The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Rosicrucianism

[ 1 ] When we speak of the Rosicrucian initiation or the Rosicrucian rite of initiation, we must first briefly reflect on the concept of initiation itself. In general, it consists of seeking the path to penetrate, through one’s own experience and personal encounters, the higher worlds that underlie our sensory world. In doing so, we must distinguish between three categories: initiates, clairvoyants, and adepts. These are three different ways of entering into a relationship with the higher worlds.

[ 2 ] Today we want to talk about how human beings can come to know the supersensible worlds through their own experience. We will set aside the threefold division for now, but we must bear in mind that when we speak of initiation, we are referring to a specific method of initiation.

[ 3 ] Anyone who considers that people seek the path to the higher worlds from different starting points will easily overlook the differences between the various methods. Once we have reached the summit of a mountain, we have an unobstructed view from up there. To get there, we can start from different points; we can take different paths. It would be nonsensical if, in order to reach the summit, we did not use the path that lies before us, but instead walked all the way around the mountain.

[ 4 ] Let us apply this principle to initiation. Here, too, we find that people have different natures, which creates different starting points. External natural science is not capable of truly studying the subtle differences at stake here. Our physiologists and anatomists are unable, with their crude instruments and methods, to discern these subtle differences among human beings. But for those who possess occult knowledge, there is a vast difference between a person born in the Orient and one born in Europe or America. This is evident even in the physical realm. There is a vast difference between a person who still possesses a living, immediate sense of and feeling for Christ, and a person who is completely estranged from the original Christian sentiment and allows his entire worldview to be shaped by the achievements of modern science. Not only are the feelings and thoughts of such a person different from those of a person with a Christian disposition, but this difference can be observed right down to the physical level. There are such subtle differences that affect the finest structures of the body that physiology and biology have nothing to say about them. Therefore, human nature must be taken into account, and one cannot prescribe the same path for all people to ascend to the higher worlds through higher development.

[ 5 ] To understand this, we must go back to earlier times in human history. Humanity has undergone a long process of evolution. During the period we call the Atlantean era, our ancestors—that is, our own souls—lived in very different bodies in ancient Atlantis, over in the West between what is now Europe and America. Then came the floods described in the biblical account of the Flood and various other flood legends—the floods that brought about the downfall of ancient Atlantis. This was followed by the post-Atlantean evolution, in which we still find ourselves.

[ 6 ] We have gone through four periods in post-Atlantean evolution; we are still in the fifth. The first of these periods encompassed ancient Indian culture. In that era, the peoples were taught directly by the holy Rishis—inspired beings whom modern people cannot even begin to form a mental image of. This was followed by the second culture, the Persian, with the religion of Zarathustra. The third culture was the Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldean-Egyptian culture, from which Hebrew culture slowly emerged. The fourth was the Greco-Roman cultural movement, within which Christianity arose, drawing its elements from the people who had derived their organic development from the third culture. We are now living in the fifth culture, moving toward the sixth.

[ 7 ] Not only has thinking changed in the long time since the Atlantean catastrophe, but so too have the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. However, one should not form a mental image of all people standing on an equal footing within our fifth cultural current. Many characteristics of the earlier cultural streams have been preserved. What developed one after the other still exists side by side.

[ 8 ] Because human beings have passed through a wide variety of cultural currents, the nature of the initiation into the higher worlds—which was bestowed upon them by their spiritual guides—had to change in accordance with the resulting transformations in their entire being.

[ 9 ] During the Atlantean era, people still possessed astral clairvoyance. They lived in close communion with their gods and spirits, just as they did with the plants, minerals, animals, and other people around them. In the post-Atlantean era, human beings could no longer gain this access to the higher worlds. They could no longer enter the higher worlds through the direct perception of the divine-spiritual; rather, they could only artificially restore themselves to the state in which they once again became companions of the gods. This is the foundation of the Indian form of yoga initiation. This yoga initiation into the higher worlds essentially consists of dampening the consciousness that human beings have acquired in the post-Atlantean era—namely, external perception—and returning to earlier clairvoyant states of consciousness, such as those possessed by the Atlanteans.

