The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] Last time I had to speak to you about the Ephesian Mysteries of Artemis in order to draw your attention to certain connections between what has emerged as knowledge in the course of human development and what can be rediscovered today through insight, through gazing into the spiritual world. Today, in order to build upon some of the themes we have touched upon, I would like to speak of another site of mystery that also stands, in a certain sense, at the starting point of modern spiritual life—in that it gave impetus to this newer spiritual movement—yet at the same time drew upon many elements from earlier spiritual movements in which the primordial wisdom of humanity was still rooted. Today I would like to speak to you about that place of mystery and its defining impulses, which once existed on the island of Ireland—a place to which I also allude in my Mysteries: the place of mystery known as Hybernia.

[ 2 ] It is relatively much more difficult to gain access, through what I have often referred to in my writings as the Akashic Records, specifically to the ancient mystery site of Hybernia, the much-tried island to the west of England; it is relatively much harder, in retrospect, to access the images that have been preserved in the eternal chronicle of this place than those of other mystery sites. For when one seeks to approach this particular mystery site more closely, one actually gets the impression that the images of this mystery site are imbued with extraordinarily strong repulsive forces that push one back—and that even when one, I might say, approach such things with a certain courage, these forces cannot be mitigated as strongly by that courage as is the case in other similar instances, but rather they also oppose even a courageous gaze, manifesting themselves—I might even say—to the point of a kind of numbness. So that one can only approach what I now wish to describe by overcoming obstacles to knowledge. In the coming days, you will see why such obstacles to cognition exist precisely there.

[ 3 ] Of course, there were also initiates at this place of mystery who had preserved humanity’s ancient primordial knowledge and who, to a certain extent—inspired and impelled by this primordial knowledge—were able to attain a kind of vision of their own. And there were students, those to be initiated, who were to be brought, so to speak, into contact with the Word of the Worlds precisely through the special method practiced there. Now, if one looks at the preparation that was initially given to those to be initiated there in Hybernia, this preparation consisted of two things. The first was that those being prepared were introduced, on a soul level, to all the difficulties of knowledge in general. Everything that might be described as the torment of the path of knowledge—that path of knowledge which does not yet penetrate into the depths of existence, but which simply consists in exerting the ordinary soul forces one possesses in everyday consciousness as intensely as is at all possible: the difficulties that arise on this path of knowledge within ordinary consciousness—these were brought close to these students’ souls. They had to go through all the doubts, all the torments, all the inner struggle, and the frequent failure of that inner struggle; the disappointment caused by, let us say, even the best logic and dialectic—they had to go through all of that. They had to endure all the difficulties one experiences when one has truly attained insight and then wishes to express it.

[ 4 ] You will feel, my dear friends, that these are two entirely different things: having attained a truth and then expressing it, putting it into words. After all, when one seriously pursues the path of knowledge, one always has the feeling that what one can squeeze into words is, in fact, no longer quite the whole truth—something that frames the truth with all manner of pitfalls and traps.

[ 5 ] Everything one can go through in that process—things that only those who have truly engaged in the struggle for knowledge can understand—was made clear to these students.

[ 6 ] And then the second thing that was brought to their attention was that they came to realize, once again on a spiritual level, just how little of what can be grasped through ordinary paths of consciousness can ultimately contribute to human happiness—how little logic, dialectics, and rhetoric can contribute to human happiness. On the other hand, however, it was made clear to these students that if a person wants to sustain themselves in life, they must turn to that which, in a certain way, brings them joy and happiness. And so they were driven, on the one hand, close to one abyss, and on the other hand, close to the other abyss, and were constantly led to doubt, as if they were to wait until a bridge were built for them across each individual abyss. And they had already been so deeply immersed in the doubts and difficulties of knowledge that, when they were led from this preparation to the actual approach to the mysteries of the world, they even came to the conclusion: “If it must be so, then let us renounce knowledge; let us renounce everything that cannot bring happiness to human beings.”

[ 7 ] It was certainly the case in these ancient mysteries that people were subjected to such severe trials, and that they were in fact brought to points where they developed feelings in the most natural, most elemental way—feelings that the ordinary, philistine mind naturally regards as unfounded. But it is easy to say: “After all, no one would want to do without knowledge; of course one wants knowledge, even if it causes great difficulties!” — That is precisely what people say who are unfamiliar with these difficulties and who have not been systematically introduced to them, as were the students of these mysteries in Hybernia. On the other hand, it is also easy to say: one wants to renounce inner happiness just as much as outer happiness, and to follow only the path of knowledge. But to those who know things as they are, these two statements, which one encounters so often, appear to be thoroughly philistine.

