The History of the Esoteric School 1904–1914, Volume Two

GA 265 — Hildesheim

The “Brazen Sea”

Instruction session without location or date given

The “Iron Sea” refers to pure, untroubled human nature. The three treacherous companions are doubt, superstition and the illusion of the personal self. By descending into earthly incarnation, man came to doubt his spiritual nature, to have false mental images. That is superstition, for example the idea that he is a being standing alone, not part of the great whole, the illusion of the personal self. These three traitors destroy the originally pure human nature. The fire of passions springs from it.

From the 22nd lesson in Cologne, December 22, 1907.

The Iron Sea, if it had come about, would have made the Earth a transparent, clear planet. Now the three companions have destroyed the casting. Doubt, superstition and belief in the personal self have clouded the casting. In the human etheric body, there are three points - heart, spleen and in the back - that are particularly significant. The one at the back means the Iron Sea in the microcosm. In the case of a person who still has doubts, superstition and belief in the personal self, this point is clouded, traversed by clouds, like a smoky topaz. Our task is to transform it into a radiant, clear one.

Cain, in the center of the earth, still possesses the pure divine Elohim power. Hiram Abiff descends to him and receives the original creator word, written on the golden triangle.

Place and date of these remarks unknown, according to a transcript by Mathilde Scholl, dated Landin, August 31, 1906.

Hiram Abiff could not create the Iron Sea until man had passed through the fire of passion, until he had not completely descended into the earthly fire. Until then, the Sea of Bronze could not become firm. It had to remain billowing, for if one wanted to solidify it in this way, it would have to burst. Passion, having become power, is the destructive principle that leads everything to ruin. But after Hiram Abiff had plunged into the fire, into the embers of the Sea of Bronze, and emerged from it again, bringing with him the Golden Triangle - the higher principles of wisdom, beauty and power (Manas, Budhi, Atma) - he was able to lead the Sea of Bronze to completion. The Iron Sea is the fusion of the lower and higher principles in physical existence, in the mineral round. It could only be fully restored after a complete descent into the mineral world, into the solidification of the physical.

The Iron Sea is the solidification of the astral. The astral was not allowed to solidify as it was before the physical solidified. By passing through the solidified physical, the astral was so purified that it could emerge pure afterwards, and only then was it allowed to solidify. Only then can the word be found that stands on the golden triangle. For only when the astral has been purified can the word arise anew, the etheric body in its new form, expressing the Christ principle.

Man's education is one of freedom. In order for the I to dwell in man and develop his individuality, it was necessary for it to take hold of a part of all the world's forces. That is why the development of egoism was a necessity from the middle of the Lemurian race onwards. Until the development of egoism, man had no kama of his own; all kama was only present cosmically. After the division into two sexes, the Kamic entered into the individual human being; the superfluous Kama was excreted in the moon. Now the development of Kama took place in the individual human being. The more the human being solidified physically, the more concentrated the Kama became in him, because he now increasingly confronted the outside world, increasingly learning to distinguish his ego from the rest of the world. He finally forgot that he was part of the rest of the world and therefore treated his environment as an enemy. (Cain kills his brother Abel.) From then on, he wanted to have everything for himself, to take possession of everything, because he felt the great difference between what he himself was and what did not belong to him, what belonged to his environment. This is how the power of Kama was taken to extremes.

While, on the one hand, man became more and more violent in his greed for possessions, he had to learn, on the other hand, that he cannot possess everything. He had to learn to renounce many things. He had to learn that in this way, as he wanted it - outwardly - he could never take possession of everything, and through death he was shown that even if he can apparently take possession of many things, he must renounce everything again when death tears him away from the physical world. So man learned resignation. Through many lives he had to learn the difference between the transitory and the eternal. He had to learn that all external possessions are impermanent. Then he looked for the imperishable, which he found in the higher worlds. Thus he learned to direct his desire to the imperishable. He learned to renounce external possessions. Now he began to build himself up inwardly. But as long as there was still any desire for his own possessions, he could not bring this work of inner development to completion.

First, the power of the kamasutra had to be pushed to the extreme by entering into mineral solidification, but then, precisely by passing through the mineral-objective world, it had to be purified again and emerge as selfless human love. Thus, cosmic warmth became individual warmth, individual power. This is initially found in devotion. Devotion brings order to unbridled passion. It shapes it into harmony and beauty. Devotion was the missing beam on the Temple of Solomon that was to connect the two columns. It had to be found before the temple could be built. Only after man had attained piety, devotion to the Higher, could humanity be led to perfection. He could only learn this devotion to the Higher by passing through the consciousness of the ego and by solidifying it in the physical world. Piety also leads him to find the Master Word, which leads him to perfection. After he has brought his astral body into harmony through devotion, he has attained the Master Word, the wisdom with which he transforms his etheric body into an eternal one, into the sounding word, which is productive.

Man was given the columns of Boaz (strength, physical body) and Jakin (wisdom, etheric body) and also the means to achieve his own perfection (astral body Kama - the fire).

He had to learn to work with fire: outside in nature with physical fire and inside in man with the soul fire (Kama). Outside, with the help of physical fire, he had to work with the mineral kingdom, shaping it into harmony, into a work of art; in the soul, with the help of the power of Kama, he had to develop first self-awareness and then inner harmony, devotion, enthusiasm (to be in God), to dive completely into passion and then emerge again like Hiram Abiff with the golden triangle, the higher forces. Only after he had transformed passion into devotion within and fire into beauty without, could he connect the columns Jakin and Boas. That is, he could develop himself up to wisdom and strength, to Budhi and Atma, because he had worked through Kama manasically. He attains wisdom by purifying his kama through devotion. In this way, his kama becomes pure human love and, on the other hand, he transforms it into enthusiasm by permeating his manas, the power of knowledge, with the purified kama. Thus, the kama is illuminated by manas, and the warmth of the kama moves into the manasic.

Thus the crossbeam laid across the two columns leads on the one hand to higher wisdom (Budhi) through piety, love, Christ, and on the other hand to creative power (Atma) through knowledge, enthusiasm, Lucifer. Thus the two columns of the temple are connected.

The transformation of the mineral kingdom into an outer temple goes hand in hand with the transformation of the surging astral body into harmonious human love. Thus the iron sea is built in the outer and in the inner. The mineral world will ultimately become an expression of human love. Love within, beauty without: that will become the image of the world.

The following is added to the above notes under the heading “Supplement”:

The three companions of Hiram Abiff are the three lower principles; Hiram Abiff is the I. These three must help him, but they must not become masters. They destroy the iron sea. The three lower principles are initially an obstacle for man in building up the higher, in developing the ego to freedom. Hiram Abiff plunges down into the interior of the earth by throwing himself into the sea of fire. He descends through the kamic fire into the physical. There he is endowed with the three higher principles: the Golden Triangle. But when he comes up again, he is attacked and killed by the three companions. This represents the struggle that the three lower principles wage against the higher ones in man. The I is the East through which the higher principles enter. (Like the sun, they rise in man.) The three companions come from the three other quarters of heaven.

Before he dies, Hiram Abiff writes the Master Key on the Golden Triangle and sinks it into a deep well. He thus points to the time when man will have purified his astral body to such an extent that the iron sea is fixed, that passion rests and his physical and astral body then forms the solid ground on which he can stand in his further development. At the time of Hiram Abiff, just after the emergence of the ego with self-consciousness, when the environment became objective, the Golden Triangle could not yet be erected over the Iron Sea. This could only happen after the complete purification of the astral body.