[23]
“But it must be borne in mind that faulty passages do occur in these
reports
not revised by myself.”:
R. Steiner.
Supplementary material
included with the
English edition of Steiner’s GA 171 lectures.
FOREWORD to the English edition of 1984:
The cycle of lectures now being published for
the
first time in English has always presented some difficulties because of
the two
lectures on the Mexican Mysteries, which form an important part of it.
In these
lectures Rudolf Steiner provides some historical material that not only
cannot
be confirmed - like the prehistorical material given in Occult
Science and elsewhere - but appears to be even contrary to
what is available to conventional archaeologists and historians. In
particular,
there are two major areas where at first sight Steiner would seem to
have been
in error, and there appear also to be some errors in detail about the
characteristics of some Mexican deities cited by name. It is certain
therefore
that critics of Rudolf Steiner will cite these anomalies and label them
errors,
in the process attempting to discredit the kind of spiritual
investigation
engaged in by him. To the best of my knowledge - which is admittedly
not complete
- in no other lectures given by Steiner at any time are there any
comparable
divergences from accepted historical fact. With regard to the other
material
taken from the Akasha Chronicle it must be said that much of it is
startling
and of very great interest. But this is impossible to check or confirm
from the
historical and archeological material available to us, but there is
also
nothing in the historical record that can be said to refute it.
In view of the fact that these lectures have
long been
available in German, and some use has been made of them in English
language
publications such as Carl Stegman's The
Other America, it seems necessary now to come to grips with these
apparent
anomalies or errors. Rudolf Steiner gives the name of Vitzlipochtli
[this is
not accurate with regards to the German text, although it is a
reasonable
transliteration; it is unknown how Easton came by this] to a great
initiate of
the white path who succeeds in having a powerful black magician
crucified at
the same period of time when Christ Jesus was crucified on the Hill of
Golgotha. This name, as it was transcribed in 1916 in Dornach where the
lectures were given, is so close to that of the evil god of the Aztecs
some
1300 years later that the two names must be regarded as the same. This
evil god
(Uitzlipochtli or Huitzilopochtli) required human sacrifices, which
were
accompanied by the tearing out of the hearts of the victims. Steiner
gives a
different name to the evil god and says nothing here of the heart,
but insists that it was torn out;
and he even adds that this continued to be true in the time of the
Spanish Conquest
at the beginning of the 16th century A.D., for which also all evidence
of any
kinds is lacking.
It is by no means impossible that all
Steiner's
statements are perfectly correct, but that evidence is unavailable
because of
the maintenance of absolute secrecy in such dreadful mystery rites as
these. It
is also more than possible that a bellicose conquering people changed,
over the
period of some thirteen centuries, the image of their god man of the
period of
the Mystery of Golgotha into an evil god of war. In addition, over the
same
period the tearing out of the stomach (the seat of the will) could have
become
the tearing out of the heart (the seat of the feeling). It is not
necessary for
us to be able to prove or confirm what Steiner tells us from the Akasha
Chronicle, but it does seem worthwhile trying to show that what he says
is not
inconsistent with, and not contrary to what is revealed by the very
sparse
surviving records, literary archeological - and it is entirely fair to
stress
the many centuries that elapsed between the events referred to by
Steiner and
the Spanish Conquest when most of the information was assembled by
Spanish
investigators, who obtained it by questioning the Aztecs of that
period.
It was therefore decided to ask Frédéric C.
Kozlik,
docteur-ès-lettres, an anthroposophist who is familiar with the Mexican
historical and archeological material, to write an introduction for
these two
lectures, mentioning such evidence as he has been able to assemble that
may be
considered to support Steiner's statements, particularly those that
appear to
be contrary to what is officially accepted as history, and presenting
such
arguments as seemed fitting to him to show why it is quite possible
even for an
erudite scholar to accept what Steiner says in preference to going
along with
the official history, so often called by Steiner a fable
convenue. It may be noted that in an article written
subsequent to this introduction Dr. Kozlik suggests that two different
rites
existed in Mexico, one involving the excision of the heart and
the
other of the stomach. His article was published in #11 of the Goetheanum News, March 11, 1984.
The introduction which follows was translated
by me
from his rather dense and packed French that I have in places, with his
approval
and collaboration, simplified and even paraphrased to make it, as we
hope, more
readily comprehensible by a non-specialist readership. Dr. Kozlik
wishes to
make it clear that he is not trying to prove anything that Dr. Steiner
said,
but only to offer hypotheses consistent both with the evidence and with
Steiner's revelations. It will be for the readers themselves to
determine how
far they are willing to go along with him on the basis of what he has
presented.
Colmar, March, 1984
Stewart C. Easton
From
the back cover of the English-language
Anthroposophic Press edition:
“The history presented in most modern
textbooks is a
collection of external facts, arranged chronologically, which seem to
have
occurred without rhyme or reason. Rudolf Steiner takes these facts
fully into
account in this work, but he also goes beyond them to describe the inner impulses at work which make the
intense drama of human development understandable.
“These
lectures take us to ancient Greece to witness the struggle with the spirit of
groundless
fantasy, and to ancient Rome and
the struggle against the forces of centralized political domination. We
hear of
how these two forces, opposed to humanity, threatened to reach a tragic
climax
in the bloody Aztec mysteries of ancient Mexico, until they were thwarted by the heroic
efforts of a
Mexican Sun-initiate.
“Steiner also describes the effects of these
ancient
conflicts - physical and spiritual - as reflected in European history.
The
Knights Templar and their persecution by Philip the Fair, the run-in
between
Sir Thomas More and King Henry VIII, and the healing wisdom of the
Rosicrucians
and in the works of Goethe are all dealt with. It is thus possible,
through
these lectures, to concretely experience part of the on-going drama of
human
development.”
INTRODUCTION to the English edition of 1984:
The lectures of 18th and 24th
September, 1916 on
pre-Columbian America, to which this introduction is devoted,
contain one
obvious and central contradiction: on the one hand there is the
universally
accepted knowledge that on the occasion of human sacrifices it was the
heart
that was plucked out, while Steiner on the other states clearly that it
was the
stomach. So in all that follows we shall have two purposes in mind. It
is not
our intention to make use of all the documents that are available to
us, but
rather to deal in a precise manner with a few of them which seem to
provide
some confirmation of Steiner's statements. We shall then conclude by
providing
the reader with some thoughts of a methodological nature about the
study of the
oral and visual evidence for pre-Columbian Mexican spirituality.
Before embarking on the subject itself it
seems to us
to be most important to consider at some length a few of the
characteristics of
the existing documents. First of all, they are very scarce, and they
contain
many gaps. The architectural remains, the stonework and crafts in
general have
provided some substantial information on Middle American culture,
whereas the
written documents, what we may call in general the conceptual material,
is very
poor. Three, or possibly four Maya manuscripts survive, which may or
may not be
correctly deciphered, as against 27 others destroyed by Fray Diego de
Landa in
1562, all the documents described for example by Alonso Ponce in 1588,
some or
all of which he may have seen, together with all those described by
José de
Acosta in 1590 and Pedro Sanchez de Aguilar in 1639. Most of the
manuscripts
assembled by later collectors such as the Frenchman Abbé Charles
Etienne
Brasseur de Bourbourg were lost, as well as those destroyed in 1847
during the
civil war in Yucatan, the so-called “war of the castes.” Such a
total of
manuscripts is beyond computation, and to these must be added the
numberless
chronicles destroyed in Upper Yucatan in 1870.
The Mexican manuscripts in the strict sense
of the
word have experienced similar vicissitudes, though from a historical
viewpoint
they were even more spectacular. The fifteen “codices” in our
possession, even
if we include other texts such as the monumental collection of Sahagun
and the
Annals of Cuauhtitlan, are only a few remnants of what at one time was
a vast
corpus. Itzcoatl, the fourth Aztec king (1427-1440) commanded all the
documents
of the subject peoples to be destroyed, while Juan de Zumarraga, the
first
bishop of Mexico, was responsible for the auto-da-fe in 1528
of a
“small mountain” of manuscripts heaped up by missionaries in the
marketplace of
Tezcoco.
Even though we examine with the greatest care
the few
crumbs that remain in the hope of extracting as much information from
them as
possible, it must be recognized that for purely statistical reasons
they cannot
provide any kind of an overall panorama of the cultural reality of Mexico in the historical sense of the term. And
this remains
true even when we take into account also such useful material as is to
be
gleaned from the iconography of the stonework or general ornamentation,
which
is necessarily fragmentary. However ingenious those investigators who
rely on
these documents may be, they will never be able to extract from them
what is
not there - and there can be no doubt that what is missing is the
greatest part
of Mexican culture. For this reason it is not logically possible to use
this
tiny fragment of pre-Columbian history for the purpose of trying to
refute the
work of a spiritual investigator.
We shall now proceed to a point by point
comparison
between the indications given by Steiner in his two lectures on the
subject,
and the various documents that are available. The most important is the
Codex
Florentin of Sahagun (here abbreviated to Sah.) in the remarkable
Anglo-Nahuatl
edition of Anderson and Dibble published from 1950 to 1961 by
the University of New Mexico at Santa Fe (General
History of the Things of New Spain).
Steiner places the original Meso-American
mysteries
long before the beginning of our era. For this epoch, which covers the
pre-classical and probably also the classical periods, all documents
are
therefore lacking. Moreover, we many easily imagine that the
iconography
evidence, as for example for the second period of Teotihuacan, will scarcely offer us any indications
because of
the secret character of this high (if degraded) initiation. It seems
hopeless
to expect to find external traces of this initiation in view of the
fact that
most Mexican art was of a public nature, whether employed for the
ornamentation
of the temples or for such artisinal products as pottery. Since the
veil of
secrecy regarding initiation could have been lifted only as the result
of a
betrayal, it is in the highest degree unlikely that anything bearing on
it
could have survived. And it was precisely at the period we are
discussing that
the Mysteries reached their highest point, not when the cult of Taotl
was in decline.
It my well be that there was such a
decline after the destruction of the great black magician mentioned by
Steiner,
and that this was accompanied by the growth of theocracy - for which
the
architectural and theological vigor of Teotihuacan II and III provides
evidence. With regard to objects having an esoteric character and for
this
reason not public, the case might be different. We shall return to this
point
later, while always keeping in mind Juan de Zumarraga's boast that he
destroyed
20,000 “idols.”
The only indications that it would be
reasonable to
look for are oral traditions from very much earlier transcribed into
the
Nahuatl language at a time when such knowledge was no longer forbidden.
It is
of course a well known fact that the failure to commit oral literature
to
writing has the effect of preserving it better than when it is, as we
say,
“fixed” in writing. Even if transmission by word of mouth involves
numerous
changes, especially in a period when an earlier original spirituality
is in decline,
nevertheless oral transmission does still contain an inner impulse
necessarily
lacking in a written document.
Steiner begins by speaking of Taotl:
“Before the discovery of America, there were mysteries of the most varied
kind in the
western hemisphere.... Like a single central power whom all followed
and
obeyed, a kind of spectral spirit was revered.... This spirit was
called by a
name that sounded something like Taotl.”
The Florentine manuscript contains in several
places
the word teutl (e is the vowel
preferred by modern scholars) god, or teteuh,
gods, in the categorical meaning of the term.
“First Chapter, which telleth of the highest
of the
gods (teteuh).
“Second Chapter, which telleth of the god
(teutl)...”
(Sah. I).
The same word is used by the Aztecs in
addressing
Cortés: “May the god (in teutl) deign to hear...” (Sah. XII).
In taking account of Steiner's indications we
are
faced with a process of abstraction that developed in the course of
time, by
which the “single central power” spoken of by Steiner and common to all
the
mysteries has become the collective “concept”
of the gods. Such a process extending over thousands of years seems
plausible
to us.
The second point, which we shall examine,
concerns
Uitzilopochtli (or Vitzliputzli, as the name was transcribed in
Steiner's
account). In the lecture of September 18th the words appear: “At a
certain time
a being was born in Central
America who set
himself a
definite task within this culture. The old ... inhabitants of Mexico ... said that he had entered the world as
the son of
a virgin, who had conceived him through super earthly powers, inasmuch
as it
was a feathered being (called in the lecture of 24th September a
“bird”) from
the heavens who impregnated her.” The later lecture also makes it clear
that
“Vitzliputzli was a human being, a being who appeared in a physical
body.”
So it is a question here of the incarnation
of a
spiritual being who was not a human being in the usual sense of the
term. It
was only his incarnation in a physical body that made him similar to
men. This
corresponds very exactly with what is to be found in the Codex
Florentin (Sah.
I):
“First Chapter, which telleth of the highest
of the
gods whom they worshipped ... Uitzilopochtli ... was only a common
man...”
The legend to which Steiner refers forms an
integral
part of the Codex (Sah. III):
“And once... feathers descended upon her —
what was
like a ball of feathers.... Thereupon by means of them Coatlicue
conceived
[Uitzilopochtli].”
The following are the principal features of
the
mission of Uitzilopochtli, as Steiner gives them, in connection with
the great
initiate of the Toatl cults, whom he
does not name:
“At this time in Central America a man was born who was destined by birth to
become a
high initiate of Taotl... This was one of the greatest black magicians,
if not
the greatest ever to tread the earth...”
“Then a conflict began between this
super-magician and
the being to whom a virgin birth was ascribed, and one finds from one's
research that it lasted for three years.... The three-year conflict
ended when
Vitzliputzli was able to have the great magician crucified, and not
only
through the crucifixion to annihilate his body but also to place his
soul under
a ban, by this means rendering its activities powerless as well as its
knowledge. Thus the knowledge assimilated by the great magician of
Taotl was
killed.”
The continuation of the legend quoted by
Steiner deals
with the way Uitzilopochtli came into the world (Sah. III).
“At Coatepec ... there lived a woman named
Coatlicue,
mother of the Centzonuitznaua. And their elder sister was named
Coyolxauhqui...
Coyolxauhqui said to them: `My elder brothers, she hath dishonored us.
We [can]
only kill our mother...' And upon this the Centzonuitznaua... when they
had
expressed their determination that they would kill their mother,
because she
had brought about an affront, much exerted themselves... But one who
was named
Quauitlicac... informed Uitzilopochtli [who was not yet born]. And
Uitzilopochtli said to Quauitlicac `...I already know [what I shall
do'...
“Then Quauitlicac said to him: `...At last
they arrive
here'... And Uitzilopochtli just then was born... He pierced
Coyolxauhqui, and
then quickly struck off her head... And Uitzilopochtli then arose; he
pursued,
gave full attention to the Centzonuitznaua; he pursued all of them
around
Coatepetl. Four times he chased them all around... he indeed destroyed
them; he
indeed annihilated them; he indeed exterminated them ... And only very
few fled
his presence.”
It is startling to recognize how well these
lines
agree with what Steiner has given, and how fifteen centuries of oral
tradition
have only slightly altered the facts made available by occult
investigation.
According to Steiner's indications regarding the differences between
white and
black magic, the latter includes a strong dose of egoism, and permits
the
magician to investigate his own future for selfish aims (a practice, as
Steiner
often pointed out, forbidden to true occultists). The legend confirms
this
element of black magic when it speaks of the foreseeing
of the birth of the man who is to fight against the
forces of evil, and of the attempt made to prevent his incarnation.
