The Occult Truths of Old Myths and Legends

GA 92 — 30 July 1904, Berlin

VI. The Mysteries of the Druids and Drotten

Our medieval tales – Parzival, the Round Table, Hartmann von Aue – all show us, although usually only understood in the external sense, esoteric formulations of mystical truths. Where should we look for their origin? We must look before the spread of Christianity. What was alive in Ireland, Scotland [and Scandinavia] grew organically into Christianity. We are led to a certain center from which this spiritual life originated. The spiritual life of [Europe] emanated from a central lodge in Scandinavia, the Drottenloge, Druid Lodge. Druid means oak. That is why it is said that the ancient Germans received their instructions under oak trees.

Drotten or Druids were ancient Germanic initiates. In England, [the Druid lodges] existed until the time of Queen Elizabeth. Everything we read in the Edda and can find in the ancient Germanic world of legends goes back to the temples of the drotters or Druids. The poet [of these legends] is always a Druid priest. The legends do not just represent some symbol or allegory – this too, but something else as well.

Let us take an example: we know the saga of Baldur, we know that Baldur is the hope of the gods, that he is killed by the god Loki with the mistletoe; the god of light is killed. This whole story has a deep sense of mystery, which everyone who was initiated not only learned but had to experience.

In the initiation into the mysteries of the Druids and Drotts, the first act was called “seeking out the corpse of Baldur”. It was thought that Baldur is always alive. The quest consisted of a complete enlightenment about the nature of man; Baldur was man as he was lost. Once upon a time, it was not the man of today who lived, but another who was not differentiated, who was not suppressed to the point of experiencing passions, who [still] lived in a finer, more volatile matter - Baldur, the radiant man. When truly understood, the things that appear to us as symbols are to be taken in a higher sense. This human being, who has not submerged into what we today call matter, is Baldur. He dwells in each one of us. The Druid priest had to seek this higher human being within himself. It was made clear to him wherein this differentiation consists, from the high to the low [levels of humanity]. The secret of all initiation is to give birth to the higher man within oneself. What the priest undergoes more quickly, ordinary people will undergo in a long series of developments. In order for these druids to be guides to the rest of humanity, they had to receive this initiation. The man who has risen lower must now overcome matter and reach that higher state again. This birth of the higher man takes place in all mysteries in a certain, same way. The man who had been lost in matter had to be resurrected; one had to go through a series of experiences - real experiences that can be like no sensual experience on this plane. The stages [of initiation]: the first [stage] was that one was led before the so-called Throne of Necessity. One stood before the abyss; one really experienced in one's own body how it is lived in the lower natural kingdoms. Man is mineral and plant, but the present man cannot experience this, he cannot experience what the elementary substances experience, and yet the iron, compelling in the world comes from the fact that we are also minerals, plants.

The next stage led man to see everything that lives in the animal kingdom. All the passions and desires that live in us had to be seen, swirling and tossing. Man had to look at this because the purpose of initiation is to look behind the scenes of the world's existence. Man does not know that his physical shell only covers what swirls through the astral space. The veil of Maya is a real covering, and those who are initiated must see behind it – the veils fall, man becomes clear [in his vision]. This is a special moment: the priest realized that they, [the veils], had contained instincts that would be terrible if released.

The third stage led to the contemplation of the great nature. This is a stage that man without preparation still finds very difficult to comprehend. That there are mighty occult powers resting there and that the world passions express themselves in these natural forces is something that makes man aware that there are forces that he does not even experience in the same way as his own suffering.

The next test is called the “handing over of the snake” by the hierophant. The effects that emanate from it are explained to us by the Tantalus saga. The favor of sitting in the council of the gods [like Tantalus] can be abused. It signifies a reality that certainly elevates man above himself, but binds him to dangers that are not exaggerated in the curse of Tantalus. As a rule, man says he can do nothing against the laws of nature. These are [creative] thoughts. With that thought, which is only a shadowy brain thought, you can't do anything; with the creative thought, which builds and constructs the world, we have, instead of the passive one, the one that is imbued with spiritual, mental power. A caterpillar, blown out, is [merely] the shell of the caterpillar; imbued with the [productive] thought, it is the living caterpillar. In the shell-thoughts, active, creative power is poured in, so that the priest is able not only to look at the world, but to work in it as a magician. The danger is to abuse. At this level, the occultist acquires a certain power by which he is able to deceive even higher beings. He must not only repeat truths, but experience them; decide whether something is true or false. This is the handing over of the serpent by the hierophant.

In the spiritual, there is also a backbone [as in the physical], where it is decided whether one gets a spiritual brain. Man undergoes this process on the [third] level of initiation, [the “path into the labyrinth”]. He is lifted out of Kama and provided with the spiritual backbone to be lifted into the vortices of the spiritual brain. The convolutions of the labyrinth are the same on the spiritual plane as the convolutions of the brain are on the physical plane. Man gains admittance to the labyrinth, to the convolutions within the higher planes.

Then he had to swear to secrecy; a shining sword lay before him, and he had to swear the strongest oath. This meant that from now on man would remain silent about his experiences to anyone who was not initiated like him. These secrets could not possibly be communicated without further ado. But he [the initiate] had the opportunity to shape the legends in such a way that they were the expression of the eternal. If one could express oneself in this way, one naturally had great power over one's fellow human beings. He who forms such a saga imprints something in the human spirit. What is spoken [normally] is forgotten again, and only the very least survives death. Eternal truths survive death longest. Very little of the lower science survives death. The eternal, yes, [that endures], and it reappears in a new incarnation. The Druid priest spoke from a higher plan. If his stories were the expression of higher truths, albeit simple, they penetrated deeply into souls. He had simple people before him, but the truths penetrated into their souls, and they had absorbed something that would be reborn in new incarnations. At that time, people experienced fairy-tale truths. Today, we have a prepared spiritual body, and when we understand higher truths today, it is because we are prepared. Thus, this period, which ended in 61 AD, prepared the spiritual life of Europe, prepared the ground on which Christianity was able to build itself. The teachings [of the Druids] have been preserved, and those who seek can still find access to what was taught in these lodges.

After he, [the Druid priest], had taken his oath on the sword, he had to drink a certain drink, and from a human skull. This had the meaning that man had grown out of the human. The Druid priest must have this feeling towards the lower body. He must feel so objectively and coldly towards what lived in the body that he regarded it only as a vessel. Then he was initiated into the higher secrets and, as he ascended again into the higher worlds, he encountered the living Baldur. He was led into a giant palace covered with sparkling swords. A man approached him, who threw up seven flowers - [the seven planets]. [The initiate beheld three seats; on them were enthroned]: celestial space, cherubim, demiurge. Thus he became a true priest of the sun.

Many read the Edda and do not know that it is a narrative of what really happened in the ancient Druidic mysteries. An immense power lay in the hands of the old Druid priests, a power over life and death. It is a truth that everything is corrupted over time. Druidism was once the highest, most sacred. In the times when Christianity spread, much had degenerated, and there were many black magicians, so that Christianity was like a salvation.

Simply studying these ancient truths illustrates almost all of occultism. No stone was laid on top of the other in the Druid temple as it is today, but precisely according to astronomical measurements; doors were built according to celestial measurements. The Druid priests were builders of humanity. A faint image of this has been preserved in the beliefs of Freemasons. When one learns to see through astral matter, one sees the sun at midnight: 1st initiation.

Handing over the snake: 2nd initiation.

Walking in the labyrinth: 3rd initiation.