5. The Egyptian Mysteries of Osiris and Isis

The lecture yesterday described what is meant by acquiring knowledge of the inner nature of the astral body. We will now consider what the pupil of the Osiris and Isis Mysteries was able, with the help of his teacher, to experience in connection with the etheric body. The elimination of his Ego caused him to see with the spiritual eyes of the teacher, to see himself through the teacher's eyes, to think the teacher's thoughts and to become a kind of external object to himself. In this way remarkable experiences came to him. They were experiences in which he felt as if his life were going backwards in time, as if his whole being—which he was now seeing with the spiritual eyes of the Hermes-priest—were spreading out and expanding; and simultaneously he felt as if he were going backwards in time into periods preceding his present life. Gradually he came to feel as if he were going back many, many years, a span of time very much longer than his life since birth. During this experience he saw, through the eyes of the initiated priest, first of all himself, and then, far out beyond, many generations whom he felt to be his forefathers. For a certain time the candidate for this Initiation had the feeling that he was moving backwards along the line of his ancestors—not as if he were identical with them, but as if he were hovering above them—moving backwards to a definite point, to a primeval ancestor. Then the impression faded—the impression of seeing earthly figures with whom his existence was in some way related.