This is
clearly shown in the dialogue between Quauitlicac and Uitzilopochtli
who,
though not yet born, is fully conscious of his own mission. The
three-year
struggle indicated by Steiner has a good correspondence with the four
times
that the Centzonuitznauas were chased around Coatepetl, before they
were
finally wiped out. Since the great Taotl initiate would naturally be
supported
by a powerful troop of helpers all equally devoted to evil, the legend
confirms
that this was indeed the case when it speaks of how the Centzonuitznaua
- i.e.,
the multitude of the Uitznaua - were “exterminated,” and “very few fled
his
presence” (i.e., not all), thus confirming that the mysteries continued
to
exist, even though, as indicated by Steiner, they had lost the greater
part of
their power.
One further remark on this subject, to be
taken into
consideration only as a possibility, a hypothesis. Steiner does not
indicate
the name of the great initiated black magician. The legend, however, is
most
explicit on the matter. The feminine personage (this would be part of
the
alteration over the centuries) who was the first to wish to prevent
Uitzilopochtli from coming into the world, and who was the first to be
killed (pierced, as the legend says, in this
suggesting the crucifixion) since she was the principal enemy, is
Coyolxauhqui
(Coyolli meaning fish-hook and xauhqui meaning adorned or decorated).
Might
this not be the name, or a corruption of the name of the great black
magician?
And indeed it may be easily imagined that a personage of this kind did
not take
part personally in the struggle against Uitzilopochtli and his forces,
but was
only the inspirer of the war waged by his (her?) troops to preserve his
knowledge and power intact against the most deadly of his enemies.
The only real contradiction in our hypothesis
results
from the reversing of the time sequence. According to Steiner it was at
the end
of the Three Years' War that the black magician was put to death,
whereas in
our quotation the death of Coyolxauhqui occurred before the final
disastrous
conflict. This could be a question of one more alteration, or one could
perhaps
entertain the hypothesis that the magician's name was Uitznaua, or,
more
likely, a variant of this name-Uitznaua being a plural word designating
a
Mexican tribe.
The Aztec rites at the period of the Conquest
were
only a vestige of what was “flourishing” at the beginning of our era.
In view
of the particular character of these rites it is in keeping with them
that a
demonical character should have been attributed to Uitzilopochtli. As
Sahagun
says, “Uitzilopochtli was ... an omen of evil.” (Sah. I). But their
transitory
character by comparison with the original orientation of these rites in
the
past might well have resulted in an all-embracing syncretism, combined
with
fear and veneration toward Uitzilopochtli. And indeed the documents do
give
evidence of this mixture. The “diabolical” Uitzilopochtli is at the
same time
the god of a paradise that is fervently desired. As Cortés says in his
Third
Letter: “They all desired to die and go to `Ochilibus' (Uitzilopochtli)
in heaven,
who was awaiting them...” This attitude is also to be found in their
desire to
be impregnated by this divinity as demonstrated in numerous religious
ceremonies. “And of those who ate it, it was said, “they keep the god.”
(Sah.
III).
Steiner's third statement gives us
information about
Tezcatlipoca:
“Many opposing sects were founded with the
objective
of countering this devilish cult (of Taotl). One such sect was that of
Tezcatlipoca. He too was a being who did not appear in a physical body,
but who
was known to many of the Mexican initiates, in spite of the fact that
he lived
only in an etheric body.”
Compare this with the story as told by
Sahagun:
“Third Chapter, which telleth of the god
named
Tezcatlipoca ... he was considered a true god...” (Sah. I). “...even as
an only
god they believed in him ... he was invisible, just like the night, the
wind.
When sometimes he called out to one, just like a shadow did he
speak.”(Sah.
III).
By contrast with Uitzilopochtli who was both
god and man, Tezcatlipoca is a real,
veritable god, a clear
confirmation of what Steiner says. This is reinforced by a striking
agreement:
The initiate (that is, “one,” i.e., aca
(somebody) perceives “just like a shadow” (can
iuhquj ceoalli, literally, only like shadow), that is to say, the
etheric,
the etheric body being remarkably suggested by the nahuatl term. Ceoalli means “the shadow made by the
body when it intercepts the light;” not a shadow in the abstract sense,
but
something that is similar to the
physical without actually being physical.
Let us continue with Sahagun:
“When he (Tezcatlipoca) walked on the earth,
he
quickened vice and sin. He introduced anguish and affliction. He
brought
discord among people.... But sometimes he bestowed riches — wealth,
heroism,
valor....” (Sah. I).
Since the point of view here is the same as
that
attributed to Taotl, it is natural that Tezcatlipoca should be seen as
spreading evil in all its forms. But
as in the case of Uitzilopochtli it is clear that there has been a
noticeable
syncretism, as may be seen in the way “sometimes” Tezcatlipoca (in quenman) benefits human beings.
Quetzalcoatl is the fifth being mentioned by
Steiner:
“Another sect venerated Quetzalcoatl. He too
was a
being who lived only in an etheric body.” (24/9). “He had much in
common with
the spirit whom Goethe described as Mephistopheles.” (18/9).
Bearing in mind that the great temple of Teotihuacan, belonging to the period with which we are
concerned,
was dedicated in part to Quetzalcoatl, we read as follows in Sahagun:
“Fifth Chapter, which telleth of the god
named
Quetzalcoatl.... Quetzalcoatl — he was the wind.” (Sah. I).
“Third Chapter, which telleth the tale of
Quetzalcoatl, who was a great wizard.... This Quetzalcoatl they
considered as a
god; he was thought a god.... And the Toltecs, his vassals, were highly
skilled. Nothing was difficult when they did it.... Indeed these
(crafts)...
proceeded from Quetzalcoatl.... And these Toltecs were very rich; they
were
wealthy. Never were they poor. They lacked nothing in their homes.”
(Sah. III).
While taking note of the use of the same word
“wind” (ehecatl) to characterize the substance
of both Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, a substance that we have
identified as
“etheric” in the sense indicated by Steiner, we may think we are also
in the
presence of a resume of the gifts acquired by Faust by virtue of his
position
as “vassal” of Mephistopheles - the word maceualli
meaning “vassal” just as well as its more usual meanings of “merit” or
“reward.”
We find also in the legends the antagonism
between
Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, as indicated by Steiner. For example in
the Annals of Cuauhtitlan there is mention
of “Quetzalcoatl vanquished by the sorcery of Tezcatlipoca,” again
equating him
with Taotl as well as referring to his defeat, as described by Steiner.
This
antagonism may also be seen in certain rites, as when, for example, a
priest
playing the part of Quetzalcoatl “kills” the statue representing
Uitzilopochtli:
“And upon the next day the body of
Uitzilopochtli
died. And he who slew him was (the priest known as) Quetzalcoatl. (Sah.
III).
The mention in the Codex Florentin of the
vassals of
Quetzalcoatl, that is to say of a kind of clan devoted to this
divinity,
implies the existence of a division of opinion among the Mexicans. It
is
possible to glimpse this dichotomy in the prayer addressed to the
“good”
Tezcatlipoca:
“O lord of the war ... pity me; give me what
I require
as my sustenance, my strength, of thy sweetness, thy fragrance.” (Sah.
III).
Then, a few lines later, we learn that:
“And also of
Totlacuan (Tezcatlipoca) they said that he also gave men misery,
affliction ...
he stoned them with plagues, which were great and grave...”
Having in mind the text of Steiner it would
seem that
we are here faced with an attribution of the evil deeds of Quetzalcoatl
to
Tezcatlipoca. But as the point of view adopted in the Codex is primarily that of Taotl, it is in
keeping with this that, as was the case of Uitzilopochtli, the enemy
should be
clothed with the attributes of evil.
Another important agreement between Steiner
and the
traditions is provided by the cosmogony: the first era (Four Ocelot) of
the
great ages was presided over by Tezcatlipoca, then the
second (Four Winds) was rules by Quetzalcoatl, in this in
conformity with the “sending” of Quetzalcoatl, in order to combat the
already
existing influence of Tezcatlipoca.
We shall now broach the subject of the ritual
of the
excision - of the stomach, according to Steiner; of the heart,
according to
what is to be found in all the widely known documents on the subject.
But
before continuing, let us mention one detail that is in fact of crucial
importance; we have found in Steiner's personal library a book in which
the
tearing out of the heart is related.
As Steiner all through his life gave evidence of a capacity for reading
that is
quite extraordinary, it is entirely reasonable to conclude that he knew about this rite of the tearing out of
the heart.
In 1904, in #22 of the ethnological review Globus, Fischer for the first time, as
far as we know, brought to the attention of the world a figurine in
nephritic
stone, which we reproduce here [the image is removed from the text and
is
reproduced below].
This statuette of unknown origin, now in the
Linden
Museum of Stuttgart, shows two openings hollowed out one above the
other. The
upper orifice, which penetrates into the body to a distance of 80 mm,
begins at
the sternum and ascends at an angle of about 45º and constitutes a
cavity that
is almost spherical. Its opening has a diameter of 16 mm and when it is
5 mm
into the body it is enlarged to 22 mm. Fischer, as well as Seler in his
1904
communication to the Congress of Americanists, confirms that this is a
cavity
that reminds us of the rite of the tearing out of the heart. We indeed
share
this opinion, especially in view of the fact that the usual method for
plucking
out the heart is via an incision under the sternum, the priest having
to thrust
his hand upwards to grasp the heart.
That this was his method of taking hold of it is confirmed by the
inclination
upwards of about 45º of the cavity, and its roundness
corresponds likewise to the global form
of the heart.
The second cavity, less deep than the first -
penetrating
only 40 mm into the body - is oval, and its opening has the dimensions
of 11.5
by 18 mm. It also becomes wider in the interior. From being 10 mm at
the
orifice its diameter is widened to 28 mm. By contrast with the upper
cavity -
that of the heart - it ascends only very slightly. Seler, not having
any
definite argument to put forward, supposes that the second cavity
merely
indicates the absence of the navel or umbilical cord. Now bearing in
mind the
way in which the first cavity corresponds to the heart and the manner
in which
it was torn out, from an anatomical point of view it is clearly the stomach that corresponds to this ovoid
cavity - the stomach, unlike the
heart, being directly accessible as soon as the excision is made. Hence
the
depth, as well as the very slight upward inclination by comparison with
the
heart. We may also make the observation that the two organs, slightly
off
center toward the left in the human body, correspond very well to the
two
openings made one above the other.
The detailed analysis made by Seler of this
figurine,
which is carefully and totally covered with symbols, arrives at the
conclusion
that the statuette - aside from its connection with Xolotl and Tlaloc -
represents Tlauizcalpantecutli, the
god of the planet Venus. But an unusual
feature, and noted as such by Seler,
is that this is here a divinity with the attributes of Quetzalcoatl.
Unusual
though this may be it is not, however, unique, for the Codex Borgia -
as Seler
points out in the same analysis - shows Quetzalcoatl emerging from the
mouth of
the god of the Wind as the planet Venus. And as the Wind god is
Quetzalcoatl
himself we have here a kind of double within the duality
Quetzalcoatl-Venus.
The nephritic figurine therefore presents us, in what is certainly very
esoteric symbolism, an unexpected link, as far as our present documents
are
concerned, between Quetzalcoatl, god of the planet Venus, and the
tearing out
of the stomach - a conjecture that we go so far as to regard as almost
certain.
And since the planet Venus is among other things the seat of the
Luciferic
forces this idol is a noteworthy illustration of the Ahriman-Lucifer
duality
linked to the tearing out of the stomach as it is also to the tearing
out of
the heart. This is, from an occult point of view, an insignificant
inference
from the indications given by Steiner.
There remains one last problem which, for the
moment,
is still awaiting solution: the indication by Steiner that Europeans
were put to death by having their stomachs torn out -
and the remarks with which Steiner follows this
statement constitute the real riddle here. “The fact is even know to
history,”
he tells us and “this is a matter of historical knowledge.” Though we
cannot
pretend to resolve this contradiction, we may propose two directions
for
research along the lines we have followed here. Either Steiner is
quoting some
historical work without naming it - perhaps a book available only in
German -
which tells of the association mentioned above. Or else Steiner, after
examining some iconographic elements of the documents concluded that
the
stomach was the organ referred to when it was tacitly traditionally
accepted as
being the heart.
In the new (1984) German edition of the
present cycle
the editor tells us that Rudolf Steiner's library contained a book by
Charles
V. Heckethorn entitled Geheime
Gesellschaften, Geheimbünde und Geheimlehren, in which both
the excisions, the heart and the stomach, are referred to, and
these were said to have been practiced on the Spaniards as well as on
others.
However, this book, which is not a historical but a popular work,
contains
descriptions that are very approximate and no doubt partly imagined;
and it is
clear that Heckethorn has not read Sahagun's work edited by Bustamente
in
Spanish in 1829 and in French by Siméon in 1888. In view of the fact
that
Steiner provides very precise descriptions that are not those given by
Heckethorn, nor those that have come down to us in any historical
documents
known to us, we do not believe that Steiner, as the editor says in a
footnote,
relied on this book, especially when we keep in mind that it is
absolutely not
a “historical” reference book. So the problem remains still unsolved.
To conclude we should like to begin the
second part of
our discussion by outlining a number of reflections on the subject of
the methodology
of the study of what are commonly called “mythologies.” It is possible
in a
schematic but not altogether incorrect manner to separate two
fundamentally
different tendencies. The first adopts an anthroposophical viewpoint,
held by
only an almost negligible minority of officially recognized scholars.
These
hold that mythologies are the remnants of what were once clairvoyantly
perceived facts, that is to say, a perceptible
and comprehensible universe, formerly
perceived in pictures. This
approach was inaugurated by Steiner on the basis of his own personal
investigations, which he only later
compared with what had survived from ancient cultures. Today the
anthroposophist, or someone who wishes to follow this path but lacks
the
capacities possessed by Steiner, aside from using his awakened
sensibilities
which can indeed be of real help to him, can only place the totality of
what
Steiner has taught about the spiritual world over against the
mythological
facts as they are revealed by the various traditions.
The second path is the one taken by almost
all current
studies. The spiritual world is invariably regarded as nothing but the subjective creation of the individual
and no effort is therefore made to look for anything truly
suprasensible.
Looked at from a strictly logical point of view, which ought to
predominate in
any scientific study, it is entirely legitimate to regard mythical
facts as
purely subjective, in the absence of clear, controlled and
understandable
suprasensible perceptions. But such premises must they always be looked
upon
solely as working hypotheses, and
never as untouchable dogmas overruling all other considerations. Indeed
the
difference between hypothesis and dogma is fundamental. A hypothesis as
such
never loses sight of its contrary hypothesis, and results alone can
eventually
eliminate one of the premises. Another unscientific defect may be noted
in the
attribution of an exclusively subjective character to mythologies: from
the
point of view of logic the inability to perceive the suprasensible
cannot lead
one to affirm that such perception does not exist! A man blind from
birth
cannot do otherwise than recognize that for
him colors do not exist. But the same blind man would commit an
egregious
error in elementary logic if he were to conclude that in the case of
everyone
else colors are also subjective and not perceived, and if he were to
insist
also that the names given to colors are therefore meaningless! Although
this
example may be a little crude it is nevertheless a fair picture of the
abnormal
situation in which every science that claims to be serious finds itself
at the
present time.
