Part 3 (1/2)

Lecture III 6th January 1918.

We have been endeavouring in these lectures to understand something of the course of mankind's evolution; we have sought to follow up the deeper foundations of such Myths as the Osiris-Isis Myth; we have further sought to find our way again, from a certain aspect, in the world of the Greek G.o.ds.

We have lightly touched upon the inner meaning of the concepts which perhaps do not come to clear expression, but which underlie the poetic myths of Egypt and Greece, and have sought to study, at any rate to indicate, the connection between the basis of these myths and the Old Testament doctrines. These Old Testament doctrines have sprung from a different spirit from that of the mythology of the Egyptians and the Greeks. We have seen that the Egyptian and

Grecian mythologies in the manner of their structure, are derived from certain ancient experiences of mankind. They are based on a certain consciousness that humanity once possessed atavistic clairvoyance, and through the atavistic clairvoyance had stood in the same inner relation to the spirit pervading Nature, as later on man is related between birth and death to the things of the senses. We have seen that for this old atavistic knowledge the far-reaching world- conception, which was an inner experience, signified more than the mere sense-perception knowledge of the transitional humanity to which we still belong.

All that had arisen as pictures in the Egyptian and the Greek mythology, or better to say, contemplation of the G.o.ds, is to be found in the Old Testament as actual doctrine, with the keynote of morality. In fact, the day before yesterday, as I spoke of the important difference between the mythology of Egypt and Greece and the Old Testament, I told you that the divine spiritual Beings who stand at the beginning of the Old

Testament, the Elohim, Jahve, can only be thought of as together creating mankind. We can only think of them as producing through their deeds what we call earthly humanity. In fact the whole evolution of earthly man is only accomplished according to the fundamental deed of the Elohim, of Jahve. I said that that is not the case in Egyptian or Greek mythology. There men looked back into ancient times and said to themselves: the G.o.ds Osiris, Isis, Zeus, Apollo, Mars, Pallas, who are now connected with the guidance of human destiny, they have arisen from other generations of G.o.ds, but men were already in existence. The Egyptian and the Greek mythology traced man back to older times in which those G.o.ds were not yet creating and ruling who were recognized in their own times. Thus men in Egypt and Greece ascribed to themselves a greater antiquity than that of the G.o.ds then in power.

This is so fundamental and significant a difference that one must bear it well in mind. In the course of these studies we shall see to what an infinitely important and significant fact this conception

points. In the Old Testament doctrine the G.o.ds who were revered were at the same time the G.o.ds who created the human race. Only because the Old Testament doctrine makes the Divine the creator of man, only through this was it possible for the Old Testament doctrine to insert at the same time the moral element, moral impulse, into the divine order and hence into the whole ordering of mankind, into Providence, one might say.

This is important for an understanding of the present-day world conception. For the world concepts of today are not derived in any very definite way from a uniform source; they have very different origins, and we bear much within us in which we believe, which we profess as modern men, that is directly rooted in Greek ideas. We bear much within us, especially the immediate present bears much in it, that points back to the Old Testament. The search of many human beings to find their right way among these often contradictory concepts and ideas, comes through the impulse that proceeds from the Mystery of Golgotha. This all lies as yet in our programme

and we shall have to build it up in the time we are still vouchsafed to be together.

It is above all important that we can lay one thing as a foundation; I have already referred to it yesterday. We have often related that we are living, since the 15th century, in the fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, and in a certain connection, I said, certain impulses of the third Post-Atlantean epoch, the Egypto-Chaldean must reappear in the fifth, just as in the sixth Post-Atlantean epoch, certain impulses of the second, the Zarathustra, the Old Persian epoch will light up, and as in the last Post- Atlantean epoch, the seventh, certain impulses of the original Indian epoch will light up again. That is a law in the course of human evolution which points in a significant manner to the essentials standing spiritually before mankind up to the new catastrophe that is to come - like a catastrophe of nature.

Now we have seen in part what immense depth of human consciousness in ancient times is expressed in the fact that these ancient ages evolved the Osiris-myth. We have seen that this early age

meant to say: there once lived a perception among men through which man could still directly experience the spiritual in his natural surroundings in his atavistic imaginations. That was the age in which Osiris ruled. But the new perceptions, the Typhon perceptions, those perceptions that have made the letter-script from the picture-script, those perceptions which from the primeval sacred language which men used to speak in common have formed the individually sounding languages, these perceptions of Typhon, they have slain what lived in humanity as the Osiris-impulse. So that since then Osiris is a Being at the side of men only when they are between death and a new birth.

