The Rudolf Steiner Archive

18. Freemasonry and Human Development II

[ 1 ] The topics we intend to discuss today have never before been discussed in the presence of women. Therefore, it is actually quite bold of me to speak to you about them today. But certain occult currents make it necessary.

[ 2 ] Within these movements, there are certain matters of an intimate nature that, until recently, were not to be discussed in the presence of women, because the occult brotherhoods—whose purpose was to cultivate these intimate matters—had a strict rule against admitting female members. Whatever they had to do in the world, they were not to do it with the participation of the female element. Until recently, this rule was strictly observed. Today, however, the only opportunity to create a balance between the two sexes is found within the Theosophical Society. This is also the only place where these matters are discussed in the presence of women.

[ 3 ] We now ask: Why did this separation of the sexes take place, which has found such a grotesque expression in Masonic lodges? - If one wishes to understand why this division was actually practiced, one must express it with a somewhat grotesque comparison: When two powers are at war, it would be very foolish for one commander to reveal his campaign plan to the other, the enemy, before the war begins. In the same way, it would be tantamount to handing over one’s weapons to the enemy if women had been admitted into Freemasonry. For what the Freemasons are engaged in is a war—namely, a war against the feminine spirit, a sharp opposition to the feminine spirit as such. This struggle was necessary; indeed, occult Freemasonry was founded precisely for this purpose. Therefore, it was customary to discuss occult matters separately for the two sexes. A way must first be found in which these matters can be discussed with women.

[ 4 ] The origins of Freemasonry date back to the distant past. It arose at the beginning of the fourth sub-race of our current fifth root race. It was also at this time that the Old Testament was first written down, providing us with insight into these matters. It is said that higher spirits gave Moses the revelations, which he then wrote down. However, knowledge of these higher truths had existed much earlier and was passed down orally from generation to generation, from priest to priest, until it was documented in writing by Ezra—to whom the recording of these things is attributed. When the Old Testament began to exert power through the priesthood, a powerful opposition to this priestly book—the Bible—arose within the Brotherhood of Freemasons for a specific reason. This opposition has certainly always existed, and it was necessary. We must ask ourselves why?

[ 5 ] Let us agree that everything that takes place on the physical plane must first, in a certain sense, repeat earlier events. On Earth, there is always a repetition of events from earlier times. Before birth, human beings must pass through the stages they previously experienced in their dull, animal consciousness. For example, the Renaissance period of the Middle Ages was also a repetition of the ancient Greek era. We find such repetitions in planetary processes as well. Before the Earth became what it is today, it first had to undergo a repetition of earlier states before it became an independent planet—namely, our Earth—in the fourth round. Thus, whenever new realities are to emerge in the world, the earlier stages always repeat themselves in a new form. For instance, the human spirit in the fifth root race underwent a repetition of the Lemurian race, during which humanity was still unisex and then became bisexual—a development that had a profound influence on its spiritual evolution. In the third subrace of the fifth root race—the Babylonian-Egyptian period—what had occurred with physical human beings during the Lemurian period gradually repeated itself in the realm of spiritual life.

[ 6 ] Before there were male and female, the two were united; then the two sexes separated. We see the same thing in the fifth root race with regard to spiritual development.

[ 7 ] III. Root Race: The division of physical development into male and female, into two sexes.

[ 8 ] V. Root Race: The division of spiritual development into the male spirit and the female spirit; into the service of Jehovah or the priesthood and Freemasonry.

[ 9 ] In the first subrace—the Indian culture—everything is still elevated above the physical plane. The ancient Indian wisdom, which originates from the first subrace of the fifth root race, is spiritually connected not primarily with the present-day physical plane, but with the conditions of earlier times, when human beings were still both male and female. For this reason, no reference is made there at all to the fact of the sexes. There is no mention of a dualistic principle in it; this did not appear until the following subrace. The Vedas date from a much later time. In the second subrace, a tremendous division already occurs. The Old Testament presents a wonderful image of how this division manifests itself. It is stated very beautifully and clearly in Genesis: Before Yahweh created humankind, he created fruits, animals, and so on upon the earth, and finally he created humankind, Adam, whom he then divided into two genders.