A second feature of this orientation is its
conceptual
framework which results in a poverty of concepts that most of the time
drives
one to despair. Thus Coyolxauhqui is abstractly associated with both
“moon” and
“goddess” to make her “goddess of the moon.” But what does this
association
mean in reality? The unlikely ceremony of flaying (practiced in the
Mexican
rites) is supposed to be a “commemoration” of the simple process of
husking the
ears of corn - and this, in spite of the varied and extraordinary
social
consequences, the frenzied emotions of the participants, and the
outlandish
reversal of the natural order of things involved in a rite of this
kind!
A well-known reaction to this type of
excessively
naive speculation exists today in all those tendencies comprised under
the
general name of structuralism, especially in the works of Levi-Strauss,
who
looks upon mythology as nothing but imaginative pictures constructed
out of the
social and geographical realities of a given epoch. If we examine
closely the
“studies” of Levi-Strauss we find they are based on a kind of
fundamental
dogmatism. They give the illusion of being impeccably scientific, but
in fact
they lead to a bewildering series of vicious circles. Instead of
regarding
materialism as simply a working hypothesis yet to be proved,
materialism is put
forward as a dogma, and conclusions are then deduced from the original
dogmatic
content. The logical worth of this kind of procedure can be illustrated
from
the following picture. Let us imagine an ethnologist blind from birth
who is
investigating a tribe made up persons with more or less seriously
defective
eyesight, who are the distant descendants of ancestors whose sight was
normal.
His informant will tell him about the round shape of the sun and
explain that
it is the source of heat, the latter being the only aspect of the sun
that is
perceptible to the blind ethnologist. Since the ethnologist denies the
existence of any other kind of perception than his own he will seek to
“explain” the round shape of the sun by taking under consideration all
the
other facts he can find associated with the sun - what the
structuralists call
the infrastructures. It is easy to imagine that there may be “real”
facts in
the sense in which the ethnologist conceives of them, which will permit
him to
associate the source of heat with the round shape of the sun. His
learned work
of explanation will certainly be coherent and in a certain way
irrefutable, but
it will be at the same time absurd,
the round shape being simply the result of ordinary perception, shared
by
everyone except the ethnologist! Broadly speaking, that is the
“scientific”
edifice which is all we possess to explain the entire realm of
mythology!
The objection might be raised that we are
doing no
better than the men whose work we are criticizing. Instead of the dogma
of
subjectivism we are substituting an equally dogmatic objectivism. Yet
in fact
there is a crucial difference. We are dealing here with two different
conceptual frameworks, one provided by materialism and the other by
anthroposophy, neither of them being of course perfected and completed
systems.
Faced with the data of mythology the first approaches them in a
negative way, dogmatically rejecting what they claim to be,
namely descriptions of real and not subjective facts, such as life
after death,
spirits, divinities and the like. By contrast the second approaches
them
positively. It tries to approach the data of mythology by entering into
this
material from within, so to speak, making use of a series of concepts
which
correspond exactly to the mythological symbols, not in an arbitrary
manner but as the necessary complement to the
percepts of which the symbols themselves are the reflected images.
One can
then raise the objection that the Steinerian system is just as
subjective as
the mythologies, and therefore lacks all objective validity. Aside from
the
fact that once the Steinerian system is known
this objection might well disappear, the difference between the two
conceptual
systems might also be demonstrated objectively. This could be done on a
statistical basis, the general principle applicable to all research
that makes
use of models.
The most coherent model is regarded as that
which
takes in the largest number of phenomena,
and is therefore superior to any other model that covers fewer facts.
Take, for
example, the Aztec rite of flaying. Is there at the present time any
serious
psychological system that is coherent and applicable over a wide range
of
phenomena that can offer any explanation of how it could be that the
unlikely
sequence of tortures, murders, and rites so repulsive as to be scarcely
imaginable, should have been the commemoration
of the husking of a plant??? This pretended similarity between the
flaying of a
human being and the husking of a plant is surely an idea so far-fetched
as to
be totally worthless. Anthroposophical concepts are of course not
waiting
passively to be made use of for mythological studies, including studies
of the
kind just mentioned. But when the first steps in this direction have
been
taken, only then will the time come when we can talk of a confrontation
between
the facts and the fundamental
teachings of anthroposophy - not a confrontation between anthroposophy
and the
present materialistic edifice constructed from the beginning out of
pure
dogmatism, but an undogmatic examination of the material and
non-material
remains (for example mythology, popular stories and the like) just as
they were
at the time of their original discovery. This examination should not be
based
on the dogmatic notions prevalent at that time, which, as far as
present day
popular and scholarly opinion is concerned, have indeed endured to this
day.
Materialism possesses no concept capable of
being
applied in a positive manner to Uitzilopochtli, who was both a god and
at the
same time only a man. It is obliged
to flatten out the original texts, thus implicitly showing its contempt
for
their authors; and it can only condescendingly refrain from paying any
attention to what appears to it as at most a piece of poetic imagery -
for
example, Tezcatlipoca appearing like a
shadow. This bespeaks neither a true scientific spirit, nor does it
show any
sign of a true respect for others. When will all this change?
Frédéric
Kozlik
France, 1984
*Lecture
given Sep. 11, 1916
contained in volume 272 of the bibliographic survey of Steiner's works.
It has
not been published in English translation.
Dr. Koslik, d. Sept. 22, 1989, was director of the “Paul of Tarsus” branch
of the
Anthroposophical Society in Alsace, France.
Following the next passage, we paste a
full-color
picture of the figurine referred to by Dr. Koslik, published in black
&
white halftone in the Anthroposophic Press edition, along with some
additional
illustrations.
We
also include a short description of the term “Mesoamerica” which emphasizes its complexity, supporting
our contention that
generalizing from Rudolf Steiner’s broad characterizations is a tricky
proposition:
The
Boundaries of Mesoamerica
I. What we call Mesoamerica was a historical reality. It was a sequence,
spanning a thousand
years, of strongly linked societies.
2. Obviously the complexity of the
interrelated societies
was heterogeneous, as much in the succession of events across a
thousand years
as in the simultaneous existence of societies developing in different
ways.
3. The ties established among these societies
were
diverse and changeable. The social relationships that gave rise to Mesoamerica are not limited to one, permanent, universal
type.
4. Although during certain epochs and some
regions of Mesoamerica some kinds of relationships prevailed over
others, the essence of Mesoamerica derives from the whole complex of
relationships, their combinations,
relative strengths, and not merely from the dominant type.
5. Therefore what is Mesoamerica cannot be discovered by the presence of
characteristic relationships
or traits at all times and places. The totality of relationships is not
an
average of constants but a historical succession.
6. The dominance of some relationships over
others was
not a matter of chance It obeyed the above-mentioned common course of
history.
7. Relationships among the various
Mesoamerican
societies gave rise not only to
similarities among them, but also to differences and limitations due to
asymmetrical interdependencies.
8. There was no obligatory coincidence in the
extent
or duration of the common elements in different areas of social
behavior. For
instance similarities in the field of politics that might have existed
among
various Mesoamerican peoples in a given epoch did not necessarily imply
that
there were similarities in the artistic field over the same period. Nor
did
political relationships last the same length of time as artistic ones.
If we
block out on maps of Mesoamerica the various common elements, the colors for
the
different elements would not overlap in a uniform way. This would also
be true
if we drew them on chronological scales. This is due to the fact that
between
one social area and another there was no mandatory reciprocal
correspondence,
because this coordination, although firm, could involve multiple, rich
variables.
These are some of the understandings
necessary for the study of Mesoamerican myth and its continuity. Let us
take up
briefly some of the points mentioned. In the age-old history of
Mesoamerica, the ties among the various peoples living
there are particularly
noticeable from the beginning of the sedentary period. This enables us
to
identify the origin of Mesoamerica with sedentary agriculture, even though the
connections began in even remoter times. The decisive step in the
formation of Mesoamerica was the domestication of corn between 6000
and 5000 B.C. The slow
process of settling down would come later and, with it, the development
of
agricultural techniques, which made advanced farmers of the
Mesoamericans.
Relations among the ethnic groups who
occupied the
area between 25 degrees and 10 degrees
north latitude had to be varied and changeable. Through history the
Mesoamericans formed societies differing widely in complexity, from
primitive
farming villages to populations of high density made possible by
intensive
agricultural technology; from simply structured groups to stratified
societies
forming centralized states. Their ties were economic, political,
religious, and
cultural in the broadest sense of the word. Geographical diversity and
specialization in production originally brought about a simple exchange
of
goods, foreshadowing later commercial routes and, later still, the
establishment of markets and even suprastate organizations for
production.
Politically Mesoamerican ethnic groups associated through alliances,
often
strengthened by kinship or marriage, and also through wars, conquest,
and
consolidation (in epochs of major development) of tributary systems.
Political
complexity reached its peak with the founding of governments based not
exclusively on blood ties but on territorial domination over
populations
differing in ethnicity and language. From the conflicts arising among
neighboring nations, resulted regulatory norms that culminated in
tribunals
formed by several dominant nations. Ethnic and linguistic ties were
important
in all of these alliances, sometimes as conditions favorable to
harmonious
relationships, at other times to justify political consolidations
through
hidden or outright conquests.
The intensity of links of either kind
created a joint cultural creation in which ideology in its widest forms
of
expression served to defend interests in agreement or in conflict. In
this way
a common Mesoamerican culture was built, of which the Olmec,
Teotihuacan, Maya,
Zapotec, Mixtec, Toltec, Mexica, Huastec, Totonac, Tarasca, and many
other
cultures are merely variants created by particular traditions in
different
regions and historical periods. A common history and local histories
interacted
dialectically o form a Mesoamerican world vision in which the variants
acquired
extraordinary individual peculiarities.
Institutions such as markets, war, or
courts produced and were regulated by norms, traditions, and
organizations,
including societies at various stages of development. In time these
norms and
institutions crossed state boundaries. Institutions overlapped in
multiple,
reciprocal dependencies and mingled to form several complexes. Among
the
functions of some political organization was the regulation of
internal
and external exchange; others permitted the existence of organized
merchants;
others placed them under their aegis. Conquests could be justified as
means of
guaranteeing the existence of politico legal institutions. At times
tribute was
disguised as offerings to the gods of allied peoples. Trade routes
served as
paths for military penetration.
It is not possible to conceive of Mesoamerica as the product of uniform and permanent
types of cohesive structures.
Within its territory the' influence of different relationships varied,
sometimes simultaneous, sometimes successive, the profound dominating
ones, as
well as therefore apparent ones that overlaid them. The shifting
existence of
one and another made Mesoamerica an area of evanescent horizons, above all in
the
northern regions. What is “Mesoamerican" vanishes, evaporates, along
the
northern and southern boundaries and what might be considered typical
in some
regions is lacking in others, in which different cultural elements mark
the
"Mesoamericanism." They do not spread like colors of continuous and
uniform intensity, nor characterized the same hues. Mesoamerica was a continuum of a historical character
which neither in time nor in
space owed its unity to the same factors.
-
from
Alfredo Lopez Austin, The Myths of the
Opossum – Pathways of
Mesoamerican
Mythology, U. of New Mexico
Press, 1993 (from the Mexican
edition of 1990), pp. 12 – 14.
Images
Fig. 3
This is
the figurine
referred to by Dr. Koslik in his introductory essay, reproduced there
in black
& white halftone. The listing for it in the Wurttemburgisches
Landesmuseum,
Stuttgart, identifies it
as:
“Skeletal figure, greenstone with inlaid shell, 22.8 x 12 cm”.
Fig. 4
Side
and rear views of the same figurine, from Pasztory: Aztec Art, p.
258. In it, she says: “The
Stuttgart
figure belongs in the category of standing deity sculptures, but there
is no
exact parallel to it. Male skeletal gods are few in Aztec art and this
figure
does not resemble any of them: it stands with its arms hanging at its
sides
like the Atlantean figures at Tula
and their Aztec copies. Its hair is tied in a topknot and two wide
ribbons hang
down at either side, ornamented with glyphs and symbols. Carved in
relief on
the back is an eagle in profile, with a sun disk at the center; in the
disk
sits a youthful warrior holding weapons, presumably the sun deity; on
the base
of the sculpture is the earth monster. The figure bears twelve glyphs
on its
hair ribbons, loincloth, hands, and back, but none of them identifies
it
conclusively: the dates I Deer, I Rain, I Monkey, and I House on the
ribbons,
and I Eagle on the loincloth, are all days on which the cihuate-teo,
female
monsters, descended at the crossroads. Seler identified the figure as
Xolotl
(1902-23, III, pp. 392-409), the deformed twin of Quetzalcoatl, but
this is not
a deformed figure. Seler's other interpretation was with
Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli,
the planet Venus in its manifestation as the evening star, and symbols
of the
night sky and the planet Venus can be seen on the hair ribbons and the
forehead. The earplugs with comma-shaped pendants are Quetzalcoatl's
usual
insignia in the codices.
“The
sculpture may represent not a deity but a concept, expressed in part by
the
glyphs we cannot interpret. It is remarkable that of the twelve glyphs
not one
refers to an important date associated with Mexica power, such as I
Flintknife.
Moreover, while Quetzalcoatl is seen as a benevolent legendary
ancestral figure
on most Aztec monuments, here he is associated with symbols of
destruction. The
sun disk is on an eagle, which represents the setting sun; it is
unclear
whether the number 4 refers to the eagle or to the sun disk. But the
skeletal
figure signifies the underworld and the night sky; the glyphs of the
descent of
the cihuateteo represent impending disaster; the entire
composition can
be read as the death of the sun at night.”
While
a fascinating object, there are two additional problems with using it
as
evidence for Steiner’s stomach-excision thesis: it does not represent a
human
being, and it belongs to a culture-era at
least 1,500 years later than the events referred to by him.
Fig. 5
While the noted double cavity of the Xolotl
figure is
unique, there is evidence that the very common single cavity belonging
to a
great variety of representations was used as a receptacle for a
decorative
inlay, as were the eyes and mouth, now lost on this figure, or for
other kinds
of ritual objects. This small piece derives from the much earlier Teotihuacan
period (c. 100 – 700 AD). Its function and representational intent is
unknown.
Fig. 6
Another
figurine, shown if frontal and obverse views, this time from the early
post-Classic (c. 1,000 AD) period Huastec culture of the Veracruz
coast, showing a feature similar to the one proceeding. Its function
and
significance is also unknown. Such priest or deity-figures are
suspected to
have had mirrors inlaid in the central cavity. The death-forces of the
Double
are carried like a burden on his back by this possible initiate.
Fig. 7
From Teotihuacan.
This figure with an open chest cavity does not appear to have
sacrificial
associations. Many figurines from this era open up even further to
reveal
entire families and colonies of miniature people residing within.
|
|
Fig. 8
Stela
3, from Bilbao, Guatemala,
c. 600 A.D. A ballplayer and a death god,
both in ballgame geaar, reach toward a scorpion sun to offer a human
heart.”
The
Sun, undisputed icon of the source of life in European mythology, was
for Mesoamerica an unmixed blessing. The light
of the sun brings about separation into objects for what were subjects
united in the spaceless darkness of Night.