We have then followed the Osiris-Isis Legend in its essentials, have seen how Osiris was regarded as a primeval ruler of Egypt who brought the Egyptians the most important of their arts, who ruled in Egypt throughout long ages, who also traveled from Egypt into other lands, and not by the sword but by persuasion brought them the benefits of the arts taught in Egypt. During his absence upon journeys, as he conferred on other

lands the benefits with which he had instructed the Egyptians, Typhon, his wicked brother, introduced innovations into his own land of Egypt. And then as Osiris returned he was slain by Typhon despite the watchfulness of his consort Isis. Then Isis sought everywhere for Osiris. Through boys - so says the legend - it was revealed to her that the coffin had been carried away by the sea; she discovered it then in Byblos in Phoenicia and brought it back to Egypt. Typhon cut up the corpse into fourteen pieces. Isis collected the pieces; with the use of spices and by other means she was able to give each piece the appearance of Osiris again.

She then induced the priests to accept a third of the land from her, and by being in possession of a third of the land, on the one hand they should keep the grave of Osiris secret, on the other hand inst.i.tute the Osiris cult - that is to say, a memorial service of the ancient Osiris-time, to keep in memory that there had once been a different perception in humanity. This remembrance was thenceforward to be preserved and all sorts of secrets surrounded it. The time in which Typhon had slain Osiris was indicated to be

the time in the November days of autumn when the sun sets in the seventeenth degree of Scorpio, and opposite in Taurus the moon appears in the Pleiades as full-moon.

Then it was related that Osiris once more betook himself from the Underworld, where he rules over the dead and judges them, to the Upperworld in order to instruct his son Horus, whom he had had by Isis. It is further related by the legend that Isis let herself be induced to set free Typhon, whom she had held imprisoned. Her son Horus, instructed by Osiris, grew so angry at this that he came in conflict with Isis his mother and seized the crown from her. Then it is related that either he himself, or, in other versions, Hermes, set cow- horns upon her head in place of the crown, and since then she has been portrayed with these.

Now you see Isis in ancient Egyptian myths standing there at the side of Osiris. And for the feeling of the old Egyptians she was not only a mysterious deity, a mysterious spirit-being who stood in inner relation with the ordering of the world, but one could say that Isis was the epitome

of all the deepest thoughts the Egyptians were able to form about the archetypal forces working in nature and in man. If the Egyptian was to look up to the great mysteries in his surroundings, then he must look up to Isis who had a statue in the temple at Sais which has become famous. Beneath this statue, as is well known, stood the inscription that should express the being of Isis: 'I am the All, I am the Past, the Present and the Future; no mortal has yet lifted my veil.'

Especially in the later period of the Egyptian civilization that was a central thought. And in gazing at the mysteries of Isis, one remembered the other mysteries of the ancient Osiris age. And in connection with Isis, with the Isis at the sight of whom the pious Egyptian trembled when he let the words work upon him: 'I am the All, I am the Past, the Present and the Future, no mortal has yet lifted my veil;' when these words worked upon him the Egyptian remembered at the same time that Isis was once united with Osiris, when Osiris still wandered upon earth. The laity looked at it as legendary. In the mysteries the Priests explained

that the ancient Osiris time was that in which the old clairvoyance united man with the spirit of nature all about him.

For an understanding of the Osiris-Isis legend or myth at the present day, one must view it with the sensations and feelings which were in the soul, in the heart, of the Egyptian. We have done so in a few characteristic features to begin with. And through these characteristic features there is to stand before our soul's gaze that which once sounded over from ancient times into newer times, which lost its meaning through the Mystery of Golgotha, but must be again unriddled today - precisely for the better understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. There must stand before our soul's gaze all the mystery that at first could only be divined when the Egyptian felt the words that gave the description of Isis: 'I am the All, I am the Past, the Present and the Future; no mortal has yet lifted my veil.' For, my dear friends, we will set opposite this Osiris-Isis myth another Osiris-Isis myth, quite another one. And in the relation of this other Osiris-Isis myth I must count upon your

freedom from prejudice, your impartiality in the highest degree, in order that you do not misunderstand it. This other Osiris-Isis myth is in no way born out of foolish arrogance, it is born in humility; it is also of such a nature that perhaps it can only be related today in a most imperfect way.

