The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] I would like to use the time available to us to make a few additional points that build upon our previous considerations but will essentially expand upon them. To do so, it is necessary that we begin today by taking a brief look back at earlier worldviews.

[ 2 ] During my recent series of public lectures in Switzerland, I have often said that the kind of knowledge and way of thinking that currently dominates people—and has taken root in human souls—is not suited to influencing social and moral life, and that a recovery from the current conditions can only come about when people once again find the possibility of arriving at a way of thinking, an understanding of the world, through which what lives in the soul once again has a direct connection with reality.

[ 3 ] I said that what prevails in historical, social, and ethical life is more or less overlooked or ignored by people, and that abstract concepts are in any case unsuitable for seizing the impulses that must be effective in social life. I said that in earlier times, people made do with myth, drawing on older—as we often say—atavistic insights. They expressed in mythical form what they thought of the world, what entered their perception from the mysteries of the world. Myths—the content of mythology—can be viewed in the most diverse ways, and I have indeed pointed out in these reflections a downright grandiose materialistic interpretation of myth by Dupuis.

[ 4 ] We have repeatedly examined this or that myth in other places over the years. But there are many possible perspectives on myths, and even when this or that has been said about a myth, its content is far from exhausted. Time and again, from various other perspectives, different insights regarding the myth can be brought to light. It would be very beneficial for people today if they were to gain a clear understanding of the nature of the thinking that underlay the mythical, mythological mode of thought. For the notions people form about the origin of myths and the creations of mythologies belong precisely to the realm of the superficial judgments so common today.

[ 5 ] Myths contain profound truths that are more closely connected to reality than the truths articulated by modern science regarding this or that subject. Physiological and biological truths about human beings are embedded in myths, and they are embedded in such a way that the emergence of what is expressed in the myth is grounded in an awareness of the interconnectedness of the human being—as a microcosm—with the macrocosm. In particular—and this is what I would like to get at today and tomorrow—when one considers the nature of mythical thinking, one can gain an idea of how deeply—or, in fact, how superficially—one is immersed in reality using the ordinary concepts of today. It is useful here to recall how myths developed among neighboring peoples of the pre-Christian era. The ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, and, in turn, the Israelites were neighbors and, in many ways, culturally interdependent. Furthermore, it can be said that a large part of the thinking that still prevails in people’s souls today is connected to the insights that the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Israelites held in mythical form and in the nature of their knowledge.

[ 6 ] The myth I would like to refer to first today—though, as I said, again from a certain perspective—in connection with Egyptian culture is the Osiris-Isis myth. I have already pointed out that Dupuis also regards the Osiris-Isis myth as a mere priestly lie, since the priests themselves actually meant nothing other than certain astronomical and astrological-astronomical phenomena, and had concocted such a myth for the people.

[ 7 ] In the case of the Greeks, it is interesting to observe not only how they have a number of gods associated with their own lives, but also how they have entire generations of gods: the oldest generation of gods associated with Gaia and Uranus; the next generation of gods, with Cronus and Rhea, the Titans, and everything related to them; and the third generation of gods: the descendants of the Titans, Zeus, and the entire circle of Zeus’s gods. We will see how the development of such divine myths arises from a particular disposition of the soul.

[ 8 ] The Greek, Israelite, and Egyptian ways of relating to the universe are different. Nevertheless, as we shall see shortly, there is a deep kinship among them all—both in terms of other perspectives and in terms of the one I wish to take as my starting point today. With regard to the Egyptians, it must be said that, especially during the period when the Osiris-Isis myth arose as a representation of deeper truths, they developed a body of knowledge that sought to recognize the deeper foundations of the human soul. The Egyptians sought to direct their gaze toward that aspect of the human soul which not only lives between birth and death, but which passes through birth and death and also leads a life between death and a new birth. Even from an external perspective, one can see in the Egyptians how they direct their gaze toward the soul—in the preservation of mummies, in their distinctive funeral rites—toward that aspect of the soul which passes through the gate of death and experiences new destinies in a new form when the human being travels paths that lie beyond death.