Many
Europeans felt this also, for instance the German poet Novalis, who
wrote his famous Hymns to the Night. Light enhances
developmental processes of all sorts, usually ones that entail
separation, and time to chart their courses.
What begins must end, but what is united with Darkness is eternal, for
before there was Light and Creation, all was enfolded within the womb
of Darkness.
But
for the mode of objective existence we need the sun, so homage must be
paid, and what is Ceasar’s must be rendered.
Hence
the bloody and continual rites necessary to placate a ravenous solar
deity.
Recent
environmental developments connected with the depletion of the ozone
layer have demonstrated the corrosive, even deadly, nature of solar
radiation, a factor with which space travelers must contend in its full
amplitude during times of solar flares.
|
Fig. 9
Gold
repousse disk dredged from the Sacred Cenote, Chichen Itza (Yucatan),
dating
from a period intermediate between the Teotihuacan and the Aztec,
showing
Toltec warriors using typical sacrificial technique in the waging of
war
against the Mayas. Note the writhing serpent overhead.
Fig. 10
Bas-relief of eagle eating heart from Pyramid B at Tula.
Tula was the capital of the
Toltec
empire, c. 900 – 1200 AD, Valley
of Mexico.
Fig. 11
Detail
of Coyolxauhqui, adversary of Huitzilopochtli; see following plate.
Fig. 12
Coyolxauhqui, Aztec; relief on
stone disc, recovered from foot of Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan.
Diam. 3.3m. Dated from approx. 1469. Coyolxauhqui, as related in the
origin-legend of Huitzilopochtli, was his evil sister, who tried to
have him
killed at birth. He, however, turned the tables on her and had her
dismembered
- as represented in this exceptional piece. The mutilated bodies of the
ritual
victims, sacrificed upon the crests of the pyramids, were cast down the
temple
steps to fall upon this stone, thus reenacting the foundation-myth. No
doubt
the resident population and visiting dignitaries were impressed. In the
last
major calendar-ending ceremony before the Spanish arrived to halt such
proceedings, it is said that the number of victims dispatched was in
the five
figures, and this is not refuted by native accounts.
Fig. 13
Coyolxauhqui; greenstone, Aztec. The items on
her
cheeks represent bells, balls of down adorn her hair. Her nose-ornament
is a
common decorative element in Mesoamerica.
Figs. 14 & 15
Photograph and
drawing of the
underside of the Coyolxauhqui head of Fig. 13. The relief depicts two
serpents
intertwined with a stream of water, a stream of fire, and a rope with
plumes.
The glyph for 1 Rabbit is in the left corner.
Fig. 16
Another
perspective on the UnderWorld, by contemporary Santa Fe artist Susan Jay. In it, she depicts with
startling
fidelity, but without overt intent, the “watery mountain”, or altepetl,
of the
Nahua. The motif of the “magic mountain” is universal, and particularly
common
in Mesoamerica.
Fig 17
The
fecund altepetl as depicted in a mural in Tepantitla, Teotihuacan, restored detail from the following image #
15. Note
the unintended similarity of blessedness to the previous image.
Fig. 18
The Great Goddess
of
Teotihuacan,Tepantitla barrio mura (reproduction, retouched), with Tree
of Life
growing from her head. Underneath, on the same wall, is the altepetl of
Fig.
14. Small spiders populate the Tree.
Fig. 19
Not all Mexican deities were
devouring or imposing. A Huichol Corn Goddess, c. 20th C.
Yarn Painting by Crescenio Perez
Robles, Nayarit, Mexico
Fig. 20
Fig. 21
Fig. 22
Fig. 23
Figs. 20 – 23
Of Fig.
20, Campbell has this to say:
“Tree of the Middle Place. Painting from Codex Borgia, Mexico, c. A.D. 1500. Rising from the body of an
earth
goddess recumbent on the spines of the caiman, or alligator, of the
abyss, the
Tree, encircled by the World Sea, is surmounted by a quetzal bird of bright
plumage.
Two streams of blood pour into the goddess, and from her body rise two
ears of
maize, a yellow and a red. The gods in attendance are Ouetzalcoatl, the
Feathered Serpent, god of the breath of life (of whom the quetzal bird
is an
attribute), and Macuilxochitl, known also as 5 Flowers, lord of the
dance and
music, and of play.
Personifying the fertile earth, this goddess
of life
out of death is normally identified by a skull or skeletal jaw, which
may be
represented either as her head or as a kind of crown. She is known as
the Maize
Stalk Drinking Blood; also as 9 Grass. She is the mother of the gods
and is in
legend associated with a place called Skull'2 (that is, Place of the
Skull).
Compare Calvary (Latin calvaria, "skull"), also Golgotha (Aramaic gulgultha, "skull"), i.e. Place
of the
Skull. In Mesoamerican art generally, skulls, skeletal jaws, and
skeletonization appear as symbols not simply of death, but of
generation and
fertility out of death. As noticed by Jill Leslie Furst, treating this
goddess
in a monograph entitled The Skull as Fertility Symbol: ‘The
apparent contradiction between fertility, generation and rebirth on the
one
hand and bones on the other is in fact perfectly comprehensible in the
context
of general Native Mesoamerican ideology, in which the skeletal remains
were-and
in fact, here and there continue to be-regarded as the seat of the
essential
life force and the metaphorical seed from which the individual, whether
human,
animal, or plant, is reborn.’ ” – p. 36.
For Fig. 21,
note that Durer is faithful to the meaning of “Golgotha” and that he faithfully indicates this in
exactly the same fashion as
our anonymous Mexican artist. Durer is known to have been profoundly
impressed
and affected by the items brought back and put on display by the
returnees from
the New World expeditions, but his theology remained
devoutly
orthodox. One difference between this and the previous image is that in
the
former, blood is shed onto the Tree, on the latter, blood is shed from
the
Tree. Could the lance be related to the Xiuhcoatl?
Figs. 22
& 23: more vignettes on
the same
theme, which is very common, not esoteric, in Mesoamerican mythology.
The
births are mystical and world-creating.
Fig. 24
Fig. 25
Fig. 26
Figs. 24 - 26 Trees of Death,
Trees of Life. Fig.
24 -The lid to Lord Pacal’s sarcophagus - depicts his
descent to the UnderWorld
and simultaneous rebirth as the Mayan World-Tree. It is the contention
of this
piece that whether before or after the time and deed of Christ, the
Mesoamerican shamans participated in this archetypal metamorphosis.
More on
this throughout American Chapters. In
Fig. 25 note the bird - as in Figs. 20, 23, & 24 - a pelican,
drawing blood
from its breast, perched at the top of the tree, rising from the Virgin
Mother
of the World. In Fig. 26, note that the serpent has been invited to the
party,
as it is also in Figs. 23 & 24.
Fig. 27
The Maize God
emerges reborn
from the carapace of a turtle. North America is known as “Turtle Island” by indigenous people. It is likely that the
Maize
God is the American depiction of the ever-rising Christ. Fig. 28 is a
fine
example of the Maize God from Classical Mayan Copan.
Fig. 28
Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on Mesoamerican practices: the
“Mexican
Mysteries”
The
Influence of Luciferic and Ahrimanic Beings on Historical Development.
The
Clear Perception of the Sensory World and Free Imaginations as the Task
of Our
Time. Genghis Khan and the Discovery of America
Dornach, September
17, 1916
Yesterday, we tried to characterize the
forces that
permeated Greece and Rome in order to obtain an idea of the influences
that
have been carried over from the fourth into the fifth post-Atlantean
age, and
we gave some indication of where we have to look today for signs of
continued
activity of the forces of the fourth post-Atlantean age. I want to ask
you now
to turn your attention once again to our description of the
civilizations of Greece and Rome.
In the way it developed, the civilization of Greece was a source of great disappointment to the
luciferic
powers. One can, of course, only say these things out of imaginative
cognition,
and this will also be true of what is to be presented to you today. The
development of Greek civilization was a great disappointment to the
luciferic
powers because they expected something quite different from it. Think
what this
means. They had expected the civilization of Greece, the fourth epoch of post-Atlantean times,
to bring
into being for them all they had striven for during Atlantean times. On
Atlantis they had developed certain activities, certain influences and
forces
and they had expected to see the fruits of their labors appear in the
fourth
post-Atlantean epoch. What was it they were really looking for?
To speak of such a matter lets us look right
into the
luciferic soul. We come to know this luciferic life that continually
strives,
hoping that certain results may ensue, but that continually meets with
fresh
disappointment. A logician would naturally ask, “Why do not these
luciferic
powers stop trying? Why do they not see that they must be forever and
repeatedly disappointed?” Such a conclusion would be human, not
luciferic,
wisdom. At any rate, the luciferic powers have yet to come to his
conclusion.
On the contrary, it is their practice to redouble their efforts
whenever they
experience disappointment.
What was it, then, that the luciferic powers
expected
from this fourth post-Atlantean age? They wanted to obtain mastery of
all the
soul forces of the Greek people, those soul forces that were, as we
have seen,
directed to carrying over the ancient imaginations of the
Chaldean-Egyptian
period, and to incorporate them into the creations of their own
fantasy. The
luciferic powers made it their endeavor to work so strongly on the
human beings
of the Greek civilization that their imaginations, refined and
distilled to
fantasy, should fill their whole being. The Greeks would then have lost
themselves in a soul world, in an everyday thinking, feeling and
willing that
would have consisted entirely of those subtle imaginations that had
become
complete fantasy.
If the Greeks had developed nothing in their
souls but
these imaginations refined to fantasy, if these enticing imaginations
had come
to fill their souls completely, the luciferic powers would have been
able to
lift the Greeks and a great part of humanity out of human evolution to
place
them in their own luciferic world. This was the intention of the
luciferic
powers. From the Atlantean epoch on, it had been their hope to achieve
in the
fourth post-Atlantean age what they had failed to do in Atlantis.
Humanity, at
the stage it had then reached, would have been incorporated into the
cosmos.
They wanted nothing less than to create for themselves a separate world
were
earthly gravity did not exist but were human beings would dwell with
absolute
supersensible lightness, entirely given up to a life of fantasy. It was
the
hope of the luciferic beings to create a planetary body, which would
contain
those members of humanity who had reached this highest development of
the
fantasy life. They made every endeavor to lead the souls of the Greeks
away
from the earth. Had they succeeded, these souls would gradually have
forsaken
the earth. The bodies that still came to birth would have been
degenerate.
Egoless beings would have been born, the earth would have fallen into
decadence
and a special luciferic kingdom would have begun. This did not come to
pass.
Why?
This condition did not come about because,
mingled
with the “self-deifying madness” of Greek poetry, to quote Plato, was
the
genius and greatness of Greek philosophy and wisdom. The Greek
philosophers -
Heraclitus, Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander, Parmenides, Socrates,
Plato and
Aristotle - saved Greek civilization from being completely
spiritualized in a
life of fantasy. They kept the Greeks on earth, providing the strongest
forces
that kept Greece within earthly evolution. In considering the
course
of history, we must always take into account the forces that lie behind
physical reality and are the true causes of all that happens. It was,
then, in
this way that Greece was preserved for earthly evolution.
Now, the luciferic beings would have been
unable to
achieve anything at all without the help of the ahrimanic beings. In
all their
intentions and hope they reckoned on their support. Indeed, it must
always be
that two forces strive together in this kind of working. Just as the
luciferic
beings were disappointed in Greece, so were the ahrimanic beings disappointed
in Rome and the way it developed. The luciferic
beings wanted
to lead Grecian souls away from the earth-planet and the ahrimanic
beings
wanted to contribute their efforts to the end that the Roman
civilization would
assume a particular form. The ahrimanic beings exerted their strongest
efforts
in Rome, just as the luciferic beings did in Greece. They calculated that a certain hardening
would arise
on earth brought about by an entirely blind obedience and subjection to
Rome. What did the ahrimanic powers want to
accomplish in Rome? They wanted to establish a Roman Empire that would extend over the whole of the then
known
world, embracing within it every human activity. It would be directed
entirely
from Rome with the strictest centralization and the
utmost
development of the rule of might. They sought to establish a widely
flung state
machinery that would include and make subject to it all religious and
artistic
life. Its goal would be to stamp out all individuality. Every people
and human
being would comprise merely some small part of this mighty state
machine.
Thanks to the clarity of its philosophers,
however, Greece was not lulled into the luciferic dream, nor
could Rome be hardened as these ahrimanic powers
desired,
because in Rome, too, something was working against them.
This was
described in the last lecture as Roman ideals, but the legal, political
and
military ideals that were then developing could not have withstood
Ahriman
alone. Within the Roman civilization the ahrimanic powers gathered for
a
stupendous onslaught. That attempt was like a repetition of their
attempt made
in Atlantean times, and it developed infinitely strong powers and
forces. It
was only from another side that Ahriman's intention was hindered. It
was, at
first, prevented by something that, at first sight, might be regarded
as a
lower trait in the Roman character, but that was not the case. As a
matter of
fact, the Romans had need of what I may have seemed to describe in the
last
lecture with some antipathy. They needed their ruthlessness, stubborn
egoism,
that continuous stirring up of emotions, to be able to march against
the ahrimanic
powers. Roman history - I beg you expressly to note this - is not a revelation of the ahrimanic powers.
Although they stand in the background, it is a fight
against them. If it is all confused and self-seeking, seeming
to tend more and more toward a politicalization of the whole world, it
is
because only in this way could Ahriman's mechanizing be resisted.
All this alone, however, would not have been
of much
avail. Rome had also received Christianity, which in Rome would have assumed a form that would have
given
Ahriman a splendid opportunity to achieve his aim since, through the
spiritual
decline of a Roman rule that had been transformed into a papacy, the
mechanizing of culture could have been accomplished. So another
external power
had to be brought against Ahriman, who works with much more external
means than
Lucifer. Ahriman, as we have seen, diverted the forces of Christianity
to his
own service. Another power had to be brought against him. This was the
onslaught of the Germanic tribes caused by the migration of peoples in Europe.
Through this onslaught on Rome,
the mechanizing of the world under a single, all-embracing Roman Empire was hindered. If you will study all that
took place
in the migration of these peoples, you will find that you can get a
true
insight into it when you see it from this point of view. Whenever the
migration
of peoples occurs in the Roman world, Roman history is not thereby
brought to
an end, but the ahrimanic powers, combated throughout their history by
the
Romans, are repelled.
Thus did Ahriman meet with his
disappointment, as
Lucifer had met with his. But they will take up their tasks again in
the fifth
post-Atlantean age with all the more determination. Here is the point
at which
we must gain an understanding of the forces that are operative in our
age,
insofar as such an understanding is possible today.
The fourth post-Atlantean age extends both
backwards
and forwards from its central point in 333 A.D. It ended about 1413
A.D. and it
began about 747 B.C. These are of course, approximate dates. I have
just told
you that the disappointment of Lucifer and Ahriman in the forms the
Greek and
Roman civilizations had assumed, has led them to make still stronger
efforts in
our fifth post-Atlantean age. Their efforts are already at work in the
human
forces that have been active from the fifteenth century. It does not
matter
whether something occurs a few decades earlier or later. In outer
physical
reality, which takes on the form of the “great illusion,” things are
sometimes
misplaced.
