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

GA 265

Ritual Text for the Third Degree Initiation

Text based on the original manuscript by Rudolf Steiner
Note sheets, archive numbers 6981 to 6987

I. Introduction

The third degree is attained by anyone who has acquired a sense of the fact that the inner experiences of the human being can be viewed from a point of view outside the human being in the same way as the facts of nature are otherwise viewed from a point of view within the human being. For a point of view outside the human being, the previous external world ceases to function as a perceptual world. It becomes an inner experience, as thoughts, feelings and impulses of the will are before. And a completely new outer world opens up before the human being. An outer world that appears as the expression of the thinking, feeling and willing of spiritual beings, which the human being now experiences as being within himself, just as he previously experienced his thinking, feeling and willing within himself. “I am” – which was previously only a mere point of thought – becomes a rich inner experience in which spirit-beings unfold their activity in organic interaction. This activity starts from a multiplicity and is directed towards a unity as its goal; and this goal is – the human being. The human being gets to know himself from an external point of view. To do this, it is necessary that he develops a feeling for what his experience is like when it is not his experience, but when it reveals itself in the ongoing process of nature. “Memento mori” contains the reference to a shift in consciousness. Through this shift, a feeling arises in the soul of what it can be like when the whole presence of its experience becomes the past, becomes memory. Another presence now lives in the soul. And just as in ordinary life consciousness feels itself as subject and an external world as object, so now consciousness arises as experience, for which a new presence is subject and ordinary human life as past is object. This switch in consciousness can be schematized in the following way:

The verbal formulation of the soul's orientation towards this shift in consciousness can be schematized in the following sentences:

1. Consider the end
2. Think of death
3. Think how all corporeality is transitory.

These three sentences are in reality not graspable at all by consciousness I. They can only make sense for this consciousness if it wants to deceive itself about its own experience.

For 1. this consciousness I cannot consider its own end. Such a thought can only be conceived when, in truth, thought is thought without words. In the face of experienced thought, the demand: “Consider the end” is as senseless as this: pluck out your eye so that you can hold it up in front of you and look at your own eye.

1. “Think of death”: death concludes thinking as it is for consciousness I. The demand is therefore completely senseless for this consciousness: do not think yourself thinking. Consciousness I can believe it is thinking when it imagines it still has an object of thought, even when it stops thinking.

2. “Think how all corporeality is transitory.” This means for consciousness I “Do not think.” For consciousness I cannot “think” without corporeality. With the thought of corporeality, thinking itself disappears.

Thus, when a person hears these three demands made of himself, he must, if he remains prudent, say to himself: here one speaks in a way that is impossible for my consciousness I. Here my consciousness I has no possibility of understanding. If he has now digested the impressions of the second degree, he makes the following demands on his thinking: This thinking wants an experience with every thought. It does not allow itself to think when the thought cannot be an experience. It says to itself: how should I think the end, when I cannot experience the end mentally with the end of thinking? How am I to think of death, since I could only see death in dying thought? How am I to think of the transience of the corporeal, since I must think with the corporeal; so without the corporeal my thinking passes away?

Those who have not experienced the second degree can believe that they can think the above three sentences with the consciousness I, because this consciousness is accustomed to separating the thought from the being of the thought. In this way, this consciousness allows itself to think even where it no longer experiences the being of the thought. Therefore, this consciousness I does not know the inner experience that a thought, through its own nature, makes itself an unthought and thereby splinters into infinitely small fragments of thought into nothingness. But this must be how it is for consciousness I when it has gone through the second degree and hears the three sentences, which for consciousness I can only be thought thoughtlessly, but not lived thought.

Thus man stands before the end of consciousness I. He has measured out this consciousness. Before, it was a point from which rays seemed to go out in all directions, that is, it seemed to itself that thinking had no end in any direction.

Now thinking grasps itself as consciousness I as a circle that is closed in itself. And that must be broken through if further progress is to occur.

The preceding passage characterizes the state of mind in which what is the content of the introduction to the third degree must be taken up.

The opening is made as for Gr. 3.¹

Then:

The inductee is led through the gate. First he hears:

"Memento mori.

Then, as he is led further into the room, which is so dark that he cannot see clearly what is inside,

“Consider the end.”

Then:

“Think of death.”

Then:

“Think that everything physical about you is transient.”

When the person being initiated hears these words, he is led forward in an arc and turned so that he does not see the coffin-like device along which he is being led. At the gate, a pointed object is placed on his chest (a copper rod with a point) and he is admonished: “What is going to happen now, you shall not only hear and understand, but experience it in the deepest part of your soul.”

Now the person to be initiated stands with his back to the coffin so that he cannot see it.

The Servant of the East now speaks. While up to now the one who stands by the Servant of the East speaks.

