The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The Legend of the Argonauts and the Odyssey

[ 1 ] By examining various myths, I would like to lay the groundwork for a certain kind of esoteric teaching that I will discuss in the coming hours. Today I would like to speak about a very important myth that we also find in Greece and which, like any other myth, can be interpreted in various ways and at different levels. Today, let’s try to clarify its real essence. But before I move on to that, I’d like to preface this with a few theoretical points.

[ 2 ] In the last issue of *Lucifer-Gnosis*, I pointed out that, within the last three Atlantean cultures, a certain influence began to take hold on the human race—an influence that, in a certain sense, continues to this day. This influence is connected to the fact that, at that time, human beings had matured to the point of living within what we call our intellect, our reason. Before that, human beings were more like creatures of memory. Up until the fourth Atlantean culture, human memory was developed in a particularly pronounced way. The combinatory mind, the capacity for calculation—in short, that upon which our entire present-day culture is based—began with the fifth Atlantean culture, with the Proto-Semites. And that is why these Proto-Semites were also enabled to become the progenitor race of the entire fifth post-Atlantean root race. In the course of evolution, this root race has primarily developed the intellect, which is engaged with the physical plane. When a new phase of development such as that of the intellect arises in humanity, it is possible for new beings—who previously operated only in secret—to exert an influence on evolution. And indeed, from that point onward—since the Fifth Atlantean culture—a certain group of beings, whose activity had previously gone unnoticed, was able to exert influence in the realm of human evolution. You must imagine these beings as highly evolved—far more so than humans at their stage of evolution at that time. But in a certain sense, they lagged behind those beings who intervened in the human race in the middle of the Lemurian epoch. What took place there was a fresh influx. These beings I am now speaking of, by their very nature, belonged to what we call the Lunar development. They had undergone their development during the Lunar epoch, but they had not progressed as far as those who were able to intervene in the middle of the Lemurian era. They had lagged behind the normal course of development on the Moon. They had advanced just far enough to recognize the abilities that humans had attained at that time as similar to their own, and as a result, they were able to appropriate them. Previously, human beings had not been intelligent beings; now they acquired the intellect. And these beings used this new ability for their further development. Thus it came to pass that, at that time, the phase of development began that we call the preparation for objective scientific thinking. This did not exist before, nor will it exist again in the future. All the wisdom attained in human evolution was fundamentally linked to what we call love. That cold, purely calculating scientific approach is influenced by these entities, which represent a “source of replenishment.”

[ 3 ] The influence of these beings—which are still active in a certain way today—will only come to an end when our entire intellectual activity, everything we can know, and everything we call intellectual activity, is once again permeated by love. When the intellect and love have reunited to form higher wisdom, then the influence of these beings—who are not visible on the physical plane—will disappear. Making the influence of these beings clear to people—and first and foremost to the students of the mysteries—was the task, in particular, of the Greek mysteries.

[ 4 ] Around the 8th century B.C., a particularly important era dawned for these beings. If you consider the cultures of our fifth root race—those that gave rise to the ancient Vedic culture, and then those that founded the ancient Persian and Chaldean-Egyptian cultures—you will find that even in the epochs that produced the Druidic culture, objective, sober science did not actually exist. This did not emerge until the fourth cultural epoch was increasingly dawning. The beginning of the fourth cultural epoch can be dated to around the 8th century B.C. With it, an objective science—separate from all other aspects of human life—began to dawn. A Chaldean priest who practiced astronomy still sought to fathom the intentions of the world government. The same was true of the Egyptian priests and the Druid priests; they sought to gain insight into the intentions of the Ruler of the World. A pure science of the intellect first began to emerge in Greece. This science of the intellect, which had gradually been preparing itself and arose through the influence of the aforementioned beings—yet was linked to other human activities—was fully unleashed during the fourth cultural period of the fifth root race. The initiates who were instructed in the mysteries of that time perceived the primordial wisdom that had previously been bestowed upon the human race as something lost in comparison to external wisdom—something that first had to be sought anew. There was a point in time when this withered wisdom separated itself from the all-encompassing primordial wisdom. This point in time, when this sober, dry wisdom separated from the all-encompassing primordial wisdom, was described by saying: Around the 8th century B.C., the Sun passed through the vernal equinox in Aries. This passage of the Sun through Aries is a repetition of an earlier passage through the same sign that took place millennia ago. As is well known, the Sun moves through the entire zodiac, through the zodiac signs of Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, and so on, so that it has already passed through Aries many times. The last time it passed through Aries was when humanity still possessed the union of love and knowledge—and thus primordial wisdom. This primordial wisdom had now been lost and had given way to an external culture of the intellect. The Greek mystery priests expressed the entire process in its occult significance through the immensely profound myth of the Argonauts, in which Aries represents the symbol of the union of love and knowledge.