The fact that the Roman civilization could be
retained
in the evolution of humanity as it was due to the events brought about
by the
migrations of the peoples. If Rome had developed in such a way that a
great
all-embracing mechanized empire had arisen, it would only have been
habitable
for egoless human beings who would have remained on earth after Lucifer
had
drawn out their souls on the path of Greek culture and art. You see how
Ahriman
and Lucifer work together. Lucifer wants to take men's souls away and
found a
planet with them of his own. Ahriman has to help him. While Lucifer
sucks the
juice out of the lemon, as it were, Ahriman presses it out, thereby
hardening
what remains. This is what he tried to do to the civilization of Rome. Here we have an important cosmic process
going on -
all due to the intention and resolve of luciferic and ahrimanic powers.
As I
have said, they were disappointed. They have continued their efforts,
however,
and our fifth post-Atlantean age has yet to learn how strong these
attacks are.
They are now only beginning but they will become stronger and stronger.
This
age must learn, too, that the necessity to understand these attacks
will become
ever greater. At the beginning of an age the backward beings cannot
work
strongly. As yet, we are only in the beginning, and even though it
became
manifest only later, the luciferic and ahrimanic powers began to exert
their
forces before the expiration of the fourth post-Atlantean age.
To understand how these powers work in the
fifth
post-Atlantean age, we must turn our attention for a moment to what is
intended
for man in the right and normal course of his evolution. It is
rightfully
intended that he shall take a further step forward. The step taken by
humanity
in the fourth post-Atlantean age is revealed in the culture of the
Greeks and
in the political development of the Romans, and it was through the
battle with
Lucifer and Ahriman that what was intended actually came about. These
opposing
forces are always such that they fit into the progressive plan of the
world.
They belong to it and are needed there as opposing forces. But what
special
qualities are the men of the fifth post-Atlantean age, our own, to
develop?
We know that this is the age of the
development of the
consciousness soul and that, to accomplish this, a number of forces -
soul and
bodily forces - must be active. First, a clear perception of the sense
world is
necessary. This did not exist in earlier times because, as you know, a
visionary, imaginative element continuously played into the human soul.
The
Greeks still possessed fantasy but, as we have seen, after fantasy and
imagination had taken possession of humanity, as it did of the Greeks,
it then
became necessary for men to develop the faculty to see the world of
external
nature without the illumination of a vision standing behind it. We need
not
imagine that such a vision has to be a materialistic one. That point of
view is
itself an ahrimanically perverted perception of sense reality. As
indicated
before, observation of sense reality is one task incumbent upon the
human soul
in our fifth post-Atlantean age.
The other task is to unfold free imaginations
side by
side with the clear view of reality - in a way, a kind of repetition of
the
Egypto-Chaldean age. To date, humanity has not progressed too far in
this task.
Free imaginations as sought through spiritual science means
imaginations not as
they were in the third post-Atlantean age, but unfettered and
undistilled into
fantasy. It means imaginations in which man moves as freely as he does
only in
his intellect. That, then, is the other task of the fifth
post-Atlantean age.
The unfoldment of these two faculties will lead to a right development
of the
consciousness soul in our present epoch.
Goethe had a beautiful understanding of this
clear
perception, which, contrary to the materialistic point of view, he
described as
his “primal phenomenon” (Urphänomen).
You will find that this has been dealt with at length in Goethe's
writings, and
I have spoken of it in my explanation of the primal phenomenon. His is
a clear,
pure perception of reality and of his primal phenomenon. Goethe not
only gave
the first impulse for perceptions free of any visions but also for free
imaginations.* What he has given us in his Faust,
even though it has not yet gone far in the direction of spiritual
science, and
in comparison with spiritual science is still more or less instinctive,
is
nevertheless the first impulse to a free imaginative life. It is no
mere world
of fantasy, yet we have seen how deep this world of fantasy really is
that
develops in free imaginations in the wonderful drama, Faust.
(This distinction between pure perception
free of
memory pictures and visions on the one hand and an objective
imagination which
begins with brain-free thinking on the other is developed in Boundaries of Natural Science,
Anthroposophic Press, 1983)
So, over against this primal phenomenon, we
have what
Goethe calls typical intellectual perception. You will find it
described in
detail in my book, The Riddle of Man. This mode of thought must continue to
develop. The
men of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, however, must not merely behold
reality.
They must be able to live with reality. They must get busy, like
Goethe, and,
working in quite a different way from that of the materialistic
physicists,
really make such use of their laboratory apparatus that it produces the
primal
phenomenon for them. They will then have to devise some way of getting
the
primal phenomenon into practical life. As you know, it is at home in,
and holds
sway throughout, nature. The intentions of humanity that come from free
imaginations will have to be included in this primal phenomenon of
nature. On
the one hand, men will have to direct their gaze quite selflessly to
the outer
world to work in it and to gain knowledge of it. On the other, by
powerful
application of their personalities, they will have to bring it all into
inner
movement in order to find the imaginations for outer activity and outer
knowledge. Gradually, the consciousness soul and its culture will
achieve this
transformation.
There will certainly be onesidedness in this
cultural
epoch. That goes without saying. Our cognition will direct its efforts
only
outwards, as in Bacon, or only inwards, as in Berkeley. We have already spoken of this. The
imaginative life
welling up from within will not unfold without all manner of disturbing
influences. But even now we can point to moments in this development
when someone
feels this free imaginative life springing up in his soul. In these
beginnings
it is still in great measure unfree, but we may see how so significant
a man as
Jacob Boehme, quite soon after the fifth post-Atlantean age began, felt
how it
was trying to develop in his soul. He brought this to expression in his
Aurora, and we can feel as we read it how
imaginative life
was working within him. It must become free; Boehme still feels it to
be a
little unfree. Nevertheless, he knew it was a divine creative thing
that was
working in him. So Boehme was, in a sense, at the opposite pole to
Bacon, whose
endeavor always directed his attention to the external world. Jacob
Boehme,
however, was entirely engrossed in the world within, and described this
world
beautifully in the Aurora:
“I declare before God,” he says because he is
speaking
of his inner soul, “that I do not know how it comes to pass in me.” He
means by
this how the imaginations arise in him. “Without feeling the impulse of
the
will, I also don't know what I have to write.”
This is how Boehme speaks of the uprising of
imaginations in himself. He detects the beginning of forces that must
grow
continually stronger in the men of the fifth post-Atlantean age.
“I declare before God that I do not know how
it comes
to pass in me. Without feeling the impulse of the will, I also don't
know what
I have to write. The spirit dictates to me in a great and marvelous
knowledge
what I write, so that often I do not know whether I am in this world
with my
spirit, and I rejoice exceedingly that sure and continuous knowledge is
thus
vouchsafed to me.”
Boehme describes the instreaming of the
imaginative
world. We can see that he feels harmony and rest in his soul, and he
describes
how men's souls shall, in the normal and right progress of their
evolution, let
themselves be taken hold of by these inner forces, which are to grow
stronger
in them in the fifth post-Atlantean age. But one must take possession
of them
in the pure inner being of the spirit and thereby avoid devious paths.
In the
seventeenth century one had to speak of these forces much in the way
that
Boehme, who spoke as a man completely and utterly devoted to divine
righteousness, did.
The entire aim in the work of the luciferic
and
ahrimanic powers in the fifth post-Atlantean age, concerning both the
perception of the primal phenomenon and the development of free
imaginations,
is to hinder these forces from arising in man. The luciferic and
ahrimanic
powers are working in this fifth post-Atlantean age to disturb these
forces in
the human soul, to employ them to a wrong end, thus bringing men's
souls out of
the earth sphere to establish a new sphere of their own. Many things
must work
together to disturb the right, quiet and slow unfolding of these
forces. Note well
that I say the quiet and slow unfolding because the entire period of
2,160
years, starting in 1413 A.D., should be used for the gradual unfoldment
of the
forces I have named, that is, free imaginations and the gradual
development of
working with primal phenomena. At intervals - by fits and starts, as it
were -
the luciferic and ahrimanic powers throw the whole weight of their
opposition
against this right evolution. When we bear in mind that everything is
prepared
for by the world beyond the earth long before it happens, we shall then
not be
surprised to find preparations being made to bring the strongest
possible
forces of opposition against the normal evolution of humanity.
We have already seen how the luciferic and
ahrimanic
powers poured what they had developed in Atlantean times into Greece and Rome. Now, in an altered form, they have tried to
repeat
these efforts before the arrival of the fifth post-Atlantean age. You
will not
be surprised when I say that for this fifth post-Atlantean age, too, a
powerful
impetus had to be present bearing along with it the after workings, in
a
luciferic and ahrimanic sense, from Atlantis. We know that the
Atlantean
influences spread out from a region that was called Atlantis even by
Plato. Let
us make a diagram and imagine Atlantis here, then over here on the
right would
be Europe and Asia, and here on the left would be America. The old Atlantean forces, including the old
luciferic and ahrimanic forces, spread out from Atlantis. Some part of
these
Atlantean forces, however, was held back, and it came to work in our
fifth
post-Atlantean age as luciferic and ahrimanic forces. That is, some
part of the
good forces, which were good and right in Atlantean times, have been
carried
over to our time to become luciferic and ahrimanic forces. Only the
center was
transferred to another region.
Atlantis, as we know, is gone and the center
transposed to Asia. You must imagine it on the reverse side of
my
drawing and the effects of the old Atlantean culture spreading out from
it as a
preparation for the fifth post-Atlantean age.
Its intent was to lucifericize and
ahrimanicize it. It
was actually the descendants of the old Atlantean teachers who were now
working
from a place in Asia. A priest there had been educated to behold
- to have
a belated vision, as it were, of what the Atlanteans called the “Great
Spirit,”
and to receive his commands. These the priest communicated to a young
man of
remarkable energy and strength who, by virtue of this authority,
received the
name “The Great Ruler of the Earth” from his community. This was
Genghis Khan.
The Great Spirit, through his follower and through that priest, gave to
Genghis
Khan the command to summon all the powers of Asia
to spread the influence that would lead the fifth post-Atlantean age
back into a
luciferic form. These forces - and they were far more powerful than the
forces
established in Greek culture - were all employed to this end. Free
imaginations
were to be changed into old, visionary imaginations. Every effort was
to be made
to lull the soul of man to sleep in a dim and dreamy experience of
imaginations
instead of a free experience filled through and through with clear
understanding.
With the help of the special forces that had
been
preserved from Atlantis, it was the intended purpose to carry an
influence into
the West that would make its culture visionary. Then it would have
become
possible to separate the souls of men from the earth and to form a new
continent, a new planetary body with them. All the unrest and
disturbance that
came into the evolution of modern man through the Mongolian invasions,
everything connected with them that has gone on working into the fifth
post-Atlantean
epoch - all this unrest, which was prepared long ago, is nothing more
than the
great attempt that is being made from Asia to bring about a visionary
European
culture. It would cut it off from the conditions of its further
evolution and
lead it altogether away from the earth, just as the East has
experienced again
and again this feeling of being filled with vision and of wanting to be
estranged from the earth.
Something was needed to counterbalance this
tendency.
An opposite trend had to be created as a counterforce that moves in the
direction of the normal evolution of mankind. The influence of Genghis
Khan's
priest was intended to bring about a kind of buoyancy and lightness in
the
human race that would draw man away from the earth. Over against this,
a
corresponding heaviness had to come to man from the weight of the
earth; this
was provided through the discovery of the western world. America, with all that it holds, was discovered and
thereby
earth heaviness, the desire to remain on earth, was given to man. The
discovery
of America and everything connected with it, and the
way man
carried his life into the many new places of the earth, all this, when
seen in
wider connections, shows itself as a counterbalancing force to the
activity of
Genghis Khan. America had to be discovered so that man might be
brought to
grow closer to the earth, to grow more and more materialistic. Man
needed
weight and heaviness to counterbalance the spiritualization that was
the aim of
the descendants of the “Great Spirit.”
Along
with this normal process whereby the scene of action of man's life was
extended
to America, we find the other forces, the ahrimanic
powers of
the “Great Spirit,” intervening again. An influence came from America to Europe, and another came to permeate America from Asia. Thus, normal forces developed through the
discovery
of America and also powerful ahrimanic onslaughts. They
worked
less strongly at first, but will continue to work in our time and on
into the
future. We must learn to recognize these ahrimanic forces.
What Rome had achieved in the Church and in the
ecclesiastical
state was grasped by the ahrimanic influence. While it is comparatively
easy to
see how the luciferic influence worked on Genghis Khan - we have exact
knowledge of the fact that a priest was initiated by the follower of
the “Great
Spirit” — it is much more difficult to say how the ahrimanic spirit
worked.
This is because the ahrimanic influence is dispersed and scattered. But
you
need only study how Spain, strictly Roman Catholic as it was, was
fascinated by
all the treasures of gold that were discovered in America. What a hold it had upon her! You can
observe how
strong the specter-like working of the old Romanism still was in such a
ruler
as Ferdinand of Castile or Charles V, the ruler of the kingdom over
which the
“sun never set.” Study the reaction of Europe
to the gradual discovery and opening up of America and you will see what temptations came from
that
direction. Taken all in all, it is a history of temptation woven in
with a
history that runs a normal course.
Please do not go about saying that I have
presented
the discovery of America as an ahrimanic deed. In reality, I have
said the
very opposite. I have said that America had to be discovered and that the entire
event was
necessary to the progress of the world. Ahrimanic forces entered,
however, and
set themselves in violent opposition to what was happening quite
rightly in the
normal course of progress. Things are not so simple that we can say,
“There is
Lucifer, and there is Ahriman; they act and behave in such and such a
way, and
divide the world between them.” Things are by no means so simple as
that.
We find, therefore, many forces working
together when
we set out to listen to them in their field of action behind the
physical
plane. These forces take possession of other forces. They try to seize
the
forces in man that have continued on from the fourth post-Atlantean
epoch in
order to distort them and make them serve their ends. Look at a man
like
Machiavelli. You will find in him the symbol for the politicizing of
thought
that begins in the Renaissance. He is a veritable revelation of the
whole
process. He was a great and powerful spirit but one who, under the
onslaught of
the forces of which I have told you, brings to a new life again the
complete
attitude of thought and mind that has its source in the heathen Rome of ancient times. You have a true picture of
Machiavelli when you study the history of his time and see him, not as
a single
personality, but as the outstanding expression of many who think in the
same
way. In him you can observe these forces trying to charge forward with
all
speed, bringing to their assistance the atavistic - and thus luciferic
- forces
that have been left behind. Had things gone as Machiavelli intended,
all of Europe
would have become nothing but a political machine. Opposing the violent
onslaught of such forces are the forces that work in the normal
direction. Over
against a figure like Machiavelli, who was purely political and turned
all
man's thought into political thinking, we can place another great
figure,
Thomas à Kempis, who was also Machiavelli's contemporary. He stands
entirely
within the slow and gradual evolution, working slowly and gradually. He
was
anything but a man of politics.
So we can follow the several streams in
history. We
shall find normal streams, and we shall also find currents that flow
from
earlier times and are made use of by the forces of which I have told
you. Many
forces work together in history and it is important to observe and
study their
connections. A man like Jacob Boehme felt free imaginations rising
within him.
