The Rudolf Steiner Archive

20. The Royal Art in a New Form

[ 1 ] Today I would like to talk to you about a subject that is subject to many misunderstandings and about which an extraordinary number of errors are spread throughout the world. Most of you know that I have already spoken on the same subject at this year's general meeting and that, in accordance with an old occult custom, I gave separate lectures to men and women. For certain reasons, which may become clearer from the lecture itself, I have decided not to follow this old occult custom today, because the reasons that prompted me to speak to you about this subject both then and now are connected with the fact that sooner or later—hopefully sooner—this old custom will be abandoned altogether.

[ 2 ] I said that many misunderstandings are widespread about this subject. I need only point to one fact from my own life to show you that it is really not easy today to get beyond the downright adventurous and superstitious ideas that exist in relation to this matter; and, on the other hand, I need only point out how easy it is to make oneself look completely ridiculous when dealing with these extraordinary things.

[ 3 ] I would simply like to recount the fact from my own life. You may find it hard to believe, but it is true. Perhaps seventeen or eighteen years ago, I was in the company of university professors and some very talented poets. Among the professors were several theologians from the theological faculty of the university in that town. They were Catholics. In this group, the following story was told in all seriousness. There was a well-founded rumor about one of these theologians, who was a very learned gentleman, that he no longer went out in the evenings because he believed that Freemasons were out and about. The person in question represented a broad field of study. But he was not the narrator; another person told the story. He said that during his stay in Rome, a number of monks from a certain order—there were eleven, twelve, or thirteen of them—had undertaken to swear to the following story.

[ 4 ] In Paris, a very important bishop had once given a sermon in which he spoke of the terrible danger posed by the Masonic order in the world. After the sermon, a man approached him in the sacristy and said that he was a Freemason and would like to give him the opportunity to attend a meeting of the order. The bishop agreed and said to himself: “But I will take some sacred relics with me so that I will be protected.” A place was agreed upon. The man led the bishop into the lodge, where he was shown a hidden place from which he could observe everything that was happening. He sat down in position, held his sacred relics in front of him, and waited for what was to come. What he saw was recounted in the following manner; I emphasize that among those who were present at the time, there were some who considered the matter debatable.

[ 5 ] The lodge had been opened—in reality it was called “Satan's Lodge,” although outwardly it had a completely different name—and a strange figure had appeared. According to ancient custom—he did not say where he knew this custom from—it did not walk; spirits, as is well known, do not walk, but according to some beliefs they glide. This strange figure had opened the meeting. The bishop absolutely refused to tell what happened next, saying it would be too terrible. But he had invoked all the power of the relics, and there was a sound like thunder rumbling through all the rows, and the cry rang out: “We are betrayed!” And the one who had held the meeting disappeared. In short, it was a brilliant victory of the episcopal powers over what was presumably supposed to be done there.

[ 6 ] This was therefore discussed [in society] as a very serious matter. From this you can see that there are people in our time who were perhaps more learned than many others who have great names, and who nevertheless take the view that such things can happen in Freemasonry.

[ 7 ] The fact is that in the mid-1880s a French book was published that described the secrets of Freemasonry in a very gruesome manner, though more gruesome than mysterious. In particular, it pointed out how Freemasons hold devil's masses. This book was staged by a French journalist named Leo Taxil. He caused a particularly big stir by bringing in a Miss Vaughan as a witness. As a result, the Church considered the Freemasons and their nocturnal activities so dangerous that it found it necessary to establish a world alliance against Freemasonry. A kind of council was held in Trent. It was not a real council, but it was called the Second Council of Trent. It was attended by numerous bishops and hundreds of priests and presided over by a cardinal. [The congress was a great success for Taxil.] However, counter-writings were then composed, and Mr. Taxil declared that the entire content of his books and the persons mentioned in them were his invention.

[ 8 ] You see, there are plenty of opportunities to embarrass yourself in such matters. This was one of the worst embarrassments ever suffered by a widely respected organization. From this you must at least conclude that very little is actually known about Freemasonry. For if one knew a great deal about it, one could easily inform oneself, and it would be self-evident that such things could not be said or done.

[ 9 ] In wider circles of the public, there are various opinions about Freemasonry today. Nowadays, it is not difficult to form an opinion, as there is a wealth of literature on the subject, some of which has been written by people who have researched many documents, but some of which contains things that Freemasons would say were leaked to the outside world by traitors. Anyone who studies this literature to any extent will form a certain idea of what it is all about. However, it is quite impossible to gain a correct understanding of it, because what Lessing, who was himself a member of the Masonic Lodge, said is even more true today. When he was accepted, the Master of the Chair asked him: “Now you see for yourself that you are not being initiated into anything that is particularly hostile to the state or religion?” And Lessing replied: “Yes, I must confess that I have not learned such things. I would have been glad, however, if I had learned something, for then I would at least have learned something.”

[ 10 ] This is the statement of a man who was able to view the matter with a clear mind and who admitted that he had learned nothing from what had been done. From this, however, you can at least conclude that those who stand outside Freemasonry know nothing, but also that those who stand within it know nothing of significance; they usually come to the conclusion that they have gained nothing special. And yet it would be quite wrong to draw such a conclusion.

[ 11 ] Now there is another opinion, which, however, has little to do with Freemasonry itself. There is a book, published in 1875, in which the author claims that the first Freemason was Adam. Of course, when searching for the founder of a cooperative, one can hardly go back further than the first human being.

[ 12 ] Others claim that Freemasonry is an ancient Egyptian art, in short, what has always been called the “royal art,” and some trace this back to the most ancient times. Finally, many rites—the name given to the symbolic activities of Freemasons—have Egyptian names, so that these names alone indicate that they originate from ancient Egyptian culture. In any case, the opinion is widespread both within and outside Freemasonry that it is something ancient.