[ 9 ] What is it within the human being that passes through the gate of death and enters earthly existence through birth? This question lay more or less unspoken, unconsciously underlying the thoughts and aspirations of the Egyptians. For this eternal, imperishable essence—I have, after all, expressed it in other terms on many occasions—is that which is, in the Egyptian consciousness, inextricably linked to the name of Osiris. Now, let us examine the Osiris myth with regard to its most important aspects, so that we may have a foundation; let us consider it as it has been preserved.

[ 10 ] It is said that Osiris once ruled Egypt. It is said that the Egyptians owe him, above all, the abolition of cannibalism; that they also owe him the plow, agriculture, the preparation of food from the plant kingdom, urban planning, certain legal concepts, astronomy, eloquence, and even writing and the like. It is further said that Osiris not only introduced such beneficial arts and institutions among the Egyptians, but that he also undertook journeys to other countries and spread similar beneficial arts there. Indeed, it is noted in detail that Osiris spread them not by the sword, but through persuasion.

[ 11 ] The story goes on to say that Osiris’s brother Typhon wanted to introduce innovations in contrast to what had proven beneficial to the Egyptians for centuries under Osiris’s influence. Typhon wanted to introduce all sorts of innovations. We would say today: After the institutions established by Osiris had existed for centuries, Typhon staged a revolution while Osiris was away, spreading his institutions among other peoples. — This does differ somewhat from the previous example of revolution: in that case, the actions of the reformers did not occur while the other was spreading beneficial institutions among other nations. But precisely this is what took place between Osiris and Typhon.

[ 12 ] But then the myth continues: Isis remained at home in Egypt. Isis, the wife of Osiris, would not allow the reforms to be particularly far-reaching. But this caused Typhon to become enraged, and when Osiris returned from his travels, Typhon killed him and somehow disposed of the body. Isis had to search long and hard for the body. She finally found it in Phoenicia and brought it home to Egypt. Typhon became even more enraged and tore the body to pieces. Isis gathered the pieces and, using spices and all manner of other means, fashioned each individual piece of the body back into a being that had the full form of Osiris. Then she gave the priests of the land one-third of the entire territory of Egypt so that the tomb of Osiris might be kept secret, but his cult might be all the more carefully maintained.

[ 13 ] The peculiar aspect of this myth is that Osiris emerged from the underworld at a time when his cult had already been established in Egypt, and that he devoted himself to instructing Horus, the son whom Isis had given birth to after Osiris’s death. It is then recounted that Isis was careless enough to release Typhon, whom she had previously managed to imprison. This enraged Horus, her son; he tore the crown from her head, placed cow’s horns on her head instead, and Typhon was defeated in two battles with the assistance of Hermes—that is, the figure who is the Roman Mercury and also the Greek Hermes. A kind of Horus cult—the cult of the son of Osiris and Isis—took hold.

[ 14 ] The Greeks heard, through one intermediary or another, what the Egyptians told each other about the mysteries of the universe. It is remarkable how often the same deities were spoken of in Greece as were spoken of in Egypt, or in Phoenicia, or Lydia, or similar regions. These conceptions of the gods flowed into one another, as it were—which is very telling and significant. When a Greek heard the name Osiris, he could picture something; he identified what the Egyptians conceived of as Osiris with something about which he, too, had certain ideas. Although the name was different, what the Egyptians conceived of as Osiris was not foreign to the Greeks. I ask you to bear this in mind. It is very significant.

[ 15 ] The whole thing happens all over again. Take a look at Tacitus’s *Germania*. There, Tacitus also describes the gods he encountered in Nordic regions a hundred years after the founding of Christianity, and he refers to them by their Roman names. So he gives the gods he finds there Roman names. Even though, of course, the gods Tacitus encountered there had entirely different names, he recognized their essence and was able to give them Roman names. We find in *Germania* that he knew: the people to the north have a god who is the same as Hercules, and so on. This is very significant, and it points to something very profound and meaningful. It shows that in those earlier times, a certain shared consciousness regarding spiritual matters existed. The Greeks had an idea of what Osiris represented, independent of the name “Osiris,” because they had something similar. What lay behind the name “Osiris” was not foreign to them.

[ 16 ] This is something one must probably take into account in order to recognize that, despite the differences between the individual myths, a certain spiritual kinship existed. One sometimes wishes that there were as much common ground as there was, say, between the Greeks and the Egyptians—so that the Greeks understood what the Egyptians were expressing—one would wish that there could be just as much understanding among modern people! A Greek would never have spouted as much nonsense about Egyptian concepts as Mr. Wilson is capable of thinking—if one can call it thinking—in a single week regarding European concepts!