We can say of such a man that he fortified himself against the attacks
of
Lucifer and Ahriman through the whole character of his life of soul and
succeeded in going undisturbed along the straight path of evolution.
East of Europe, however, in all the culture of the East, we
find an
untold number of people who suffer greatly under the disturbing
influence of
Lucifer. His influence is, as we know, to draw man again and again away
from
the earth, to draw him right out of his physical body so that the shall
perpetually fall into a state where he becomes no more than a vision of
himself
and is completely soul. That is the tendency that has been grafted onto
Eastern Europe.
The feeling of being drawn in the other
direction was
given to the West. The world of imagination was pulled down into the
heavy
physical body so that what should rightly be free imagination working
merely in
the soul becomes instead something that rams the soul down into the
organism,
thereby causing the organism also to live on imaginations. You can
hardly find
a more telling description of what I mean than in the words of Alfred
de Musset
in which he attempts to give us a picture of the condition of his soul.
De
Musset is one who feels the presence of the imaginative life in
himself, but
the also feels the onslaught upon this life of imagination that seeks
to thrust
it right down into the bodily nature. This life of imagination, which
does not
belong in the bodily nature but should develop freely, hovering in and
existing
purely as a thing of the soul, is there taken hold of by earthly
gravity and by
what belongs to the body. In his book, Elle
et Lui, which he was led to write from his relation with Georges
Sand, you
will find a fine description of his soul life. I would like to quote
here a
passage that will serve to show how he feels himself to be placed
within an
imaginative life that is the scene of conflict and dispute. He says:
Creation disturbs and bewilders me; it sets
me
trembling. Execution, always too slow for my desire, starts my heart
beating
wildly. Weeping, and restraining myself with difficulty from crying
out, I give
birth to an idea. In the moment of its birth it intoxicates me, but
next
morning it fills me with loathing. If I try to modify and change it, it
only gets
worse and escapes me altogether. It would be better for me to forget it
and
wait for another. But now this other comes upon me in such bewilderment
and in
such boundless dimensions that my poor being cannot grasp it. It
oppress me,
tortures me, until it can be realized. Then come the other sufferings,
the
birth throes, really physical pains that I am quite unable to define.
Such is
my life when I let myself be ruled by this giant artist who is in me.
Note the contrast with Boehme, who feels the God in him. With de Musset it is a giant
artist.
“I were better that I live as I have
resolved,
committing excesses of very kind in order to kill this gnawing worn,
which
others modestly call inspiration and I quite often openly call
illness.”
Almost every single sentence of this quote
can be
matched with a sentence in our quotation from Boehme. How singularly
typical!
Remember what I said just now, that normal evolution seeks to progress slowly. We shall have more to say about
this tomorrow. Here, as described by de Musset, it is a Wild charge; it
cannot
be fast enough. The picture he gives us as he surveys himself is
marvelous.
“Creation disturbs and bewilders me; it sets me atremble,” he says,
because
this to will go faster and faster and comes storming in upon him from
the
ahrimanic side, disturbing what is still trying to progress slowly.
“Execution, always too slow for my desire,
starts my
heart beating wildly.” Here you have the whole psychology of the man
who wants
to live in free imaginations and is distressed and vexed by the
onslaught of
ahrimanic forces.
“Weeping and
restraining myself with difficult
from crying out...” Think of it! The imaginations work so physically in
him
that he feels like crying out when they find expression in him.
“I
give birth to an idea. In the moment of its birth it intoxicates me,
but next
morning it fills me with loathing.” This because it comes from his
organism and
not from his soul!
“If I try to modify and change it, it only
gets worse
and escapes me altogether. Better I forget it and wait for another.”
Here he
wants perpetually to go faster, faster than normal evolution can go.
“But now this other comes upon me in such
bewilderment
and in such boundless dimensions that my poor being cannot grasp it. It
oppresses me, tortures me, until it can be realized. Then come the
other
sufferings, the birth throes, actual physical pains that I am quite
unable to
define.” Then, when he beholds this giant artist that works within him,
he says
he would rather follow the life he has marked out for himself; that is,
have
nothing to do with this whole imaginative world, because he calls it an
illness.
Now take by way of contrast, the saying of
Jacob
Boehme, “I declare before God, I myself do not know how it comes to
pass in
me.” Here you have an expression of joy and bliss. Confusion and
bewilderment,
on the other hand, can be heard in the words of de Musset, “Creation
disturbs
and bewilders me; it sets me trembling. Execution, always too slow for
my
desire, starts my heart beating wildly.”
With Boehme all is of the soul and, when he
wants to
write, he does not feel as though a giant artist, who makes him
unhappy, were
dictating to him, but a spirit. He feels that he is transported into
the world
where the spirit dictates to him. He is in this world and he is
supremely happy
to be there because a continuous stream of knowledge is given him that
flows
slowly and steadily on. Boehme is inclined to receive this slow stream
of
knowledge. He does not find it too slow because he is not overwhelmed
by the
swift attacking force I have described to you. On the contrary, he is
protected
from it.
If time permitted, we could present many more
instances of ways in which individual human beings are situated in the
world
process. The examples I have selected are from those whose names have
been
preserved in history but, in a sense, all of mankind is subject to
these same
conditions in one way or another. I have only chosen these particular
examples
in order to express what is really widespread, and by taking special
cases I
have been able to give you a description of it in words. If you will
try to
make a survey of what we have been saying, you will then be able to
understand
much of what has come about in the course of evolution.
It would be quite possible in this connection
to study
many other phenomena of life. If, however, we confine ourselves today
to the
spiritual life, and moreover to that special region of the spiritual
life
comprising knowledge and cognition, we shall be able to find in it
qualities
that are characteristic of modern man, the recognition of which will
make many
things in life comprehensible. Since it is not possible to say much
about the
external life of today, owing to the existing prejudices and because
men's
souls are so deeply bound up with the conditions of the times in which
they
live, you will readily understand that it is only in a limited way that
I can
speak of the things that are carrying their influence right into the
immediate
present. It cannot be otherwise, as I have frequently made clear to
you. I
would like, however, to indicate certain phenomena of our time that are
less
calculated to arouse passions and emotions. Let me describe some
phenomena that
I will select from the life of cognition and feeling. I think you will
find
them underlying all I have been saying about the forces at work in this
fifth
post-Atlantean epoch. We will first consider these phenomena in a
purely
historical way in order afterward to see their relation to these
forces.
Let us take first a phenomenon in which we
all
necessarily feel the deepest interest. The kind of understanding men
have of
the nature and being of Christ is of great significance, and so we will
select
examples of various kinds of understanding of His nature and being that
lie
near at hand. We have first of all a modern instance in Ernest Renan's The Life of Jesus, which appeared in the
19th century and went rapidly through many editions. I believe the
twentieth
appeared in 1900 after his death. Then we have The Life of
Jesus, which is really no life of Jesus at all, by
David Friedrich Strauss. Then we have - we cannot say, a life of Jesus,
but
coming from the east of Europe it is a view and conception of Christ that
is of deep
significance. It is not a life of Jesus but an understanding of Christ
that
culminates in what Soloviev wrote about Him and His part in the
evolution of
the earth. How significant are these three expressions of the spiritual
life of
the nineteenth century: The Life of Jesus
by Renan, The Life of Jesus by
Strauss, which is no life of Jesus at all and we shall presently hear
why, and
Soloviev's conception of the meaning of the Christ event in the
evolution of
the earth, for it is true, at any rate, to say that all of his work
culminates
in the Christ idea.
What is the fundamental premise of Renan's
description
of Jesus' life? If you want to appreciate rightly Renan's book, to
understand
it as a document of the times, then you must compare it with the
earlier
presentations of Jesus' life. Nor do you need to read only the literary
accounts of His life; you can also look at the paintings of artists.
You will
find that the representation of the life of Jesus always takes the same
path.
In the early centuries of Roman Christianity, it was not only
Christianity that
was taken over from the East but also the manner in which Jesus was
presented.
The Greek art of pictorial representation was there in the West, as we
know,
but the ability to portray the Christ remained with the East. The Jesus
countenance that is characteristic of Byzantine art was found
repeatedly in the
West until, in the thirteenth century, national impulses and ideas
began to
arise - those national ideas and impulses that later work themselves
out in the
way I have indicated in these last lectures.
Owing to the national impulse, a gradual
change came
about in the traditional stereotyped Jesus countenance that had been
portrayed
so long. Each of several nations appropriated the Jesus type and
represented
Him in its own way, and so we must recognize many different impulses at
work in
the different representations. Study, for example, the head of Jesus as
painted
by Guido Reni, Murillo and Lebrun, and you will see how strikingly the
national
point of view steals in. These are only three instances that one could
select.
In each case there is a strong desire to represent Jesus in a national
way. One
has the impression that in Guido Reni's paintings, to a far greater
degree than
was the case with his predecessors, we can detect the Italian type in
the countenance
of Jesus; similarly, in Murillo's representations, the Spanish; in
Lebrun's,
the French. All three painters show evidence as well of the working of
church
tradition; behind every one of their paintings stands the power of the
Church.
Contrarily, you will find a resistance to
this far
reaching power of the Church, which we recognize in the art of Murillo,
Lebrun
and Reni, in the works of Rubens, Van Dyke and Rembrandt - a resistance
to it
and a working in freedom out of their own pure humanity. Considering
art in
respect of its representations of the Jesus countenance, you have here
direct
artistic rebellion. You will now see that there is no standing still in
this
progression in the representation of Jesus because the forces that are
at work
in the world work also right into this domain. We can see how the
breath of
Romanism hovers over the paintings of the nationally minded Lebrun,
Murillo and
Reni, and how in Rubens, Van Dyke and especially Rembrandt, the
opposition to
Romanism comes to such clear expression in their paintings of faces,
not of
Jesus alone but also of other Biblical characters. So we see how all
the
spiritual activities of man gradually take form among the various
impulses that
make themselves felt in human evolution.
Similarly, you would find that in the times
when
painting and representative art have given place to the word,
for since the sixteenth century the word has had the same
significance in such matters as pictorial representation had in earlier
times,
you will find that the figure of Jesus, of the Christ, is again
continually
changing. It is never fixed and constant but is always conceived
according to
how the various forces flow together in writers. Standing there before
us as
the latest products, let us say, we have the Jesus of Renan, the Jesus
of
Strauss, who is no Jesus, and the Christ of Soloviev. These are the
latest
products and how vastly different they are!
The Jesus of Renan is entirely a Jesus who,
as a man,
lives in the land of Palestine as a human historical figure. Palestine itself is marvelously depicted. With the aid
of the
best of modern scholarship it is described in such a way that one has
before
one the complete Palestinian landscape with its people. Wandering about
this
realistically rendered landscape and among its people is the figure of
Jesus.
The attempt is made to explain this Jesus figure on the basis of this
landscape
and its inhabitants; to explain how he grows up and becomes a man, and
to
explain how it was possible for such a man to arise in this land. The
outstanding character of Renan's description will only be revealed when
we
compare it with earlier accounts and representations. These take the
inner
course of the events described in the Gospels and place them in a
landscape
that is really nowhere in particular. The facts as they are described
in the
Gospels are simply related over and over again and the landscape in
which they
occurred is totally disregarded. It is depicted in such a way that it
might be
anywhere.
Renan, however, goes to work to portray the Holy Land in a realistic, detailed way so that Jesus
becomes a true Palestinian
in this Holy Land. Christ Jesus, who should belong to all of
mankind,
becomes a Jesus who lives and walks in Palestine as an historical
figure who is
to be understood in relation to the Palestine of the years 1 to 33
A.D., that
is, understood from the customs, views, opinions and landscape of the
country a right proper, realistic
description. For
once, Jesus was to be shown as an historical person and was to be
described as
any other in history. For Renan, it would have been meaningless to
portray an
abstract Socrates who might have lived anywhere, anytime, and it would
have
been equally meaningless for him to portray an abstract Jesus who might
have
lived anywhere on earth. In complete accord with the science of the
nineteenth
century, he sets out to depict Jesus as an historical figure living
between the
years 1 and 33 A.D., and made absolutely comprehensible by the
conditions
prevailing in Palestine at that time. Jesus lived from the year 1 to
33 A.D.
He died in 33 A.D., just as any other man might have died in this or
that year.
If He continues to work in the world, it is in the same way any other
dead
person might have continued to work. Fitted completely into the modern
point of
view, Jesus was an historical personality accounted for by the milieu
in which
He lived. That is what Ernest Renan gives us in his Life
of Jesus.
Now let us turn to the Life of
Jesus that is in reality no life of Jesus by David Friedrich
Strauss. I have said it is no life of
Jesus. Strauss also works as a highly cultured and learned man. When he
sets
out to investigate anything, he does so with thoroughness akin to that
of Renan
in his domain. Strauss, however, does not turn his attention to the
historical
Jesus. He is, for him, only the figure to which he attaches something
quite
different. Thus, Strauss investigates all that was said of Jesus
insofar as He
was the Christ. He examines what is said about His miraculous entry
into the world,
His wonderful and miraculous development, His expression of great and
special
teachings, and how He undergoes suffering, death and resurrection.
These are
the accounts in the Gospels that Strauss selects for investigation.
Naturally, Renan, too, used the Gospels but
he reduced
them to what he, from his detailed and exact knowledge of Palestine, could conceive of the life of Jesus. This
approach
has no interest at all for Strauss. He tells himself that the Gospels
relate
this or that concerning Christ, who lived in Jesus. Then he sets out to
investigate the extent to which what is related of the Christ has also
been
living as myth in other parts of the world, for instance, how the story
that is
told of a miraculous birth and the development of Jesus Christ is to be
found
in various other folk myths, as is also the Mystery of Golgotha, which
is
referred now the one god and then to another. Thus, Strauss sees in the
figure
of the historical Jesus only the opportunity for concentrating the myth
forming
activity of mankind into one personality. Jesus does not concern him at
all.
The only value He has for Strauss is that the myths, which are
distributed all
over the world, are concentrated in this single man Jesus. They are all
hung on
Him, as it were. These myths, however, all spring from a common
impulse. All of
them bear witness to the myth forming power that lives in mankind.
Where does
this myth forming power arise?
As Strauss sees it, in the course of
mankind's earthly
development, from the times of the first beginnings of the earth to its
final
end, mankind has and always will have a higher power in it than the
merely
external power that develops on the physical plane. A power runs right
through
mankind that will forever address itself to the super-earthly; this
super-earthly finds expression in myths. We know that man bears
something
supersensible within him that seeks to find expression in myth since it
cannot
be expressed in external physical science. Thus, Strauss does not see
Jesus in
the single individual, but rather the Christ in all men - the Christ
who has
lived in and through all men since their beginning, and who has brought
it
about that myths are told of Him. In the case of Jesus it is only that
His
personality gives occasion for the myth forming power to develop with
extreme
force and strength. In Him it is concentrated. Strauss, therefore,
speaks of a
Jesus that is in reality no Jesus, but he fastens upon Him the
spiritual Christ
force that lives in all humanity. For Strauss, mankind itself is the
Christ,
and He works always before and after Jesus. The true incarnation of the
Christ
is not the single Jesus, but the whole of humanity. Jesus is only the
supreme
representative for the representation of the Christ in mankind.