[ 13 ] Now, Masonry is something that can make people think. Even the name itself has two completely different interpretations. One claims—and this is not a very large group within Freemasonry—that all Masonry originated from masonry, from the art of building, while the other group dismisses this as a childishly naive view and claims that Freemasonry has always been a spiritual art and that the symbols taken from masonry—such as the apron, hammer, trowel, chisel, compass, ruler, set square, plumb line, spirit level, and so on—are to be regarded as symbols of the inner work on the human being himself. Thus, the term “Masonry” is to be understood as nothing more than building the inner man, working on one's own perfection. If you talk to a Freemason today, you will hear them say that it is a childishly naive view to believe that Freemasonry ever had anything to do with masonry. Rather, it has never been about anything other than building the temple of wonders that is the human soul, working on this human soul itself, which is to be perfected, and the art that must be used to achieve this. All of this was then expressed in these symbols so as not to expose it to profane eyes.

[ 14 ] From our present point of view, both views are completely wrong. This is because, with regard to the first view, modern man—when he says that Freemasonry originated from masonry—no longer thinks this is as significant as it actually is; and because the second view, that the symbols are only there serve as symbols of work on the soul — even if they are presented by the majority of the Masonic order as something incontrovertibly certain — is, when understood correctly, nonsense. It is much more correct to say that Freemasonry is connected with masonry, but not in the way that masonry and architecture are understood today, but in a much deeper sense.

[ 15 ] There are two directions within masonry today. One is represented by the far greater number of those who call themselves masons today. And this vast majority now claims that all Masonry is encompassed by what they call symbolic or Johannine Masonry, which is characterized outwardly by its division into three degrees: the apprentice, the journeyman, and the master; we will have something to say about the inner aspects in a moment. Alongside this Johannine Masonry, there is still a large number of Masons who claim that this Johannine Masonry is only a product of the decline of the general, great Masonic idea. They claim that it is a departure from this great Masonic idea to assert that Masonry comprises only these three symbolic or Johannine degrees, when the essence and great significance of Masonry lie in the so-called high degrees, which are preserved in their purest form in the so-called Scottish or accepted rite, in which what is called the Egyptian rite, the Misraim or Memphis rite, is preserved in a certain respect.

[ 16 ] Thus, we have two opposing directions: Johannine Freemasonry and high-degree Freemasonry. The John Masonry claim that high degree Masonry is nothing more than a farce, based on human vanity, which takes pleasure in having something special, something spiritually aristocratic, by climbing from degree to degree and making a big deal of being in possession of the 18th, 20th or even higher degrees.

[ 17 ] You have now learned quite a few things that are likely to cause misunderstandings.

[ 18 ] High degree Masonry traces its origins back to the ancient mysteries, to the institutions as they have been described and are described, as far as possible, by our Theosophy: to institutions that existed in ancient times and still exist today, and which preserved higher, supersensible knowledge for mankind. This supersensible knowledge accessible to human beings was imparted to those who were able to gain access to these mystery centers by developing certain supersensible powers that enabled them to perceive the supersensible world. Within these ancient mysteries—which have changed today, and we do not wish to discuss them now—were also contained the primordial seeds of all later spiritual culture. For what was presented in these primordial mysteries was not what constitutes human culture today.

[ 19 ] If you want to understand today's culture and delve deeper into it, you will find that it falls into three areas: the realm of wisdom, the realm of beauty, and the realm of strength. These three words indeed encompass the entire scope of spiritual culture. They are therefore also called the three pillars of human culture. They are the same as the three kings in Goethe's fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily: the golden, silver, and bronze kings. This is why Freemasonry is called the “royal art.” Today, these areas of culture are separated from one another. Wisdom is essentially contained in what we call science; beauty is essentially embodied in what we call art; and what, in Masonic terms, is called strength is contained in the structured, organized social coexistence of people in the state. The Mason summarizes all this as the relationship of the will to these three elements: wisdom, beauty, and strength.

[ 20 ] What they were supposed to give to people flowed in ancient times to the candidates for the mysteries from the contemplation of the mysteries' secrets. We look back to a time when religion, science, and art did not yet exist separately, but were still united. Indeed, those who are able to see supersensually, astrally, do not see the three elements as separate: wisdom, beauty, and the sphere of the will's impulses are one for them. In the higher realms of perception, there is no abstract science. There is only one that lives in images, in what has only a shadowy existence in the world and is expressed shadowy in the imagination. They did not describe what can be read in an abstract way in books, in this or that account of creation [about the origin of the world and of man], but presented it in living images, colorful and resounding, before the eyes of the student. And what he perceived as wisdom was at the same time art and beauty, was what aroused in him, to an even greater degree, the feelings we have when we stand before sublime works of art. The drive for truth and beauty, the drive for wisdom and art, and also the religious element developed simultaneously. The artist's eye looked up to what was happening [in the mysteries], and those who wanted to be pious found the object of their religious fervor in these higher processes taking place before their eyes. Religion, art, and science were one.

[ 21 ] Then came the time when this unity split into three cultural areas, the time when the intellect went its own way. At the time when the mysteries I have just described lost their meaning, science arose. You know that Western philosophy and science, true science, began with Thales. That is the time when it developed out of the former fullness of the mystery life. This was also when what we understand as art in the Western sense began: Greek dramatic art developed out of the mysteries. While in India, up until the Egyptian cult, one had to deal with the suffering and dying deity, in the great Greek tragedies — in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and so on — one has to deal with individual persons, who are images of the great deity, through whom the mystery student reconstructs the suffering, struggling, starving deity in his dramas and thus presents God to the viewing human being in his human images.

[ 22 ] Anyone who wants to understand what Aristotle meant by purification, by catharsis, must explain the concept from the astral, from the secrets of the mysteries. The expressions he uses [as an explanation] for tragedy are a shadowy reflection of what the student learned in the mysteries. Remember how Lessing investigated the soul forces of fear and compassion that are to be aroused by tragedy. Since Lessing, this has been the subject of many great and learned discussions. In truth, these feelings were aroused in [the mystery student] when the god was presented to him in his world journey. There, the passions that are present in the human soul were literally stirred up, brought out, as one brings out a fever, and brought to their climax. Through this, purification took place, so that rebirth could then proceed. All this appeared in shadowy images in the ancient Greek tragedies. Just like science, art also developed out of these ancient mysteries.