[ 8 ] Then, once the students had reached the indicated level of preparation, they were led before two colossal statues—two large, imposing, majestic statues. One was more majestic due to its sheer physical size; the other was just as large, but it was also impressive because of its unique form. One statue was a male figure; the other was a female figure.

[ 9 ] Through these statues, they were to experience, in their own way, the coming of the Word of the World. In a sense, these two statues were to serve as the outward letters with which they were to begin deciphering the mystery of the world that stands before humanity.

[ 10 ] One of the statues—the male statue—was made of a very elastic material. And it was such that it could be pressed in at any point. The students were encouraged to press it in at every point. As a result, it proved to be hollow inside. So, essentially, it was just the skin of a statue, but made of a thoroughly elastic material, so that when they pressed it, the shape immediately returned to normal. Above this statue, above the head of this statue—which was particularly distinctive—was something that resembled the sun. The entire head was such that one could see it was actually meant to be like a spiritual eye; like a spiritual eye, it was meant to represent, in a microcosmic sense, the content of the entire macrocosm. ‘But through the sun, this manifestation of the entire macrocosm was to find expression in this colossal head.’

[ 11 ] Of course, I can’t draw the two statues for you here on the spot, so I’ll just sketch them schematically. So that was one of the statues, which gave the immediate impression that the macrocosm acts through the sun, shaping the human head—which knows the nature of the macrocosm’s impulses and shapes itself, both internally and externally, according to these impulses of the macrocosm.

[ 12 ] The other statue was such that the student’s eyes were first drawn to something mounted within a sort of luminous structure that emitted a glow directed inward. And within this frame, the student then saw a female figure that was entirely bathed in these rays. And he got the feeling that the head was being formed from these rays. There was something indistinct about the head. This statue was made of a different substance. It was made of a substance that was plastic—not elastic, but plastic and extraordinarily soft. The student was prompted to press on it as well. Whatever he pressed into it remained there. However, between each time the student was tested on these statues and the next time, the impressions caused by the students were always repaired. So that whenever the students were to be led before this statue for the corresponding ceremony, the statue was restored to its intact state. With the other one—the elastic one—everything always restored itself on its own.

[ 13 ] It was the second statue, and it gave the impression that it was entirely under the influence of lunar forces that permeate the organism and cause the head to grow out of it. The students were left with an extraordinarily powerful impression of what they had experienced there. This statue was repeatedly restored for them. And they—a group of students—were often led before this statue at fairly regular intervals. When they were led before this statue, a profound silence reigned all around them, especially during the first few times. They were led up to the statue by those who had already been initiated, then left there; the gate behind the temple was closed, and they were left to their solitude.

[ 14 ] Then came a time when each student was led in individually and asked first to examine the statue to feel its elasticity here, and here, on the other statue, to feel its plasticity, in which his impressions were preserved. Then he was left alone with the impression of what, as I have already indicated, had a powerful—a very powerful—effect on him. And through everything he had first gone through on the path I have described to you, the student experienced all the difficulties of knowledge, all the difficulties of bliss, if I may call it that. Yes, to experience such things means more than is merely expressed in the words used to characterize it, as I am doing now; such an experience meant passing through a whole range of sensations. And these sensations caused the student, as he was led before these two statues, to feel the most vivid longing to somehow unravel within his soul what appeared to him there as a great mystery—to get to the bottom of what this mystery actually meant: on the one hand, the mystery of why one was subjected to such an experience at all; on the other hand, the mystery inherent in the figures themselves and in the very way one could relate to them. All of this had a profound, immensely profound effect on the students. And standing before these statues, one might say, they were, in their entire soul and in their entire spirit, like a colossal question. In their inner experience, they felt like a colossal question. Everything about them was a question. The intellect asked, the heart asked, the will asked—everything, everything asked. Modern people can still learn from these things—which were vividly demonstrated in ancient times but can no longer be presented in this way for initiation—the full range of feelings one must go through in order to truly approach the truth, the truth that then leads into the mysteries of the world. For even though it is appropriate for today’s student to undergo these things on an inner path of development that is not outwardly visible, the fact remains that the modern student, too, should pass through the same range of feelings, should allow these feelings to permeate their being through inner meditative experience. Thus, the scale of feelings itself can be learned from what was experienced within the outward, ritualistic practices of those ancient times by the people who were to be initiated.