[ 5 ] Let’s first take a look at the entire myth. We are told that Phrixos and Helle suffered greatly at the hands of their wicked stepmother, Ino. That is why Phrixos’s divine mother, Nephele, appeared to him and advised him to flee with his sister. She also gave him a large ram with a golden fleece, on which they were to ride across the sea. Helle is said to have fallen off and drowned in the sea, which was subsequently named the Hellespont; Phrixos, on the other hand, is said to have reached Colchis with the ram. There, he is said to have sacrificed the ram to Zeus and given the fleece to King Aietes, who hung it on an oak tree in front of a cave. Later, the Greek hero Jason set out, together with the most prominent of the Greek initiates of that time—Orpheus, Theseus, Heracles, and others—to retrieve the ram’s fleece from the barbarian peoples in Colchis. By winning the heart of King Aietes’ youngest daughter, Medea, he was able to bring the ram’s fleece back to Greece. First, he had to defeat two fire-breathing bulls. He also had to scatter dragon’s teeth; from the dragon’s teeth sprang armored men who came into conflict with one another. Medea enabled him to settle this dispute. It was also she who made it possible for Jason to take the ram’s fleece and set out on the journey home to Greece with her. To deceive her father, Medea had taken her brother with her, killed him, and thrown his dismembered body into the sea. While her wailing father gathered the body parts, they were able to continue their escape to Greece.

[ 6 ] In the 8th and 9th centuries B.C., that is, at the dawn of the Greek cultural period, the occult significance of this legend was taught to Greek initiates. This occult meaning lies in the message that those entities which make use of human beings’ dry, sober intellect gained special significance from that point onward. The longing for the primordial culture that had once existed when the Sun had passed through Aries for the second-to-last time was now reawakened. The fact that the twins Phrixos and Helle were carried from Aries to Colchis means nothing other than that a preceding subrace—the Persian-Iranian subrace, with its dual nature (they stood under the signs of Good and Evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman)—wishes to regain the union of knowledge and love. The preceding subrace had carried this into hidden realms. Earlier, in the Atlantean era, this fleece—this wisdom—had been the common heritage of human culture; then it had been carried off to distant mystery schools. It must be brought back. Thus, we see expressed in the legend of the Argonauts the founding of the mystery schools in Greece.

[ 7 ] We are told, then, that there was a primordial wisdom among the Atlantean race. This primordial wisdom was, at that time, the common heritage of humanity. It has been lost and can now only be found in the caves and crypts of the mystery schools. The Greeks, however, reestablished the mysteries for their initiates, and Theseus, Orpheus, Hercules, and others were the founders of these schools of wisdom by bringing this primordial wisdom back to Greece. Through Thales, Anaximenes, Socrates, and other philosophers, a sober, cold, intellectual wisdom—one that is objective—was brought forth. Mystery wisdom is connected with love. It is a wisdom that cannot be attained without the purification of the passions, the forces of Kama. Intellectual science, on the other hand, can be attained without the purification of kama. In the highly significant myth of the Argonauts, we are thus presented with the transition from the third to the fourth cultural period of our present root race. This transition consists in the fact that the formerly unified current of human culture split into two streams: mystery wisdom and external intellectual science. One current was hidden, yet it remained active and exerted an influence on Greek art and culture—it is depicted as the retrieval of the ram’s fleece. From then on, however, it was to have no influence on intellectual science. This is the legend of the Argonauts’ expedition.

[ 8 ] We also see in the Odyssey that it refers to the transition from one race to another. The Odyssey has been subject to a wide variety of interpretations and exegeses over the years. Today I would like to outline only the basic framework of this saga. In my book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*, I attempted to apply the second type of interpretation—the allegorical one; today we will consider the third type of interpretation—the occult one.

[ 9 ] Odysseus, who was among the warriors at Troy, helped the Greeks conquer Troy through cunning and wisdom. He endured great trials at sea; please take note of that. He came upon the Cyclopes, overcame the chief Cyclops with the single eye, and then went on to Circe, who, as we are told, transformed his companions into pigs. Then he went to the Underworld and there met the heroes who had fallen in the Trojan War. Then he fell under the spell of the Sirens, who seduce men with their enchanting song. We are further told how most of his companions succumb to the temptation and how he saves himself by having himself tied to his ship. Odysseus then arrives at a place located between Scylla and Charybdis, where ships are in danger of being wrecked. He must navigate his way through a sea whirlpool. He then arrives at Ogygia, the island of the nymph Calypso, stays there for seven years, is released by Zeus—who commands Calypso to set him free—and finally returns to his homeland, Ithaca. The goddess Pallas Athena guides him to his home and to his wife Penelope, who had to endure all manner of hardships because many suitors were courting her. So by day she wove a tapestry, which she would unravel again at night, because she had promised the suitors her hand in marriage once the tapestry was finished.