[ 23 ] High-degree Masons trace their origins back to these ancient mysteries. In their high degrees, they have nothing more than a replica of the high degrees of the mysteries into which the mystery students were gradually initiated. Now we can also understand why Johannine Freemasonry is so adamant that such high degrees should no longer exist. In fact, within Freemasonry, the high degrees have more or less lost their significance in recent centuries. What has taken place in culture in recent centuries has largely come about without any impetus from this quarter. But there was a time when the great cultural impulses came precisely from what Freemasonry is supposed to be. To understand this, we must look a little deeper into an age to which I have often referred here, but which I would like to refer to today in a Masonic sense: namely, the 12th century of our European cultural development.

[ 24 ] At that time, occultism, which appeared under a wide variety of names, played a much greater role in modern culture than we can imagine today. But all these different names are irrelevant today, and I will tell you why. I will use an example from Freemasonry itself to show you why these names do not contribute anything essential to our understanding of the matter.

[ 25 ] What I am about to tell you is something that every apprentice in Freemasonry experiences, and since these things are at least known by name, I can safely say this.

[ 26 ] A common custom is the so-called “covering.” When the lodge is opened, the master has taken his place, and the doorkeeper stands at the door, the master's first question is: Brother Overseer, is the lodge covered? Very few masons probably understand this expression, “Is the lodge covered?” But since it is a simple matter, I can explain the expression to you. At the time I am talking about, being a Freemason meant being in fierce opposition to everything that had external, official power. It was therefore necessary for the work of the Masonic Order to be carried out with extreme caution. For this very reason, it was necessary at that time for Freemasonry to appear under various names that seemed harmless. Among other things, they called themselves the Brothers of St. John and so on. Today, much of what Freemasonry strove for at that time has been achieved. Today, it is itself an official power in the world.

[ 27 ] If you ask me what Freemasonry actually consists of, I must answer in abstract terms: it consists of its members thinking several centuries ahead about the events that will advance the world; of them consciously developing the high ideals of humanity so that these ideals are not merely abstract ideas.

[ 28 ] When a Mason today speaks of ideals and is asked what he means by the highest ideals, he says: The highest ideals are wisdom, beauty, and strength—but on closer inspection, this is usually nothing more than a phrase. When, in those days or even today, those who really understand these ideals speak of them, they are talking about something very specific; something so specific that, in the course of events over the next few centuries, it will be like the idea of a builder who builds a factory is to that factory once it is built.

[ 29 ] At that time [in the 12th century], it was dangerous to know [in advance] what has since happened. It was therefore necessary to use harmless-sounding names as code names. And this is where the expression comes from: Is this lodge covered? — which means: Are only those present here who really know about these things that are to be incorporated into the future development of humanity through Freemasonry? For everyone had to say to themselves, if we go out in public, no one must recognize us as Masons. This precautionary measure, which was necessary in the past, has been preserved to this day. Whether many Masons know what this means is questionable. Most think it is some kind of formal expression, or interpret it in a more or less witty way. I could give you countless examples that would show you how external circumstances led to the application of practical measures, from which people today strive to extract profound symbolic interpretations.

[ 30 ] But now let us turn to the actual core of what was intended in the 12th century. This is expressed in the symbolically profound legend of the Holy Grail, that miraculous vessel said to have come from the distant Orient and to have the power to rejuvenate people, bring the dead back to life, and so on.

[ 31 ] What, then, is the Holy Grail — in Masonic terms — and what is the basis of the entire legend? The easiest way to understand the basis of the legend is to consider a symbol of certain Masonic associations, which is misunderstood today in the most clumsy way imaginable. It is a symbol taken from sexual life. It is quite true that precisely those things that belong to the deepest secrets of Freemasonry have symbols taken from sexual life, and that many who today try to interpret such symbols are only following their own dirty imaginations when they understand these symbols in a spiritually impure sense. It is very likely that the interpretation of these sexual symbols will play no small role in the near future, and that this will show how badly the old Masonic secrets are faring in today's world and, on the other hand, how necessary it is in this day and age to preserve the pure, noble, and profound foundation of Masonic symbols in a noble and untouched form.

[ 32 ] Those who listened to my recent lecture at the General Assembly know that the actual original meaning of these symbols is the reason why, until recently, women were not allowed to join Freemasonry, and why, until recently, such matters could only be discussed separately for men and women. On the other hand, you also know that these symbols are connected – and I emphasize this particularly – with the two great currents that run through the whole world and rise up to the highest spiritual realms, which confront us as the law of polarity in the forces of the masculine and feminine. Within the culture that is relevant to us, the language of Freemasonry expresses the priestly principle in the spiritual realm—the spiritual realm that is initially relevant to cultural development—through the feminine principle. The priestly rule is expressed through the feminine. The masculine principle, on the other hand, is everything that is the opposite of this priestly rule, but in such a way that this opposite represents no less the most sacred, the most noble, the greatest, and the most spiritual in the world. We are therefore dealing with two currents: a feminine and a masculine current. The Mason sees the representative of the feminine in Abel and that of the masculine in Cain.

[ 33 ] This brings us to the fundamental idea of Masonry, which is, however, very old, ancient. Masonry arose in ancient times as the counterpart to the priestly culture. But now we must also clarify in the right way what has been understood by priestly culture.

[ 34 ] What we are dealing with here has nothing to do with petty opposition to churches or creeds. The priestly type can occur even in the most complete lay environment. But even what today passes for science and prevails in many intellectual guilds is nothing other than what, in Masonic terms, is called the priestly element; and other things, in turn, are Masonic in the deepest sense. We must therefore imagine things in all their depth if we want to understand them correctly. I would like to illustrate with an example that what appears in science is often what the Mason calls the priestly element.