But I will try to characterize its features in a few words.

It is in the first place left to each one - though that can only be provisionally - to fix the time when this Osiris-Isis myth was related in a way that I can only relate today approximately, superficially, even ba.n.a.lly. But, as I said, I will try to relate this other Osiris-Isis myth disregarding as much as possible many prejudices and calling upon your unbiased understanding. This other Osiris-Isis myth then has somewhat - I say 'somewhat' - the following contents. 'It was in the age of scientific profundity, in the midst of the land of Philisterium. Upon a hill in spiritual seclusion was erected a Building which was considered to be very remarkable in the land of Philisterium.'

(I should just like to say that the future commentator here adds a remark that by 'the land of Philisterium' not merely the very nearest environment is meant.) If one wanted to use the language of Goethe one could say that the Building represented an 'open secret'. For the Building was closed to none, it was open to all, and in fact everyone could see it at convenient times. But far the greater number of people saw nothing at all. Far the greater number of people saw neither what was built nor what this represented. Far the greater number of people stood - to use Goethe's words again - before an 'open secret', a completely open secret.

A statue was intended to be the central point of the Building. This statue presented a Group of beings: the Representative of Man, then - Luciferic and Ahrimanic figures. People looked at the statue and did not know in the age of scientific profundity in the land Philisterium that the Statue, in fact, was only the veil for an invisible statue. But the invisible statue was not noticed by people, for it was the new Isis, the Isis of a new age.

Some few persons of the land of scientific profundity had once heard of this remarkable connection between what was visible and what, as Isis-image, was concealed behind what was open and evident. And then in their profound allegorical-symbolical manner of speech they had put forward the a.s.sertion that this combination of the Representative of Man with Lucifer and Ahriman signified Isis. With this word 'signified', however, they not only ruined the artistic intention from which the whole thing was supposed to proceed - for an artistic creation does not merely signify something, but is something - but they completely misunderstood all that underlay it. For it was not in the least the point that the figures signified something, but that they already were what they appeared to be. And behind the figures was not an abstract new Isis, but an actual, real new Isis. The figures 'signified' nothing at all, but they were in fact, in themselves, that which they made themselves out to be. But they possessed the peculiarity that behind them there was the real being, the new Isis.

Some few who in special circ.u.mstances, in special moments, had nevertheless seen this new Isis, found that she is asleep. And so one can say: the real deeper-lying statue that conceals itself behind the external statue is the sleeping new Isis, a sleeping figure - visible - but seen by few.

Many persons then turned in special moments to the inscription, which is plainly there at the spot where the statue stands in preparation, but which also has been read by few. And yet the inscription stands clearly there, just as clearly as the inscription once stood on the veiled form at Sais.

In fact the inscription stands there: 'I am Man, I am the Past, the Present and the Future. Every mortal should lift my veil.'

Another figure, as a visitor, once approached the sleeping figure of the new Isis, and then again and again. And the sleeping Isis considered this visitor her special benefactor and loved him. And one day she believed in a particular illusion, just as the visitor believed one day in a particular illusion: the new Isis had an offspring - and she considered the visitor whom she looked on as her benefactor,

to be the father. He regarded himself as the father, but he was not. The spirit-visitor, who was none other than the new Typhon, believed that he could acquire a special increase of his power in the world if he took possession of this new Isis. So the new Isis had an offspring, but she did not know its nature, she knew nothing of the being of this new offspring. And she moved it about, she dragged it far off into other lands, because she believed that she must do so. She trailed the new offspring about, and since she had trailed and dragged it through various regions of the world it fell to pieces into fourteen parts through the very power of the world.

Thus the new Isis had carried her offspring into the world and the world had dismembered it in fourteen pieces. When the spirit-visitor, the new Typhon, had come to know of this, he gathered together the fourteen pieces, and with all the knowledge of natural scientific profundity he again made a being, a single whole, out of the fourteen pieces. But in this being there were only mechanical laws, the law of the machine. Thus a

being had arisen with the appearance of life, but with the laws of the machine. And since this being had arisen out of fourteen pieces, it could reproduce itself again, fourteen-fold. And Typhon could give a reflection of his own being to each piece, so that each of the fourteen offspring of the new Isis had a countenance that resembled the new Typhon.