[ 17 ] The Greeks told the story that Cronus had fathered a son with Rhea in an improper manner. So the Greeks speak of Cronus and Rhea—we’ll see in a moment how they fit into Greek mythology, Cronus and Rhea—and this illegitimate son, who was conceived in this way, was Osiris. So just think about it: The Greeks hear from the Egyptians that they have a figure named Osiris; and the Greeks, for their part, tell the story of this Osiris, saying that he was a son of Cronus and Rhea, but conceived in an improper way—so improper, in fact, that Helios, the sun god, became so furious about the matter that he rendered Rhea barren as a result.

[ 18 ] Thus, the Greeks find a certain kinship between their own conceptions of the gods and the Egyptian conceptions of the gods. But on the other hand: what the Egyptians, in a certain sense, regard as their highest concept of God—the concept of Osiris—the Greeks associate with an illegitimate origin, through Cronus and Rhea, and thus from the race of the Titans.

[ 19 ] On the surface, one can grasp this—though we will come to understand it much more deeply later—by realizing that the Egyptians sought to understand the eternal aspect of the human soul, that which passes through births and deaths. But in order to come to know this eternal aspect in life, the Egyptians directed their spiritual gaze, above all, toward the afterlife. To the people of Egypt—through whom the Greeks learned of Osiris—Osiris is no longer the god of the living, but the god of the dead, the god who sits upon the throne of the world and judges once a person has passed through the gate of death; in other words, the god whom a person must greet after death. At the same time, however, the Egyptians knew that the very same god who judges people after death had once ruled over the living.

[ 20 ] Even if one simply takes these ideas together, one will no longer be inclined to agree with Dupuis’s assertions that these were merely celestial phenomena. There is much that is captivating about these assertions by Dupuis; but upon closer examination, they prove to be quite superficial. I said that the Egyptians focused above all—at the time when the Greeks adopted the concept of Osiris from them—on the human soul after death. This was far from the Greeks’ concerns. Certainly, these Greeks also spoke of the human soul after death. But when they spoke of their gods, they were not actually speaking of Osiris-like beings, nor of gods who primarily judge after death. The lineage to which Zeus belongs is a lineage of gods for the living. It was to this lineage that people primarily looked up when they contemplated, in their hearts, the world to which human beings belong between birth and death—a lineage of gods for the living: Zeus, Hera, Pallas Athena, Mars, Apollo, and so on. But it was precisely these gods—one might say the first and final generation of gods for the Greeks—for the Greeks directed their gaze toward three successive generations of gods.

[ 21 ] The oldest generation of gods followed Uranus and Gaia—or rather, Gaia and Uranus. They were the oldest divine couple, along with all their siblings and so on who belonged to that generation. The Titans were descended from this divine couple; among them were Cronus and Rhea, but above all, Oceanus. As you know, through certain cruel acts—as the myth recounts—Uranus provoked the wrath of his wife Gaia, causing her to persuade Cronus, her son, to depose his father from the throne of the world. And we then see this older divine rule replaced by the younger one, that of Cronus and Rhea, with all that goes along with it. You also know that in Greek mythology—I am highlighting specific traits that we will need in particular—Cronus had the somewhat unsympathetic characteristic, in some respects, of devouring all his children after they were born, which displeased his mother Rhea. And you also know that she then spared Zeus, and raised Zeus in turn to overthrow Cronus himself, just as Cronus had overthrown Uranus, only in a different way; so that the new generation of gods then emerges. It’s better if I write it the other way around, that is: Rhea-Cronus. And then we have Hera and Zeus with everything that goes with them, with all their siblings, children, and so on.

[ 22 ] An important aspect of the myth that I must mention—because we will need it if we are to consider the myth as the basis for all sorts of worldview concepts—is that Zeus, before he defeated the Titans and cast them into Tartarus, before he did that, persuaded the goddess Metis, the goddess of wisdom, to concoct an emetic for him, by which means all the children swallowed by Cronus could be brought back into the world, so that they were there again. Thus, Zeus was able to be reunited with his siblings, wasn’t he, since they had been inside Cronus’s body; only Zeus himself had been saved by his mother, Rhea.