[ 35 ] Who today, if he is a physician, would not laugh scornfully if someone told him about the healing powers of the spring at Lourdes? On the other hand, what doctor would not consider it self-evident that for certain people it is most rational to go to Wiesbaden or Karlsbad? I know that I am saying something terribly heretical; but I do not represent the priestly principle, nor do I represent medicine; but there will come a time when people will judge both impartially. And if there were real medicine today, one of the things a doctor would prescribe would be faith in its healing power. But then the reasons for sending someone to Karlsbad would be the same as those for sending someone to Lourdes. Call it the greatest piety on the one hand and the crassest superstition on the other: in the end, it is the same thing.

[ 36 ] What underlies such an understanding of the priestly principle can be described as a failure to get to the bottom of things, as an acceptance of things as they present themselves from somewhere in the world, and as contentment with this given state of affairs. The symbol for that which man cannot do anything about, the actual symbol for that which is literally given to man, has been taken from sexual life. This is where man is productive. But what is expressed in this productive power has nothing to do with human art, nothing to do with human knowledge, and nothing to do with human ability. Everything that can be expressed in the three pillars of the “royal arts” is excluded. When certain Freemasons place sexual symbols before the human race, they mean to say: this expresses human nature, not as humans have made it, but as it was given to them by the gods. This finds its expression in Abel, the hunter and shepherd, who sacrifices the sacrificial animal, the sacrificial lamb, that is, that which he himself did nothing to bring forth, that which came into being without him.

[ 37 ] Cain, on the other hand, what does he sacrifice? He sacrifices what he himself has worked for, what he has gained from the fruits of the field by tilling the soil. He sacrifices that which required human art, knowledge, and wisdom; that which one must be able to comprehend, where one must be clear about what one has done oneself, which is based in a spiritual sense on freedom, on the self-determination of human beings. This must be bought with guilt, by first killing the living thing given by nature or by the divine powers, just as Cain killed Abel.

[ 38 ] Guilt is the path to freedom. Everything that is brought forth in the world—and in which human beings can at most be active through their contribution—everything that is given to human beings by divine powers, everything that is there without them having to work tirelessly to bring it about, is first given to us in the realms of nature over which we have no dominion, in the realms of nature whose forces are withdrawn from human cooperation: in the plant, animal, and human realms, insofar as these realms deal with physical creation. All reproductive power in these realms is given to us by nature. Insofar as we accept living beings for our use by making the world, which is built up from living beings, our place of residence, we sacrifice the given sacrificial animal, just as Abel sacrificed the sacrificial animal given to him.

[ 39 ] The symbol of these three realms is the cross. The lower beam symbolizes the plant kingdom, the middle beam, the crossbeam, the animal kingdom, and the upper beam the human kingdom.

[ 40 ] The plant is sunk into the ground with its roots and, in its blossom, directs upward what man has directed downward. What appears in the blossom is the sexual, the gender of the plant. The downward-pointing part, the root, is the head of the plant sunk into the earth. The animal is the half-turned plant and carries the spine horizontally to the ground. The completely turned plant, so that the lower part is pointing upwards, is the human being.

[ 41 ] This view underlies all the mysteries of the cross. And when theosophy shows us how man must pass through the various kingdoms, through the plant, animal, and human kingdoms, in the course of his development, then this is the same thing that Plato expresses in beautiful words: The world soul is nailed to the cross of the world body. The human soul is a spark of the world soul, and the human being as a physical human being is at the same time a plant, an animal, and a physical human being. By splitting itself into the individual sparks of human souls, the world soul has, in a sense, been nailed to the world cross, to that which is expressed in the three kingdoms—the plant, animal, and human kingdoms. In these realms, forces are at work that humans cannot master. If they want to become masters, they must make a new realm their own, one that is not expressed in the cross.

[ 42 ] When I talk about this subject, I am often asked: Where is the mineral realm? The mineral realm is not symbolized in the cross. For it is the kingdom in which human beings can already express themselves today in bright, clear light, where they learn to apply the art of weighing and counting, geometry and arithmetic, in short, all the things that belong to inorganic nature, to the inorganic, the mineral kingdom.

[ 43 ] When you see a temple before you, you know that man has built it with a ruler, a compass, a triangle, a plumb line, and a spirit level, and finally with the thoughts that inorganic nature has handed down to the architect in geometry and mechanics. And if you penetrate the entire temple, you will find that this temple, insofar as it is inanimate, has emerged from human freedom and mental labor. But you cannot say that when you subject a plant or an animal to human observation.

[ 44 ] So you see that what man masters, in which he can be a master, is still today the realm of the inanimate. And everything that man transfers from the inanimate realm into harmony and order is the symbol of his royal art on earth. What he puts into this mineral realm with his royal art is the outflow and incarnation of divine wisdom. Go back to the time of the ancient Chaldeans, the ancient Egyptians, when people did not build merely with their intellect, but imbued everything with high feelings, and they perceived the mastery of inorganic nature as a “royal art.” And that is why this mastery of nature was then called “free masonry.” This may seem like fantasy at first, but it is more than that.

[ 45 ] Imagine the moment in the evolution of our Earth when no human being had yet laid hands on the formation of inorganic nature, when the entire globe was handed over to humans just as it had been released from nature! And what happened then? Look back at the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, how stone was joined to stone by human labor. Through human thinking, what nature had formed was transformed into new forms. Thus, human wisdom transformed the earth. This was perceived as the true mission of free, creative human beings on Earth. Through the manifold tools at their disposal, human beings have, since time immemorial and up to the present day, when human power can reach the furthest corners of the world without mechanical intervention, brought about the gradual transformation of the mineral world through human wisdom. And this is the first pillar, the pillar of wisdom.

[ 46 ] A little later, we see the second pillar emerge: the pillar of beauty, of art. Through art, the human spirit is also poured into inanimate matter, thereby once again animating (conquering) the inanimate in nature. Try to imagine how, gradually, wisdom in art masters lifeless nature, and you will see how, piece by piece, that which exists without human activity is transformed by human beings themselves. For my sake, imagine in a fantastical way the moment when the whole earth will have been transformed by human hands, when the whole earth will have become a work of art radiating wisdom and beauty, built by human hands, conceived by human wisdom! It may seem fantastical, but it is more than that. For it is the mission of the human race on earth to artistically transform the globe. You have expressed this in the second pillar, the pillar of beauty.