[ 10 ] If we continue to trace the development of humanity beyond the Persian and Chaldean cultural currents, we arrive at the Christian cultural current. It brought with it Christian initiation, which can only be attained through a direct relationship with Christ Jesus as revealed in the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. Then, in the 13th and 14th centuries, the first dawn of the materialistic cultural current followed. At that time, enlightened people were able to recognize: Now the material age is dawning. Everything that was fully realized in the 19th century—and appeared in its extreme form—had long been prepared beforehand. We find materialism not only in the realm of external action, but must seek it out in all areas.

[ 11 ] Up until the 13th and 14th centuries, people retained a very different set of sensibilities and emotions. The shift is evident in all areas, even those that seem most remote. In painting, for example, we encounter this great change in people’s sensibilities. Today, it seems arbitrary to the materialist when, for instance, Cimabue paints the background in gold in his pictures. But this painter still held onto the tradition of perceiving the higher world. If one looks into the highest regions of the astral world, one finds that this golden background is reality. Those who later sought to paint something similar—as imitators of these older painters, who still possessed knowledge of the reality of the astral world through tradition—appear to us as barbarians compared to those who truly still had a connection to the higher worlds. In Giotto’s work, for example, the depiction is no longer of what he perceived as truth, but everything is painted solely on the basis of external tradition. In his time, it was natural to shift toward what can be seen only on the physical plane—toward materialistic art. Only the greatest painters of that era held fast to the tradition. In Raphael’s Disputa, one can see how, in the background tones from bottom to top, that experience which a person has when rising into the higher worlds is indeed rendered with a certain accuracy. This gradual experience of the transition from the lower to the higher worlds, culminating in the vision of those genii emerging from the golden background, is a necessity.

[ 12 ] Anyone who knows spiritual truths understands that there is something else behind physical facts; they know that the reason people today are materialists is that they are under the influence of external, materialistic forces. But this is not merely a matter of external perception. From the perspective of occultism, one learns of other reasons. Thought and feeling are realities that radiate out into the world. We are surrounded by materialistic thoughts. These thoughts swirl around us everywhere. Even if no books or magazines expressing materialistic views reach a farmer out in the countryside, these materialistic thoughts still surround him, influencing him in ways that really matter.

[ 13 ] If we ask how human beings came into existence in times when people still knew something about occult powers, we find that back then—in China, for example—arrangements were made so that, upon entering the physical world, a person was welcomed by people filled with spiritual thoughts. This is something entirely different from being received by a materialistic doctor and a materialistically minded environment. In such a setting, people are confronted with entirely different things than was formerly the case in an environment imbued with spiritual thoughts. Herein lies the reason for people’s materialistic mindset. Ever since the 13th and 14th centuries, human beings have been immersed in a materialistic atmosphere from the moment of their birth. It had to be that way. But consequently, a method also had to be created for those who wished to ascend to the higher worlds—a method through which they would become strong and vigorous enough to enable them to ascend into the spiritual worlds despite these external materialistic conditions.

[ 14 ] This method of initiation is the Rosicrucian one, which originated at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries and was first introduced by Christian Rosenkreutz, one of humanity’s great leaders. Strictly isolated from the outside world, this method had been in effect for centuries since that time, known only within a small circle, and was most strictly sealed off during the 19th century, the materialistic age. It was not until the last third of that century that the need arose to make known to the world, at least in its most basic aspects, what had been taught in the schools of the Rosicrucians—through Theosophy.

[ 15 ] In 1459, the true founder of the Rosicrucian movement himself attained that level through which he had the power to influence the world in such a way that the initiation of the world could be brought about through him.

[ 16 ] Since that time, this individuality of Christian Rosenkreutz has repeatedly been present as the leader of the movement in question. Throughout the centuries, it has led a life “in the same body.” We must understand the expression “in the same body” as follows: When we consider the physical body, we find that what composed it ten years ago is no longer present in the physical body. But consciousness has remained the same. Every seven to eight years, a person renews every part of his physical body, yet consciousness endures this continuous renewal of physical substances throughout his entire life. What we experience in this way between birth and death, the initiate experiences in such a way that, when he dies, he is soon reborn in a new body as a child. But he traverses this path with full consciousness. Consciousness remains intact from one incarnation to the next. Even the physical resemblance remains with the initiate, because the soul consciously builds the new body based on the experience of the previous incarnation. In this way, the highest leader of the Rosicrucian training lived throughout the centuries.

