The Occult Truths of Old Myths and Legends

GA 92 — 8 July 1904, Berlin

III. Sacramentality Daedalus and Icarus

Is the knowledge of what Theosophy teaches something that is of particular importance and significance for wider circles, or is Theosophy something that can only be intended for a few who are particularly interested in it? This question leads to a topic that is rarely discussed, but which needs to be discussed: this is the so-called sacramentalism and the special task of our present root race. The question is: What is sacramentalism, and how does our purely human task relate to it? One might ask: What does it matter to some workman who works all day in a carpenter's shop that Lohengrin was once an emissary of the Holy Grail, inspiring the major cultural movements of the Middle Ages? What, after all, is the significance for the masses of all this talk of lofty spiritual and idealistic goals? The whole question is answered when one understands the essence of sacramentalism.

Today, building on the ideas of the Greeks, I would like to talk about the emergence of our present, post-Atlantean root race in relation to the previous, Atlantean root race, and tie in a few other things about the significance of sacramentalism. You all know the legend of Daedalus and Icarus and also the legend of Theseus. I would like to touch briefly on the tremendously profound meaning contained in the Daedalus-Icarus saga. It is said that once upon a time there lived a man named Daedalus who was able to create works of art that came to life, statues that could see and hear, and machines that moved themselves. Daedalus understood all of this. He was respected throughout the land, but he was also extremely ambitious. He had a nephew, Talos, whom he taught and who soon surpassed him in certain respects. We are told that Talos was able to operate potter's wheels and that he also mastered certain arts that were foreign to Daedalus. Talos studied a snake's jaws, for example, and had the idea of forming a saw from the snake's teeth. Thus he became the inventor of the saw. If we compare the character traits of Daedalus with those of Talos, we will see that Daedalus is concerned with things that have already become alien to our fifth root race. Talos, on the other hand, invents things that belong to the technical skills of the fifth root race. If we draw a comparison with the fourth root race, the Atlanteans, we see how the Atlanteans were able to use the vril force, just as we use steam to power locomotives, machines and so on. This art was lost in the post-Atlantean period. In contrast, our time has the modern ability to assemble inorganic objects into machines. The saga wants to show us this transition. Daedalus then manages to make a kind of wing with which he can rise above the earth. His son Icarus also wants to do this, but he does not succeed and perishes in the attempt. This juxtaposition is intended to show, from the Greek spirit, that the different epochs of our earth's development have different tasks. If one epoch of the earth's development were to take on a task that is only suitable for another, it would perish in the attempt. Everything in its place, everything in its time.

Now the Greek saga has linked something else to the saga of Daedalus. After Daedalus has killed Talos, he goes to Crete to Minos. There is a monster there, the Minotaur. The Minotaur is in contrast to the Sphinx. The Minotaur has the head of a bull with a human body, the Sphinx has a human head with an animal body. The Minotaur was to be restrained in his devastating effects. Daedalus was to banish him; he could do this by building him a labyrinth. The Minotaur had to be fed with humans. Every nine years, seven youths and seven maidens had to be sacrificed to him. The Theseus saga is connected to the Minotaur saga. Theseus was the son of Aegeus. The latter had decreed that Theseus should retrieve the sword and sandals from under a large piece of rock, which his father had hidden there. After Theseus had accomplished various things in Athens, he went to Crete to overcome the Minotaur and free the city of Athens from the delivery of the seven youths and the seven virgins. In Crete, the Greeks were always looking for something very special. It was also in Crete that Lykurgus is said to have studied and received his constitution for a kind of communist community and brought it to Sparta, because in Crete there is said to have been a constitution that was native to all ancient priestly states; they were remnants of the old Atlantean priestly communism, which renounces all personal property. A kind of communism is connected with every original foundation of religion. Even Plato still sees Crete as the seat of an exemplary constitution. This priesthood is a remnant of the old Atlantean structure. Daedalus was able to avert what was harmful in Crete because he was familiar with Atlantean life. In the Minotaur, we see the representative of black magic in Crete. This should now stop. Now the Athenians no longer want to send the seven youths and the seven virgins to Crete. Theseus' ship set out with black sails. After overcoming the Minotaur, he wanted to hoist a white sail instead of the former black one. The black magic should become white. With the help of Ariadne's thread, Theseus succeeds in the undertaking and returns to Athens, [but he forgot to set the white sails]. However, the Greeks were not yet so far that they were completely worthy of the white path. Love should rule in the Ariadne thread. But in those days, Christianity was already foreshadowed in such a way that the love principle - Ariadne - is stolen by Bacchus, who has not yet developed this principle, which is to be spread by Christianity. Theseus, like Hercules, was considered a hero, a sun-runner, an initiate in the sixth degree.