The main thing in all this is not Jesus as an
historical figure, but an abstract mankind. Christ has become an idea,
which
incarnates in and through all mankind. That is the kind of highly
distilled
thought that a man of the nineteenth century is able to conceive! The
element
of life in the idea has become the Christ. He is conceived entirely as
an idea
and Jesus is passed by. This is a life of Jesus that is no more than a
record
of the fact that the idea, the divine, incarnates continually in all
humanity.
Christ is diluted down to an idea, is thought of merely as an idea.
So much for the second life of Jesus, The life of Jesus by David Friedrich
Strauss. So we have Ernest Renan's Life
of Jesus. which sets forth the historical figure of Jesus amidst
the
individuals around Him as well as by Himself. Then we have in Strauss's
book
the “idea of Christ,” which runs through all mankind. In this highly
distilled
form, however, it remains a mere abstraction.
When we come to Soloviev, behold, Jesus is no
more,
but only the Christ. Nevertheless, it is the Christ conceived as living. Not working in men as an idea,
with the consequence that its power is transformed in him into a myth,
but
rather working as a living Being who has no body, is always and ever
present
among men, and is, in effect, positively responsible for the external
organization of human life, the founder of the social order. Christ,
who is
forever present; a living Being who would never have needed a Jesus in
order to
come among men. Naturally, you will not find this so radically
expressed in
Soloviev, but that is of no account. It is the Christ as such Who
stands always
in the foreground — the Christ, moreover, as the living One who can
only be
comprehended in imagination, but by this means can be truly understood
as a real
and actual supersensible Being working on earth.
There you have the three figures. The same
Being meets
us in the nineteenth century in a threefold description. The
Life of Jesus by Ernest Renan, completely realistic; realistic
history a fortiori; Jesus as an
historical figure; a book that is written with all the learning of the
nineteenth century. Then came David Friedrich Strauss with this idea of
mankind, working on, running through all mankind, but remaining an
idea, never
awakening to life. Lastly, Soloviev's Christ; living power, living
wisdom,
altogether spiritual.
A realistic life of Jesus by Renan; an
idealistic life
of Jesus by Strauss that is also an idealistic presentation of the
Christ
impulse; a spiritual presentation of the Christ impulse by Soloviev.
Today, I want to place before you, side by
side as
three expressions of modern life, these three ways of cognizing the
figure of
Jesus Christ. Tomorrow we shall see how they take their place among the
various
impulses that we have recognized as working in mankind.
The
After Effects of the Atlantean Mysteries in America and Asia
Dornach, September
18, 1916
It is extraordinarily difficult to speak of
the
conditions that were alluded to in the previous lecture because, in
more recent
times, in our age of materialistic thinking, the ideas and concepts for
doing
so are largely lacking. They must first be acquired through spiritual
science.
The information that can be given is, therefore, more in the nature of
indications. Moreover, there is a further reason, which is determined
by the
whole development of our modern culture. This further reason that
causes
certain difficulties in treating conditions that are hidden behind the
threshold of knowledge from modern man is that, on the whole, he has
become
somewhat lacking in courage. If one wishes to avoid actually using the
word
cowardly, one cannot say it differently. He has become weak in courage.
The
modern person much prefers his knowledge to give him nice pleasant
feelings,
but that is not always possible. Knowledge can fill us with inner
satisfaction
even when it does not convey exactly pleasant matters, because these —
well,
unpleasant things belong to truth. In every case one should find
satisfaction
in truth since even regarding the most terrible truths one can
experience a
kind of feeling of upliftment. As I have said, however, modern man is
much too
weak in courage for that; he wants to feel uplifted in his own way.
This, too,
is connected with secrets of modern existence that will become clearer
in the
course of such studies as we are now undertaking.
The particular faculties of which we have
spoken,
namely, the unfolding in our thought and deed of free imaginations and
an
attitude toward the world based on the primal phenomenon, can only be
acquired
by modern man when a veil is drawn over certain processes that are
occurring,
when they don't easily reveal themselves. Thus, it is also a necessary
part of
the evolution of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch that man does not
understand
certain things that thrust themselves into our sense world from the subsensible and supersensible worlds.
Most important events that are enacted around us before our very eyes
are, in
fact, not understood at all by modern man. In a way, he is protected
from
understanding them because he can only properly evolve the two
faculties
mentioned above under this protection. Foundations for his
understanding of
these events, however, have already begun to be laid. They have now
progressed
so far that evolution cannot continue to advance without reference
being made,
with a certain care and caution, to these matters.
Modern man, with his experience of what
happens around
him and of what he himself does and sets going, has but feeble
reflections of
what is surging and welling up in his own subsensory
nature. At best, it emerges from time to time in frightening dream
pictures,
but they, too, are only feeble. What is happening in the subsensible is
unknown
to the man of today, and under normal circumstances he knows little of
the
supersensible. Beneath what we modern people experience in the soul
lies
something that one can only describe as eruptive forces. It can be
compared
precisely with the world one experiences when standing on volcanic
ground; you
only have to set fire to some paper to have smoke burst out everywhere.
If
through the smoke you could see what is swirling and bubbling down
below, you
would then indeed realize what sort of ground you were actually
standing on.
It is the same with modern life. We observe
that
Ernest Renan writes his Life of Jesus,
and we see it as we see a solfatara or volcanic landscape. We see what
David
Friedrich Strauss writes, and we describe it as calm and peaceful. We
see what
Soloviev writes and we describe that too as calm and peaceful. All of
this is
written calmly as if we have not yet lit a piece of paper to see the
eruptive
impulses of humanity living and working beneath the soil.
A great deal
has really been said with these few words. It only needs to be
systematically
thought through and you will see that it is so. What we described at the end of our
observations
yesterday we see is like living over a volcano. It is, however fully in
accord
with the purpose of evolution to see things so peaceful and harmless.
That is
good because beneath this peacefulness and harmlessness the very
faculties that
we need in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch are being developed. In most
people
they are not developed consciously, though in spiritual science the
endeavor
must be made to do so. Hence, it becomes necessary from time to time to
indicate with care and caution the things one becomes aware of when one
kindles
that little piece of paper. Why is all this so? In the first place,
because the
ahrimanic powers have something quite different in mind for the fifth
post-Atlantean epoch. In the fourth post-Atlantean culture they were
greatly
disillusioned through the Roman evolution, as we described in the last
two
lectures. They did not attain their goal and therefore have prepared
still
worse onslaughts for our fifth post-Atlantean epoch, for they mean to
try again
to achieve their purpose.
Now I have already mentioned that something
is coming
to expression from two sides, even geographically, that will burst like
a storm
into our calm and peaceful evolution in this fifth post-Atlantean
epoch,
predisposed as it is to calm and peace. I pointed to one of these
directions
when I told you how Genghis Khan was
inspired by the priest who had seen a descendant of the “Great Spirit”
of old
Atlantis. I also indicated how a certain ahrimanic attack was launched
from the
West through all that followed the discovery of America. It has been overcome in a certain respect
but
continues to live on in it as a resistant force. One must not think
that things
that are not seen are not there. Because what the ahrimanic powers took
in hand
in the Western
Hemisphere did not
come to outer physical earthly reality, our
fifth post-Atlantean culture has been saved from the first attacks. But
it goes
on living in a sort of spectral form. It is there and impresses itself
into
men's impulses. People know nothing of it, however, and are unaware
that it
lives in and inserts itself into their impulses. Now it is only through
placing
pictures side by side that I can really lay a foundation for concepts
that you
must gradually create and form for yourselves in meditation. It would
not be
easy to find concepts in the present fund of ideas to explain what
actually
lives in the urges and impulses below the threshold. They push up, to
be sure,
into the ordinary soul life but they are normally covered over and
unperceived
in modern normal life.
Upon the soil of the Western Hemisphere that was now trodden through the discovery
of America, quite special conditions had gradually been
taking shape
in the course of past centuries. The general population inhabiting
those parts
was far from attaining the qualities that had meanwhile been developed
in the
Eastern Hemisphere of Europe and Asia. A people lived in the West who stood far
removed
from the intellectual capacities that had evolved in the Eastern Hemisphere, but among them were a great number of
individuals
who had been initiated into certain mysteries. Before the discovery of America, there were mysteries of the most varied
kind in the Western
Hemisphere and they
had a large following for the teachings that
came from them. Like a single central power whom all followed and
obeyed, a
kind of spectral spirit, a descendant of the “Great Spirit” of
Atlantis, was
revered. This spirit had gradually assumed an ahrimanic character
because he
still worked with forces that had been right in Atlantis or were
already
ahrimanic there.
When the Atlantean spoke of his “Great
Spirit,” he
expressed it, as we have seen, in a word that sounded something like
the word
“Tao,” which is still preserved in China. An ahrimanic, caricatured counterpart
appeared in
the West as opponent of the “Great Spirit Tao” but he was still
connected with
him. He worked in such a way that he could only be made visible through
atavistic,
visionary perception but whenever they desired his presence, he always
showed
himself to those persons connected with the widespread mysteries of
this cult
so they could receive his instructions and commands. This spirit was
called by
a name that sounded something like Taotl. Taotl was thus an ahrimanic distortion of the
“Great Spirit” - a mighty being and one who did not descend to physical
incarnation. A great many men were initiated into the mysteries of
Taotl but
the initiation was of a completely ahrimanic character. It had a quite
definite
purpose and goal, which was to rigidify and mechanize all earthly life,
including that of humans, to such a degree that a special luciferic
planet,
which has already been referred to in these studies, could be founded
above
earthly life. The souls of men could then be drawn out to it, by force
and
pressure.
As we described yesterday, what the ahrimanic
powers
were striving for in the civilization of Rome was only a feeble echo of
what
those who, under the leadership of Taotl, set out to attain, and this
in much
fuller and wider measure by means of the most frightful magical arts.
The goal
they aimed to achieve was to make the whole earth a realm of death, in
which
everything possible would be done to kill out independence and every
inner
impulse of the soul. In they mysteries of Taotl the forces were to be
acquired
that would enable men to set up a completely mechanized earthly realm.
To this
end, one had, above all, to know the great cosmic secrets that relate
to what
works and lives in the universe and reveals its activities in earthly
existence. You see, this wisdom of the cosmos is fundamentally in its
wording,
always the same, because truth is always the same. The point is,
however,
whether or not it is received in such a way that it is employed
rightly.
Now this cosmic wisdom, which was
intrinsically not
evil but held holy secrets hidden within it, was carefully concealed by
the
initiates of Taotl. It was communicated to no one who had not been
initiated correctly
by the Taotl method. When a candidate had been initiated in the correct
way,
the teaching concerning the secrets of the cosmos was then imparted to
him.
Now, it was necessary for him to receive these secrets through
initiation in a
quite definite mood of soul. He had to feel in himself the inclination
and
desire to apply them on earth in such a way that they would set up that
mechanistic rigid realm of death. It was thus that he had to receive
the
secrets. Nor were they communicated except on one special condition.
The wisdom
was imparted to no one who had no previously committed a murder in a
particular
manner. Moreover, only certain secrets were communicated to the
candidate after
the first murder, but further and higher secrets were imparted to him
after he
had committed others.
These murders, however, had to be committed
under
quite definite conditions. The one to be murdered was laid out on a
structure
that was reached by one or two steps running along each side. This
scaffold-like structure, a kind of catafalque, was rounded off above
and when
the victim was laid upon it, he was bent strongly back. This special
way of
being bound to the scaffold forced his stomach outward so that with one
cut,
which the initiate had been prepared to perform, it could be cut out.
This kind of murder engendered definite
feelings in
the initiate. Sensations were aroused that made him capable of using
the wisdom
later imparted to him in the way that has been intimated above. When
the
stomach had been excised, it was offered to the god Taotl, again with
special
ceremonies. The fact that the initiates of these mysteries lived for
the quite
specific purpose that I have indicated to you, imparted a definite
direction to
their feelings. When the candidates to be initiated had matured on this
path
and had come to experience its inner meaning, they then learned the
nature of
the mutual interaction between the one who had been murdered and the
one who
had been initiated. Through the murder, the victim was to be prepared
in his
soul to strive upward to the luciferic realm, whereas the candidate for
initiation was to obtain the wisdom to mould this earthly world in such
a way
that souls would be driven out of it. Through the fact that a
connection was
formed between the murdered and the initiated - one cannot say
“murderer,” but
“initiated” - it was made possible for the initiated to be taken with
the other
soul; that is, the initiated could himself forsake the earth at the
right
moment.
These mysteries, as you will readily admit,
are of the
most revolting kind. Indeed, they are only in accord with a conception
that can
be called ahrimanic in the fullest sense. Nevertheless, certain
feelings and
experiences were to be created on earth by their means. Now, naturally,
the
evolution of the earth would not continue if, over a considerable part
of its
surface, mankind and an interest in mankind should completely die out.
The
interest in humanity, however, did not quite die out even there because
other
and different mysteries were founded that were designed to counteract
the
excesses of the Taotl mysteries. These were mysteries in which a being
lived
who did not come down to physical incarnation but also could be
perceived by
men gifted with a certain atavistic clairvoyance when they had been
prepared.
This being was Tezcatlipoca. That
was the name given to the being who, though he belonged to a much lower
hierarchy, was partly connected through his qualities with the Jehovah god. He worked in the Western Hemisphere against those grisly mysteries of which we
have
spoken.
The teachings of Tezcatlipoca soon escaped
from the
mysteries and were spread abroad exoterically. Thus, in those regions
of the
earth, the teachings of Tezcatlipoca were actually the most exoteric,
while
those of Taotl were the most esoteric, since they were only obtained in
the
manner described above. The ahrimanic powers sought to “save” humanity,
however
- I am now speaking as Ahriman though of it - from the god
Tezcatlipoca.
Another spirit was set up against him who, for the Western Hemisphere, had much in common with the spirit whom
Goethe
described as Mephistopheles. He was indeed his kin. This spirit was
designated
with a word that sounded like Quetzalcoatl.
He was a spirit who, for this time and part of the earth, was similar
to
Mephistopheles, although Mephistopheles displayed much more of a soul
nature.
Quetzalcoatl also never appeared directly incarnated. His symbol was
similar to
the Mercury staff to be found in the Eastern Hemisphere,
and he was, for the Western
Hemisphere, the
spirit who
could disseminate malignant diseases through certain magic forces. He
could
inflict them upon those whom he wished to injure in order to separate
them from
the relatively good god, Tezcatlipoca. The powerful onslaughts were
thus
prepared in the West that were to be made upon the world of human
impulses.
Now at a certain time a being was born in Central America who set himself a definite task within this
culture.
The old, original inhabitants of Mexico linked the existence of this being with a
definite
idea or picture. They said he had entered the world as the son of a
virgin who
had conceived him through super earthly powers, inasmuch as it was a
feathered
being from the heavens who impregnated her. When one makes researches
with the
occult powers at one's disposal, one finds that the being to whom the
ancient
Mexicans ascribed a virgin birth was born in the year 1 A.D. and lived
to be
thirty-three years old. These facts emerge when, as stated, one
examines the
matter with occult means. This being set himself a quite specific task.
