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

GA 265

Ritual Text for Admission to the First Degree

Text from Rudolf Steiner's original manuscript¹
Notebook archive number 612

All metal objects of value, determined by the conditions of the external world, are taken from the person to be initiated: jewelry, money, etc. This removes him from the context of the physical world and its laws. He must feel detached from the value that his own soul does not give him.

Then the person to be initiated is led to the gate, accompanied by the person acting as his guide. Before reaching the gate, a bandage is tied before his eyes. Upon the knock of the initiating personality (..-² ) the following conversation ensues between the initiating personality and the personality received in the inner room:

Question: Who knocks ardently at our door? Answer: A free man (a free woman) who wants to be admitted to the mystical temple of wisdom, beauty and strength, to sacrifice and serve the spirit in communion with the older brothers of humanity. Question: What is his (her) name? Answer: Name. Question: Who vouches for him (for her)? Answer: The names of two guarantors. Question: Are all conditions fulfilled? Answer: They are fulfilled. The recipient: He (she) enters.

The initiate is led by the introducer in spirals into the “room of self-knowledge”. Here he is addressed by an older initiate in the following way:

So, we are at the right place. I come from the universe of Canis Major. I met this soul on the way that leads from the north. She has discarded her body. She has arrived at the gate of death. $o listen, soul, now to the spirit, which wants to and can lead you to your full human dignity. Since you are no longer afflicted with senses and a mind that draws its strength from a body, your gaze no longer encounters the things and occurrences in your surroundings through which the spirit, which I have had to fight since the beginning of the earth, robs you of your freedom and only wants to make you a serving member of its own being. In your environment, nothing lives of its creation, which you always had to encounter in the sense body when you turned your gaze outwards. So my opponent instilled his essence into your soul; you were not yourself; you were filled with his essence within. Now you can draw everything you experience from within yourself; now you can be master, sole master in the world, which creates itself from within you. Only now will you know yourself completely, will you live in your human dignity. So feel yourself. Be yourself. When you fully understand yourself, you cannot help but find your home in the world to which I have led you. So, self-aware, you penetrate from my opponent's creation into your own world, here where everything is silent around you.

There is complete silence for a while. Silent calm reigns... This is interrupted after some time by heavy knocks (.. -).

The mystic who has just spoken continues:

My opponent, whom I have been fighting since the beginning of the earth, is approaching. He wants to oust me from this place. It is he who wants to make your soul a limb of his being. If you follow him, you will lose your human dignity. You will become a slave to his being. But for now I must give way to him. Do not fall for him, soul!

The mystic who performs the service at the altar of the East now begins to speak:

I have recognized in you, O soul, that the temptations of the spirit that has been fighting me since the beginning of the earth have given you a tendency towards his words. He was able to make you feel that it was good for your human dignity to follow him. I, the Spirit of the East, am now standing here before you. My opponent has now had to give way for me. Around me stand the judges of the terrible court of the dead. I ask them: What should be done with the soul, at the bottom of which I see an inclination towards the spirit that has been fighting me since the beginning of the earth?

The surrounding mystics answer:

You have to bring this soul to hell.

The servant-mystic of the East:

You bring this soul to hell.

Then the one to be received is led again in a spiral circle into a room that represents hell. One hears the clanking of chains and the locking of a door when the one to be received arrives in the room.

The mystic from the East now speaks:

You soul, you are in the place where the longing of your soul can be fulfilled. You are in your own world. Henceforth you will never again come across a creation with your gaze that does not originate from your own soul. You will live entirely in your own world and will be able to be the sole master in it. But know that you will live in your isolated world for all eternity. But you will never be able to find anything, not even anything of all that has become dear and precious to you in the world into which I have led you. For all eternity you will not learn anything about beings that you have grown fond of, that you would have liked to help. They will never be able to learn anything from you. In all future time you will know nothing but only yourself. And so also recognize the silence, the loneliness, which will surround you endlessly from the outside. And know that the further you will only live in yourself, the more dreadful your life will be. You will look into an empty future eternity, in which you will be able to enjoy nothing but only your own being! This life with a view into eternity will become more terrible the more you live towards it. Your inclination towards my opponent has condemned you to this; the judges of my terrible court of the dead have only put into words what your soul has condemned itself to. But I may, by virtue of the grace that also radiates from the East, now show you once more what you have gone through on earth. Perhaps your soul will develop a different inclination when you, armed with insight into everything that my opponent promised you and what I have to impose on you here, see once again what you have become. Therefore I will guide you through your earthly past and show your soul what my messengers from the east have granted you during your earthly course so that you could become what you are now. I have sent them, these wise messengers of mine; now they may once more bring to your ears what they have accomplished in you during your earthly course.

Again the chains are heard to clink violently, and the lock (of hell) opens with a loud noise.

