The Rudolf Steiner Archive

37. On German Mythology

[ 1 ] The myths of the gods and heroes of the Nordic peoples are based on profound occult truths. Even within Europe, in ancient times, there were occult lodges of the White Brotherhood—from Scotland all the way up to northern Russia. They were called “Trotten Lodges” or “Druid Lodges.” These lodges were entrusted with the development of the spiritual life of the ancient peoples. The word “Druid” derives from “Drus” [...]. The legend that Boniface cut down the oak tree when he brought Christianity is a beautiful parable illustrating how the ancient, highly religious Druidic faith was overcome by Christianity. Six hundred to seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, the ancient religion fell into decline. The last remnant migrated south. The ancient Trusks, who later became the Etruscans, settled in Italy; further east, another branch migrated to ancient Greece. If we consider the northern population as a whole, we find a deep spiritual connection between the West and the East.

[ 2 ] Let us consider Buddhism. This highly spiritual religion actually found hardly any lasting foothold in its country of origin, India; it was soon absorbed by Brahmanism. In contrast, it has taken root among the peoples descended from the Atlanteans, the Mongols.

[ 3 ] The ancient Germanic peoples also originated from Atlantis. The kinship between the religions is evident in their names. The Norse god “Wotan” is synonymous with “Buddha.” The ancient religion originated in Atlantis. It was well aware of the sunken continent. The last vestiges of the ancient Druidic religion died out under the reign of Queen Elizabeth; that was when the last Druidic lodges were abolished.

[ 4 ] The ancient teaching recognized two traditions. In the south lived on the tradition of the Lemurian race, which perished in fire; in the north, the memory of Atlantis, which perished in water. The former was symbolized in legend by “Muspelheim,” the warm land of the sun, and the latter by “Nifelheim,” the land of mist. It is also highly interesting to trace the kinship between the ancient Egyptians and the Nordic peoples. We can trace it in their religions. Osiris is dismembered by his brother, and his body parts are scattered, from which the earth then arises. In Egypt, you find many Osiris tombs where the body parts of Osiris were, as it were, buried. In the Book of the Dead, Osiris—the higher self—is addressed directly: “Osiris, and so on.” The task of the priesthood was to awaken the dead Osiris within the human being.

[ 5 ] In the north, we have the giant Ymir. He is slain, and the earth is formed from his parts. The forests are made from his hair, the rocks from his bones, the rivers from his blood, and so on; all his limbs are divided up. We can see that this myth draws from the same source as the cult of Osiris.

[ 6 ] The Edda is an echo of the migration from Atlantis. “Edda” and “Veda” are the same word. This is how we recognize the connection between all ancient and early religions.

[ 7 ] The entire history of Europe is preserved in the heroic sagas. All the sagas trace their origins back to the great Nordic initiate “Sig,” who was initiated for Europe. “Siegfried,” “Sieglinde,” and “Sigurd” are all names that point back to him. In terms of depth, the Nordic tradition even surpasses that which comes from India. What strikes us about all these sagas is the prophetic and tragic element that permeates everything. Everything points to what is to come. We see this in the Twilight of the Gods. People knew that the gods they worshiped would not be worshiped forever. They said to them: “You are here for the North, but another will come after you, one who is greater than you.”

[ 8 ] The story of Siegfried clearly illustrates what is meant by initiation. He killed the Lindwurm, bathed in its blood, and became invulnerable—all things that symbolize initiation. The initiate is invulnerable—only one spot between the shoulder blades was vulnerable, and that is the spot where Christ bore his cross, thereby making that spot invulnerable as well. Siegfried had to be redeemed through Christ. This is depicted in *The Nibelungen*. There, in the Middle Ages, we see the transition of the two currents that eventually merged: the old pagan current and the new Christian current. The old pagan current leads directly back to the downfall of Atlantis. It was superseded by the Franks and channeled into the Christian current. The Nibelungs come from Nebelheim, the land surrounded by water and mist. The Nibelung hoard is sunk in the Rhine. For the peoples, the Rhine was one of the great waters that had engulfed Atlantis along with the golden city and all its treasures.