[ 47 ] To this you can add as the third pillar the shaping of the human race in the life of the state and of peoples, and you have the spread of the human spirit within the world; you also have it here in the realm of the inanimate.

[ 48 ] That is why the medieval people of the 12th century, looking back on the ancient wisdom, said that the wisdom of ancient times is preserved in marble monuments, but the wisdom of the present still rests in the human breast. It then emerges in the artist and becomes a work of art through the work of his hands. What the artist feels, he imprints on the unformed material, carves it out of the dead stone. The dead stone does not live, but the inner soul of man appears in it. Everything in art is dedicated to this mission. Whether the sculptor carves marble or the painter distributes colors, light, and shadow, it is always a mastery of inanimate, inorganic nature. And the statesman also shapes nature [?] ... as long as we do not consider the power of plants, animals, and humans, we are always dealing with the human spirit itself.

[ 49 ] This is how the medieval thinker of the 12th century looked back on the ancient Chaldean occult wisdom, on Greek art and beauty, and on the strength of the Roman Empire's concept of the state. These are the three great pillars of world history: wisdom, beauty, strength. Goethe depicted them in his “Fairy Tale” through the three kings: the golden one representing occult wisdom; the silver one representing beauty, as in Greece; and the bronze one representing strength, which found its expression in world history in the Roman concept of the state and then passed into the organization of the Christian Church. And the Middle Ages, with its chaos caused by the migration of peoples and its mixed styles, is expressed in the shapeless, mixed king, who is made of gold, silver, and ore. In him, everything that was distributed among the different cultures of antiquity is thrown together. Only later must the individual forces develop out of chaos to a higher level.

[ 50 ] Those who regarded the Holy Grail as their great symbol in the Middle Ages set themselves the task of raising these individual forces to a higher level through human power. The Holy Grail was to be something essentially new, even though its symbolism initially drew on ancient, legendary traditions with their allegories.

[ 51 ] So what is the Holy Grail? For those who understand this legend correctly, it means the following, and this can even be proven in literature.

[ 52 ] Until now, humans have only mastered the inanimate in nature. The transformation of living forces, the transformation of what sprouts and grows in plants, what appears in animal [and human] reproduction, is beyond their power. Humans must leave these mysterious forces of nature untouched. They cannot intervene there. What these forces bring about cannot be fully understood by him. The artist can create a Zeus of wonderful beauty, but he cannot fully understand this Zeus. In the future, man will reach a stage where he can do this too. As true as it is that man has gained dominion over inanimate nature, control gravity with spirit levels and plumb lines, and control the directional forces of nature with the tools available to him in geometry and mechanics, it is equally true that in the future he will control through himself what he now has only as a gift from nature or from divine powers: living beings.

[ 53 ] By sacrificing what he had received from the hand of God in the past, Abel sacrifices only what he has received from nature in the realm of living beings. Cain, on the other hand, sacrificed what he had wrested from the earth through his own labor as the fruits of his diligence. That is why a fundamentally new direction emerged in Masonry during this period [the Middle Ages]. And this direction is what is symbolized by the Holy Grail: the power of self-sacrifice. I have often said that harmony within humanity is not created by preaching it, but by establishing it. Where real forces are awakened in human nature, there is no longer any disunity. In what is expressed in the symbols of Freemasonry, majority and minority have no meaning. There can be no dispute, for it is only a question of ability or inability. No majority can decide whether the plumb line or the spirit level should be used; the matter itself must decide. In this, all people are brothers, and all come together. There can be no dispute about this if everyone follows the path of objectivity, the path that consists in the acquisition of higher powers. Thus, the covenant [of the Freemasons] is naturally a covenant of brotherhood, which is based to the greatest extent on what is common to all people in inanimate nature.

[ 54 ] However, not all powers are present in inanimate nature. Some things that once existed have disappeared again because, in the cycle of nature in which we currently find ourselves and which we call Earth, material knowledge is in the foreground and intuitive knowledge has been lost. I would like to point out just one fact here: the ability to construct buildings with truly good acoustics has been completely lost in architecture. This art was understood in the past. Anyone who constructs a building solely on the basis of its external appearance will never achieve good acoustics. But those who think intuitively, whose thinking is rooted in higher realms, will be able to create acoustic buildings. Those who know this also know that just as gravity, light, and electricity have been conquered by humans in inanimate nature, so too will those forces over which we currently have no control in the external world have to be conquered in the future.

[ 55 ] Even if our time has not yet come when we can rule over external living nature, even if that cultural epoch has not yet been reached when the living, life-giving forces are mastered, there is already a preparatory school for this today, inaugurated by that movement called the Lodge of the Holy Grail. But the time will come, and it is a very specific point in time, when people, deviating from their present inclination, will realize that one cannot decide on inner, deeper soul forces by majority vote, that it is impossible to decide by vote on the vast realm of love, on what one feels, on what one senses. The force that lives uniformly in all human beings and expresses itself in the intellectual realm in that great unity about which there can be no dispute is called manas. And when human beings have reached the point where they agree not only with their minds, but also in their feelings and emotions, in their deepest soul life, where they find themselves in what what is noble and good, finding themselves together in love in the objective, in the common, just as they already find themselves together without dispute in the fact that two times two is four and three times three is nine, then the time will have come when human beings will also be able to master the living. Unity, objective unity in feeling and emotion, an objective life in love truly poured out over humanity—that is the prerequisite for mastering living things.

[ 56 ] This mastery of living things once existed, according to those who founded the Holy Grail movement in the 12th century. It existed among the gods who created the cosmos and descended to give humans the seed of these divine powers that they themselves possessed: so that human beings today are gods in the making, because there is something within them that strives upward, toward where the gods once stood. Today, the mind, the intellect, is the ruling force; in the future, love [Buddhi] will become the ruling force, and in even more distant times, human beings will reach the Atma stage.