[ 23 ] And so we have three successive generations of gods: Gaia and Uranus; Uranus overthrown by Gaia because he was cruel, and in turn overthrown by his children Cronus and Rhea; then Cronus, in turn, overthrown by Zeus, also at Rhea’s instigation. In the circle of Zeus, we find those gods who confront us at the point where true Greek history comes to meet us.

[ 24 ] Now I would like to draw your attention in particular to a very significant aspect of this Greek mythology. It is not clearly emphasized, even though it is one of the most important aspects. Three successive generations of gods: these are the rulers of the macrocosm. But according to Greek conception, humans are already present everywhere while Gaia and Uranus, Rhea and Cronus, and Hera and Zeus reign. There is already definite mention of humans. So even when Cronus and Rhea were not yet ruling—but rather Gaia and Uranus were still in power—and especially when Cronus and Rhea were ruling and Zeus had not yet come into possession of his emetic and the like, humans were already on Earth according to the Greeks’ view. And, as the Greeks recounted, they even lived a happier life than they did later. Later humans are the descendants of these earlier humans. Thus, one must say that the Greeks were aware that Zeus ruled above, but that we humans are descended from other ancestors who had not yet been ruled by Zeus. This is an important feature of Greek mythology: that the Greeks worshipped their Zeus, their Hera, and their Pallas Athena, but were clear that these gods did not “create” them—in the sense generally understood—but that humans existed long before the reign of these gods began.

[ 25 ] You may realize that this is particularly important for the Greek gods when you compare it with Jewish theology. It is, of course, completely unthinkable that you would apply the same concept to Jewish theology. You cannot possibly imagine that, according to the Old Testament, people would refer to ancestors who had not yet been under the rule of Yahweh and the Elohim. So this is something that differs enormously in Greek theology. The Greek looks up to his gods and knows: although they rule now, they initially have nothing to do with what I call “the creation of the human race.”

[ 26 ] That was by no means possible within the framework of Old Testament concepts. There, those who were regarded as gods were, for the most part, more closely associated with the creation of humankind. When considering the course of the world, it is indeed important to take such matters into account. And what matters is not merely forming ideas, but being able to grasp the ideas that reality conveys to us; one must grasp the particularly characteristic, the particularly fundamental ideas. And with that, we have immediately grasped an important feature of Greek mythology. Let us first place this before our minds. When the Greeks looked up to their gods, these were not the ones of whom they were conscious as having created them. For, as I said, human beings were already there before these gods assumed their rule. So what these gods were capable of was certainly something quite respectable to the Greeks, but they could not, in his view, bring forth a human race on a planet. This was part of the Greek consciousness: these gods could not bring forth a human race.

[ 27 ] Well, what exactly were the gods of this Zeus circle—these Olympian gods—in the Greek consciousness? Even if we want to form just a historical idea of what these gods were—I mean in the Greek consciousness; of course, we’ve said various things about these gods, but let’s try to put ourselves in that Greek mindset for a moment—what were these gods, then? Well, they were not beings who, under ordinary circumstances, walked among human beings. They dwelt on Mount Olympus, they dwelt among the clouds, and so on. They only occasionally paid visits—some pleasant, others not so pleasant. Zeus in particular, as you know, would sometimes pay pleasant or unpleasant visits to the human world. They were useful in a certain sense; but they also did things for which modern people—who are somewhat more philistine than the Greeks—would probably seek justice by, say, dragging Zeus into a divorce proceeding or something of the sort. In any case, weren’t these gods in a half-divine, half-human relationship with humans, and such beings, it was thought, are not embodied in the flesh. When Zeus wanted to carry out his deeds, didn’t he take on all sorts of forms: a swan, golden rain, or the like? So these gods were not incarnated in the flesh in ordinary life.

[ 28 ] But if, on the other hand, one looks more deeply at the other side, it is indeed the case that the Greeks were aware that these gods were connected to people who lived in ancient times. Far more than focusing on the connection with the stars, as Dupuis suggests, the Greeks also looked up to people of ancient times and—please listen carefully now to how I phrase this, because this is crucial—they associated the concept of Zeus’s nature with certain ancient rulers or the like from a time long past. So please, I did not say that the Greeks believed what they imagined Zeus to be was an ancient ruler; rather, I am saying: What they imagined as Zeus, they associated with an ancient ruler who once lived in times long past. For the nature of the connection—for Zeus and also for other gods—was quite complicated.

