The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. Manichaeism

[ 1 ] As requested, we will now discuss Freemasonry. However, it is impossible to understand Freemasonry without first considering the original spiritual currents that are connected with it in such a way that Freemasonry emerged from them, so to speak. An even more important spiritual current than that of the Rosicrucians was that of Manichaeism. We must therefore first discuss this much more important movement and then later shed some light on Freemasonry.

[ 2 ] What I have to say about this is connected with various things that play a role in the present and future spiritual life. And to show you that when one is active in these areas, one must constantly refer to something, even if it is hidden, I would like to point out at the outset that I have repeatedly described the Faust problem as particularly important for the new spiritual life. And that is why the modern spiritual movement is also linked to the Faust problem in the first issue of “Luzifer.” As I pointed out in my essay in “Luzifer,” the allusion to the Faust problem is not without a certain justification.

[ 3 ] In order to put the things in question into context, we must first start from a spiritual direction that first appeared in history in the 3rd century. This is the spiritual direction that found its great opponent in St. Augustine, even though he was a follower of this direction before he converted to Catholicism. We must speak of Manichaeism, which was founded by a personality who called himself Mani and lived around the 3rd century AD. The movement originated in a region that was then ruled by the kings of the Near East; it thus originated in the regions of western Asia Minor. This Mani founded a spiritual movement that initially comprised a small sect but grew into a powerful spiritual current. The medieval Albigensians, Waldensians, and Cathars are the continuation of this spiritual movement, which also includes the Templar Order, which will be discussed separately, and, through a strange chain of circumstances, Freemasonry. Freemasonry actually belongs here, although it has become associated with other currents, such as Rosicrucianism.

[ 4 ] The external history that is told to us about Mani is extremely simple.^{1See under Notes.}

[ 5 ] It is said that in the regions of the Near East there lived a merchant who was extraordinarily learned. He wrote four important works: first, the Mysteria; second, the Epistola; third, the Gospel; and fourth, the Thesaurus. It is also said that upon his death he left these writings to his widow, who was a Persian woman. This widow, in turn, left them to a slave whom she had bought and freed. This slave was the aforementioned Mani, who drew his wisdom from these writings, but was also initiated into the mysteries of the Mithraic cult. He then founded the Manichaean movement. Mani is also called the “son of the widow” and his followers are called the “sons of the widow.” Mani himself, however, referred to himself as the “Paraklet,” the Holy Spirit promised by Christ to humanity. Now, this is to be understood in the sense that he described himself as an incarnation of that Holy Spirit; he did not mean that he was the only Holy Spirit. He imagined that this Holy Spirit appeared in reincarnations and described himself as one such reincarnation of the Spirit.

[ 6 ] The doctrine he preached was vigorously opposed by Augustine after he had converted to Catholicism. Augustine contrasted his Catholic view with the Manichean doctrine, which he represented through a character he called Faustus. Faustus is, in Augustine's view, the fighter against Christianity. Here lies the origin of Goethe's Faust with his view of evil. The name “Faust” goes back to this ancient Augustinian doctrine.

[ 7 ] One usually learns that Manichaean doctrine differs from Western Christianity in its different view of evil. While Catholic Christianity believes that evil is based on a departure from the divine origin, on a departure of originally good spirits from God, Manichaeism teaches that evil is as eternal as good, that there is no resurrection of the body, and that evil as such has no end. It therefore has no beginning, but is of the same origin as good, and also has no end.

[ 8 ] When you learn about Manichaeism in this way, it certainly appears to be something radically unchristian and completely incomprehensible.

[ 9 ] Now let us get to the bottom of the matter according to the traditions that are said to originate from Mani himself and examine what this is actually about. The legend of Manichaeism, a legend similar to the one I recently told you as a temple legend, gives us an external point of reference for this examination. All such spiritual currents that are connected with initiations express themselves exoterically in legends. Only the legend of Manichaeism is a great cosmic legend, a legend of a supersensible nature.