Such a legendary complex became popular knowledge in Greece. The people as such knew these legends. Why did the priests try to put the secrets of the world into the legends? Every priest would have regarded it as something unholy, indeed as an impossible profanation, to incorporate anything into poetry that did not have a deep meaning. At the same time, the priest was aware that the deep meaning could not easily be understood by the people. The people were told the fable, the fairy tale, the myth; in them lay the deep meaning. This is the basic characteristic of all the poetry of the ancients. The further back we go, the deeper the meaning becomes. There was no poetry in those times that did not have a deep meaning. Only later times departed from this priestly view and produced works that had nothing more of these spiritual secrets. Even at the market, only things that flowed out of the spiritual life were to be presented. If we keep this in mind, we can say that there was no other leadership than that of the priests at that time. It was only later that the priestly king was replaced by the secular king. This marks the transition from the old priestly kingdoms to secular kingdoms - archont means steward-king.

An example of this view is the legend of the founding of the Roman state. In ancient times, history was not thought of in terms of narrating external events. Only since Herodotus has history been told as a chronicle. This did not exist before. Everything was presented symbolically. What eyes saw and ears heard was supposed to mean something higher, it was supposed to be the expression of the spiritual. When the priest tried to explain where the Romans had come from, he told us the following: Whenever something like this is realized, the seven sacred principles come into effect in the world. Everything happens in the sequence of the seven principles. First, the divine founder rises from heaven. Then the priest takes out that which is alive in the matter; this then lives as Kama. Then the manas, the mind, is born in the kama. The body, which is itself a holy thing, lives in heaven. It is only unholy when it is misused. These are the four lower principles. Then the three upper ones must come in. Something more perfect, more complete, must enter.

So it was with the founding of the city of Rome. First came Romulus; he came from heavenly spheres, he was the founder. Rome was a founding city of ancient Troy. King Numitor of Alba Longa was the descendant of Aeneas, who had landed in Latium with Trojan refugees. We only need to understand the words: “alba longa” is the white, long dress of the Catholic priests. Amulius means: the unproclaimed, the priest. So Rome was a city of priests as a daughter city of Troy. Numitor is the man of will. He is initially banished to the forest, but becomes the progenitor of the founders of the city of Rome. Romulus is the founder of Roman civilization, the first king. He is also placed among the gods under the name Quirinus. The second king is Numa Pompilius. The third king is Tullus Hostilius; he is the representative of Kama; war reigns there; what in Theosophy is called Kama-Rupa develops. The fourth king is Ancus Martius; he is the representative of Kama-Manas. Technical things are done there. When the fourth principle was ripe, the Etruscan culture was summoned. Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king, brings in Manas. He built the large buildings and water pipes. That which is called Manas is represented in Tarquinius Priscus. The sixth principle is Budhi. It brings about the blessings of human coexistence through love and justice. Servius Tullius is the sixth king of the Romans. He was the one who created order, who gave laws that corresponded to those of the Etruscans. The seventh king is Tarquinius Superbus, the exalted one, but he fell down.

This is how the priest saw the emergence of the city of Rome. This was not an interpretation, but a reality. The cities were governed in such a way that the seven principles were the guidelines for ruling. If something is to flourish on earth, then it must be created in the order of the seven principles. Never would a priest have done something that only his successor should have done. This was all recorded in the books of the temples, which were called the Sibylline Books. That was the plan of history, so to speak. The priests had to follow the Sibylline Books.