[ 10 ] This account is based on occult insight into physical facts. Now, of course, all occult wisdom reveals a connection between physical facts and the spiritual wisdom that emerges later. For physical facts have arisen from divine wisdom, and wisdom later emerges again from physical life, from human beings. There is a connection between wisdom, knowledge, and physical life.

[ 11 ] All the fertilizing and fruit-bearing power that brings forth a new human being was once united in a single gender. Then humanity was divided into male and female. Which sex has the true claim to the power of procreation? It is the female. That is why, in the oldest Greek mythology, Zeus—who was revered as the father of humanity—is depicted with a female bust. Zeus, as a superhuman being, was closer to the female sex. The female sex was thus the first, the earlier one, and at that time possessed within itself the power to bring forth the entire human individual. This creative power was present in the unisex human being, whose physical, external form more closely resembled that of a woman. In this unisex human, the fertilizing force was wisdom, the spiritual itself, and a later repetition of this is the fertilization of the female spirit with inspired wisdom. This human of the unisex era was the result of the substance given in the woman and the fertilization with the divine spirit.

[ 12 ] Now you must understand what it was that enabled the woman to bring forth the human being. Physically, we first have the woman, who is fertilized from above. What fertilized her was the divine spirit within her. When the separation of the sexes took place, the differentiation occurred in such a way that, for the female sex, the spiritual organs of fertilization were first transformed into organs of wisdom. The masculine force that the woman possessed within herself transformed the creative force into the organs of wisdom. Thus, the woman retained half of the generative force; the man retained the creative physical force. Through this separation, the spinal cord and the brain, along with the nerve tracts, came into being physically—represented in the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. The organ of wisdom is formed in the vertebrae along with the spinal cord and its extension into the brain. From that point on, there has been a duality within human beings: these are the two trees in the biblical account, the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life.

[ 13 ] Now, the new beings are adapting to this transformation. Not all former female individuals subsequently assumed the female form. In some, the feminine aspect—the ability to give birth to humans—receded, and in its place they retained the power of fertilization in an entirely different form. Physical nature had split into that which fertilizes and that which is fertilized. Similarly, spiritual nature has also split. In female individuals, the spirit has a masculine character and hue; in men, the spiritual has a feminine character. This is still the feminine within the man.

[ 14 ] The biblical legend depicts this very precisely. As is well known, the hermaphroditic human was forbidden to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. The power that Jehovah had placed within humans was this: to allow His wisdom to work through the woman. “You shall not eat from the Tree of Knowledge” means: You shall not sever the fertilizing power and make it independent. — For thereby the woman loses the power of Yahweh, the fertilizing power. When the woman ate from the Tree of Knowledge, she laid the foundation for becoming independent in wisdom and thus ceasing to remain a dependent instrument of Jehovah, as He had planned. But in doing so, she lost, along with the power of Yahweh, the power to fertilize herself with wisdom. She expelled this power from herself by eating [from the Tree of Knowledge] and giving the apple to the man. Thus, the woman became dependent on the man. It was Lucifer who led humanity down this path to make them independent. Jehovah opposed this and therefore issued the prohibition against eating from the Tree of Knowledge. But the woman ate and gave it to the man. He also ate, and then the punishment, imposed by Jehovah, followed. New bodies must be created to bear the karma of the previous life; death and birth enter the world. The woman is now no longer fertile on her own but has become infertile. And with fertilization coming from outside, the possibility of such death has also entered the world.

[ 15 ] This profound connection is depicted in the biblical account of the Garden of Eden. Ancient priestly traditions had become the substance of these images; ancient priestly wisdom was vividly embodied in them. The woman then became barren of spiritual wisdom by craving physical knowledge. She gave it to the man; he also ate it; they became guilty and were expelled from Paradise, the creation of which they had played no part in. This is the ancient priestly tradition regarding the origin of the sexes. It contains a profound understanding of the connection between the actual events.