[ 15 ] Then, once this had been completed, the intention was to guide the students through a sort of probationary period in which both elements could interact: on the one hand, what they had previously experienced during their preparation along the ordinary path of knowledge and bliss, and on the other, what had become within them like a great question of the whole soul—indeed, of the whole human being. These two elements were now to interact.

[ 16 ] And now, as their inner beings perceived this together, as this was present within them in its effects, now, to the extent possible at that time, the mysteries of the world—concerning the microcosm, the macrocosm, and some of those interrelationships we have just touched upon in these lectures—were presented to them; these also formed the content of the Artemis Mysteries at Ephesus. Part of this was presented here during a sort of probationary period. But this only served to heighten even further what was like a great question in the minds of these students. So that the student was truly—I would say, in this questioning form—led into the spiritual world through the immense deepening that the mind underwent in experiencing and enduring this immense experience. He actually entered, with his feelings, into that region which the soul experiences precisely when it feels within itself: “Now I stand before the power guarding the threshold.”

[ 17 ] In the early days of humanity, there were indeed the most diverse kinds of mysteries, and people were introduced in the most varied ways to what one must feel when one then condenses one’s feelings into the words: “Now I stand at the threshold of the spiritual world.” I know why this spiritual world is shielded from ordinary consciousness, and what the true nature of the protective power—the Guardian of the Threshold—actually is.

[ 18 ] And once the students had gone through this probationary period, they were then led back to these statues. And then they had a very strange experience. They had an experience that truly shook them to their very core. I can only convey this impression to you by rendering what was customary in that ancient language into modern German.

[ 19 ] Once the students had reached the stage I have described to you, they were again led, one by one, before the statues. But now the initiating priest, the initiator, remained with the student inside the temple. And now the student saw—after having once again been able to listen in utter silence to what his own soul had to say to him following all these preparations and trials, after this had taken quite some time—his initiating priest rising above the head of that one figure at first. And it then appeared as if the sun were moving backward, and in the space that served as an interval between the statue and the sun, the priest appeared as if covering the sun. The statues were very large, so that the priest actually appeared here above the statue—only his head visible—in a certain smallness, as it were, covering the sun; with the rest of his body, he stood below. Then, as if emerging from a musical-harmonic atmosphere—the ceremony had begun with a musical-harmonic element—the Initiator’s voice rang out. And just as the student had once been at this stage, it seemed to him as if the words now sounding from the Initiator’s lips were being spoken by the statue. And indeed, the words resounded to him:

I am the image of the world,
See how I lack being.
I live in your knowledge,
I now become a confession within you.

[ 20 ] As you can imagine, this, too, made a powerful impression on the student. For he was prepared to experience the power that confronted him in the image of this statue, a power that seemed to say: “I lack existence. I am the image of the world. I live in your knowledge.”

[ 21 ] Because of what had been prepared within him regarding the difficulties of the ordinary path to knowledge, the student was now, so to speak, also prepared to regard this image as something that would free him from those difficulties, even though he could not overcome the doubts about knowledge within himself. And he was led to feel that he could not overcome these doubts about knowledge. Having gone through all of this in his soul, he was inwardly ready, as it were, to cling to this image with his whole soul, to live with the world power symbolized by this image, and to surrender himself to it, so to speak. He was ready for this as he sensed what was now coming from the priest’s mouth—what seemed as if this statue were, in fact, the very letter that set forth before the student the meaning contained in these four lines here.

[ 22 ] After the priest had descended once more, the student had been plunged back into utter silence, and the priest had gone out, leaving the student alone, a second initiator arrived after some time. He then appeared above the second statue. And once again, as if from a musical harmony, the voice of this priest-initiator rang out, uttering the words that I can now repeat to you:

I am the image of the world,
See how I lack truth.
If you dare to live with me,
O, I will be a source of comfort to you.