[ 17 ] Only now is it possible to reveal some of the principles of the Rosicrucians. Until then, none of this had been disclosed; only once had any of it been communicated. The following seven stages are what, according to the Rosicrucian method, lead human beings upward into the higher worlds: First, study; second, the acquisition of imaginative knowledge; third, the study of occult writings; fourth, the preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone; fifth, the correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm; sixth, the merging with the macrocosm; seventh, godliness.

[ 18 ] This does not mean that these seven degrees must be passed through one after another in sequence. The student who approaches a Rosicrucian teacher receives instructions for higher development in a way that corresponds to his individuality. From the seven stages of higher development, what is best suited for him is selected. One may begin with the first and second stages, and then perhaps move on to the fourth and fifth. Only what is called “the study” must be the starting point for everyone.

[ 19 ] Here, however, “study” means something different from what it usually means in everyday life. Here, it refers to the deliberate acquisition of mental images and concepts, which is called “thinking free from the senses.” All the thinking of the ordinary person is bound up with external sensory perception. Consider everything you experience from morning to night, and mentally set aside everything you have seen and heard externally. For most people, very little or nothing remains. But if a person wishes to make the journey to the higher worlds, they must accustom themselves to being able to think even when the source of their thinking lies solely within their own inner being, without drawing on the external world.

[ 20 ] In European countries, the only form of thinking that is free from sensory input is arithmetic. A child learns that two times two equals four, initially through external perception—using fingers, beans, or those dreadful calculating machines. But a person cannot achieve a satisfactory result in this area until they can form these mental images without the crutch of external perception. One can never see a circle in external reality; circles drawn on a blackboard are simply rows of chalk mounds. Only a circle conceived in the mind is precise. One must construct the circle in one’s mind; one must think the circle.

[ 21 ] Today, thinking free from sensuality can be found in human beings only in the fields of number theory and geometry. But this is not accessible to most people and is therefore cited only by way of comparison. The best way to acquire thinking free from sensory perception is through theosophy itself, because there one hears of things one has not seen. What people learn there—such as how the human being consists of a physical, etheric, and astral body, or how the Earth itself has developed through various stages—they cannot see. Only when we exert our thinking and perceive the inner logic of the matter can we comprehend these things using ordinary logic—provided one is willing to stand on this comprehensive foundation of logic. When people today say they cannot comprehend this, the reason is not that they lack clairvoyance, but that they are unwilling to apply the logic of comprehension. The experiences of the clairvoyant can be understood through ordinary logic; clairvoyance is necessary only for investigating these matters. What is presented in Theosophy is the only logical approach for both theoretical and practical life. In contrast, what people put forward in a materialistic way regarding supersensible matters is illogical. What Spiritual Science offers is what is truly and concretely fruitful in life.

[ 22 ] If we consider the principle of education from the standpoint of the theosophical worldview and from the standpoint of the materialistic mindset, we can draw a comparison. In the former, things are said about the developing human being that cannot be seen externally. But it is precisely in this that the true, real, and concrete is found. Today’s worldview does not understand the developing child. Only when one takes into account the whole being of the human being—rather than viewing it merely from the outside—does one learn to bring the full richness of the human being into the world.

[ 23 ] At the same time, the person who immerses themselves in the teachings of the theosophical worldview has a means of learning to think free from sensuality. True Theosophy will always aim, as much as possible, to develop thinking free from the senses. When we examine the Theosophical teachings, we find descriptions of states that we cannot see. When we consider the evolution of our Earth and its origins, we describe that planetary state in which everything was different from the current stage of our Earth: that ancient Moon—not the present one—where there was still no solid, mineral crust upon which humans could walk, but where the planet existed only as a kind of plant-like entity. In this mass, which we can compare to lettuce or spinach, more solid components existed only in the form of what we today call the bark of trees. There were no minerals at all at that time.

[ 24 ] If one disputes this from a materialistic perspective—because one can only conceive of plants growing on mineral soil—one must admit that, under present-day conditions, it is indeed impossible for it to be any other way. But back then, conditions were entirely different. The materialist cannot imagine this because he always bases his thinking on present-day conditions. He has no mental image of it.

