The Rudolf Steiner Archive

17. The Initiation of the Rosicrucian

[ 1 ] Theosophy aims to be a spiritual movement in our time that deepens our entire spiritual life and redirects humanity from the sensory realm back to the supersensory. It does not bring anything absolutely new to humanity—no, it is rooted in earlier times. It is based on what previous generations have developed before us. But even what previous generations did and knew was not something new; those, too, were conceptions of the general and great fundamental truths. Every generation and every era expresses what it can understand of these truths in its own way, adapting to the spirit and circumstances of the time. Theosophy in our day means the recognition of fundamental truths in a form that is useful for our time.

[ 2 ] Let’s now imagine a culture like the one that existed 600 to 700 years ago. Back then, there weren’t many channels through which anyone who wished to could acquire knowledge, as there are now in schools, libraries, and so on. We have gone through this development over the past century. The sciences have expanded; people constantly seek to know more and more and to express everything in scientific forms and terms, for humans clothe their thoughts in forms to which they are accustomed. Now the time has come when everyone desires to know, to learn, and to read—and can find a way to do so.

[ 3 ] In ancient times, there were also individual preachers of wisdom and a large crowd that believed them on command. (The speaker means that the large circle of people who know a little—which exists today—could not be found back then, apart from the few who knew more, whose number is not large even now, just as it was not in the Middle Ages.) Those who knew more about the great truths of life—about this great wisdom that we currently call “Theosophy®”—were called Initiates, because they had a wealth of reliable experience behind them. And those who have this experience behind them do not speak of these things as if they were speaking of another world, but as if they were living continuously in this world. And that is indeed the case, for this world has become their own. There are always other worlds around us—spiritual worlds—and other beings at work around us that relate to human sensory and physical life in the same way that the splendor of colors in the world of light relates to a blind person. What the initiate has lived through can be compared to the experience of someone born blind who has undergone surgery and been given the ability to see the light.

[ 4 ] The Rosicrucian initiation method describes the experiences a person undergoes when the spiritual world opens up to them.

[ 5 ] As for the Rosicrucians themselves (the speaker does not say so in so many words, but implies that this is the name for an order or association of initiates who practice the same teachings of wisdom as those now found in Theosophy) —this name has been brought into disrepute by people who knew very little about it, and indeed little more than a few external forms. What can be found here and there in ancient writings about the Rosicrucians was therefore not conducive to inspiring respect in the outside world. But all of this was quite natural, for what was truly Rosicrucian was in fact kept secret until the end of the nineteenth century, since it was only in that century that it was destined to benefit humanity in general. Only today’s Theosophical Movement is destined to embrace and disseminate the wisdom of the Rosicrucians.

[ 6 ] Now (said the speaker), today we are not concerned with the history of the Rosicrucians, but with the living Rosicrucian tradition. It was not until the fourteenth century that the system we are now discussing was established, emerging from various spiritual seeds.

[ 7 ] Rosicrucianism should not be confused with Theosophy in general: it is merely a method. But when it comes to relating Theosophy to modern science, the Rosicrucian method is probably the most suitable.

[ 8 ] And what does this method entail? Through seven degrees (stages), a person is guided toward understanding spiritual truths.

[ 9 ] These seven degrees are:

1st degree: study,
2nd degree: imaginative insight,
3rd degree: insight through the occult writings,
4th degree: (what is called) the search for the Philosopher’s Stone,
5th degree: the study of the correspondence between human beings and the greater world out there (microcosm and macrocosm),
6th degree: merging with the macrocosm,
7th degree: that which follows from the preceding degrees: godliness.

[ 10 ] Let's take a closer look at these different levels one by one:

[ 11 ] First Degree “The Study”: This involves acquiring a basic understanding of the higher worlds; for, above all, one first needs some basic knowledge before one can truly feel at home there. But one can only come to know the higher worlds by opening one’s soul: then a person becomes a seer—in a certain sense, already an initiate. Now, not everyone can find the path on their own—at least not easily—but anyone who is a seeker, endowed with common sense, can discover through study what they would not have found so easily on their own. This is a kind of guidance, much like finding one’s way in an unfamiliar area with the help of a map. In this way, many have found what they had previously sought in vain: a coherent body of knowledge that never fails to provide a logical answer.

[ 12 ] Here in the physical world, things correct a person when he makes a mistake: We would find our way here even without a map, though it might be less convenient. In any case, we would clearly see where we could not go and where there would be serious obstacles. In the higher worlds, it is not like that: there, one must find guidance within oneself.