The Servant of the East:

“When Hiram Abiff had completed the construction of his temple, he was to go inside to see if everything was in order. He did this. When he had seen everything, he wanted to go back outside. He sought the western gate to exit. But there stood one of three conspirators. These three were conspiring because the Master had not been able to give them the Master word and the Master degree, for he found them not ripe enough. One of the conspirators in the West - (he is to be represented by the Servant of the West) - struck the Master Hiram Abiff with a straight edge on the left temple, so that the blood flowed down the Master's shoulder through the wound. (This act is symbolically performed by the Servant of the West.) - The Master then sought to leave by the southern gate. But there stood the second of the conspirators. He demands - (as was also the case with the first) - a degree and word from the Master, which the latter cannot give him. Then the second conspirator raised a ladle and struck the Master on the right temple, so that blood ran down his right shoulder. (The action is symbolically performed by the Servant of the South.) Thereupon the Master sought to reach the open air by the third of the gates. Then the same procedure was repeated with the third conspirator. He demanded the word and the grade, which the Master could not give him. Thereupon the third conspirator struck him on the forehead with a measuring rod, so that the Master fell down. But before he expired (the event is symbolized by the Servant of the East) he could throw the golden triangle, on which was written the ancient Master word, into a deep well near the gate, so that the word was lost. Then Master Hiram Abiff passed away. You yourself are Hiram Abiff. It is your soul. Thereupon the three traitors took the body, carried it away and buried it in a lonely place. As now happens to you.

A symbolic burial is now performed – vicariously by the servant of the West – in a black robe; the servant of the South – in a red robe; the servant of the East – in a white robe or robe.

When the person to be initiated is now lying in the coffin,

a tolling of the bell²

then (by the servant of the East) the words:

"The master's soul now takes its way back through the earth times through the spirit world. It hears the music of the spheres. It hears it at the time when, in the course of the world, the earth broke away from the sun and moon and became a world body. The master's soul was already there. You hear the beat now, you will hear it in full reality in the future. And your soul goes further back in the course of the world. To where the earth, sun and moon were still connected. Your soul was there. (Three chimes sound.) So you hear the sound of the spheres. You will actually hear it again in the future. And further back your soul goes in the course of the world. To where the Earth was still the Sun. Where it was surrounded by planets, a planet among planets, forming the seven with them – you hear this in the sound of the spheres. (Seven chimes ring out.) You will hear this again in reality one day. And further back your soul goes in the course of the world. To the point when the Earth was Saturn, surrounded by the twelve starry powers. It was the great midnight hour of existence, when eternity passes into time. (There are heard the twelve strokes of the clock.) Thou hearest it, the great midnight hour of existence. Thou shalt hear it in reality in the days to come.

When this was spoken, he who stood to the left of the Servant of the East, took up the word, saying:

"When Solomon's companions saw that Hiram Abiff was not present, they sent twelve of their number to seek the Master. They found a freshly dug grave mound in a lonely place, which they recognized by a cassia branch on it.“³

(This branch was placed on the coffin after the burial.)

“They dug for it.”

(A procession is now made around the coffin by those present.⁴ The following is spoken by the assistant to the servant in the east:

“Like Hiram, may he be reborn.”

(As it was dark before, the south is illuminated.

“Like Hiram, may he be victorious over death.”

(The west is illuminated.

“Like Hiram, may light shine for him from the east.”

(The east is illuminated.)

(Now the coffin is opened. The servant of the east takes the hand of the initiate.) He speaks:

"With the master's lion's grip I lift you from your grave.”⁵

Then:

“I find you in such a state that the bones of your body have become loose.” Then the initiate is whispered in the ear:.....

Then the servant of the servant in the East says:

"What you have now symbolically gone through should one day pass through your soul in this way. But you should keep it in your deepest memory. It should be recalled again and again in your meditation. It is not by brooding over this pictorial experience that it can work in your soul, but by pictorially renewing the process again and again in your memory and living entirely in it. The image will have the power to help you find the way to see the things of the world, your own life and all life from the point where the spirit stands, not the body. You have felt the grasp – this will be repeated. – You have heard the word – (this will be whispered into the ear again – syllable by syllable: first syllable into the left ear – then the second syllable from the other into the right ear of the first – then the third syllable again into the other ear of the other from the first – then completely from the other to the first.) Receive the sign as well.

As a special admonition is added:

"Do not understand with the head the deeply significant image in which you yourself were interwoven and [in] which you are to be interwoven many times more in memory; understand it with your whole being, so that it becomes part of that being of yours; so that you can get to know the feeling that results when you are completely one with it and still live and breathe in it for a while, even though it has already been allowed to fade from your consciousness. Then the picture will have achieved its purpose for you, that you experience what it is to recognize things and yourself and all life from the point of view of the spirit."

Then a teaching brother will give a speech, which is not meant to be an interpretation of the image of initiation, but to suggest thoughts that will guide the soul in the same direction as the image. It should be included in this speech that the soul was already aware of the essence of world evolution before the present solar system was formed. That this solar system was formed by the high cosmic powers for the further development of particular human powers. How man, as a spiritual being in the solar system, can feel connected with Christ without arrogance, is characterized.

Then with the ceremony of the third degree the act concludes.