did not have as much to overcome as Paracelsus.

[ 31 ] Fichte overcame pantheism and thus arrived at an inner vision.

[ 32 ] Schelling had that, too. His Mythology is the most significant work we can read today.

[ 33 ] In Theologia Deutsch, the language has become archaic.