[ 57 ] This total force (common force), which gives man power over that which is symbolized by the cross

[ 58 ] is symbolized by the cross, is expressed—insofar as this power belongs to the gods—by a symbol, namely the triangle pointing downward. And insofar as this power is expressed in human nature, as it strives upward toward the divine power, it is symbolized by a triangle pointing upward. The gods have lifted themselves out of man and distanced themselves from him; but they have left behind in him the triangle, which will continue to develop within him. This triangle is also the symbol of the Holy Grail.

[ 59 ] Medieval occultists used the triangle to express the symbol of the Holy Grail, the emblem of the awakening of mastery over life. This does not require a common church with a rigid organization spanning the globe; such a church may well give something to the individual soul, but if all souls are to harmonize, the power of the Grail must be awakened in each individual. It is of no use for those who want to awaken this power of the Grail within themselves to turn to the official church authorities to see if they can tell them something. Instead, they must not ask many questions but awaken this power from within themselves. Human beings start out in dullness and rise through doubt to power. This pilgrimage of the soul is expressed in the figure of Parzival, who makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Grail. This is one of the manifold, deeper meanings of the figure of Parzival.

[ 60 ] What good is it to my knowledge if a large organization proclaims the truth of mathematics through its authoritative bodies? If I want to learn to understand mathematics, I must occupy myself with it and acquire the understanding for it. And what good is it if an organization contains the power of the cross? If I want to apply the power of the cross, the mastery of life, then I must attain it myself. No one else can tell me this, cannot communicate it to me through words; at most, they can show it to me in symbols, give me the shining symbol of the Grail, but they cannot express it in intellectual formulas.

[ 61 ] The first fulfillment of this medieval occultism would thus be what is asserting itself in the most diverse movements in Europe: the striving for individuality in religion, the breaking away from the rigid, uniform church organization. It is difficult to recognize everything that underlies Wolfram von Eschenbach's “Parzival” in this direction. Everything that only came to expression in the Reformation is already contained in the symbol of the Holy Grail. Anyone who has a feeling for the great significance of what we encounter in this symbolism will understand the great, profound cultural value of such symbolism. Greatness in the world is not born out of loud noises or tumult, but out of intimacy and silence. Humanity is not advanced in its development by the thunder of cannons, but by the power of what is born intimately in such secret societies, by the power of what is expressed in such universal symbols, on which humanity is building itself up.

[ 62 ] Since that time, countless sources have poured into the hearts of human beings what those who were initiated into the mysteries of the Holy Grail in the middle of the 12th century thought. They had to hide from the world under pseudonyms, but they were actually the preparers, the leaven of culture in the last four hundred years.

[ 63 ] Thus, the keepers of great secrets and of those forces that continue to work in human evolution live in occult societies. I can only hint at what is actually there, for the matter itself goes deep, deep into the occult realm.

[ 64 ] For those who truly gain access to such mysteries, the practical consequence is a free overview of what will happen in the world [in the future].

[ 65 ] Slowly and gradually, the organic, living forces are intervening in the present cycle of human development. A time will come, fantastic as it may seem to people today, when human beings will no longer merely paint pictures or create lifeless sculptures, but will be able to bring to life what they can now only paint or sculpt with paint and chisel.

[ 66 ] What will seem less fantastic, however, is the fact that the first dawn of the use of living forces is already beginning today in the workings of social life: the real mystery that surrounds the Grail. The last event in the social sphere brought about by ancient Masonry was the French Revolution, in which the basic ideas of ancient Masonry in the social sphere were consistently brought to the public's attention with the ideas of equality, liberty, and fraternity. Those who know this also know that the ideas that originated from the Grail were spread through countless channels and were the real forces at work in the French Revolution.

[ 67 ] What we call socialism today stands as a failed, impossible attempt, as a last, I would say desperate struggle within the dying wave of humanity. It cannot bring about a truly positive result. What it aims to achieve can only be achieved through living action; the pillar of strength is not enough. Socialism can no longer be mastered by lifeless forces. The ideas of the French Revolution, liberty, equality, fraternity, were the last ideas to flow from the lifeless. Everything that remains in the same rut is barren and doomed to die. For the great evil that exists in the world today, the immense misery that finds expression with such terrible force in what is called the social question, can no longer be mastered by the lifeless. This requires a royal art; and it is this royal art that has been inaugurated in the symbol of the Holy Grail.

[ 68 ] Through this royal art, man must obtain something similar to the power that sprouts in plants, the power that the magician uses when he makes the plant standing before him grow faster. In a similar way, part of this power must be used for social salvation. This power, which has been described by those who know something of the Rosicrucian mysteries, such as Bulwer in his futuristic novel “Vril,” is currently still in its embryonic stage. In the Freemasonry of the future, it will be the actual content of the higher degrees. The royal art will be a social art in the future.

[ 69 ] Again, because of the comprehensive, all-encompassing nature of the idea, I must say something that will seem fantastic to the uninitiated. Eternal and imperishable is that which man imprints on matter on our earth as the form emanating from his soul. Even if the formed substance decays outwardly, what the royal art has formed since ancient times in pyramids, temples, and churches is imperishable. What the human spirit has formed in matter remains in the world as a continuing force. This becomes completely clear to those who are initiated into such things. The Gothic cathedral in Cologne, for example, will pass away; but the fact that the atoms were once there in this form is of far-reaching significance. This form itself is the imperishable, which henceforth participates in the further development of humanity in the same way as the living force in plants participates in the further development of nature! The painter who paints a picture today, who imprints his soul's blood on dead material, also creates something that will be scattered into a thousand atoms in a more or less short time. But the fact that he has created it, that something from his soul has flowed into the material, that something has been formed at all, has an imperishable, lasting value, has eternal value.

[ 70 ] States and all other human communities also arise and pass away before our eyes. But what human beings have formed out of their souls as such communities are the ideas they have put into them, with eternal value and eternal significance. And when this human race reappears on earth in a new form, it will see the fruits of these elements of eternal value.