[ 25 ] But in such images, we can free ourselves from what we see around us. Nonsense becomes meaningful when we consider circumstances that lie far removed from us. There we learn to train ourselves to break away from our sensory circumstances. We learn to place images before our soul of things we do not know today. In this way, our thinking rises above what is possible today. Those who strive to limit their thinking only to what is possible today remain stuck in present-day circumstances and cannot break free from them. For study in the Rosicrucian sense, it is precisely essential to train one’s thinking using these images of circumstances that no longer exist. Allowing one concept to arise from another through fully non-sensory thinking is a means of arriving at what is called “study.” One can also attain this through the study of a book such as The Philosophy of Freedom. In writing it, the author merely provided the opportunity for the thoughts to form themselves. There, the individual thoughts have arisen of their own accord from fully senseless thinking and have structured themselves, so that no thought could be removed from where it stands and placed elsewhere, just as the hand could not be severed from the body and placed elsewhere. This is the path of senseless thinking.

[ 26 ] To want to soar up into the higher worlds driven by a burning desire—that is something many people want; but it is unhealthy. A healthy pursuit is one in which sound logic is cultivated from within, based on thinking that is free from all sensuality.

[ 27 ] Anyone familiar with the higher worlds knows that perceptions in those worlds are quite different from those in the physical world. However, there is one thing that remains the same across all three worlds—the physical, astral, and devachanic worlds—and that is logical thinking. This reliable guide protects us above all from being led astray. Without it, we will never learn to distinguish illusion from reality and will end up mistaking every illusion for astral reality. Here in the physical world, it is easy to distinguish illusions from reality. For external facts correct us. If, for example, you have taken a wrong turn, you will not arrive at the right place. In the higher worlds, we must find the right path ourselves through our own mental power; otherwise, we will find ourselves in increasingly difficult labyrinths if we have not first learned to distinguish illusion from reality. Through training in the Rosicrucian sense, we can learn this.

[ 28 ] The second aspect of Rosicrucian training is imaginative cognition—cognition through images. This is the first stage of ascending from the physical world into a spiritual world. Goethe provided the guiding theme for this in the closing words of the second part of his Faust when he says: “All that is transitory is but a parable.” When we begin to view everything around us as spiritual images, we then strive upward into the world of the imagination.

[ 29 ] In the Rosicrucian schools, and indeed in earlier schools as well, attempts were made to make the principle of evolution through the various kingdoms clear to the students. Today, materialistic thinking speaks of evolution; theosophy also speaks of it, but it is something else entirely to transform the concept of evolution into an image, to elevate it to the level of imagination. Usually, only the intellect is concerned with the principle of evolution. We arrive at imagination in the following way. Over the course of many weeks or months, the soul was transformed through the teacher’s instructions in the following manner. We can best convey this in the form of a dialogue—which, however, never actually took place in this manner. — The teacher said the following: “Look at the plant—how it reaches toward the sun with its leaves and blossoms and sinks its roots into the ground, striving toward the center of the earth. If you compare it to a human being, it is wrong to equate the flower with the head and the root with the reproductive organs. Darwin made the comparison correctly. He pointed out that the root of the plant corresponds to the human head. The human being is the plant in reverse. The root that the plant sends down into the ground corresponds to the human head. But what the plant chastely holds up toward the sun—the flower and the reproductive organs—is what the human being turns toward the earth. If you turn the plant completely upside down, you have the human being; if you turn it halfway, you have the animal, which has a horizontal spine.

[ 30 ] When we create mental images of these things, not only our thoughts but also our sensations and feelings are drawn deeply into the world around us. We learn to recognize the inner relationship between plants and human beings. We recognize the pure, chaste nature of the plant, which is not yet permeated by desires and passions, and the nature of the human being, in whom the chaste plant substance has been transformed into flesh permeated by desires and passions. But through this, at the same time, something higher enters his being; through this, he has attained clear daytime consciousness. The plant sleeps, but human beings have attained their clear daytime consciousness by being embodied in flesh that is permeated by desires, passions, and instincts. To achieve this, they had to complete the full cycle of evolution. The animal stands in the middle of this process. It does indeed have desires and passions, but has not yet attained clear daytime consciousness.