[ 10 ] Now I ask you to go over this framework of the Odyssey with me in the manner familiar to us from Greek mystery wisdom. The schools of initiation, where what is recounted here actually took place, guided the initiate through the astral and mental planes in such a way that he could traverse a specific stage of human development—namely, the period from the middle of the Lemurian epoch to the time when, in Greece, humanity was able to rediscover the primordial wisdom in the schools of initiation founded by Jason together with Orpheus, Theseus, Heracles, and others, could once again discover the primordial wisdom. The student was thus guided onto the astral and mental planes, and was shown the processes that humanity had undergone from the middle of the Lemurian epoch to the point when the Trojan War took place. The mythical elements of the Argonauts’ expedition present us with a fragment of primordial wisdom. It becomes clear to us that this wisdom went hand in hand with science at that time. What, then, was shown to the people—the initiates—in the legend of Odysseus? This is symbolically represented to us in the figure of Odysseus.

[ 11 ] Let us transport ourselves back to the middle of the Lemurian epoch. At that time, humankind was in the process of transitioning from a hermaphroditic state to a state of sexual differentiation, and from a state of seeing without an external physical sense organ to seeing with the external physical eye. In fact, until the middle of the Lemurian epoch, human beings had that “single eye,” which was then replaced by the two external, physical eyes. The student was transported back to this phase of development. He was to experience the transition from the pre-Lemurian epoch to the post-Lemurian epoch—the period from after the middle of the Lemurian race until the emergence of the external eye. The Cyclopes were the people of the pre-Lemurian era. Odysseus encountered them on the astral plane. After this period, the human astral body had been immersed into matter that was becoming denser and more solid. This was presented to the initiates. We then approach the early Atlantean era. Increasingly, the Atlanteans gained the ability to utilize the life forces and employ them in their activities. These were highly developed astral abilities that the Atlanteans cultivated—abilities to which a Greek could only return on the astral plane. This was the era so often mentioned in ancient occult writings, when the Atlantean peoples succumbed to the wildest arts of black magic. This epoch was dramatically presented to the Greek mystery student through images of transformation. It was the era when human passions, under the influence of black magical forces, were so distorted that the astral bodies came to resemble those of the lowest animals. This was also the picture that unfolded when, later on, the Turanians succumbed to these wild magical arts. The astral body was so transformed under the influence of these dark arts that, symbolically speaking, it was said: Circe transformed Odysseus’s companions into pigs. — The Greek initiate went through this stage of human development.

[ 12 ] Then Odysseus descended into the Underworld. Throughout Greek mythology, a descent into the Underworld always signifies that an initiation is taking place. When it is said of a hero that he descended into the underworld, the narrator means nothing other than that the hero in question was initiated, that he became acquainted with the things that lie beyond death. Odysseus was an initiate, and the Odyssey itself is the account of his initiation. We now proceed to the point in time when, after the Atlantean Flood, human beings became acquainted with the first effects of those entities of which I have spoken—entities that reveal themselves in external culture, in the science of that time, and in the arts of that time—through those effects that influenced the intellectual sphere after the Atlantean Flood. The very beginnings of purely external physical culture were presented to the initiate as the temptations of the purely worldly arts, of purely worldly culture. These are the siren songs of the young fifth root race. It was these siren songs of the young fifth root race that are so frequently discussed in the occult writings. For on the one hand, we have the great wisdom teaching of Manu, who draws the attention of the people of the fifth root race to the fact that their intellect must rise to the Divine. This found expression in the Vedas and in what the Persian Zarathustra established as a religion and bequeathed to his fellow believers. Alongside this, we have the purely intellectual culture, which turns people away from what developed under the influence of Manu. You will find the events that took place there described in all the occult writings. Manu selected the small group and went into the Gobi or Shamo Desert. There, only a small band remained faithful to him, while the others became unfaithful and scattered in all directions. This important event—that the Manu first selected a portion of the Proto-Semites, but that of these chosen ones only a small portion followed him, while the other portion perished because they followed the siren songs of external culture—this important event was presented to those to be initiated.