A mystic appointed for this purpose calls out the words:

The journey backwards through life is now to begin. While the person being initiated is led back through the spiral paths, the mystic who has already spoken the last words says the following:

1. Man walks through his whole life in darkness; only the knowledge of the spirit can snatch him from darkness.
2. If the soul is driven to the spirit only by curiosity or a thirst for knowledge, it will not find the spirit. For only those beings find the spirit who recognize that they do not belong to themselves, but to the world, and who therefore feel the duty within themselves to make themselves as perfect as possible as a member of the world as a whole. Duty of knowing the spirit: you shall feel it.
3. If you do not want to penetrate so deeply into human souls that all earthly differences disappear before your gaze, and you see all people as they present themselves without differences, one like the other, you cannot come to knowledge; for this is attained only by the one who sees all people as equal, without the differences that the world, steeped in darkness, has imprinted on them.
4. If the soul is not inclined to hold up her weaknesses and errors in clear observation, she will not find the way to spiritual knowledge; for every unrecognized error is an obstacle that stands in the way of knowledge.

After the candidate has heard these four sentences during his spiral walk, a staircase is placed in his path, which he has to climb. Having reached the top step, he is made to fall down on the other side. During this ascent and fall, the following words are spoken by the appointed mystic:

You also sought to find the light for your soul on your previous path; but you climbed the heights of the path of life in darkness. This ascent makes you visually aware of your ascent in darkness. You can only reach the heights of life by following the light received from the spirit; without it you must fall, as you are falling now.

After this, the person to be initiated is led to the two pillars that are located at the entrance to the room that symbolizes the ancient Atlantic land. The person to be initiated is placed in front of these pillars; and the appointed mystic speaks the following:

You have traveled backwards through the incarnations you have lived through since the great Atlantic catastrophe with the gaze of your soul. Now you have arrived at the epoch of this catastrophe. You stand at the Pillars of Hercules, which once led from the east to the northwest into the old Atlantic land. Consider that you have gone through further previous incarnations in this Atlantean land. You lived through these under completely different conditions than the later ones in the post-Atlantean time. The Atlantean land was shaped in such a way that the ground was filled with dense water fog vapors. Within the constant water fog, you lived in a completely different human form than later in the post-Atlantean time. In this time, the air had become free from the constant water vapor. Accordingly, the whole perception and experience of man had changed. The post-Atlantic time is the air test of humanity; the process of incarnations of the Atlantic time is the water test of humanity. During the test of the air, the messengers of the good spirit from the East have allowed the simple but deeply meaningful principles you have heard to flow into all the life of your soul. These principles are the impulses that lead all souls to good, which the wise men of the East always saw before them as if written in gold in the spiritual writing of the world; through them they wanted to lead your soul to salvation. But my opponent, who fights against me, has mixed his impulses into everything that was permeated by these impulses, and these impulses have always implanted corruption instead of salvation. If you could now turn your gaze towards the east and the reality would appear to you in the spirit, you would see my eagle in the bright heights, which wanted to bring you the wisdom of the east. But beneath him you would see my opponent's vulture, which has so influenced your thinking that wisdom must become a consuming power for you, and destroy you by wasting your strength to the extent that you sought to attain wisdom by earthly thinking. If you could turn the gaze of your soul towards the south, you would see in the heights of light my angel, who was to bring your feeling the revelation of beauty; but my opponent points you to the owl below, which must add to the revelation of spiritual beauty the forces that, when your soul dwells outside the body at night while you sleep, implant in it the urge which rebels against beauty and wants to lead your feelings away from the revelation of the spiritual. If you could turn the soul's gaze to the west, you would see in the light heights my lion, as the messenger who could have endowed your soul with the power that comes from the spirit and that would make you spiritually strong; but below my lion you would see my opponent's black raven, which implants in your soul the urge to always cover up spiritual power with physical strength. Thus, by going through the post-Atlantic incarnations, your soul could never have received unmixed, unmixed, what the wise messengers of the progressing world spirits wanted to give you. They received it mixed with the disastrous gifts of my opponent, who has been fighting me since the beginning of the earth.

After this, the mystic who has led the person to be received into the “space of self-knowledge” enters again. He speaks the following:

You have entered the time of the Atlantic catastrophe, in which you are wandering backwards with your soul's gaze. This is the time when the spirit, which I have had to fight since the beginning of the earth, cannot completely silence me. So now I can also tell your soul what you have received from me in your post-Atlantic incarnations. Without me you would never have attained the knowledge that your mind acquired by freely observing the creatures and events on earth. For He, who directs the cosmic order I am fighting against, wanted to instill His wisdom alone into your mind; He wanted to live in your thinking, feeling and willing. Only He Himself wanted to live in you; you were to represent only Him in your life. Your speech was to resound with His glory alone. I have so permeated your speech with My Being that you can express your impulses of thinking, feeling and willing in speaking. I have caused my brother, who, like me, has been fighting that other spirit since the beginning of the earth, to enable you to preserve in writing on earth what could only live under the other spirit's sole guidance in the words he had permeated, and what would have to perish with the word. So judge what has made you what you are in the course of the post-Atlantic incarnations. Judge what you would be today without speech, which can express not only the supersensible but also, through me, the sensible, without writing. I am the Bringer of Earthly Culture; without me you would be the image of a divine spirit; but not a freer, self-representing earthman.