[ 13 ] Once a person has absorbed the fundamental principles of higher knowledge, they can be guided to the second degree of “maginative knowledge”: This is the realization that behind everything we perceive lies the truth of things, and that the things perceived by the senses are merely parables for the real spiritual (things).

[ 14 ] Everything that is understood in science is, in and of itself, merely an intellectual concept; it consists solely of an idea. The Rosicrucian’s task is to recognize things not merely in the idea or concept, but in the image.

[ 15 ] Let us provide an example in the form of a dialogue, as one might have been conducted by a Rosicrucian teacher with his student:

[ 16 ] The teacher: “Look how the plant grows up out of the ground, as an example of its own development; [look] at how it develops: stem, flower, fruit. And then understand that all these environmental conditions were necessary for the plant to develop in this way: air, light, soil, and all the substances within them.

[ 17 ] And now turn your gaze to human beings: a being of a different form. Flesh has replaced plant matter, and instead of chlorophyll, red blood flows through this being.

[ 18 ] On a sensory level, even a plant has a consciousness, roughly equivalent to that of a sleeping human. Human beings have a consciousness that has been elevated to great heights. But humans have had to pay for this consciousness with a state of being permeated by desires, instincts, and passions. What the plant contains—and what grows into a fruit—is pure; but in return, its consciousness is narrow and limited. Now consider the pure plant on the one hand, and on the other, the human being with his higher development, permeated by the flow of passions.”

[ 19 ] The Rosicrucian (the speaker continued) must come to realize that it is the flow of passions that transformed plant matter into muscle tissue, and the green sap of the plant—chlorophyll—into red blood.

[ 20 ] And then it was said: You must, as a human being, rise to a higher ideal. Development is not complete at this stage. If it is to continue, then human beings and their consciousness must take on other forms, becoming a higher form of consciousness. They then return, at a higher level, to the chaste, pure substance of plants. Then, free of passions, the blood will once again have become like plant sap. Just as the plant bears fruit without desire, so too will human beings have become beings whose organs produce without desire.

[ 21 ] This ideal is called the ideal of the “Holy Grail,” the image of the chalice in which the blood from Christ’s wounds was collected. As soon as the red blood has become chaste and pure like chlorophyll, it will be the blood of the pure human being.

[ 22 ] There is a folk legend that tells how the bees came to suck honey from the wounds of Christ on the cross, just as they do from flowers. This image gives us an idea of what is meant. Everything that prevents humans from transcending the plant realm must be eliminated. To represent this ideal, a symbol was chosen: the black cross surrounded by red roses—the symbol of the spiritual ideal.

[ 23 ] And it was of this spiritual ideal that an initiated man, a poet, spoke when he said: “Whoever lacks this remains a perpetually gloomy guest on our dark earth.” (Goethe—see the same quote in the lecture in Amsterdam.) It is clear that what is being spoken of here is something entirely different from intellectual knowledge. When we try to view the whole world in this way, it makes a different, warmer impression on us than intellectual knowledge. The latter leaves us cold.

[ 24 ] When we then face the world with such images, we feel what is happening in the world. Who can place the black cross surrounded by red roses before their soul without experiencing a shudder of inner emotion, without feeling a flood of emotions within themselves? Feelings are creative forces. For through them new thoughts are born, and a new world opens up to the human being, just as it does for someone born blind who has undergone surgery and now sees the light. A new world opens up to the initiate through imaginative insight. These are things just as precise as the laws of nature.

[ 25 ] Third Degree: Mastering the occult writings. In this process, one not only comes to know the laws of nature, but also learns to penetrate them through the power of the will. An example of this: Two emotional experiences, well known to us, are shame and fear. When a person does not want something about themselves to be noticed, this is called shame, and the person blushes. When a person perceives a danger and fears being overwhelmed by it, they feel fear. And then the person turns pale. These are two examples of how the inner state of the soul results in a change in the physical, outer state. A worldview is currently coming to us from America that strives to explain everything the other way around—namely, starting from material things. According to this view, for example, a person does not cry because they are sad, but rather they are sad because they cry—namely, because the eyes and tear glands are subject to such physical influences that tears are produced. This is: turning the truth completely on its head.

[ 26 ] It is clear that spiritual insight seeks to convey this: Everything that happens in the world is a consequence of the spiritual, which is the principle of this world; and within ourselves, we must experience what happens out there in the wider world—namely, by learning to understand how the spiritual is expressed in physical forms. One does not come to know the world by describing things and deriving (abstracting) laws from them, but by experiencing them inwardly.