[ 16 ] What, then, happened as a result of the feminine separating from the masculine? In which gender has the shadow of the productive, spiritual power of wisdom been better preserved—in the masculine or in the feminine? We have seen that feminine wisdom actually has a masculine character: it is the creative, the productive, intuition—that which is original, that which brings forth. The same divine power that formerly acted fertilizingly within the woman to bring forth the physical human being now acts fertilizingly upon the recognition of the divine essence within the human being. To promote this process, religions work through word and image.

[ 17 ] The female being becomes physically infertile; that is, she can no longer produce offspring on her own as she once did. The male, passive spirit is the one who is spiritually infertile, but the man is the one who can physically fertilize. Spiritually, he is now fertilized by everything that exists in the world. He is now spiritually fertilized so that he himself may physically fertilize. The entire world first penetrates him. He is fertilized spiritually; the woman is fertilized physically. The woman, on the other hand, is spiritually self-fertilizing; the man is spiritually fertilized. By gathering and combining everything from the outside world, male wisdom was fertilized. Thus arose the wisdom of men, which was concerned with gathering worldly wisdom. This wisdom did not actually exist at first, unlike the wisdom that had previously flowed down from above. It first had to be gathered from the knowledge of the physical world. Female wisdom, on the other hand, was effectively transferred to the priesthood. Priestly wisdom became the asset that originally stemmed from the ancient female wisdom. After all, Jehovah could only preserve the human race by dividing it into the two genders. Two opposing forces emerged: Freemasonry and priestly rule, symbolized by Cain and Abel.

[ 18 ] There is a difference between feminine priestly wisdom and masculine striving. This is illustrated to us in the legend of Cain and Abel. Abel was a shepherd; he was concerned with the life that already exists: He is the symbol of the ancestral divine power that works within human beings as wisdom—a wisdom he does not acquire on his own, but which flows into him. Cain creates something new from what the environment offers: He represents passive masculine wisdom, which must first be fertilized from the outside; which goes out into the world to gather and to create from the gathered wisdom. Cain slew Abel; that is to say: masculine wisdom resists feminine wisdom, for it senses that it must conquer and transform physical wisdom.

[ 19 ] The early Freemasons set themselves the ideal of taking up this opposition. They sought to counteract the feminine wisdom—which had been transferred to the priesthood—with masculine wisdom. The Bible, with its grand imagery, was to be regarded as the intuitive feminine wisdom transferred to the priesthood; they sought to counter this with the wisdom acquired by men themselves. This struggle against priestly wisdom was the expression of the Freemasons’ opposition. In doing so, it was necessary to keep those who participated free from any influence of feminine wisdom. This struggle had to do with physical development, and it was therefore necessary for the Freemasons to refrain from any contact with the female sex in relation to their work. They knew that their opposition to the feminine spirit could only be carried out if they were not disturbed by feminine thoughts. They had to emphasize the positive and, in general, avoid allowing any disruptive element to intervene.

[ 20 ] Freemasonry then created the Temple Legend as a counterpoint to the Biblical legend. This was intended to represent the sword of battle against the priesthood. Let us now reflect on this Temple Legend. Its content is as follows:

[ 21 ] Originally, one of the Elohim created Cain by uniting with Eve. In contrast, the Elohim Yahweh created Adam. Adam united with Eve, and from this union Abel was born. Cain killed Abel, and Jehovah then made Cain’s lineage subject to Abel’s lineage.

[ 22 ] In other words: originally, worldly wisdom opposed priestly wisdom and was defeated, for the principle of Abel was carried on through Seth, and all worldly wisdom was brought under the authority of priestly wisdom.

[ 23 ] The story then recounts how the descendants of Cain conquered the earth and developed the arts. They cultivated music, the arts, and the sciences. Tubal-Cain (Genesis 4:21–22), the master of metalworking and ironwork; Jubal, from whom flutists and violinists are descended; and Hiram, the builder of Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 7:13), were among Cain’s descendants.

