Notes from Mathilde Scholl 1904–1906

GA 91 — 31 August 1906

10. The Molten Sea

The Molten Sea could not be produced by Hiram Abiff until man had passed completely through the fire of passion, until he had descended completely into the earthly fire. So long the Brazen Sea could not become solid. It had to remain undulating, and if it was to be thus fortified, it had to burst. The passion, having become the power, is the destroying principle, which leads everything to the ruin. But after Hiram Abiff had dived down into the fire, into the embers of the brazen sea and had come out of it again, having brought the golden triangle with him - the higher principles of wisdom, beauty and power (Manas, Budhi, Atma) - he could lead the brazen sea to perfection. The brazen sea is the fusion of the lower and higher principles in the physical existence, in the mineral round. This could be fully established only after the complete descent into the mineral world, into the solidification of the physical.

The Molten Sea is the solidification of the astral. As the astral was before the solidification of the physical took place, it was not allowed to be solidified. By passing through the solidified physical, the astral was purified in such a way that it could emerge pure afterwards, and only then could it be solidified. Only then can the word be found which is written on the Golden Triangle. Then only, when the astral is purified, can the Word arise anew, the ethcr body in its new form, expressing the Christ principle.

The education of man is one of freedom. In order that the ego could dwell in man and form him into individuality, it had necessarily to usurp a part of all the forces of the world. Therefore the formation of egoism was a necessity from the middle of the Lemurian race. Until the formation of egoism, man had not yet his own Kama; there everything Kamic was only cosmically present. After the division into two sexes the kamic entered into the individual human being; the superfluous kama was excreted in the moon. Now the formation of the Kama took place in the individual human being. The more the human being solidified physically, the more concentrated also the Kama in him became, since he now faced the outside world more and more, learned to distinguish more and more his I from the rest of the world. He finally forgot that he is a part of the rest of the world and therefore faced the environment as an enemy - Cain slays his brother Abel. From then on, he wanted to have everything only for himself, to seize everything, because he felt the great difference between what he was himself and what did not belong to him, what belonged to the environment. Thus the power of the kama was carried to extremes.

While now on the one hand man became more and more violent in his greed for possessions, on the other hand he had to learn that he cannot possess everything. He had to learn to do without many things. He had to learn that in this way, as he wanted it - outwardly - he can never seize [everything], and through death he was shown that even if he can apparently bring much into his possession, he must again renounce everything when death tears him out of the physical world. Thus man learned resignation. Through many lives he had to learn the difference between the perishable and the imperishable. He had to learn that all external possessions have no existence. Now he looked around for the imperishable; he found it in the higher worlds. Now he learned to direct his desire to the imperishable. He learned to renounce external possessions. Now he began to build himself up inwardly. But as long as there was still any desire for his own possessions, he could not carry this work of inner building to completion.

First the kama power had to be pushed to the top by entering into the mineral solidification, but then just by this passing through the mineral-objective world it had to be purified again and emerge as selfless human love. Thus the cosmic warmth became the individual warmth, the individual power. This lies first of all in piety. Piety brings order into the unbridled passion. It shapes it to harmony, to beauty. Piety was the missing beam of Solomon's temple, which should connect the two pillars. It had to be found before the temple could be built. Only after man had attained piety, the devotion to the higher, could mankind be led to perfection. He could learn this devotion to the higher only by passing through ego consciousness and [by] solidifying in the physical world. Piety also leads him to find the master word that leads him to perfection. Having brought his astral body into harmony through piety, he has attained the Master Word, the wisdom by which he transforms his etheric body into an eternal one, into the sounding Word which is productive.

Given to the people were the pillars: Boaz, strength, physical body, and Joachim, wisdom, etheric body, and further the means of attaining one's perfection: Astral body, Kama, the fire;

He had to learn to work with fire: outside in nature with the physical fire and inside in man with the soul fire, kama. Outside he had to work the mineral kingdom with the help of the physical fire, to shape it into harmony, into a work of art; inside the soul he had to develop first self-consciousness and then inner harmony, piety, enthusiasm - to be in God - with the help of the kama power, to go down completely into passion and then come out again like Hiram Abiff with the golden triangle, the higher forces. Only after he had transformed the passion into piety inwardly and the fire into beauty outwardly, he could also connect the pillars Boaz and Joachim, that is, he could develop upward to wisdom and strength, to Budhi and Atma, because he had worked through Kama manasically. He attains wisdom by purifying the kama through piety; thereby the kama is transformed into pure human love, and on the other hand - by imbuing manas, the power of knowledge with the purified kama - into enthusiasm. Thus the kama is infused with manas, and the warmth of the kama enters into the manasic.

So the crossbar placed over the two pillars leads, on the one hand, to the higher wisdom, Budhi, through piety, love, Christ, and, on the other hand, to the creative power - Atma - through knowledge, enthusiasm, Lucifer. Thus the two pillars of the temple are connected.

The transformation of the mineral kingdom into an outer temple goes hand in hand with the transformation of the surging astral body into harmonious human love. Thus the brazen sea is built in the outer and inner. The mineral world will finally become an expression of man's love. Love within, beauty without: this will become the image of the world then.

Supplement to "The Brazen Sea"

The three companions of Hiram Abiff are the three lower principles; Hiram Abiff is the ego. These three must assist him, but they must not become masters. They destroy the brazen sea. The three lower principles are at first an obstacle for man in the building up of the higher, in the development of the I to freedom. Hiram Abiff dives down into the interior of the earth by plunging into the Sea of Fire. He dives down through the kamic fire into the physical. There he is gifted with the three higher principles, the golden triangle. But when he emerges again, he is attacked and killed by the three journeymen. This represents the struggle that the three lower principles have with the higher ones in man. The ego is the east through which the higher principles enter - like the sun they rise in man. The three companions come from the other three regions of heaven. Before he dies, Hiram Abiff writes the master word on the golden triangle and sinks it into a deep well. He thus points to the time when man will have so purified his astral body that the brazen sea will be fixed, that passion will rest, and his physical and astral bodies will then form the solid ground on which he can stand in further development. At the time of Hiram Abiff, right after the emergence of the I with the self-consciousness, at the becoming objective of the environment, the golden triangle could not yet be erected over the Brazen Sea. This could happen only after the perfect purification of the astral body.