After this has been spoken, the other mystic who spoke before this last one appears again. This one now says the following:

I will now lead your soul through the Pillars of Hercules into the ancient Atlantic land. There you will see in soul pictures what you have experienced in your Atlantean incarnations, but which you have completely forgotten, while you have become accustomed to looking at earthly conditions in the way that was made possible for you by my opponent's influence. It was only in the post-Atlantean and final Atlantean periods that his influence became noticeably greater. Before that, mine prevailed in your soul. You were closer to my nature in the water-mist life than later. Thus you will be able to gauge from what entered your life at that time what he is to you; and what the spirit I serve can be to you. - For your perception at that time, wisdom spoke from all things and processes of the three realms of nature immersed in the water mist. At present, your soul only recognizes articulate, meaningful language from the mouths of humans. The source, the waves of water, the leaves of the forest trees swirling in the wind do not speak meaningful language. But they did in the ancient Atlantean times. And your soul was able to commune with all the beings of nature. It was still close to the “wisdom of the world” at the time of the test of humanity's ability to live in harmony with the water. And when the soul went within, when it withdrew its attention from what all things expressed, then, too, when man withdrew into solitude, where things did not speak, the soul heard a fundamental or intermediate tone that resounded through everything. When the soul heard this sound, then with the sound all the warmth of the world's existence streamed into it, and the light of the world-creative powers streamed into it. The soul was filled with the all-pervading wisdom. It said, intuitively sensing what was there: “The great spirit speaks.” The soul became devout and reverent when it felt the “great spirit” flowing within it. Thus spoke the great spirit......; and as in an echo, the soul spoke with the great spirit in adoration and worship;......; so was the dialogue of the soul with the great spirit in the old Atlantean times:...... ..... ..... Your soul has forgotten this dialogue; I have reminded her of it. But now, through your journey through life on earth, you are gradually arriving at the place where the spirit was very close, which the other has been fighting since the beginning of time. I have placed this temple room in this place, which can only be reached through the depths of the soul. When the bandage is removed from your eyes, you will be surrounded by images that show your soul what surrounded you at the moment you stepped out of the spiritual world into an earthly incarnation for the first time. You will be able to “choose” again. When your soul chose for the first time, it incorporated into its developmental impulses those of my adversary. Thus the secrets of spiritual existence had to be veiled from it.

The person to be initiated is now led into the actual temple room, which is made completely dark at this moment. The Mystos, who serves the altar of the East, now speaks the words of consecration, which are intended to make the soul aware of the direction of its journey through space and time.

These words are followed by those which the soul should feel within itself in order to know how to feel correctly towards the essence of the first degree:

I vow and promise that I will keep myself in the spirit of the first occult degree without duplicity, weakness, or ambiguity, and that I will also keep myself in this spirit with respect to outsiders of this degree. Should I not conduct myself in the spirit of what I promise myself, then what I myself must then allow through full awareness will be fulfilled in my soul................³

The mystic serving the altar of the East continues:

You soul, bear in mind that you have left behind, at the gates of this room, everything that receives its value from the external world, in which my opponent also works with me. Here you can achieve nothing through all this; only your soul can work here, which makes use of nothing of all this for its work. What can serve you for work here is expressed in the symbolic garment that is now being put on you by my helpers.

The symbolic garment of the first degree is put on the person to be initiated.

In the completely dark room, a light is now lit. The mystos standing at the side of the one serving at the altar of the East receives this light in his hand and stands close in front of the person to be initiated. Behind him stands another designated mystos.

The mystos in the East speaks:

What is the soul seeking in this room?

The surrounding mystics answer in chorus:

The light of the spirit.

The mystic in the east says:

The light of the spirit will appear to this soul when it will penetrate through the right attitude into everything that speaks to it here.

In this moment, the mystic standing behind the person to be received removes the bandage from the eyes of the person to be received; the light only remains for moments; then it goes out of the mystic carrying it.

The person being initiated is in the completely dark room.

This is immediately followed by the opening ceremony associated with the lighting of the lights in the east, south and west. - - -⁴

After this, the symbolic signs and words are explained and communicated, which the person to be initiated should become aware of in the sense of processes in the etheric body of man, so that he can feel himself to be a member of the first degree through their communication.

Then the person to be initiated is led before the altar of the East by two designated mystics. The mystic serving the East mimes the... sign; two mystics of the higher degrees join him; they cross their sword-like symbols above the forehead of the person to be initiated: the mystic of the East speaks:

In the name of the wise masters of the East and by the power with which I serve them, I inscribe you in the book of the first degree of those who strive for the light of eternal mysticism.

The candidate is led by the appointed mysts to the place assigned to him.

The ceremony is now interrupted and an instruction ceremony is inserted. During this, a teaching mystic imparts to the person to be initiated:

1. the legend, which interprets the evolution of humanity in symbolic terms.⁵
2. A sign of the occult writing.⁶

After this instruction, the ceremony is resumed to end with the same three symbolic conclusions that conclude all the ceremonies of the first degree.