[ 29 ] Let’s examine these words a bit more closely so that we can form an idea of what actually underlies them. So let’s assume that at some point in Thrace, in one of the regions of northern Greece, a person lived on the physical plane who is associated with the concept of Zeus. Now, the Greek—even the most ordinary Greek—was quite clear about this: I do not worship this ancestor, nor do I worship the individual personality that dwelt within this ancestor, but I do worship something that has something to do with this ancient ancestor, this ancient king in Thrace or Epirus, or wherever. — For the Greeks held the belief that there had once been such a king, in whose entire being lived not only his own individuality, but also the individuality of a supersensible being; this being had expressed itself and lived out its existence on earth by once entering into a human being. Thus, the concept of Zeus was not reduced to the earthly realm, but it was associated with an ancient ruler who had once yielded his garment—or, shall we say, his dwelling—to this Zeus-being.

[ 30 ] The Greeks thus made a fundamental distinction between what they conceived of as Zeus and the human individuality that lived within the body to which the concept of Zeus was related. But in a sense, the reign of Zeus—the divine rule of Zeus—began with Zeus first descending to earth, dwelling within a human being, and from there finding his points of entry to continue working within the human being—no longer as an ordinary human, but precisely as an “Olympian.” And so it is with the other Greek gods as well.

[ 31 ] Why, then, did the Greeks form such a conception—the idea that there once was a ruler who was, so to speak, possessed by Zeus; but now there is no longer any ruler who can be possessed by Zeus, and Zeus reigns only as a supernatural being? Why did the Greeks form this conception? Because the Greeks knew that human development had progressed, that it had changed; in other words, because the Greeks knew that there had been ancient times when people were capable of imagination to a particularly remarkable degree, and when they were capable of such imagination, they could receive beings such as Zeus, who could dwell within the human body. Then the time passed when people on Earth could have imaginations to a particularly remarkable degree. Of course, a certain degree of clairvoyance always remained for some. But the defining aspect of the imaginations—that passed away. The beings who can still have real imaginations can only act in the supersensible realm with regard to the life that human beings know between birth and death.

[ 32 ] This is the essence of what the Greeks imagined their gods to be: beings capable of imagining. But the time has passed when such beings, capable of imagining, can enter human bodies; for human bodies are no longer suited to imagining. Thus the Greeks said to themselves: We are ruled by a race of beings capable of imagination, whereas we ourselves can no longer imagine. — The Greeks had a completely unsentimental conception of their gods. After all, it would have been difficult to be sentimental toward Zeus. The Greeks said to themselves in private, “Well, I’ll push the point a bit further now, but sometimes one has to embellish things a little if one wants to be perfectly clear”: We humans are undergoing a genuine evolution; we have had to evolve from atavistic clairvoyance to intuition, to inspiration, to imagination. Now we must adopt ordinary concrete thinking. But the gods—they haven’t gone along with that; they’ve stuck to their imagination; otherwise they’d have to become human, would have to walk around here in the flesh. That did not suit them—or so the Greeks thought, in their unsentimental way of relating to the gods—to make the transition to concrete thinking; therefore, they did not descend to earth but remained in the realm of imagination. But in this way they dominate us; for they have, so to speak, more power, because imaginative conception is more powerful, when utilized, than concrete conception.

[ 33 ] From this, however, you can see that the Greeks looked back on a time when human imagination, perception, and cognition were different, and that this looking back was connected to Greek conceptions of the gods. Thus they looked back to Zeus and Hera and said: “They rule over us now; we used to be like that too, but we have evolved and grown weaker. That is why they can rule over us; they have remained as they were back then.”—We would say today that the Greeks thereby endowed their gods with a certain Luciferic character. And those beings who had remained at the stage of imagination—as this came to be recognized in Greek consciousness—were in turn the descendants of those beings who had now come to a standstill at the stage of inspiration. Hera and Zeus remained at the stage of imagination, Rhea and Cronus at the stage of inspiration, and Gaia and Uranus at the stage of intuition.

