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

GA 265

The Three Altars

From the instruction session in Munich, December 12, 1906

The master's place is in the east (Jupiter – wisdom). In the south is glory, piety, beauty (Venus). In the west is Vulcan, strength.

From an instruction session in Cologne, May 12, 1913

In our temple, the east, west and south are meant spiritually.

From the instruction lesson in Cologne, May 10, 1914)¹

From the east, the powers of the mind of the earth flow in. From there, the sacred powers of the mind flow through the earth. These are reflected in the altar (of the east); that is the head of the earth. If we turn to the south, the sacred powers of the heart, the powers of love and devotion of the earth, radiate from there. From the west, the sacred will of the earth pours into the earth, flowing through the limbs, from which actions flow.

When we form a mental image of our temple in meditation, we should remember that the altar of the east represents the head, the altar of the south the heart, and the altar of the west the limbs of the earth, and we should feel how in the east the powers of the intellect, in the south the powers of the heart and of love, and in the west the powers of will flow and converge in the center of the temple. Then we will turn to these altars and ask that these powers may flow into us and flood and empower us.

The three altars also symbolize the three possible paths into the spiritual world, cf. on this, for example, Cologne, November 30, 1906, and in the “Chymischen Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz anno 145” it is stated that four paths are open, but that no mortal is allowed to reach the goal on the fourth. If, according to the notes of a participant, a fourth altar stood in the north during the ritual for the elevation to the third degree, then this was probably in the sense of Goethe's “Fairytale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” and in Rudolf Steiner's first mystery drama “The Portal of Initiation”, where in the underground temple this fourth king, standing in the north, collapses as the temple rises into the light of day. ↩