XIII. The History of Spiritualism

The questions that spiritualists today seek to answer were the subject of the so-called mysteries throughout antiquity. Let us try to clarify what is meant by mysteries in just a few strokes. In ancient times, it was not customary to proclaim wisdom publicly. People had a completely different view of wisdom and truth. Throughout antiquity, it was believed that in order to recognize supersensible truths, it was necessary to first develop supersensible organs. It was clear that spiritual powers lie dormant in every human being, powers that are not developed in the average person, that spiritual powers lie dormant in human nature, powers that can be awakened and developed through long exercises, through stages of development that are described as very difficult by the followers of the mysteries. Once such powers had been developed and one had become a seeker of truth, it was believed that the seeker of truth would relate to ordinary people in the same way that a sighted person relates to someone born blind. This was the goal within the sacred mysteries. The aim in the spiritual realm was similar to what a doctor aims to achieve today when he operates on a person born blind in order to enable him to see. It was clear that, just as a person born blind who undergoes surgery will see the colors of light and the shapes of things, so too will a person whose inner senses are awakened see a new world that cannot be perceived by the ordinary mind. Thus, the followers of the mysteries sought to transform a person of a lower nature into a person of a higher level of development, an initiate. And only the initiate should be able to discern the supersensible truths through direct perception, through spiritual intuition. The truths could only be communicated to the masses through images. The myths of antiquity, the legends about gods and the creation of the world, which today — and in a certain sense rightly so — appear to us as childish views of humanity, are nothing more than disguises for supersensible truths. Through images, the initiate communicated to the people what he had been able to see within the temple mysteries. All the mythologies of the East, the Greek and Roman mythologies, the Germanic mythology, and the mythologies of the savage peoples are nothing other than pictorial, symbolic representations of supersensible truths. Of course, this can only be fully understood by those who study these myths not only as is customary in anthropology or ethnology, but also in their spirit. Such a person sees that a myth such as the myth of Hercules represents a deep inner truth; they see that Jason's retrieval of the Golden Fleece represents a profound insight that can be seen in its truth.