[ 24 ] There—with Hiram—we would have reached the boundary between the third and fourth subraces, where the priestly rule gave way to the kingship. The kingship by the grace of God arose, represented by King Solomon. Solomon had not attained his power through work on the physical plane, but through what came by the grace of God. Priestly wisdom was transferred to the monarchy. Thus, the monarchy is regarded as the successor to the priestly rule, which was incapable, of its own accord, of doing what was necessary for humanity’s progress on Earth. The one who was to build the Temple had to be chosen from among the descendants of Cain, because he possessed thoughts he had developed himself.

[ 25 ] The legend goes on to say that the Queen of Sheba, Balkis, was betrothed to King Solomon. She came to him and marveled at the temple’s construction, while he marveled at her wisdom. She demanded to see the architect himself, for she could not fathom that this marvelous structure had been created through human wisdom. Hiram came and made a powerful impression on her with just a glance. Now she also demanded to see the workers at the temple. When Solomon said that this was not possible, Hiram made the mystical sign of the Tau in the air, and immediately the workers streamed toward them. In the mystical sign of the Tau lie the powers through which the sons of Cain work on the physical plane.

[ 26 ] Three of Hiram’s journeymen are dissatisfied because he has not promoted them to the rank of master. They decide to harm Hiram. They want to destroy his magnum opus. He intends to create the Sea of Bronze: a great work of art to be cast from a liquid element—molten ore. This is a symbol of the great work of art into which the entire mineral kingdom is to be transformed—the task of our Manvantara. The three journeymen do the following: they disrupt the casting of the Sea of Bronze. Hiram tries to restore order to the casting by pouring water into it: whereupon everything shatters into a fiery spray. Just as Hiram, in despair, believes himself lost, he is led to the center of the Earth by a figure whom he recognizes as Tubal-Cain. There he is told: Jehovah or Adonai is nothing other than an enemy of the fire spirits. He wants to destroy the fire spirits. But a son will be born to you, whom you yourself will not see, but who will bring a new race to the earth. — Now Tubal-Cain gives him a hammer with which he can complete the casting of the Bronze Sea. But the three journeymen murder him. Before his death, he breathes out one final word, which he writes on a golden triangle, and sinks it. No one understands the word. This word is the Lost Word of the Freemasons. Hiram is buried, and an acacia branch is planted on his grave. The triangle is dug up once more, but no one knows how to interpret it. It is submerged again, and a cube is placed on top of it, upon which the Ten Commandments are inscribed.

[ 27 ] What does it mean, then, that Jehovah hates the Sons of Fire?—These are the people who were brought forth through the path of sexual reproduction (Cain). Wisdom is mingled within them with Kama, the earthly kamic fire. Those who have turned to the feminine priesthood are the sons of Abel. Hiram is promised: “You will have a son who will found a new lineage. Though you will not know him.”—This new lineage is to be brought about when the Lost Word regains its power, when it comes into being in a new way. The occult tradition embodied in Freemasonry is working to bring this Word back into being. It is working to ensure that the active can join the passive within the masculine element, that the masculine itself may regain its fertilizing power in the spirit, in order to transform the passive into the active, so that the sons of Cain may bring forth something from within themselves.

[ 28 ] The following tradition emerged: The feminine was the original force. It gave the world all the wisdom that existed in the world. However, it lost a portion of its physical productive power and transferred it to the masculine. Now everything is becoming spiritualized once more, and in this spiritualization, the masculine force seeks to seize dominion. The masculine element of thought seeks to outlast the feminine. However, a time will come when genderlessness will return, and the struggle is over which of the two genders will first attain this genderlessness. Freemasonry strives for the male gender—or rather, the male spirit—to outlast the female and attain genderlessness.

