# Self-Knowledge and God-Knowledge I

## GA 90a — 9 September 1904, Berlin

### LVIII. Medieval Wisdom

In every church window, in every saga, in every folk building, in the ideas of everyday life in the Middle Ages, we can find the expression of deep truths. Poems that are not understood today are born out of the spirit of deepest wisdom. The material of “Heinrich von der Aue” was also taken from the circle of European initiates. The “Poor Henry”. Nowhere is it indicated that one is dealing with theosophical poetry; least of all did G. von H. know.

Heinrich von der Aue is a noble servant on the large estate of Aue in Swabia. He is an exceptionally capable knight in all worldly matters, but does not care much about things that go beyond the worldly. Therefore, he was punished with an illness called: Miselsucht - a leprosy that was considered incurable. All German doctors – and in those days they were doctors who healed with the help of spiritual powers – had given up on Heinrich von der Aue; only a master in Salerno had offered the prospect of salvation. A pure maiden must sacrifice her life. But he does not believe this; he realizes that it is the punishment for his worldly knighthood. He gives away his possessions and withdraws to a farm, where he is cared for by the daughter. She decides to sacrifice herself for him; he travels with her to Salerno. Then he realizes that it must not be, and would rather remain ill. But the sufficient sacrifice is not physical death, but the will, the joyful, spiritual will.

One principle was adopted by all poets. One should keep the measure, the harmony. 'Diumaasze'. A theosophical principle often expresses it: It does not depend on the external success, but on the right will. 'Who' - says the poet - 'in the mind strives for purity and nobility and wants the right, finds balance and honor.' – the bliss that emanates from the sixth principle. Through such words, Heinrich von der Aue implies that he has striven for something deeper. Everything he has written breathes the same spirit.

“Erek and Enita” describes how the search is on for moderation, how love arises from uniqueness and harmony from disharmony. Erek marries Enita. He is a bold knight who stipulates that his wife never warns him of danger. But harmony arises from the trials.

Iwein marries the daughter of a giant, but leaves her a year after the wedding because Gawain advises him not to 'get lost', not to become lazy and careless. He goes away for a year to pass tests, promises to come back, but does not, and loses the favor of his wife and his mind. He is saved by fighting lions and dragons. Seventeen years of wandering.

Only through spiritual knighthood can one attain the ability to exercise spiritual rule. In the legends, the higher, purer soul is always symbolized by a female soul; the higher consciousness is represented as the virgin feminine. Through his pure higher soul, which knows what love actually is, through the Master of Salerno, who points out to him how the higher spiritual connects with him through sacrifice.

What is misery for someone who knows what the spiritual and the physical actually are? We know that in earlier developments, man was a higher animal, only earthly development is there to put manas into kama. Basically, all beings in our development partake of this kama-manasic nature. In the animal, manas is not in the head, it is directed by manas. In the various kingdoms, the laws of wisdom come to light. This was not yet the case on the moon, which was only enveloped in an atmosphere of wisdom.

It would be an irregularity on earth if a new kama were grafted directly onto kama itself. If a being lived on kama, it would be the life relationship of the moon. There are such things on earth: they are parasites, insects that live on other creatures. And in the plant world there is mistletoe, a parasite that draws nourishment from already existing life. What the Kama root needs to live is what remained from the moon epoch. Mistletoe remained behind, only stunted, and must live parasitically to complete its development.

Hence the construction of insects, which are often in a horn shell, came into earthly development unfinished and [gap in the transcript]. Animals with an exoskeleton are those that are latecomers from the lunar epoch. It is therefore understandable that mistletoe plays such a role in ancient myths and legends. It is associated with those [...] and who are therefore still attached to the moon, to the Kamic, which was justified in the past.

In the saga, the beings that cause evil, connect their urges with the Kamic, are associated with mistletoe in the most spiritual way. [Baldur] is killed by mistletoe, which stems from an earlier epoch. If it extends into our epoch, it will bring about destruction. Earthly Kama must be ruled by Manas. Life on Earth is being destroyed by the lunar parasites. This is why the devil is called the lord of the flies.

If man himself abandons himself too much to Kama in earthly development, he grafts Kama onto Kama onto Kama and then becomes disharmonious within himself. This disharmony can be seen in the disease that breaks the measure. He is afflicted by the addiction that underlies this plant. Those who abandon themselves to the passions remain stuck in what belongs to the lunar. This damming up of the wave of life produces the disease of misery.

Those who do not strive for spiritual enlightenment experience a stagnation in their whole life. This cannot be understood by a physical doctor, only by someone who knows the connection between all planes. When the dammed up wave of life is lifted, when selfishness is truly sacrificed, then healing occurs.

Iwein is also a deeply symbolic piece of writing. Here again a female being represents the higher self. In this case it is the daughter of a giant, a race preceding humanity. The fusion of man with nature, as well as with [gap in transcript], was the gigantism. At the beginning of his development, Iwein is still close to this original development. He must now awaken Manas within himself. Manas was originally a gift of the gods, connected with the soul. Now he loses the higher gift in order to regain it as inner human intellect. When he reconciles with the higher self, he gains it, but by freeing the lion from the dragon, that is, from selfishness, from the wisdom that is directed towards the worldly.

It is wonderful when we consider the Mithras mysteries: their seven degrees. The fourth degree is the lion. When the fourth principle – lion – awakens in the higher sense, it strives towards the fifth and wants to be freed from the third, the dragon.

These poems arose from tremendous depths; it takes until the sixteenth century for them to surface. With the Copernican revolution, poetry becomes more secularized. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there is tremendous esoteric depth.