[ 31 ] The teacher said to the student: “If you feel this, then you understand Plato’s saying: ‘The world soul is crucified on the body of the world.’ — Plant, animal, human—that is the true, deepest meaning of the sign of the cross. What passes through the realms of nature as a universal spiritual presence, as the world soul, appears as a symbol in the cross. This was taught in the secret schools as the deepest meaning of the cross.

[ 32 ] Then the teacher said to the student: “Look how the plant holds its calyx chastely toward the sun, how the sunbeam kisses the plant’s blossom. This was called the chaste kiss of the sunbeam, the sacred lance of love.” In the chaste kiss of the sunbeam, the sacred lance of love, to which the plant’s calyx opens, there is a reference to the future ideal, when human beings will once again develop their organs upward toward the chastity of the plant. Now, human beings have evolved to the stage where they are permeated by desires. Humanity will continue to evolve to the stage where it has transformed its desires, where it will once again be kissed by the spiritual sunbeam, where it will in turn bring forth its own kind on a higher plane, where the reproductive power will be spiritualized. In the mystery schools, this was called the Holy Grail. This is the true ideal of the Holy Grail: an organ that human beings will possess when their reproductive power has been spiritualized. We see in the past the chaste nature of the plant, in the present the human being permeated by desire, and in the future the human being with a purified body, receiving the spiritual ray of the sun in the Holy Grail chalice—as a higher stage of development than the plant chalice.

[ 33 ] This is not abstract thinking, but a state in which we feel—not merely think—every stage of development. When we feel in this way what is developing, we gradually rise to the point where we arrive at imaginative insight through the images. The image of the Holy Grail stands before us when we detach these images from sensory appearance and receive the image of that higher world.

[ 34 ] When we allow such images—which depict certain processes of the spiritual world and were established in the secret schools—to take effect upon us, we say that we are allowing the occult scripture to take effect upon us. This is the third stage of Rosicrucian training.

[ 35 ] We find such images in the seals and columns, as depicted in Munich at the Congress on the Beginning and End of Human Development, and in the Book of Revelation. Humanity once lived on an Earth that was molten. Only gradually, through many incarnations, did humans come to possess their present-day bodies, and they will continue to develop through many more incarnations. Above all, a transformation of the larynx and the heart will take place. In the future, these will be the reproductive organs. Today, thoughts, feelings, and sensations are expressed only through words, which carry the stirrings of my soul through this space by means of vibrations to your ears and awaken similar thoughts and feelings in your souls. Later, human beings will create warmth and, ultimately, light, just as they now communicate their thoughts through words in the air. Just as human beings descended in the past from a sphere of light and warmth, so will they themselves create warmth and light in the future.

[ 36 ] This is depicted on the first apocalyptic seal. The initial state of humanity, when the Earth was still in a state of molten heat, is depicted by the fact that the man’s feet in the image are in a river of fiery metal; the future state is depicted by the fiery sword that emerges from the man’s mouth. Such an image affects not only the imagination but also the human will when we contemplate the great forces of nature in this way. For the same force that lives as a primal force in the human will also lives in the entire external world. If we learn to train our will, then the will of the world lives within us, and our will becomes one with the will that flows through nature. This is what a person learns through selfless devotion to the occult symbols.

[ 37 ] The fourth stage of Rosicrucian training is the preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone. This is a closely guarded mystery. At the end of the 18th century, some details were revealed. For example, a remark was found in a Central German newspaper from a person who had heard rumors about it. It stated: “The Philosopher’s Stone truly exists, and there are only a few people who do not know of it. Many have already held it in their hands, but they do not know that it is the Philosopher’s Stone.”—The definition was correct in its wording, but one must understand it. It is not merely an allegory. The Rosicrucian works with reality, delving even into physiology. He works on the actual transformation of the Earth and of humankind, reaching deep into the physical body, not merely on what is commonly understood as moral elevation, the refinement of character, and so on.

[ 38 ] Let us take human respiration as our starting point. The regulation of the respiratory process is an important part of occult development. People inhale, take in oxygen, which combines with carbon inside the body, and then exhale carbon dioxide. If this process were to continue indefinitely, the Earth’s atmosphere would gradually fill with carbon dioxide, which would lead to the downfall of humanity. Human existence depends on the existence of plants. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, retain the carbon, and release oxygen. Thus, a continuous cycle takes place between humans and plants. In this way, humans, animals, and plants belong together; one cannot exist without the other.