[ 29 ] There is, in fact, an occult connection between the power of language and the sexual creative force. The “Word” brought everything into being. It originally lived within humankind. Then humankind lost it. It can no longer create on its own because it lacks the Word. Only the one who was present at the time of creation can know this. Tubal-Cain knew it and gave it to Hiram. Whoever wishes to regain the power of creation must seize this Word for himself. True productive power must unite with the Word. The Word will bring forth the people of the future. Then the son of Hiram will truly be seen. The fire—the divine power—will then arise in a new way. A new generation will replace the old. — In the ancient Hebrew language there is a word, a mantra, which is said to bring forth the world when spoken with sufficient power. Thus, when the word is sufficiently intensified, humanity will bring forth the spiritual human being through language itself. Now we understand what is depicted in the Tree of Knowledge: The serpent is that which winds its way upward through the spine as the spinal cord. Knowledge in the physical realm is that which springs from the nervous system. “There shall be enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring”: this refers to the enmity between the offspring of the physical—physical knowledge—and the offspring of the spiritual—spiritual knowledge. The spiritual, the woman, does indeed crush the serpent’s head, but only after it has bitten her in the heel. It is that which flows from the center of the Earth to the feet.

[ 30 ] Upon reaching manhood, one’s power of speech changes. This was regarded as a harbinger of Hiram’s new son (2 Chronicles 2:13). To work toward begetting this son of the male sex, who was to come into being through the power of the larynx—that was the ideal the Freemasons had set for themselves. Everything that later arose physically on earth has its origin in the spiritual realm. In the very beginning, only that which arose on earth from the divine Spirit was at work. Then, on the one hand, the feminine wisdom of images and priesthood arose, and on the other hand, the image-less wisdom of Cain. And it is interesting that, when a figurative content was sought for the wisdom of Cain, the masculine wisdom borrowed from the feminine wisdom: the temple legend and the entire content of Freemasonry stem from the ancient priestly wisdom, the revelation from Above. This was clothed in symbols. But little by little, the symbols ceased to be understood. Everything occult gradually disappeared from Freemasonry. The three degrees of St. John are entirely geared toward the physical plane.

[ 31 ] Now that we have seen why these spiritual currents existed side by side, we will also understand the significance of the Theosophical Movement. It prepares, in the spiritual realm, what will later take place on the physical plane: the reunification of the sexes. Likewise, the divided wisdom must flow back together into the one divine wisdom. Through theosophical wisdom, a balance must be found within the human being between religious priestly wisdom and Masonic wisdom. The wisdom of the future must be drawn from the higher human being, who lives equally within both the feminine and the masculine aspects of humanity. To develop that which is essential—that upon which the physical plane no longer has any influence at all—that is the purpose of the Theosophical Movement.

[ 32 ] Theosophy is, in fact, the masculine-feminine wisdom—the wisdom that applies equally to both sexes. Through the doctrine of reincarnation, one comes to realize that what is expressed in each new incarnation is not the personality of the respective earthly life, but rather that the causal body, the entelechy, develops in a genderless manner. When we become aware of this, that which stands above gender—that which is independent of the very basis upon which the opposition between the two currents has been founded—comes to life within us spiritually. Thus, Theosophy is the balancing force, and it alone can bring about this balance. Only in Theosophy can one speak of an occultism that addresses both genders equally. Only from this standpoint can one conceive of a true balance between the two sexes. Only the Theosophical Movement can achieve this. Everything else is a residual effect of the earlier duality of the sexes.

[ 33 ] Freemasonry has set itself the task of preparing for the future. For this reason, as early as the 18th century, it moved away from the earlier principle of complete exclusivity. And in 1775, the first so-called “adoption lodge” was founded: a women’s lodge, because the principle of gender balance had been recognized. And so a connection was established between men and women through the founding of a women’s lodge. But every member of a women’s lodge had to be adopted by a man in a men’s lodge. H. P. Blavatsky was also a member of such an adoption lodge. So this theosophical experiment was undertaken from within Freemasonry itself. This shows you that what is right is always preceded by an experiment; only the reason why such an experiment is undertaken cannot be understood immediately. But one cannot expect that what serves as the fundamental force in the world will always be truly understood right away: it may be that one favors one current or the other. For this reason, the two currents will likely continue to flow side by side for a long time to come. To bring about a peaceful balance, it might be necessary to infuse Freemasonry with what will lead it toward the Theosophical Movement.