[ 9 ] Then we see King Arthur’s Round Table. It represents the “White Lodge of ancient paganism.” The contrasts in the Middle Ages became increasingly pronounced, specifically in the form of the “Ghibellines” = Nibelungs—the imperial faction—and the “Wibelungs” = Welfs, the faction of the Pope and of Christianity.

[ 10 ] What came to Europe from Christianity did not come solely from Christian monks, but also from Eastern brotherhoods. The great spiritual brotherhood of the “White Lodge,” the “Grail Lodge,” brought the deepest essence of Christianity. Barbarossa set out to retrieve the Grail. He did not reach his goal, but drowned along the way. He was far ahead of his time and was therefore not yet able to fulfill his mission. Now he waits in the Kyffhäuser until the spirit of his people has advanced far enough for him to lead them further. Development had not yet reached its lowest point. There are those who cannot descend so deeply; they must wait until the others have passed through the depths and reached their level, and then they can continue on with them. So Barbarossa sits and waits. The ravens are to bring him word when the time is right. The ravens are the initiates of the first degree; they are scouts; they bring news from the world of the spirit.

[ 11 ] The Emperor—the warriors—did not find the initiation. Who is fit to seek it? This archetype is represented by a great, noble, and profound spirit. The pure fool: Parzival. The Holy Grail did indeed arrive during the time of Barbarossa, but it is perceived only dimly. Parzival sees it, but out of ignorance, out of a mistaken understanding of the prohibition against asking questions, he fails to ask. Now he must pass through all the degrees of initiation. He must prove himself as a child of his time, within the secular knighthood. He passes through doubt: [“Is doubt the birth of the heart...”] Finally, after he has gone through it all, he comes to the Grail. There, the entire initiation is symbolically represented. His successor was Lohengrin.

[ 12 ] In the history of the Middle Ages, we witnessed the flourishing of a great cultural movement. Thriving cities emerged, and within them a creative, energetic, yet more self-contained bourgeoisie. From Scotland to Novgorod, a ring of flourishing cities developed. This represents a major advance in the development of the world. This development of the bourgeoisie corresponds to the feminine aspect of the human being. The masculine seeks its fulfillment in the external world, represented by [gap in the transcript]

[ 13 ] The inner self of man is feminine; it must be fertilized by the great “White Lodge.” This is depicted in the legend of Lohengrin. The flourishing urban civilization is represented by Elsa of Brabant. She calls upon Lohengrin, the Knight of the Holy Grail, to protect her, marries him, and loses him again because she asks about his origins. There is a sacred law among the initiates that one must not inquire about their physical origins.

[ 14 ] Lohengrin’s messenger is the swan. This is the third degree of discipleship, which is described as follows: “They know the names of all things.”

[ 15 ] Wolfram von Eschenbach, who died in 1225 and to whom we owe the *Parzival* legend, could neither read nor write. Jakob Böhme, the poor cobbler, likely did not concern himself with reading books either; yet he still left us such spiritual truth and wisdom. Walter von der Vogelweide boasted—as something quite special—that he could read and write [...], which was a very rare skill in the Middle Ages.

[ 16 ] All these Norse myths and legends of gods and heroes contain the foundations of occultism as proclaimed by the great initiate Sig. “Wotan”> underwent four initiations to prepare the fifth subrace of the fifth root race, whose task was to fuse the Greek race with the Celtic race. The fourth subrace flourished in the south. Here in the north, efforts were made to counteract this. Four stages had to be passed through here first, while a high culture was already developing down in the South. Christianity came from the South. In the North, the four elemental classes of “Wotan” were passed through so that people would be able to embrace Christianity.

[ 17 ] “Wotan,” “Wille,” “We” — The Trinity.

[ 18 ] Creative power, will, and spirit—the power of the mind was developed, along with the tragic element that runs through everything.

