Lessons for the Participants of Cognitive-Cultic Work 1906–1924

GA 265a — 16 December 1911, Berlin

Wisdom, Beauty, Strength, Sign, Grip and Word

Notes (with additions from the lectures) from the estate of Elisabeth Vreede

When we are together in an occult temple, we should be aware that we are in a special place that completely isolates us from the outside world. It is a sacred place where every object in it has a special and occult significance.

One might think that what we are dealing with here is a feature of what is generally called “Freemasonry”, but this is not the case. However secret Freemasonry may have been in the past, it has always been something external. In fact, Freemasonry originally came into the world through a betrayal of the mystery schools, and that is why many of the symbols found in Freemasonry can also be found here. From the mystery schools, these symbols passed through students not sufficiently imbued with their value and meaning, ended up in secret societies, although they were secret to the outside world. However, none of the secret societies known under the general name of Freemasonry have been able to grasp and explain the true depth of the symbols, because the sacredness of the symbols themselves means that they cannot be properly understood outside the occult temple.

Until now, our occult current for the world has still borne the name of Freemasonry, because from an occult point of view, one should always tie in with what already exists, but from now on this name should be dropped for our temple and our activities should be called “Misraim Service”. When our occult service is to be referred to, this may be abbreviated with the letters M.D. The designation F.M. should now disappear for good, and thus, for the outside world and for all institutions on a Masonic basis, Freemasonry in our movement does not exist. If someone were to ask us whether our movement includes Freemasonry, we can say no without telling an untruth. What is done here is an occult service called the Misraim service, which means something like: bringing about the union of the earthly with the heavenly, the visible with the invisible.

The Misraim service was already known in ancient Egypt and was one of the most occult services in the mystery schools. This same service is still performed in our temples today, with the additions and reforms that Mark introduced. The Mark referred to here is the disciple of Peter, one of the twelve apostles, who wrote the Gospel of Mark while he was Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt. Together with an Egyptian initiate, he reorganized the occult service (cult) that we now know as the Misraim service.

Every object in a complete temple not only has its own special significance, but it must also be there for the purpose of stimulating and effecting that which makes it possible to draw the stream of those entities to our temple, whom we call the wise masters of the East. They then pour this stream out on us, and so we are enabled to receive those spiritual teachings that are necessary for human development. Without such reception, nothing could be done for the spiritual development of humanity; from here, what has been received should flow on to the other people.

The three lights that are now burning symbolize the three higher principles that shine in the darkness in our higher being. They also represent the wisdom, beauty and strength whose words (names) were pronounced when the lights were just lit on the altars of the east, south and west.

We will find the light of wisdom if we always strive for truth in our thinking, if we learn to recognize that a new kind of thinking should arise in us, that world thoughts live in our thoughts. We should become aware that it “thinks in us” and that what is thought in us are revelations of spiritual beings that want to bring us wisdom. From the astral world, living, weaving, moving wisdom flows to us, and by permeating our thinking with truth, we can absorb the wisdom of those spiritual beings, and our soul will attain wisdom.

Beauty flows into us when we acquire true piety. When our soul is open to admiration and devotion to the beauty that is around us, this beauty becomes

for us the expression of spiritual beings who reveal their language with it and want to make themselves understood to us. Only heartfelt, true devotion can reveal true beauty to us. Because you all know that in the spiritual (astral) world, devils can show themselves in the form of angels under the mask of beauty. But you know that this is only possible if our soul is not permeated by that purity which is coupled with heartfelt piety. In the lower Devachan, those entities can be found that send their beauty down to us in truly beautiful images and forms.

Strength flows down upon us from the higher Devachan, and it will strengthen our inner being if we transform our power into virtue, into active virtue. True, active virtue arises when we transform all the qualities that emerge in our lower nature through the power of our will, so that they become forces that can work as spiritual forces in the world.