[ 71 ] Anyone who looks up at the starry sky today sees a wonderful harmony. This harmony has come into being; it was not always there. Just as we lay stone upon stone when we build a cathedral, put color next to color when we paint pictures, and formulate law after law when we organize societies, so too did formative beings once work on what we now see as the cosmos. Neither the moon nor the sun would shine, no animal or plant would reproduce, if everything we encounter in the cosmos had not been worked on by beings, if there had not been beings before who worked just as we work today on transforming the cosmos. Just as we today build the cosmos through wisdom, beauty, and strength, so too did the beings that do not belong to the present human kingdom once build the cosmos.

[ 72 ] Harmony is always the result of disharmony in earlier times. Just as the stones were shaped to form the Greek temple, just as they flowed into other forms and the confusing multiplicity became an orderly structure, just as the jumble of colors on the palette are meaningfully combined in the picture, so the whole of matter was chaotic in other combinations before the creative spirit formed it into this cosmos. The same thing repeats itself on a new level, and even in the smallest things, only those who see the big picture act correctly. Everything in the world that has really been important for the progress of the human race has come about with care and insight, with initiation into the great laws of the world plan. What the day creates is transitory. But what is created in the day from the knowledge of the eternal laws is imperishable. To create in the day from the knowledge of the eternal laws means to build freely.

[ 73 ] You can see, then, that what we encounter in art, science, and religion, insofar as it is not a gift from the gods and is expressed in the symbol of the cross, has emerged from free masonry. From it sprang forth what has truly been built in the world. Therefore, masonry is primarily connected with everything that human hands have shaped in the world, everything that has created culture out of raw, lifeless matter. Go back to what the great cultural epochs have produced; look, for example, at Alomer's poems! What do they contain? That which the initiates taught people as the great, universal ideas. The great artists did not invent their material; rather, they gave form to that which encompasses all of humanity. Is a Michelangelo conceivable without Christian thought? Try in a similar way to trace back to its origin that which has attained deep, truly incisive significance in culture, and you will be led back everywhere to that which originated in initiation, in initiation.

[ 74 ] Everything must ultimately pass through a school. The last four centuries have also been a school for humanity: a school of godlessness, in which there is only human trial and error, a return to chaos from a certain point of view. Today, everyone tries without knowing the connection with the higher worlds, with the exception of those who have sought and found the connection with the spiritual worlds again. Today, almost everyone lives entirely for themselves, without noticing anything of the real, all-pervading common structure. This has also given rise to terrible dissatisfaction in all areas.

[ 75 ] What we need is a renewal of the Grail knighthood in a modern form. Those who can approach it will thereby come to know the real forces that are still hidden in the course of human evolution today.

[ 76 ] What many people today, who take the old symbols and do not understand them, misrepresent in the symbols of the sexes, does not come close to the correct understanding of the Masonic idea. The understanding is to be found in what replaces the mere force of nature: mastering and penetrating the living in the same way as the geometer masters and penetrates the inanimate with ruler, compass, spirit level, and so on; creating the living in the same way as the builder of a temple joins together the inanimate stones. This is the great idea for the future of Freemasonry.

[ 77 ] There is an ancient symbol in Freemasonry called the Tau:

[ 78 ] This Tau symbol plays an important role in Freemasonry. It is basically nothing more than a cross with the upper beam omitted. The mineral kingdom is omitted in order to obtain the cross itself; man already masters it. If you let the plant kingdom come into action, you get the upward-pointing cross...^{2See references on page 347.} That which unfolds from the earth, from the soul, as power over the earth, is the symbol of future Masonry.

[ 79 ] Those who heard my previous lecture on Masonry will remember how I mentioned that the Masonic legend of Hiram Abiff tells how he intervened at a certain point with the sign of the tau. The Queen of Sheba wished him to summon the workers who were busy building the temple once again. At Solomon's signal, the people who worked together in social community did not appear. At the sign of the Tau—raised by Hiram Abiff—the people appeared from all sides. This Tau sign symbolizes a completely new power based on freedom and consisting in the awakening of a completely new natural force.

[ 80 ] I may now return to the remark with which I concluded last time. I told you what the great mastery of inanimate nature leads to. Without much imagination, one can visualize what this is all about with an example: Wireless telegraphy works at a distance from the sending station to the receiving station. If one wishes, one can set the apparatus in motion and trigger effects over great distances and thereby communicate. A similar power to that which operates in wireless telegraphy will also be available to humans in later times without the need for apparatus, enabling them to cause great devastation at great distances without the source of this destruction being discovered. When the peak of this development is reached, it will eventually come to a head.

[ 81 ] What is expressed by the dew is a driving force that can only be set in motion by the power of selfless love. It will be able to be used to drive machines, but these will come to a standstill when selfish people operate them.

[ 82 ] Perhaps you are aware that Kee/y constructed a motor that only worked when he himself was present. He was not trying to fool people, because he had within himself that driving force that comes from the soul and can set mechanical things in motion. A driving force that can only be moral—that is the idea of the future; the most important force that must be instilled in culture if it is not to overturn itself. The mechanical and the moral will interpenetrate, because then the mechanical is nothing without the moral. We stand firmly at this boundary today. In the future, machines will be driven not only by water and steam, but by spiritual power, by spiritual morality. This power is symbolized by the sign of the tau and has already been poetically hinted at by the image of the Holy Grail. Just as man is no longer dependent on using what nature freely gives him, but shapes and transforms nature, just as he has become the master builder of the inanimate, so will he become the master builder of the animate.

[ 83 ] As something that must be conquered, the old sexual symbol stands at the entrance to Masonry. Just as a stone covered with wild grass, hewn from the rock, would be placed next to a wonderfully crafted statue by a sculptor, so you can place the old sexual symbol of Masonry next to the new symbolism of future Masonry. Those who were somewhat initiated into the royal art knew this. Goethe, for example, expressed this wonderfully in the second part of Faust, in the episode of the homunculus. There are still many mysteries there that have yet to be revealed.

[ 84 ] These things are intended to indicate that humanity is on the threshold of a new epoch of development of the occult royal art. Those who officially represent Freemasonry today know the least about what this future Freemasonry will be. They know the least that something completely new will replace the old symbols, which they have so often misunderstood, and that these will take on a completely new meaning.