[ 10 ] It is said that once upon a time the spirits of darkness wanted to attack the kingdom of light. They actually reached the border of the kingdom of light and wanted to conquer it. But they were powerless against the kingdom of light. Now they were to be punished by the kingdom of light – and here is a particularly profound point that I would like you to note. But in the realm of light there was nothing evil, only good. So the demons of darkness could only be punished with something good. What happened then? The following happened. The spirits of the realm of light took a part of their own realm and mixed it into the material realm of darkness. As a result of part of the realm of light being mixed with the realm of darkness, a leaven, a fermenting agent, arose in the realm of darkness, which threw the realm of darkness into a chaotic whirlwind, giving it a new element, namely death. So that it continually consumes itself and thus carries within itself the seed of its own destruction. It is further said that it was precisely because this happened that the human race came into being. The first human being was precisely that which was sent from the realm of light to mix with the realm of darkness and to overcome through death that which should not be in the realm of darkness; to overcome it within itself.

[ 11 ] The profound thought behind this is that the realm of darkness is to be overcome by the realm of light, not through punishment, but through mercy; not through resistance to evil, but through mixing with evil in order to redeem evil as such. By allowing a part of the light to enter into evil, evil itself is overcome.

[ 12 ] This is based on the concept of evil that I have often discussed as theosophical. What is evil? It is nothing other than good that is out of time. To give an example that I have often used: Let us suppose that we have an excellent piano player and an excellent piano technician, both of whom are perfect in their own way. First, the technician must build the instrument and then hand it over to the player. If the player is good, he will use it appropriately, and thus both are, as it were, good. But if the technician were to go to the concert hall instead of the player and start hammering away, he would be in the wrong place. The good would thus become evil. We see, then, that evil is nothing other than good in the wrong place.

[ 13 ] If something that is extraordinarily good at a certain time wants to continue to exist, become rigid, and now impede the progress of what is already advanced, it will undoubtedly become evil because it would be contrary to the good. Let us assume that the guiding forces of the lunar epoch, if they had been perfect in their nature and had had to complete their activity, would have continued to interfere in development for even longer. Then they would have to represent evil in earthly development. Thus, evil is nothing other than the divine, for in the other time, what is evil at the wrong time was the expression of the perfect, the divine.

[ 14 ] In this profound sense, we must understand the Manichean view that good and evil are basically of the same kind, basically the same in their beginning and the same in their end. If you understand this view, you will understand what Mani actually wanted to inspire. On the other hand, however, we must first explain why Mani called himself the “son of the widow” and why his followers called themselves “sons of the widow.”

[ 15 ] If we go back to the most ancient times, which lie before our present root race, the way in which people recognized and acquired knowledge was different. From my description of the Atlantean era, and now, with the publication of the next “Lucifer” magazine, also from the description of the Lemurian era, you will see that at that time all knowledge—in part even into our time—was influenced by that which stands above humanity. I have often mentioned that only the Manu who will appear in the next root race will be a true brother to humanity, whereas the earlier Manus were superhuman, a kind of divine being. Only now is humanity maturing to the point where it can have its own brother as Manu, who has gone through all the stages since the middle of the Lemurian epoch. So what actually happens during the development of the fifth root race? What happens is that this revelation, the revelation from above, the guidance of the soul from above, gradually withdraws and leaves humanity to its own devices, so that it becomes its own guide.

[ 16 ] In all esotericism (mysticism), the soul was called the “mother”; the instructor was called the “father.” Father and mother, Osiris and Isis, these are the two powers present in the soul: the teacher, the one who represents the directly inflowing divine, Osiris, is the father; the soul itself, Isis, conceives, receives the divine-spiritual, she is the mother. During the fifth root race, the father withdraws. The soul is widowed, should be widowed. Humanity is dependent on itself. It must seek the light of truth in its own soul in order to guide itself. Everything spiritual has always been expressed with female symbols. Therefore, this spiritual element — which is present today in embryo and will later be fully developed — this self-guiding spiritual element, which no longer has the divine fertiliser before it, is referred to by Mari as the “widow”. And that is why he referred to himself as the “son of the widow”.

[ 17 ] It is Mani who prepares the stage for the development of the human soul that seeks its own spiritual light. Everything that came from him was a call to the soul's own spiritual light, and at the same time it was a decisive rebellion against everything that did not come from the soul, from the soul's own observation. Beautiful words come from Mani and have been the leitmotif of his followers throughout the ages. We hear: You must cast off everything that is external revelation, which you receive through the senses! You must cast off everything that external authority has handed down to you; then you must become mature enough to look at your own soul!

