The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The European Mysteries and Their Initiates: The Druid and Drotten Mysteries

Presentation by Markus Uppling

[ 1 ] After it had been pointed out that human beings are by no means the simple beings that the outer, physical eyes see, that the hand can grasp, and that intellectual science can comprehend, the speaker emphasized that the human “I” is clothed not only in its physical body but also in an astral and an etheric body, and thus belongs not only to the physical world but also to the astral and etheric worlds.

[ 2 ] Now he asks himself: Can human beings know anything specific about these spiritual worlds, and are there really methods for researching these worlds? The speaker answered these questions with an unequivocal “yes.” What, then, are these methods? They are the same ones that our ancestors used for this purpose, and which have always been referred to as “initiation,” although with humanity’s current higher level of development, the attainment of the various degrees of initiation can now take place only entirely within the human being, without the use of all the external aids that were necessary in the past.

[ 3 ] The part of the human being that we must above all strengthen and develop here is the astral body. “We know,” said the speaker, “that during sleep the astral body, together with the ‘I,’ leaves the physical body and the etheric body and enters the astral world to draw from it the forces upon which our life will be built the following day. But in the majority of people, the astral body is still a state of chaos, lacking structure and organs of perception. It is therefore necessary to develop spiritual eyes and ears within it, so that it may be able to retain the impressions of the spiritual world, just as the physical body retains the impressions of the sensory world. The means for this are meditation and the concentration of the life of feeling, imagination, and will.

[ 4 ] The first step on the path of initiation is imagination. As an example of the exercises required for this, the speaker mentioned the exercise involving the image of a black cross crowned with red roses. The student is instructed to absorb this image and pay attention to the feelings it evokes within him. He is then told to banish from his consciousness the images of the roses themselves as well as that of the cross itself, and to retain only the memory of how his soul worked to create these images. The student must process hundreds of other images in his soul in the same manner.

[ 5 ] But through this, he gradually acquires new inner sensory organs and can, for example, perceive the “harmony of the spheres” of which the Pythagoreans spoke; and this sound is not a figment of the imagination, but a real reality. With this, the human being has ascended to the second degree of initiation, to the stage of inspiration.

[ 6 ] To reach the third and final degree of initiation—the degree of intuition—a person must practice forgetting even the inner soul work mentioned earlier. After that, they must wait. If images now rise up within them, these are impressions from the spiritual world, and the person has attained the gift of intuition. If such images do not arise, the student must continue his exercises. Through intuition, a person will be able to grasp his own eternal soul-being. He can see his own incarnations and can prophetically foretell what influence today’s events will have on future incarnations.

[ 7 ] However, initiation did not always take place in this way. In earlier times, an external apparatus was necessary to ensure that the impressions on the soul were strong enough to develop a person to the point of inspiration and intuition.

[ 8 ] Among the Greeks, then, there were two types of mysteries: the Dionysian and the Apollonian. The Dionysian mysteries originated in Egypt and were based on the idea that the initiate, blind and deaf to all external influences, should immerse himself in his own inner world and experience there, as intensely as possible, all the emotions of astral life—such as pleasure, fear, terror, anxiety, and superhuman joy. In this way, powerful spiritual forces were to be developed within him. The external apparatus used for this purpose consisted of underground passages and similar structures in the temples of initiation. And even today, one can still find the layout of these arrangements in the Egyptian pyramids.

[ 9 ] The other type of Greek mysteries were the so-called Apollonian mysteries. Here, too, external devices were used; but in this case, the goal of leading people toward the spiritual was not achieved through their own inner feelings and thoughts, but rather through their empathy with and contemplation of the great forces of nature. The joy of the radiant sun, the melancholy of autumn, the mysticism of the winter solstice, and many other natural phenomena were the means employed for this purpose. Thus, people lost sight of the mundane, and behind the veil of the sensory world, they began to recognize the spiritual world as a reality.

[ 10 ] It is interesting to study the mysteries that existed in Northern and Central Europe in pre-Christian times and also concurrently with the events in Palestine. In Central Europe, we had the Druidic mysteries. These took place in the sacred forests at midnight—for example, at Christmas. And because the druid allowed his senses to merge with the great forces of nature, a true insight could dawn in his soul regarding what a human being is and can become. And as the essence of the world, the great “All-Father” stood alive before his soul, and opposite him the “All-Mother, the Soul”—and not as abstractions, but as realities.

[ 11 ] In northern Europe, we have the Drotten Mysteries, which serve as a preparation for receiving the Christian Mysteries. The Drotten Mysteries directly prepared for initiation through intimate spiritual methods. Those who conducted them believed that human beings had not yet reached the stage where they could ascend into the spiritual world; therefore, their souls had to be born first. To this end, thirteen men participated in the Mysteries at once, one of whom acted as the leader and the remaining twelve as assistants. Each of these twelve assistants sought within himself to raise a single soul force to a very special height, so that during the mystery all these forces might unite like rays within the soul of the thirteenth. Under the influence of this, the thirteenth was inspired and was able to express his perceptions of the spiritual world in words. There he saw the perfect human being as an image of the Divinity itself. But then he saw the archetype of this human being, and finally he saw what unites the image and the archetype—the Holy Trinity, of which our thinking, feeling, and willing are but a faint reflection. In powerful visions, he saw the stars as spiritual beings and saw himself living within these beings. Through the Drotten Mysteries, man became a wanderer in the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] Modern human beings can, if they so choose, rise into the spiritual world. For it is because these initiates once lived that we now have bodies capable of becoming instruments for the spiritual.