[ 85 ] Just as it is true that in the past everything truly great has come from the royal art, so it is true that everything truly great in the future will come from the cultivation of the royal art. Certainly, today every schoolboy can prove the Pythagorean theorem, but only Pythagoras could discover it because he was a master of the royal art. So it is with the future of the royal art. You see, then, that Masonic art stands at a turning point in its development and that it is closely connected with what was active in the Grail Lodge and what may appear as salvation in the terrible struggles that surround us today.

[ 86 ] These struggles are only just beginning. Humanity does not know that it is dancing on a volcano. But it is dancing on a volcano. Revolutions are beginning on our earth that will make a new phase of the royal art necessary. Those who do not live thoughtlessly will know what they have to do; they will know that they have a part to play in the development of our earth. That is why, in a certain sense, this ancient royal art must be depicted in a new form and accompany the ancient. Nevertheless, there is an inexhaustible power in the ancient. Those who grasp the new Masonic ideas will once again strike sparks from the old Masonic symbols. Then it will also become clear that the arguments about Johannine or high-degree Masonry are meaningless in comparison with the aspirations of true Masonry.

[ 87 ] To this end, it is necessary—which brings us back to our starting point—to answer the question: What has the royal art been up to now? Up to now, this royal art has been the soul of our culture. And our culture has two fundamental characteristics. On the one hand, it is built on those forces in the human soul that deal with the inanimate, and on the other hand, on those forces among human beings who prefer to make it their task to master the inanimate simply by means of the forces produced by their organism: these are men. Therefore, the royal art has been a man's art up to now. Women were therefore excluded and could not participate in it. The work was carried out separately, in lodges – how this was done in detail is not important – from everything related to the family and the propagation of the pure natural basis of the human race. In Freemasonry, therefore, a double life was led: the great ideas expressed in the lodge were not to be confused with anything related to the family. The work of the lodge, relating to the innermost life of the soul, went hand in hand with the cultivation of family life. The two currents were in conflict with each other. Women were excluded from Masonry. This ceased at the moment when Freemasonry stopped looking backward and turned its gaze forward. For it was precisely that which flowed in from outside [?] that was designated as the feminine current; that which was there by nature was designated by Masonry as something priestly. And Freemasonry had previously regarded this as hostile.

[ 88 ] By nature, man is the representative of the creative force in the inanimate, while woman represents the living, creative forces that develop the human race from its natural foundations. This opposition must be overcome.

[ 89 ] What is to be achieved in the future can only be achieved when that which is based on the old symbols, which are expressed precisely in the sexual, has been overcome in the world. Freemasonry, which is now outdated, has these symbols because it wants to say: we must overcome this; but this gender must remain outside in the institutions that relate to nature; it can only be overcome in isolation. The builder, the artist, the statesman—all of them have nothing to do, in their way of thinking, of course, I ask you to consider this, with the natural basis of sexuality. They all work with the mind, with the intellect, to master the inanimate forces. This is expressed in the Masonic symbols. Overcoming this natural foundation in the distant future, mastering the forces of life — just as humans began to master the inanimate forces in the distant times of the Lemurian race — will be expressed in new symbols. Then the natural foundation will be overcome not only in the realm of the inanimate, but also in the realm of the living.

[ 90 ] When we consider this, the old symbols of gender appear to us as precisely what must be overcome in the broadest sense, and then we find in the idea of the union of male and female spiritual forces that which in the future will be the creative, the truly effective force. The external event marking this progress in Freemasonry is therefore the entry of the female sex.

[ 91 ] There is a meaningful custom in Freemasonry that refers to this. Those who are initiated into the lodge receive two pairs of gloves: one pair to put on themselves, and the other pair to put on the person they love most. This is meant to indicate that both should only touch each other with gloves, so that sensual impulses have nothing to do with what Freemasonry is about. This idea is also expressed in another symbol: the apron is the symbol of overcoming sexuality. This is covered with the apron. Anyone who does not recognize this profound idea in Freemasonry will also have no idea what the apron actually means. The apron cannot be associated with Freemasonry in the narrower sense.

[ 92 ] So, on the one hand, we have the overcoming of the natural by the freely creative spirit, but on the other hand, we also have separation through the gloves. However, we will ultimately be able to take off the gloves after overcoming the lower nature, by applying the immediate free spiritual power of both sexes. Only then will what is expressed today in sexuality finally be overcome. In free, thoroughly free human creativity, in the cooperation of man and woman in the great edifice of humanity, gloves will no longer be handed out, because they will be able to freely join hands, because now spirit speaks to spirit, not sensuality to sensuality. That is the great idea for the future.

[ 93 ] If someone today wants to continue the old tradition of Masonry, they will only be at the height of Masonic thinking for the shaping of the future of the human race if they work in this spirit and, despite the age of this order, have an understanding of what the times demand of us. If it will be possible to find understanding for what is called the secret of the royal art, the future will undoubtedly bring us the rebirth of the old, good, glorious, but now decayed Freemasonry.

[ 94 ] One of the ways in which occultism will penetrate humanity will be through the resurgent Freemasonry. It is precisely this that distinguishes the very best, that it is most exposed to the faults of its virtues. And even if today we can only describe Freemasonry as a caricature of the great royal art, we must not despair in our efforts to reawaken the powers that lie dormant within it: a task that falls to us in a field that runs parallel to the theosophical movement. If we do not view the question that weighs upon us in a superficial manner, but truly grasp it from the depths of world activity, if we want to understand what is expressed in the souls of the sexes, in the struggle between the sexes today, then we will see that the formative power for the future must flow from these forces.

[ 95 ] All the talk we hear today is meaningless. These questions cannot be answered unless the answer is drawn from the depths. What exists in the world today as a social or women's issue is nothing unless it is recognized from the depths of the world forces and brought into harmony with them.

[ 96 ] As true as it is that great deeds in the past were brought forth from Freemasonry, it is equally true that the great practical deeds of the future must be brought forth from the depths of future Masonic ideas.