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

Let us consider for a moment the mood of a man about to be initiated in Greece. He would be instructed somewhat as follows—and here I must, of course, gather together into a few sentences an instruction that extended over long periods. He would be told the following.—Observe how the Earth today carries everywhere in it the iron which is also in man. Once upon a time, when the Earth had not yet become Earth, when it existed in a previous planetary condition, when it was Moon, or perhaps even Sun, and also contained in itself lead, tin, and so on, all the Beings who partook in this earlier form of the Earth shared in these metals and their forces, even as man today shares in the forces of iron. But after the various changes which the ancient form of the Earth underwent, the iron alone persisted in such strength and density that man could permeate his being with it. The other metals named are also still contained in the Earth, but they are no longer of such a nature that man can directly permeate himself with them. They are however also to be found, in an infinitely rarefied condition, in the whole cosmic space which surrounds man.—