The sign, grip and word are not just mere identifying marks, but have a deep occult value. The sign, in which one forms the right angle between the thumb and the flat hand, has to do with the hand as an organ of knowledge. It was already mentioned in the last cycle that hands and feet are organs of knowledge, and better than the brain. The physical brain is, as it were, crystallized out of the etheric body, like ice out of water. One can feel an intimate connection between these two “brains” and how the physical brain is actually a kind of mirror apparatus for what is going on in the etheric brain. This is particularly the case when you are making a great effort with things that relate to the physical plane, or when you want to evoke memories in yourself: whether you are aware of it or not, the etheric body is always affected. But especially the physical brain, which lies like a block in the etheric brain and prevents one from following the mobility of the etheric brain. One then feels very clearly that it is not the etheric brain that tires; it could evoke thoughts and memories for all eternity, but the physical brain cannot keep up, it acts like a foreign body in the etheric body. As a result, you feel the fatigue of the physical brain all the more, because: even if you could continue to think with the ether brain, you would make yourself ill; the normal connection would be broken, the physical part would become like dead. It is impossible to break the parallelism between the physical and ether brain to a greater extent.

In our brain, we have a very faithful expression of the etheric brain in its functions and processes. In the case of the hands of the human etheric body, the connection with the physical organs is different. Just as with the brain, certain etheric processes of the etheric body correspond to the hands, but there is a far greater difference between the physical hands and their function and what corresponds to them in the etheric body than between the physical head and the corresponding etheric body of the same. What the hands do is much more of a purely sensory activity, and what the etheric organs of the hands can do finds very little expression in what the physical hands do. These etheric hands are real spiritual organs in the elementary or etheric body. A much higher, more intuitive spiritual activity is performed by the organs that underlie the hands and find only a limited expression in them. The organs that find expression in the hands in the physical body already lead into the supersensible world and can make observations in it. Somewhat paradoxically, one could say that the human brain is the most unsuitable organ of perception for the world; the hands, taken ethereally, are much more significant and skillful organs of knowledge than the brain.

On the path to initiation, one does not learn very much by learning to move from the use of the physical brain to that of the etheric brain. What the hands have to do can be found in connection with the lotus leaves in the heart area, which radiate their forces in such a way that they go from the heart to the hands, thus making the etheric hand an organ of spiritual knowledge. Learning to understand these differences gives us an idea of how to immerse ourselves in the initiation. What is important is not that we feel how the physical brain fills the etheric brain, but that we feel how completely different organs can arise in the human being. What was initially present in the physical human being – like the hands – is transformed into the inner human being, so that he can experience different things with them.

If we place our hand on the larynx, with the thumb of the right hand by the ear and the flat of the hand under the chin at the level of the larynx, then we exclude the etheric currents of the head and shape the rest of the organism into an organ of knowledge. In this way, knowledge is spiritualized, and if one stands upright in this position, it is an aid to being able to absorb knowledge in a spiritual way. The larynx is connected with the thinking that man developed during the moon state. Brain thinking is an earth product and can only touch the world of the senses, not the world of the spirit.

With the grip, in which we form a right angle with the thumb, we also do something very significant. It eliminates something in the relationship between people that happens in the most brutal way in our materialistic time. We make the currents finer and thus transform our relationship to the outside world. When we touch a certain point on the upper hand with the bent thumb, the two currents merge, and in this way we can have a beneficial, far-reaching influence for good.

There are no causes in the sensual world, they only live in the supersensible world. Here there are only signs. We should get to know these in our temple so that we learn to apply and use them in a good sense. The foolish anatomy - as foolish as it may sound: it is nevertheless true, even if in our time the anatomy must be recognized for what it is - means that the heart pumps the blood, but in reality the blood is driven by currents in the etheric body. The heart is only the sign that the ether currents come together at that point. For example, our muscles are a sign of the movement that actually originates in the astral body as a tone. Without the muscles, we would not be able to know about the movement; they reflect the movement to us. Our whole body is an apparatus for reflection in each of its parts.

The sacred word [JACHIN] is not pronounced, but spelled, as discussed in the recording. It is a word from the original language, and anyone who exchanges it with another person in thought can use it to transfer healing powers from one person to another. If someone is overcome by suffering, or if we meet someone who is struggling with a severe indisposition or illness, we ask ourselves the question: Do you know the sacred word?, and we address it to the other person in our thoughts, while visualizing the other person giving the answer, of course, all in our thoughts, and thus we exchange the letters and the two syllables with them. In this way, the current passes from one larynx to the other, and [with this] one can influence people in the most favorable way, without their freedom being compromised.

The sign regulates the relationship of the person to the outside world; the grip regulates the relationship of person to person; and the word has a healing and salvific effect on our fellow human beings.