[ 34 ] The Greeks looked into their own souls, and they linked their generations of gods to the development of humanity and its states of consciousness. They felt this; they sensed it. The oldest gods, Gaia and Uranus, were beings whose entire inner relationship to the world was governed by their intuition. They wished to remain with intuition; the inspired ones, however, turned away from this. And in turn, the inspired ones wished to remain with inspiration; the imaginative ones, however, turned away from this. Thus, the intuitives were supplanted by the inspired, and the inspired by the imaginative. We live as human beings, with the imaginative above us. Well, as you know, the Greeks, in the myth of Prometheus, already harbored the desire to find some means to counter the imaginative as well.

Human =

Gaia — Uranus = Intuition
Rhea — Cronus = Inspiration
Hera — Zeus = Imagination

[ 35 ] The Greeks classified their gods in such a way that, through this classification, they revealed how they looked back on earlier states of consciousness of that being which developed as humanity at the same time. The Greeks showed that they associated this with their looking back on the gods. Consider how profoundly significant this is for understanding Greek consciousness! Thus, by looking back on their generations of gods, the Greeks looked back on the past in spiritual life. They associated the ancient, intuitive beings with Gaia, the Earth, and Uranus, the Sky; they associated the inspiring gods with Rhea and Cronus. One can still recognize what Gaia and Uranus are; as for Rhea and Cronus, they are described as Titans. What are they, actually?

[ 36 ] Well, for the past few centuries, humanity has lost almost all awareness of what underlies this. But let me remind you—as you surely know—that a few centuries ago—you can still find this in the works of Jakob Böhme and Paracelsus, and it extends all the way to Saint-Martin—the human being was still regarded as connected to three fundamental elements.

[ 37 ] Jakob Böhme also states: Sal—salt, Mercur—mercury, Sulfur—sulfur. In the Middle Ages, people said: Sal—Mercur—Sulfur. They did not mean the same thing, but what they meant had something to do with what the Greeks were referring to when they said: Uranos-Gaia, or Gaia-Uranos, Rhea-Cronus, Hera-Zeus. For you see, Cronus removed Uranus from rule over the world. Gaia, as we might say, had practically become a widow. What did she become then? She first became what the Earth is—but not the ordinary Earth we find outside, rather the Earth that human beings carry within themselves: salt. If human beings—as the medieval natural philosophers knew—could consciously make use of the salt within them, then they would be able to intuit. So this process was still a living one in the ancient Gaia-Uranus era, a process that descended into the depths of human nature.

[ 38 ] A more recent process—one that has, however, also delved deep into human nature—is what might be called the Rhea-Cronus process. The Greeks said: The power of Rhea once spread far and wide, and “Cronus” represented the forces that opposed her. Cronus has been overthrown. What remains? Well, just as the dead salt remained from Uranus and Gaia, so from Cronus and Rhea the fluid—Mercury—has remained; that which is fluid within the human being, which can take the form of a drop, has remained. But the human being cannot consciously make use of it either; it has descended into the depths of the unconscious.

[ 39 ] Today, of course, that is long past, and it was already over even in the time of the Greeks; for the Greeks themselves said: On Earth, the Age of Zeus was in ancient times, but back then, human beings could make use of the sulfur within them. If human beings could consciously make use of their salt, they would intuit in an atavistic manner. If he could consciously make use of his Mercury, his fluid, he would inspire; he would imagine if he could make use of his sulfur—not in that figurative sense, but in a real sense, as the medieval alchemists still understood it when they spoke of “philosophical sulfur.” Today there is also a philosophical sulfur: philosophy professors produce it in abundance, but that is not what the alchemists meant by it; rather, they meant a process of imagination—an atavistic imagination—that was connected to the use of this sulfur active within the human being. Human beings, the Greeks wanted to say—and their mystery priests said it too, for the mysteries of salt, mercury, and sulfur are ancient—human beings, the Greeks wanted to say, have, through their evolution, overcome the atavism of making atavistic use of sulfur. But Zeus and his siblings have withdrawn into the supersensible realm and make use of the processes of sulfur. That is why Zeus can hurl his lightning bolts. If human beings could hurl lightning bolts just as Zeus does—that is, if they could transform sulfur into reality through imagination—if human beings could consciously hurl lightning bolts within themselves, then they would be imagining atavistically. This is what the Greeks meant when they spoke of Zeus’s ability to hurl lightning bolts.