[ 34 ] Now you will also understand why the Church had to develop a very specific ideal in the Middle Ages. Freemasonry created its ideal for the future; the Church created its ideal for the future. It had nothing to do with Freemasonry. Christ lived on as the ideal within the Church—that is, a masculine ideal. This masculine ideal could not satisfy the occult current within the Church. Man needed the active as well as the passive; he had to imagine what he himself lacked. As a means of concentration, he needed something that would complement him. He was already a man; he had to imagine the woman. The occultist who understood something of these matters—and who was not a Freemason—had to imagine the woman. Thus, the cult of Mary arose consciously out of monasticism. This became a third current added to the Church—that is, to the priesthood and Freemasonry.

[ 35 ] All three movements essentially had the same goal: to free people from the constraints of gender. But the methods they used to achieve this goal differed. The Christian occultist sought the masculine principle within the woman in order to assimilate it.

[ 36 ] One must be clear that the true inner self is independent of gender, which divides; that it therefore passes through both genders in its various incarnations. And now you must bear in mind that in Freemasonry, the struggle was waged on the outer physical plane so that all individualities incarnating in female bodies might gradually be guided toward the masculine, so that the masculine endures longer than the feminine. It is meant to outlast the feminine, because the latter was the earlier state. This was the ideal held by Freemasonry; but it was a one-sided view.

[ 37 ] What, then, is the ideal that Theosophy envisions? The ideal of Theosophy is to bring forth, through the wisdom that comes from the higher planes, a human race on the physical plane that transcends sexual distinction. Therefore, Theosophy is also a wisdom that is not differentiated into religions, does not rely on any particular religion, but draws upon the ancient wisdom that created the world and which takes the place of that wisdom which is differentiated as “priestly wisdom” in the various religions. It had to do this because priestly wisdom has fulfilled a task that was completed over the course of time. Theosophy, however, seeks to embrace the future—that which is yet to come—in contrast to what was in the past. In a certain sense, it is a continuation of the ancient priestly wisdom and the mysteries, yet it stands in a certain contrast to them.

[ 38 ] Opponents of the Theosophical Movement would be those who wish to cling rigidly to the ancient priestly wisdom, who would attempt to preserve it, to embalm it, so to speak, in its old form. The higher plan for the shaping of the worlds is to lead them into the modern spirit that is to create the future. The very first dawn of the formation of a new wisdom, which is to come, broke in an era that brought modern spiritual life into human development in the 15th century through the Rosicrucians. What was at stake was that a new impulse was entering the world. Its theme was: the ancient priestly wisdom must give way to something new.

[ 39 ] There were also powers that sought to reclaim the world for the ancient priestly wisdom. For this reason, an order was founded with the purpose of reclaiming the earth for the ancient priestly wisdom. This order [the Jesuit Order], in contrast to the cult of Mary, embraced the ideal of masculinity. It used occult forces to erect something like a wall to suppress all life that flows forth independently, to hold fast to that which seeks to climb up the cross. It represents the masculine principle: it represents the cross alone, without the roses. Another order, however, added roses to the cross, from which new life sprouts.

[ 40 ] Here we have two modern movements. One has transplanted the old into the present and thereby seeks to hinder progress with all its might. The other has surrounded the old cross with roses and has planted a new branch within it: the cross entwined with roses. These two currents existed side by side: one order with the cross without the roses; the other, which venerates the roses on the cross—a new thing that is to come. These are the Rosicrucians. The Theosophical Movement is built upon this current; it springs from the new, sprouting shoot of the rose, which is to grow into the future.

[ 41 ] We have thus seen how this struggle arose, from which women were excluded. Our task is to bridge the gap between the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians. The work is difficult, but it must be done. It consists of attaining knowledge of the higher, genderless human being. It is hard to bring oneself to do this, but it is possible, and it will succeed—it will become a reality.