[ 27 ] (What followed here regarding the heart and its symbolic meaning was not explained in sufficient detail by the speaker to be reproduced more clearly.)

[ 28 ] Fourth Degree: “The search for the Philosopher’s Stone. This involves neither magic nor deception, but something very natural. A writer—who, incidentally, knew little or nothing about the secrets of the Rosicrucians—correctly observed one thing regarding this point: Every person holds the Philosopher’s Stone in their hand—but they do not recognize it.

[ 29 ] The significance of the respiratory process is this: in the blood, oxygen combines with carbon to form carbon dioxide—which humans then exhale. The plant takes in this carbon dioxide through a process that is also a kind of respiration, even though we call it by a different name (the process of assimilation). The plant separates the carbon from the carbon dioxide and returns the oxygen—through evaporation—to humans. Without the plant world, human life on Earth would be physically impossible, at least in the form we know it today. But then humans must also realize that they are not independent beings; plants are part of them, just as their own limbs are part of them. The idea that humans could exist on their own is an illusion.

[ 30 ] And now we must consider that this physical process is based just as much on a spiritual process as the feeling of shame is based on blushing, and so on. This process is merely an outward sign of an underlying spiritual process. We must understand that there is a real connection between human beings and plants, and it follows that changes must take place in one just as much as in the other, so that a rhythmic connection must exist between human respiration and that of plants. There is, in fact, a respiratory rhythm in nature—though this cannot be discussed publicly—which establishes a conscious connection between human beings and plants.

[ 31 ] But this much can be said: When a person consciously learns to direct the process of respiration toward a specific goal, he learns to use his consciousness to carry out the process that a plant performs—the direct construction of forms from carbon.

[ 32 ] This is an absolutely true fact, even if it may sound strange: Human beings can learn to transform the carbon within themselves—the transformation of matter.

[ 33 ] The achievement of consciously transforming carbon into living substance is called the “Philosopher’s Stone.” Herein lies the path of the Rosicrucian: to learn to use and master this greatest of all minerals. We now also understand what the man meant when he said that we have all held the “Philosopher’s Stone” in our hands without knowing it.

[ 34 ] Finally, we must once again understand that the process of breathing is based on and preceded by a spiritual process; that the transformation of carbon is a symbol of the transformation of the human inner being through an ascent into the spiritual world; and also that what will be material in the future must first be spiritual.

[ 35 ] Fifth Degree: “The harmony between humankind and the universe, between the microcosm and the macrocosm. This is based on the fact that everything that exists in the greater world is also present within humankind as essence; and therefore, humankind can find within itself everything that exists in the greater world.

[ 36 ] We owe our eyes to the sun—to its light. The eye is a creation of sunlight. And so, in his entire being, man is a creation of the universe. Just as we must learn to use our eyes to see sunlight, so must we learn how to use our inner organs to see the spiritual light. Man must learn to recognize the relationship between external things and the spiritual world—the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm. And then he feels how roots extend from within him out into the whole vast world. Then he must come to forget his inner self entirely: to forget the eye for the sake of the sun. Then it is as if the inner self of the human being has expanded into an entire universe.

[ 37 ] Human beings learn to say “I” not to themselves, but to the universe. This is the feeling through which human beings merge with the macrocosm [- sixth degree].

[ 38 ] The ideal of this insight is that everything ultimately culminates in a feeling that encompasses the world. And we cannot grasp this all at once, nor can we attain it with phrases such as: “Human beings must become selfless,” but only by following the long and arduous path of Rosicrucian initiation. To possess this feeling and thus understand the world—that is Rosicrucian initiation.

[ 39 ] We can understand everything that modern science tells us in this light, but we do not stop at this science; we learn to comprehend the world and divinity [- seventh degree]. These are the preparatory teachings of the Rosicrucians.

[ 40 ] We see that the teachings and methods of Rosicrucianism are based on what Theosophy teaches—namely, that a spark of God lives within human beings, and that the goal is not to accumulate knowledge about God, but to learn to feel the pulse of the universe within oneself. Then the human being has become free. The knowledge that human beings are capable of this gives us a powerful impetus to act.

[ 41 ] This concept is beautifully expressed by a man who knew (Goethe) in these words: “The person who overcomes himself frees himself from the power that binds all beings.”