[ 39 ] Now, in the human body, the process of development is as follows: What the plant must do for the human being today—namely, produce carbon (the remains of plants can still be recognized in coal)—will later, as occultism can show us, be accomplished by the human being himself through his further development and the subsequent transformation of his heart and respiratory organs. One way for the human being to take up this plant process and carry it out consciously is to bring rhythm to the breathing process, so that he does not release carbon dioxide to the plant but builds up carbon within his own body. The human being learns to build up his own body from within.

[ 40 ] If we compare this with what has been told to us about the Holy Grail, we now have a concrete image of it before us. Through the rhythmic regulation of the breathing process, human beings learn to produce within themselves the carbon that occurs in nature as graphite and diamond—as the chaste nature of plants. To produce carbon—that pure, chaste substance—within oneself is what is called the preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone. One must create a mental image of it as something similar to a transparent diamond, but made of a softer substance. Human beings are a powerful inner apparatus; through occult training, they learn that they are working toward the evolution of their own species into a higher form. Upon hearing this, a materialistically minded person remarked—in a most characteristic way—that this would be a wonderful thing, and that perhaps a profitable branch of industry could be built upon it. Not at all. This very remark shows how necessary it is to keep such information secret, for only when people have reached a moral and intellectual level where they can no longer think selfishly can such secrets be revealed to them.

[ 41 ] The fifth is the correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm. For everything that happens out in the world, there is a process within the human being that repeats it on a smaller scale. One need only reflect on what is happening within oneself; then one can intuitively grasp the processes taking place in the outer cosmos. For example, through a specific form of meditation and concentration on the innermost part of the eye, a person learns to recognize the sun according to its inner essence, for the eye is an extract of the sun’s essence. Goethe once said: “The eye is formed by light for light.” Light created the eye. Without the sun, there would be no eye. - Everything that exists as essence within the sun is, in a certain sense, reflected in the eye. To recognize the light of the sun through concentration on the essence of the eye—that is Rosicrucian training. In this way, one can come to know the entire world from within oneself. By concentrating on the liver, for example, a person comes to know very specific creative forces of nature, extending all the way to human creativity. In this way, a person learns to recognize the entire world through themselves, for they are a microcosm. There they learn how the microcosm and the macrocosm correspond in reality.

[ 42 ] A focused attention on the human heart gives one insight into the nature of the lion outside. This is not merely a figure of speech. Human beings must learn to find their way, step by step, into the vast universe; then the sense of oneness and the feeling of being one with the entire cosmos will come naturally. When a person learns to walk the path to the great universe fully from every limb of their body—including the etheric and astral bodies—with patience, step by step, they expand their organism into one that encompasses all of space. They are then present within all beings. They can then experience that sensation which is called divinity.

[ 43 ] It is essential that a person detach himself from himself so that he may find the path to the creative forces. The more he steps outside of himself, the more he enters into the higher

[ 44 ] Up through the worlds. In the poem “The Mysteries,” Goethe described how a person journeys to a mysterious temple to meet with various people through whom the different schools of thought converge. Goethe places the cross, entwined with roses, at the temple’s entrance. “Who has placed the roses beside the cross?” the poem asks. Only one who knows that the cross entwined with roses symbolizes an evolution toward a higher state of humanity would say this. He also expressed this in the words:

And as long as you don't have that,
This: Die and Be Reborn!
You are but a gloomy guest
On this dark earth.

[ 45 ] Human beings must increasingly draw closer to the state in which they will be inwardly reborn from the dying part of themselves. Just as the bark of a tree dies outwardly while it develops new buds inwardly, so too must human beings be inwardly reborn by surrounding themselves outwardly with death. That is why, in earlier times, the initiates were compared to the oak and called Druids. This “die and be reborn” means that human beings constantly give rise to fresh life within themselves. That which is dying becomes the sustainer of their new life. That is why it is said:

From the violence that binds all beings,
The person who overcomes themselves is set free.

[ 46 ] This means: transcending ordinary life, turning it into a shell, so that the sprouting seeds of a higher life within can develop.