[ 18 ] Augustine, on the other hand, represents the principle – in a conversation in which he opposes the Manichean Faustus –: I would not accept the teaching of Christ if it were not based on the authority of the Church. – But the Manichean Faustus says: You should not accept any teaching on the basis of authority; we only want to accept a teaching in freedom. This is the rebellion of the self-reliant spirit, which was then expressed so beautifully in the Faust legend.

[ 19 ] We also see this contrast in later legends of the Middle Ages. On the one hand, there is the Faust legend, and on the other, the Luther legend. Luther is the continuer of the authoritarian principle, while Faust is the one who rebels, who relies on the inner light of the spirit. We have the Luther legend: he throws the inkwell at the devil's head. What appears to him as evil is set aside. And on the other side, we have Faust's alliance with evil. The spark is sent from the realm of light to the realm of darkness in order to penetrate the darkness, to redeem the darkness through itself, to overcome evil through gentleness. If you understand it in this way, you will also see that this Manichaeism is very much in line with the view of evil that we have expressed.

[ 20 ] How should we imagine the interaction of good and evil? We must explain it to ourselves from the harmony of life and form. How does life become form? By encountering resistance; by not expressing itself all at once—in a single form. Consider how life in a plant, say a lily, rushes from form to form. The life of the lily has built up and developed a lily form.

[ 21 ] When this form is complete, life overcomes the form, passes into the seed, and is later reborn as the same life in a new form. And so life progresses from form to form. Life itself is formless and would not be able to live out its existence in a way that is perceptible in itself. The life of the lily, for example, is in the first lily, progresses to the second, third, fourth, fifth. Everywhere is the same life, appearing in a limited form, spreading out like a web. The fact that it appears in a limited form is an inhibition of this universally flowing life. There would be no form if life were not inhibited, if it were not held back in its power flowing in all directions. It is precisely from what has been left behind, what appears to be a fetter at a higher level, that form arises in the great cosmos.

[ 22 ] What life is is always encompassed as form by what existed as life in an earlier time. Example: the Catholic Church. The life that lived in the Catholic Church from Augustine to the 15th century is Christian life. The life within it is Christianity. Again and again this pulsating life emerges (mystics). The form, where does the form come from? It is nothing other than the life of the old Roman Empire. What was still life in this old Roman Empire has solidified into form. What was first a republic, then an empire, what lived there in its outward appearances as the Roman state, that has passed on its life, frozen into form, to later Christianity, right up to the capital, just as Rome was once the capital of the Roman Empire. Even the Roman provincial officials have been continued by the presbyters and bishops. What was once life later becomes the form for a higher stage of life.

[ 23 ] Is it not the same with human beings? What is human life? The manasic fertilization is today the inner life of human beings, which was planted in the middle of the Lemurian epoch. The form is what has come over like a seed from the lunar epoch. At that time, in the lunar epoch, kamic development was the life of human beings; now it is the shell, the form. The life of a previous epoch is always the form of a later epoch. The harmony between form and life also presents another problem: that of good and evil, in that the good of an earlier time is united with the good of a new time. And this is basically nothing other than the harmony between progress and its own hindrance. This is at the same time the possibility of material appearance, the possibility of coming into manifest existence. This is our human existence within the mineral-solid earth: inner life and the life left behind from earlier times, hardened into an inhibiting form. This is also the teaching of Manichaeism about evil.

[ 24 ] If we continue to ask ourselves from this point of view: What does Mani want, and what does his statement mean, that he is the Paraclete, the Spirit, the son of the widow? It means nothing other than that he wants to prepare the time in which, in the sixth root race, humanity will be guided by itself, by its own soul light, and will overcome the outer forms, transforming them into spirit.

[ 25 ] Mani wants to create a current of spirit that transcends Rosicrucianism, a current that goes further than the current of the Rosicrucians. This current of Mani strives toward the sixth root race, which has been prepared since the founding of Christianity. It is precisely in the sixth root race that Christianity will find expression in its full form. Only then will it truly be there. The inner Christian life as such overcomes all forms, propagates itself through outer Christianity, and lives in all forms of the various confessions. Those who seek Christian life will always find it. It creates forms and breaks forms in the various religious systems. It is not important to seek equality everywhere in the outer forms of expression, but to feel the inner stream of life that is everywhere beneath the surface. But what still needs to be created is a form for the life of the sixth root race. This must be created earlier, because it must be there so that Christian life can pour into it. This form must be prepared by people who will create such an organization, such a form, so that the true Christian life of the sixth root race can take root in it. And this outer social form must spring from the Mani intention, from the small group that Mani is preparing. This must be the outer organizational form, the community in which the Christian spark will first be able to take root.