[ 13 ] The Odyssey also depicts another important aspect of human development: the passage between Scylla and Charybdis. What, then, is actually beginning within humanity now? As we have seen, it is only now that the true Kama-Manas culture is beginning. It has been gradually prepared up to this point. Now it begins. Our fifth root race is characterized primarily by this Kama-Manas culture. Kama is active in the astral realm and, even today, within the astral body. Manas, however, is what is active in the physical brain. The human being of the fifth root race thinks with his physical brain. Only in a future phase of development will Kama—the astral body—be ready to think. Today, Manas has taken hold only in the physical brain. We must navigate between the two whirlpools—Scylla and Charybdis—that are flinging us in opposite directions. This is represented by Odysseus’s passage between Scylla (Manas) and Charybdis (Kama). On one side is the astral whirlpool—the drives, desires, and passions in which a person can perish—and on the other, the physical mind chained to the rock. We have already encountered the rock in the myth of Prometheus. Here, the rock confronts us once more. The human mind is exposed to all the dangers of the physical realm, of the rock. Human beings must navigate their way between the cliffs of the physical mind and the whirlpool of astral life. Once they have made it through, recognized the dangers that threaten them, and yet managed to remain upright, they arrive at the island of Calypso, at hidden wisdom. There they can gaze into the future of humanity and undergo the probationary period, which lasts seven years. That is why Odysseus also stays with Calypso for seven years. Anyone who wishes to attain initiation must undergo a seven-year probationary period, which is symbolized by the stay with Calypso, where wisdom lies hidden behind the illusion. Only then can one reach the place where the soul arrives once it has escaped the whirlpool of astral passions. Read Homer’s *Odyssey*; he suggests that human beings are searching for their own souls. The return of one’s own soul—that is the quest for home. Anyone who truly wishes to understand the *Odyssey* must not subscribe to the view of a recent scholar who believes that Polyphemus and the Cyclopes signify nothing more than Mount Etna spewing fire, and that the site of the fire appeared to Odysseus as the giant’s eye.

[ 14 ] Odysseus finally returns home as a beggar, stripped of all external possessions. This suggests that the person who has seen through the insignificance of the external world and worldly possessions seeks the soul’s true home not in Maya but beyond Maya—that is, in a mystical sense, he returns home as a beggar. The fact that he is in truth a sage is indicated by the fact that Pallas Athena guides Odysseus home. In all esoteric teachings, the soul is represented by a female being; female beings are always chosen as symbols for the soul’s striving. Goethe calls it the “Eternal Feminine.” Just as in Medea in the legend of the Argonauts’ expedition, so here in Penelope we are to see one’s own soul, to which Odysseus is once again seeking the path. In the Christian religion, the Virgin Mary is the human soul striving for redemption, only the significance here is infinitely deeper. This Penelope is, to be precise, the soul of humanity in the fifth root race. The fifth root race must cultivate the human intellect. It is the most barren thing that exists in and of itself; only when applied to a subject matter can the intellect become fruitful. The intellect is a web spun around the things we have obtained from elsewhere. If external experience teaches you something, you can weave the intellect around it. If higher occult wisdom teaches you something, then you can, in turn, weave it with the intellect. People often say that occult wisdom contradicts the intellect. Nothing contradicts the intellect. Whenever something new has entered their horizon, people have always said that it contradicts the intellect. But the mind exists only to combine and connect. It can gain nothing from within itself; you cannot prove anything through the mind alone. This barrenness of the mind—which is, after all, the very soul of the fifth root race—is expressed in the ceaseless spinning and reweaving of Penelope’s web. Odysseus is guided by wisdom. The initiate must find the path to the soul of the fifth root race, to the barren intellect. But he will connect with the soul of the fifth root race in the proper way only if he is filled with wisdom itself, if he is guided by Pallas Athena. Pallas Athena, in turn, is a higher feminine deity, another force within the soul; wisdom, the true guide. After undergoing various wanderings—provided they are truly journeys of development—humanity must arrive at the intellect. In this process, Pallas Athena, wisdom, must be its guide. This was demonstrated to the mystery student in Greece, and this is what Homer sought to convey in the profound Odyssey.

[ 15 ] The Odyssey thus depicts an initiation as it was practiced in ancient Greece—an initiation that was nothing other than a repetition, taking place in the astral-mental realm, of the experiences people had from the Lemurian era right up to the time of the Mysteries themselves. Odysseus is the cunning, wise one, and it was through his abilities that Troy was conquered. The shrewd, intelligent human being is the human of the fifth root race. But he must seek out his true home—his Penelope—once again by a roundabout way in order to walk his path correctly within the fifth root race. One who is merely shrewd and clever would not find the right path within the fifth root race. He must first step outside of himself and broaden his perspective by looking back on the long path of human evolution. Odysseus is the representative of the cunning Kama-Manas human, who must endure various wanderings in order to be led back to the soul within the fifth root race.