Here we are dealing with the realization of spiritual powers that lived in this priestly culture. We see that the world was guided and directed by spirituality. It was only later that the understanding of spiritual governance was lost. We are told about the Etruscan main god Tages, who is said to have risen from the earth while ploughing the fields. Technical buildings and arts and crafts were the characteristics of the Etruscan culture. Every stone of the Etruscan architecture shows that there is something special about it. The aim was to be able to carry the greatest loads with the least material. This is the principle on which Etruscan architecture, vaulted and arched structures, is based. This spiritually guided culture has descended to the physical plane. Personal efficiency now takes precedence. All consciousness of the connection between the lowest activity and the spiritual has ceased. For the occultist it is clear whether a person in a particular position has heard something of the divine intentions and purposes and has absorbed something of what has flowed from the spiritual, because such a person also does the most mundane thing in a completely different way than another person who has not. The consecration that flows from the higher spheres onto earthly life does not flow in the same way for those who are only attached to the physical plane. It is the essence of sacramentalism that man imbues everyday life with spiritual consecration. The purpose of the old legends was to put people's souls into the right vibrations so that they were filled with spiritual power. The simplest action of a naive mind can be sanctified by this. This is something that is effective and will always be effective. Anyone who knows this also knows that a reversal is necessary in our culture. No matter how hard we try to bring harmony and order to this physical plane, it will fail as long as we work only on the physical plane; if harmony is created on one side, disharmony will arise on the other. But if you allow the spiritual to take effect, you will see that everyday life is approached in a completely different way. This is sacramentalism.

This thought also underlies Christian sacramentalism: healing from a spiritual point of view. A sacrament is a physical act performed in such a way that it symbolically expresses a spiritual process. It is a symbolism that has its justification on higher planes. Nothing in the sacrament is arbitrary. Every detail is a reflection of a higher occult process. Anyone who wants to understand a sacrament in which the ceremony is a reflection of a spiritual process must familiarize themselves with the underlying occult process, which is hidden from the outer eye. In every sacrament, something intellectual is not the only thing that takes place, but something that has a real, occult meaning. Take, for example, the occult significance of fire. There was no fire in the earliest developmental epochs. It could only arise when the earth was compacted to such an extent that this fire could be struck out of earthly matter. Therefore, the invention of fire is described to us as a process of our fifth root race.

Prometheus brought fire from heaven to earth. The creation of fire has given our culture its character. Imagine what it would be like if we had no fire. In the first epochs, people had no fire. Our development owes everything intellectual, everything technical to fire. Fire is what leads down to the physical plane. We owe material culture to fire. The priests therefore had to see something special in fire. Thus, in the second post-Atlantean cultural epoch, the Persian magicians saw in fire above all that which must work in the sacrament. What did the Persian priest ceremonially realize on his altar? Occultism knows that there were seven Zoroasters. The Zoroaster of history is the seventh. The Persian magician had a special way of producing fire. This process was the image of the great cosmic origin of fire. There stood the Persian magician with his thyrsus and performed his ceremonies, which every occultist knows well, but only the occultist. This process was a reflection of the great cosmic origin of fire. When the priest schools no longer understood how to create fire with the thyrsus, they at least sought to find a natural fire. At first, they created fire through lightning, and then they propagated it through the so-called eternal fire, which could only be ignited when two logs were laid together. The fire obtained from nature was considered more potent than the artificially produced one. When there was an outbreak of animal disease in England in 1826 and in Hannover in 1828, people took wood and rubbed it to make a fire, because they believed that the herbs cooked in it would be more potent.

Man must infuse spiritual life into every action and every step; and to reintroduce this is the task and aspiration of the spiritual movement. The sacramentalism of earlier times must return. One must know that it is different to act out of the spirit than to act out of the material. To let spiritual life flow out again is our goal.