[ 26 ] From this you will be able to see that this Manichaeism will initially strive above all to purify external life, for it is intended to bring forth people who will provide suitable vessels in the future. That is why such great importance was attached to unconditional purity of mind and purity itself. The Cathars were a sect that appeared like a meteor in the 12th century. They called themselves Cathars because Cathars means “the pure ones.” They were people who were supposed to be pure in their way of life and moral behavior. They had to seek catharsis internally and externally in order to form a pure community that would be a pure vessel. This is what Manichaeism strives for. It is less about cultivating the inner life—life will continue in other ways—and more about cultivating the outer form of life.

[ 27 ] Now let us take a look at what will be in the sixth root race. There, good and evil will form a far more distinct contrast than they do today. What will come about for the whole of humanity in the fifth round, namely that the outer physiognomy that each person creates for themselves will be a direct expression of what karma has created in them up to that point, will enter into the spiritual realm in the sixth root race as a precursor to this state. In those whose karma results in an excess of evil, evil will emerge particularly strongly within the spiritual realm. On the one hand, there will be people of tremendous inner goodness, of genius in love and kindness; but on the other hand, the opposite will also be present. Evil will be present as an unmasked attitude in a large number of people, no longer veiled, no longer hidden. The evil will boast of evil as something particularly valuable. In some brilliant people, there is already a glimmer of a certain lust for this evil, this demonic aspect of the sixth root race. Nietzsche's “blond beast” is, for example, a precursor of this.

[ 28 ] This pure evil must be cast out of the stream of world development like dross. It will be cast out into the eighth sphere. We are now standing on the threshold of a time when the good will consciously confront evil.

[ 29 ] The sixth root race will have the task of reintegrating evil as far as possible into the ongoing stream of development through gentleness. A spiritual current will then have arisen which does not resist evil, even though it will appear in its most demonic form in the world. Those who are the successors of the sons of the widow will have a firm conviction that evil must be reintegrated into evolution, but that it can only be overcome through gentleness, not through struggle. It is the task of the Manichean spiritual current to prepare this vigorously. This spiritual current will not die out; it will appear in many forms. It will appear in forms that some can imagine, but which need not be expressed today. If it were to relate solely to the cultivation of inner attitudes, this current would not achieve what it is intended to achieve. It must express itself in the establishment of communities that above all regard peace, love, and non-resistance to evil [through struggle] as the decisive factors and seek to spread them. For they must create a vessel, a form for life that will continue even without them.

[ 30 ] Now you will understand why Augustine, the most important mind of the Catholic Church, who in his “City of God” virtually shaped the form of the Church, created the form for the present, why he necessarily had to be the fiercest opponent of the form that prepares the future. Two poles stand opposite each other: Faustus and Augustine. Augustine, who builds on the Church, on the present form; Faustus, who wants to prepare the sense of the form of the future from within human beings.

[ 31 ] This is the contrast that developed in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. It remains present and finds expression in the struggle of the Catholic Church against the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Albigensians, the Cathars, and so on. They are all exterminated on the outer physical plane, but their inner life continues to have an effect. Later, the opposition reappears in a weakened but still intense form in two currents born out of Western culture itself, as Jesuitism (Augustinianism) and Freemasonry (Manichaeism). Those who fight on one side are all aware of this, the Catholics and Jesuits of the higher degrees; but those on the other side, who fight in the spirit of Mani, are only very few who are aware of this, only the leaders of the movement are aware of it.

[ 32 ] Thus, in later centuries, Jesuitism (Augustinianism) and Freemasonry (Manichaeism) stand opposed to each other. These are the children of the old spiritual currents. Therefore, both Jesuitism and Freemasonry continue the same ceremonies of initiation as in the old currents. The initiation into the Church in Jesuitism has four degrees: coadjutores temporales, scholares, coadjutores spirituales, professi. The degrees of initiation into actual occult Freemasonry are similar. They run parallel to each other but follow completely different directions.^{2See under Notes.}