[ 23 ] And now, after all the preparations, it seemed to the student—since he had been led to long for inner happiness, inner fulfillment—I should say, rather than “happiness,” because that does not convey the correct meaning in German: joyful inner fulfillment— after all he had experienced had led him to feel the necessity that human beings must one day attain this joyful inner abundance—he was now, upon hearing about the second statue, not merely on the verge of it but truly at the point of regarding the cosmic power speaking through this second statue as the very power to which he wished to surrender himself.

[ 24 ] Once again, the initiator disappeared. Once again, the student was left alone. And during this solitary silence, everyone actually felt—or at least it seems that everyone felt—something that might perhaps be expressed in the following words: I stand on the threshold of the spiritual world. Here in the physical world, we call this “knowledge,” but it actually has no value in the spiritual world. And the fact that we struggle with it here in the physical world is merely the physical reflection of the worthlessness of the knowledge we can acquire here in this world for the supersensible, for the spiritual world. And likewise, the student had the feeling: Many things here in the physical world tell you that you must renounce your inner, joyful abundance and follow a kind of ascetic path in order to enter the spiritual world. But that is actually an illusion; it is actually a deception. For what appears in this second statue explicitly declares: “Behold how I lack truth.”

[ 25 ] The student was thus on the verge of realizing that one must attain the inner, joyful fullness of the soul and the spirit by setting aside what is here in the physical world regarded as truth through weak human striving bound to the physical body. The student already had the sense that things must look different beyond the threshold than they do here on this side of it, that much of what is valuable here on this side of the threshold becomes worthless beyond it, and that even such things as knowledge and truth take on a completely different aspect beyond the threshold.

[ 26 ] All of these were sensations that, in part, deepened the student’s awareness that he had transcended many of the illusions and disappointments of the physical world. But they were also sensations that at times felt like inner flames. So that one felt as if consumed by an inner fire, as if inwardly destroyed. And the soul wavered from one sensation to the other and back again. And the student was, so to speak, tested on the scales of knowledge and bliss. And while he was going through this inner experience, it seemed to him as if the statues themselves were speaking. He had now attained something like the inner word, and it was as if the statues themselves were speaking. And one statue said:

I am knowledge.
But what I am is not being.

[ 27 ] And now the student was overcome by this feeling—one might say, a feeling that radiated dread: Whatever ideas one has are, after all, merely ideas; there is no reality within them. If one strains the human mind—so the student felt—one does indeed arrive at ideas, but there is no reality to be found anywhere. Ideas are illusion, not reality. And the other statue seemed to speak; it said:

I am imagination,
But what I am has no truth.

[ 28 ] Thus, the two statues stood before the student, one of which reminded him of what ideas are without existence, and the other of what the images of the imagination are without truth.

[ 29 ] Please understand this correctly. It is not a matter of presenting dogmas here and now; it is not a matter of formulating statements that somehow express truths or insights; rather, it is a matter of conveying the experiences of the students from the sanctuaries of Hybernia. What mattered was conveying what these students experienced. It is not the content of these sentences that is to be proclaimed as truth, but rather what the students of the Mysteries of Hybernia experienced at that very moment of initiation—that is precisely what should be recorded.

[ 30 ] And the individual student experienced all of this in utter solitude. His inner experience became so intense that his outward appearance no longer had any effect. It no longer had any effect. After some time, he could no longer see the statue. But wherever he looked, he read—as if in flames—something that was not physically present there, yet which he saw with shattering clarity. Where he had once seen the head of the statue of Knowledge, he read the word “Science,” and where he had seen the head of the other statue, he read the word “Art.”

[ 31 ] And after he had gone through this, he was led back through the temple’s exit. The two initiators were standing by the temple once again. One of them took his head and turned it toward what the other initiator was showing him: the figure of Christ. And as he did so, words of admonition were spoken. The priest who presented the image of Christ to him said to him:

Take the words and the power of this being
into your heart.

[ 32 ] And the other priest said:

And receive from him,
What those two figures wanted to give you:
Science and art.

[ 33 ] These were, so to speak, the first two acts of the Hybernian initiation—the unique way in which students in Hybernia were guided toward a genuine sense of the innermost essence of Christianity. And this left a deep impression on the souls and minds of these students. And now, having taken this to heart, they were able to continue on their path of knowledge.

[ 34 ] We will now consider what can and should be said about this over the next few days in connection with other matters.