[ 19 ] What did the ancient Germans learn from the Druids? Here’s an example: Imagine yourself on the Moon. There, the lower three kingdoms were not what they are now on Earth. The mineral kingdom had not yet solidified; it was still alive, fluid—best compared to a mass of spinach, or perhaps more to peat than to rock. Stones did not yet exist at that time. Life had not yet fled from them. The same was true of the plant kingdom. The plants of that time could grow only on living matter. Thus, living things grew upon living things. Now, some beings have not achieved the goal that was set on the Moon. There are still plants today that are unable to sustain their lives from dead earth; they can only grow on living things. These are called parasitic plants. Among them is mistletoe, which can only grow on trees—it is a lunar plant. Mistletoe sap is antagonistic to the earth, which is why it is—or was—used as a poison in medicine.

[ 20 ] We can see from the foregoing that on the Moon, the three kingdoms were not yet completely separated from one another. The mineral kingdom was plant-like, and the plant kingdom stood between the plant and animal kingdoms. When certain plants were touched, they produced sounds.

[ 21 ] The Earth’s sun is “Baldur.” That which still possesses the nature of the moon is symbolized by “Loki,” who is Baldur’s enemy. Loki wants to kill Baldur. What does he use to kill him? Nothing on Earth could harm him, so he uses the blind Hödur, who has only a dim consciousness, and Hödur strikes Baldur down with the mistletoe.

[ 22 ] Only those familiar with the conditions on Earth can recognize all these things. In the time of the ancient Druids, these things were told to us as fairy tales by the Druid priests. This is how we were prepared to understand theosophy today.

[ 23 ] The Initiates speak to the souls, not to the individual people.

[ 24 ] Thus, today’s theosophy prepares us once again for the reality of future ages.

Miscellaneous items, presumably from a Q&A session [with comments by the note-taker]

[ 25 ] Richard Wagner intuitively grasped the great realities and portrayed them in his great operas. Various attempts have been made by spiritual movements to bring these realities to the attention of humanity today. Just as Richard Wagner was inspired as an artist, so too has an attempt been made to make the truth clear to the intellectual mind. Nietzsche was chosen as the instrument for this. His mind could not withstand it. He paid for the attempt with his life. [...] The European race was too thick-skinned. None of it helped until Helena Petrovna Blavatsky succeeded. — We were dealing with Kali Yuga, the dark age. We are in the middle of the fifth root race and have passed the lowest point. Jesus Christ: When Christianity emerged, Jesus of Nazareth was a highly evolved chela, third degree, the Swan. For him, the whole world is what the human ego is to the ordinary person—that is, he knows the true divine in every thing. He knows the whole world inwardly. Every thing reveals its true name to him.

[ 26 ] [When asked for a more detailed explanation, Dr. Steiner tried to make it clear to us as follows:] As I speak to you, I move the air; the sound waves strike your ear, and you take in the words with your soul. The air is in constant motion; the auditory nerves pick up the sound. Now imagine the air with its various vibrations, for every word produces different vibrations [...]. Now imagine that from the beginning, when a thing came into being, a word was spoken for every thing, and that the air waves that formed this word became solid, were made rigid. Imagine if my words were made rigid; then they would fall visibly onto the floor here. That was, in fact, the process of creation.

[ 27 ] Christ can be found in the astral world. Master Jesus teaches us how to find Christ. Christ will return as a spiritual human being when he incarnates again in the sixth root race.

[ 28 ] He will have a forerunner, John the Baptist. In the spring during Christ’s time, the sun was in Aries, hence Christ = the Lamb. But it is slowly moving forward. In the past, it was in the sign of Taurus, hence the cult of Taurus; even earlier, in Gemini—the Persian deities Ormuzd and Ahriman. A solar period lasts two thousand six hundred years. Now it is entering the sign of Pisces. In the Middle Ages, reference was made to the Age of Pisces. An element, an ocean of spiritual life, was to come. Later, Aquarius will come, after two thousand six hundred years. The Knights Templar taught that John would return—John the Baptist