10. The Chthonic and the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Transition from Plato to Aristotle

GA 232/1923-12-14/p009 ·1923-12-14 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
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Now in this union of the heights and the depths a fact was perceived that today is but little noticed. It is the fact that man has certain external substances of Nature within him, but not certain others. This fact was observed and studied in its deepest meaning in the Chthonic Mysteries in ancient Greece. You know that iron is part of man’s make-up. There are also other metals in him, calcium, sodium, magnesium, and so on; but there are many more metals which are not in him. If we were to try to find these other metals in man by the use of ordinary scientific methods, that is to say, by analysing the substances in him, then by means of this external investigation we should find in him no lead, no quicksilver, no tin, no silver and no gold.

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