[ 40 ] Isn’t it true, one might say, that even Saint-Martin knew that the alchemists’ sulfur refers to something other than ordinary earthly sulfur, of which one could at most say—forgive the harsh expression— it is the excrement of that which Saint-Martin and his predecessors understood as the true sulfur, which they also called the “philosophical sulfur.” And Saint-Martin also speaks of how lightning and thunder are truly connected to the processes of the macrocosmic—or, one might say, the cosmic—sulfur.

[ 41 ] Today, quite a few explanations rooted in physics and the natural sciences are finding their way into scholarship—explanations that are, in a sense, a form of “sulfur,” but not exactly “philosophical sulfur.” Just think: today, the truly intelligent people have, of course, moved beyond speaking of these sulfur processes in the cosmos when lightning and thunder occur; for lightning and thunder arise—as you can read in elementary physics textbooks—through something like friction processes in the clouds, don’t they? It’s hard to make any sense of what’s said about lightning and thunder; for the wet clouds, through their mutual interaction, are supposed to generate this electricity, which is revealed through lightning and thunder. But when you conduct an electrical experiment in the classroom, you carefully dry all the apparatus, because if there’s even a little moisture, nothing electrical happens. But the clouds up there apparently aren’t wet! The teacher can’t even get anything to work with a wet electrostatic machine—or even one that isn’t quite dry—yet at the same time he explains that the wet clouds are supposed to be connected to the generation of electricity. Yes, such things do get mixed in there. But I just wanted to say that with Saint-Martin, there is still an awareness that this element—which the Greeks dreamed of when they spoke of Hera and Zeus—has something to do with lightning and thunder.

[ 42 ] The fact is that even a superficial understanding can suggest to us that certain natural processes—the salt, mercury, and sulfur processes, understood in the ancient sense—are connected to what the Greeks had in their mythology. Let us note this for now. We must have such fundamental concepts so that we can then move on to our own time in an appropriate manner.

[ 43 ] The Greeks, then, looked back upon generations of gods, but upon vanished conditions that had also been perceptible to human beings in earlier times. They associated what lived in their gods with what we call natural processes. Mythology was thus, at the same time, a kind of natural science. And the more one comes to know mythology, the deeper a natural science one will find within it—only a different kind of natural science, one that is at the same time a science of the soul. This is how the Greeks thought, and so did the Egyptians with their Osiris, who once reigned and is now in the underworld.

[ 44 ] Do you notice how different things are, and yet how they can all be traced back to a certain common type? When the Greeks refer to earlier times, when a being like Zeus—who can now only live in a supernatural way— “now” refers to the Greek era — can live, and could also incarnate in a human being, the Egyptians, too, could point to an earlier time when Osiris or Osirises—the number is irrelevant here—reigned, when they had descended into human beings, when they were present there. But that time has passed; now one can no longer look at a human being on the physical plane—the “now” again refers to the Egyptian Osiris culture—but one must look into the world that the human being enters when passing through the gate of death, if one wishes to think of Osiris at all. Osirises are no longer in the world where human beings live; rather, human beings encounter them after death. Thus, the Egyptians, too, looked back on an ancient time in the sense of a transformation of human consciousness when they distinguished between the Osiris who once could walk upon the earth and the Osiris who can no longer walk upon the earth, who belongs only to the realm of the dead.

[ 45 ] If we limit ourselves today to these two mythologies and tomorrow, before we address the conclusions, briefly touch upon Old Testament mythology, we can see from the way the Greeks and the Egyptians related to their gods that this consciousness simultaneously expressed the memory of the ancient, atavistic times of clairvoyance. Those times are gone; they no longer exist. Through the destinies that humanity experienced together with its gods—be it with Zeus or Cronus in Greece, or with Osiris in Egypt—humanity simultaneously described for itself what it knew: If I look further back, I, as a human being, was related to the macrocosm in a different way than I am now. That has changed.

[ 46 ] Looking back in this way on earlier times, when the gods walked among humans, had a sense of reality for these ancient peoples, because they knew that in those ancient times, humanity functioned as a microcosm in relation to the macrocosm in a different way than it does now. The ancient, atavistic clairvoyance essentially came to an end in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. This is what Greek mythology sought to express, and the Egyptian mythology of Osiris sought to convey the same idea.