{ "meta": { "schema_version": "1.2", "endpoint": "/api/sources/great-initiates/index.json" }, "work": { "slug": "great-initiates", "name": "The Great Initiates", "stream": "western-european", "epoch_reflected": "current", "epoch_written": "current", "form": "esoteric history", "tradition": "Theosophical / Rose-Croix", "author": "Édouard Schuré", "year_approx": 1889, "note": "Édouard Schuré's *Les Grands Initiés* (1889), a sequence of mystery-portraits — Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus. Steiner translated this into German and worked closely with Schuré.", "books_slug": "schure--the-great-initiates", "books_slugs": null, "has_project_translation": false, "steiner_loci": [ "GA 34: Lucifer-Gnosis essays — Steiner on Schuré", "GA 42: Theosophy — Steiner-Schuré collaboration" ] }, "parents": [], "translation": { "title": null, "author": null, "source": null }, "chapters": [ { "num": 1, "slug": "00-rama-the-aryan-cycle", "title": "Rama: The Aryan Cycle", "words": 12426, "url": "/sources/great-initiates/00-rama-the-aryan-cycle/", "api": "/api/sources/great-initiates/00-rama-the-aryan-cycle.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Rama — the Aryan cycle", "blurb": "Schuré opens *The Great Initiates* with Rama — the Aryan founder-figure who carries the white race from its lost Hyperborean homeland southward into India. Rama as the first of the great initiate-founders of religion; the cycle of the Aryan migration as the matrix of every subsequent religious revelation." }, { "num": 2, "slug": "01-krishna-india-and-brahmanic-initiation", "title": "Krishna: India and Brahmanic Initiation", "words": 17034, "url": "/sources/great-initiates/01-krishna-india-and-brahmanic-initiation/", "api": "/api/sources/great-initiates/01-krishna-india-and-brahmanic-initiation.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Krishna — India and Brahmanic initiation", "blurb": "The Krishna chapter. Krishna as the second great initiate after Rama, the consummator of Brahmanic initiation, the giver of the *Bhagavad Gītā*. Schuré reads Krishna as the bringer of the doctrine of the immortal soul and of the path of yoga to the Indian world." }, { "num": 3, "slug": "02-hermes-the-mysteries-of-egypt", "title": "Hermes: The Mysteries of Egypt", "words": 11902, "url": "/sources/great-initiates/02-hermes-the-mysteries-of-egypt/", "api": "/api/sources/great-initiates/02-hermes-the-mysteries-of-egypt.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Hermes — the mysteries of Egypt", "blurb": "Hermes Trismegistus as the third initiate. The mysteries of Egypt, the temple-initiation at Memphis, the doctrine of the gods as cosmic principles. Hermes as the architect of the Egyptian theological synthesis that bridges Vedic and Greek revelation." }, { "num": 4, "slug": "03-moses-the-mission-of-israel", "title": "Moses: The Mission of Israel", "words": 17765, "url": "/sources/great-initiates/03-moses-the-mission-of-israel/", "api": "/api/sources/great-initiates/03-moses-the-mission-of-israel.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Moses — the mission of Israel", "blurb": "Moses, fourth of the great initiates. Schuré's reading of Moses as initiate of the Egyptian mysteries who carries forward the cosmic monotheism into the closed national-religious vessel of Israel. The mission of Israel: to preserve and transmit the divine name." }, { "num": 5, "slug": "04-orpheus-the-mysteries-of-dionysus", "title": "Orpheus: The Mysteries of Dionysus", "words": 13042, "url": "/sources/great-initiates/04-orpheus-the-mysteries-of-dionysus/", "api": "/api/sources/great-initiates/04-orpheus-the-mysteries-of-dionysus.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Orpheus — the mysteries of Dionysus", "blurb": "Orpheus as the fifth great initiate — the bringer of the Bacchic-Dionysian mysteries to Greece. The Orphic transformation of the wild Dionysian intoxication into a path of theological-initiatory discipline. The seed of the entire later Hellenic mystery-religious tradition." }, { "num": 6, "slug": "05-pythagoras-the-mysteries-of-delphi", "title": "Pythagoras: The Mysteries of Delphi", "words": 35245, "url": "/sources/great-initiates/05-pythagoras-the-mysteries-of-delphi/", "api": "/api/sources/great-initiates/05-pythagoras-the-mysteries-of-delphi.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Pythagoras — the mysteries of Delphi", "blurb": "Pythagoras, sixth initiate — the philosopher-prophet of Delphi. Schuré's Pythagoras synthesises Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek wisdom into a school combining mathematical science, music theory, ethics, and esoteric doctrine of the soul's transmigration." }, { "num": 7, "slug": "06-plato-the-mysteries-of-eleusis", "title": "Plato: The Mysteries of Eleusis", "words": 11507, "url": "/sources/great-initiates/06-plato-the-mysteries-of-eleusis/", "api": "/api/sources/great-initiates/06-plato-the-mysteries-of-eleusis.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Plato — the mysteries of Eleusis", "blurb": "Plato as the seventh of the eight great initiates. The Eleusinian mysteries as the matrix of Plato's philosophy; the *Phaedo*, *Symposium*, and *Republic* read as Eleusinian doctrine made philosophical. Plato as the consummator of the Greek mystery-tradition." }, { "num": 8, "slug": "07-jesus-the-mission-of-christ", "title": "Jesus: The Mission of Christ", "words": 29227, "url": "/sources/great-initiates/07-jesus-the-mission-of-christ/", "api": "/api/sources/great-initiates/07-jesus-the-mission-of-christ.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Jesus — the mission of Christ", "blurb": "The eighth and consummating initiate: Jesus of Nazareth, in whom all prior initiations culminate. Schuré's Christ as the divine *Logos* incarnate, completing the cycle of the seven previous initiates and bringing the path of love that the prior cycle could only approach." }, { "num": 9, "slug": "08-notes", "title": "Notes", "words": 8870, "url": "/sources/great-initiates/08-notes/", "api": "/api/sources/great-initiates/08-notes.json", "project_translation": false, "subtitle": "Notes", "blurb": "Schuré's footnotes and supplementary notes for the eight chapters — references to his sources (chiefly Iamblichus, Plutarch, the Vedas in French translation, and the late nineteenth-century esoteric literature), and clarifications of theological-historical points raised in the main text." } ] }