At this same time in Central America another man was born who was destined by
birth to
become a high initiate of Taotl. This man had in his previous earthly
incarnations been initiated as described above and through the fact
that he had
many, many times repeated the procedure involving the excision of the
stomach,
which has been described to you and which there is no need to
recapitulate, he
had been gradually equipped with a lofty earthly and super-earthly
knowledge.
This was one of the greatest black magicians,
if not the greatest ever to tread the earth; he possessed the greatest
secrets
that are to be acquired on this path. He was faced directly with a
momentous
decision as the year 30 A.D. approached, namely whether or not, as a
single
human individual, to become so powerful through continuous initiation
that he
would come to know a certain basic secret. Through knowledge of this
secret he
would have then been able to give such a shock and impetus to the
coming
evolution of man on earth that humanity in the fourth and fifth
post-Atlantean
epochs would have been thrown into terrible darkness, with the result
that what
the ahrimanic powers had striven for in these epochs could have come
into
existence.
Then a conflict began between this
super-magician and
the being to whom a virgin birth was ascribed, and one finds from one's
research that it lasted for three years. The being of the virgin birth
bore a
name that, when we try to transpose it into our speech approximates Vitzliputzli. He is a human person who,
among all these beings who otherwise only moved about in spirit form
and could
only be perceived through atavistic clairvoyance, in actual fact became
man, so
the story goes, through his virgin birth. The three year conflict ended
when
Vitzliputzli was able to have the great magician crucified, and not
only
through the crucifixion to annihilate his body but also to place his
soul under
a ban, by this means rendering its activities powerless as well as its
knowledge. Thus the knowledge assimilated by the great magician of
Taotl was
killed. In this way Vitzliputzli was able to win again for earthly life
all
those souls who, as indicated, had already received the urge to follow
Lucifer
and leave the earth. Through the mighty victory he had gained over the
powerful
black magician, Vitzliputzli was able to imbue men again with the
desire for
earthly existence and successive incarnations.
Nothing survived from these regions of what
might have
lived on if the mysteries of Taotl had borne fruit. The forces left
over from
the impulse that lived in these mysteries survived only in the etheric
world.
They still exist subsensibly,
belonging to what would be seen if, in the sphere of the spirit, one
could
light a paper over a solfatara. The forces are there under the covering
of
ordinary life, which is like the surface crust of a volcano.
So, on one side, what came from the inspirer
of
Genghis Khan entered into the forming of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch
and, on
the other, what worked on as the ghost or spectre of the events that
had taken
place in the Western
Hemisphere. No more
than a
feeble echo was left of this when the Europeans discovered America. But it is even known in ordinary history
that many
Europeans who set foot on Mexican-American soil were murdered by the
decadent
priesthood, which, though no longer as evil as in earlier times, still
cut out
the stomach, as I described. This was the fate of many Europeans who
trod the
soil of Mexico after the discovery of America, and the fact is even known to history.
In Vitzliputzli these people revered a Sun
being who
was born of a virgin, as I have said. When one investigates it
occultly, one
finds that he was the unknown contemporary in the Western Hemisphere of the Mystery of Golgotha. One can, indeed,
also
describe these things superficially as modern people like to do to
avoid giving
pain. If, however, one desires real knowledge, the one must cast a
fleeting
glance upon these concrete facts of the past, as we have done today.
Yes, when
we regard this modern human soul, we see how below, in the direction of
the
subsensible, and how above, in the direction of the supersensible, it
is
exposed to great and serious dangers, and how forces play in that
remain unknown.
Yet it is good that they remain unknown because it is only in this way
that the
fifth post-Atlantean epoch can develop. The veil must be lifted now so
that
consciousness may be added to what still remains unconsciousness,
because
enough time has passed since America has been discovered. Otherwise, if
consciousness did
not gradually enter, these forces would become paramount, and the
relatively
beneficent conditions of the time of unconsciousness would turn around
and
become the curse of humanity. After all, many things, which in the way
they
have made their appearance have proved a benefit, bear the inherent
tendency to
become a curse to mankind.
I wished to indicate to you by means of this
description the sort of things that are surging and seething beneath
the
surface. Now let us leave this sub-earthly region and again consider
the
earthly, but without trying to make any immediate connections in
thought
between the two realms; we can do that later. Let us consider the
question as
to how that most remarkable and brilliant Life
of Jesus by Ernest Renan was written in such a way that Jesus is
depicted
as a man who went about on earth as I have described. Such a gifted
personality
as Renan was not conscious of the ground on which he wrote precisely
this life of
Jesus. Such a work was written out of quite definite impulses but they
remain
in the unconscious. The impulses out of which this book was written can
be
considered collectively as one fundamental impulse or instinct that so
far has
produced only what is good - within certain limits, relatively good -
because
it is an excellent work of its kind. Many other things have been done
out of
this same instinct. I have only chosen this one example in the sphere
of
knowledge but one could also choose examples from life. Here, however,
one
would come into spheres where people are easily irritated.
Renan's book is written out of a fundamental
impulse
that tries to attain a specific object, namely, to observe purely
externally
what we know as man, to view him solely as he is when placed out into
the
world. I have chosen this example of the life of Jesus because,
actuated by
this instinct, Renan here approaches the most sacred personality of
humanity
and describes Him in such a way that He stands before us only as outer
personality. Should it go on increasing indefinitely, where would this
natural
impulse eventually lead us? It would lead to a point where men would no
longer
be inclined to look into their own souls when they observe the world.
Renan has
gone so far that he no longer trusts himself to look into his own inner
self
when he speaks of Christ Jesus. He speaks only of the historic figure
and
endeavors to perceive Him externally. This comes from the instinct to
lose
oneself gradually in mankind and so come to see each person in the
world only
outwardly, no longer responding to what is reflected into one's soul
from
another human being.
Here, the natural impulse of primal
phenomenon
perception is carried to an extreme: The outer world is to be perceived
without
stirring the inner life in any way. The one-sided perfecting of this
impulse
aims at a human society in which people only see each other externally
when
they meet. I many respects the immediate present shows us how far the
impulse
has gone because it is already assumed today that people are to be
understood
less and less from their inner qualities of soul and more and more
purely
externally. The false cultivation of the idea of “nation,” in
particular,
stamps a man with nationality - an external condition when compared
with the
inner soul nature. He is then judged in accordance with this
nationality and is
thereby moulded in life so that he comes to be regarded only as
belonging to a
certain nation rather than for his own character and qualities. This is
one of
the forces that does great service to his natural impulse. By these
means
earthly humanity would tend to be enclosed increasingly within national
boundaries, which would become impassable in the future. Thus, out of
this
first impulse, the picture of each human being arises as he stands
merely
externally in the world.
Now let us look at the other impulse. It
would be such
that through it one would consider inner experience only, paying no
attention
to the external man and perceiving only what can be lived through
inwardly,
what can be directly felt in the soul. If one makes this impulse a
criterion of
knowledge regarding the figure of Christ Jesus, then interest in the
Jesus
figure would naturally decline and would center only on the Christ
being. Should
this impulse spread, there would be no interest in Jesus as an
historical
figure but only in study of the Christ being. It is the opposite of the
other
impulse and it, too, is now striving to become general in earthly
humanity.
Should it succeed, people would pass one another by, each brooding
inwardly
over himself in a rich life of soul. They would pass each other without
even
feeling the need to understand the individual character of those around
them.
Everyone would only desire to live in the home of his own soul, as it
were. In
the sphere of knowledge this impulse inspired Soloviev in his treatment
of the
most sacred Being of humanity. He had interest only in the Christ and
not for
the historical Jesus.
You see the two extremes toward which modern
man is
tending. The one is the impulse, the instinct, only to view the world
from
outside, to carry the primal phenomenon to an extreme. The other is to
conceive
of the world only inwardly in free imaginations. All this is in its
beginnings
and up to the present has developed in admirable, beneficent ways, but
is also
has a strong tendency to become the reverse. Just as Renan's Life of Jesus is a masterpiece of
external description, so are Soloviev's representations of the Christ
Being the
highest that could have been created in this sphere in the present day.
They
are wholesome impulses. Nevertheless, they represent the urge that, in
its
one-sided cultivation, would drive back each man into his own house.
In contrast, a knowledge must arise through
the
science of the spirit, a knowledge that can be embraced in two
statements that
I should especially like to inscribe into your souls today. The first
is: A man
can never come to a really good, upright, strong personal inner life
without
having the warmest interest in other men. All inner life that we seek
remains
false and seductive if it does not go hand in hand with a kindly
interest in
the character and qualities of other people. We ought straightway to
take it
for granted that we find ourselves inwardly as man when we take an
interest in
the characteristics of others. Entering with love into the
individualities of
other people, which is at times united with a deep experience of the
tragedy of
life, is what can bring us to self-knowledge. The self-knowledge we
seek
through delving into ourselves will never be true. We deepen our own
inner
nature by meeting other people with full interest. But this statement
as it has
now been expressed here, implies something that cannot be directly
carried into
effect because it must interact with the other statement.
The other statement is: We never gain a true
knowledge
of the outer world if we do not resolve to examine the universally
human in
ourselves and learn to know it. Therefore, all natural science of
modern times
will be a purely mechanical science and knowledge, not true but false,
inverted, unless it is based on the knowledge of man. In the science
that was
described by me as “occult science” in the book An Outline
of Occult Science, the knowledge of the outer world was
sought for together with the knowledge of the human being. We find the
inner
through the outer, the outer through the inner.
I will bring forward next time what remains
to be said
regarding certain present-day phenomena as they come to light in other
works
such as the so-called Life of Jesus
by David Friedrich Strauss. Today, I should only like to add that when,
twice
seven years ago, our impulse to form a theosophical movement began to
work -
the movement later became anthroposophical - the intention was that all
the
activity that went on in this movement would be founded on these two
principles: The without should kindle
self-knowledge; the within should
teach knowledge of the world. In these two statements, or rather in
their
realization in the world, lies true spiritual insight into existence
and the
impulse to real human love, to a love filled with insight. A
realization of
what lies in these statements should be sought for through our Society.
If in
these twice seven years all had come to pass that has been striven for,
if the
opposing powers in our time, had not been strong enough to hinder many
things,
then today I should have been able to speak of certain secrets of
existence
quite differently from the way in which it is possible to do so. Then
this
Society would have become ripe enough for things to be said in its
midst today
that could be spoken nowhere else.
In that case, there would also be a guarantee
that
these secrets of existence would be safeguarded in the right way. What
has
happened in our Society has shown, however, that it is precisely in the
matter
of safeguarding things that it fails, fails through all manner of
contrary
interests that have attached themselves to the movement. There is
really no
longer a safeguard today - at least, no thorough safeguard that what is
said
among us is not made use of, and, as frequently has happened, clothed
by many
persons in such feelings, in any way they please in the outer world.
Since this
is so, when we examine the Society, we find that, in looking back over
the
twice seven years, in many respects it has remained behind. Such
introspection
should not lead to a loss of courage but it should lead us to be
discontent
with revelling in the possession of a certain degree of knowledge, and
also to
developing that deep earnestness in life that will lead us to accept
truth in
the form in which it must be communicated in our age. When it is
possible for
outstanding members of our movement who are writers to think in the
manner
revealed recently, then it is clear that other and deeper impulses must
now
awaken within the souls of those who find themselves in our Society
than have
awakened hitherto. We do not join together merely to possess agreeable
facts of
knowledge. Rather should it be that we unite together in order to carry
on a
sacred service to truth in the interest of mankind's evolution. Then,
indeed,
the right knowledge will come to us. Then these facts will not be
restrained by
all sorts of prejudices.
At any rate, let us receive at least into our
hearts
this ideal that perhaps even yet such a Society may arise as is
necessary in
the wide world of prejudice - a Society that permeates and
interpenetrates our
times. What I am saying is naturally not directed in the slightest
degree
toward anyone in particular, nor toward any single soul among us. Its
intention
is solely to emphasize the ideal of knowledge of our epoch, the ideal
of the
service of mankind we should recognize as necessary. With the same
warmth with
which I spoke here about eight days ago. I should like again today to
stress
what must not be forgotten in our circle, namely, that it is essential
to
modern humanity for a group of people to exist to whom it is possible
to speak
in the most open and candid manner of the whole content of truth that
needs to
be revealed today without stirring up prejudicial emotions! We must
accept it
as our Karma that enmity has lifted up its head in our circle, enmity
from out
of the unintelligent feelings, ideas and customs of the time. We should
not be
deceived for a moment: this is our
karma. Then, from the very recognition of it the impulse for the right
will
arise. In particular, we must not so often forget as quickly as we do
what we
receive, nor let so much of what is put into concise sentences
embracing truths
separately explained, merely pass over us. Rather, let us preserve it
all in
our hearts. In our circle the longing to forget often what is most
important of
all, is widely diffused. So we have not yet become the living organic
Society
that we need, or rather that humanity needs. To achieve this it is
necessary
above all that we should acquire a memory for what we can learn through
life in
the Society.
Atlantean
Impulses in the Mexican Mysteries. The
Problem of Natural Urges and Impulses, The Problem of Death
Dornach,
September 24, 1916
As
a continuation of yesterday's lecture, certain things must be said that
are
connected with subjects spoken of here a week ago. As a number of
friends who
were not then present are here for a special meeting, I will repeat
certain
matters in the lectures still to be given. This may be useful, because
from
remarks that have been made to me, it is obvious that important points
have
been misunderstood.
At the very outset let us be quite clear that
the
course of evolution as we have learned to know it in connection with
great
cosmic happenings proceeds both in these great cosmic phenomena and in
the
phenomena of human historical development. The so-called fourth
post-Atlantean
epoch, during which the Greco-Roman culture developed and attained its
greatness, must be of particular interest to us in our age. As you
know, from
the standpoint of the science of the spirit this fourth epoch lasted
until the
beginning of the fifteenth century A.D. With the dawning of the
fifteenth
century, trends began to manifest in European culture of which we
heard, for
instance, in yesterday's lecture.
When we picture the nature of the Greco-Roman
epoch,
it appears to us as a kind of recurrence or revival of what spread over
the
earth as human culture during the period of Atlantis. It has often been
said
that the thoughts, the perceptions, and also the social life of the
Greeks
become intelligible when we regard this fourth post-Atlantean culture -
although Atlantean culture was, of course, much more elemental and
instinctive.
It assumed a more spiritual form in the culture of Greece and Rome. What had been direct experience in Atlantis
was
transposed into reality in Greece through fantasy, imagination and thoughts,
and
through the will, which, in turn, was inspired, by fantasy and
imagination. We
must realize that this Greco-Roman culture constituted a deep
disillusionment
for the luciferic and ahrimanic powers. The luciferic and ahrimanic
powers of
the hierarchy standing nearest to the human hierarchy, desired that the
Atlantean culture, as it had been in Atlantis, should simply re-appear
in the
fourth post-Atlantean epoch. In other words it was the intention of the
luciferic and ahrimanic powers that everything that had constituted the
essential
nature of Atlantean culture should be merely repeated during the
Greco-Roman
age. (You can read about this in An
Outline of Occult Science or in the book, Cosmic
Memory.)
This plan was frustrated inasmuch as humanity
was
raised to a higher stage consistent with the post-Atlantean era. What
was
essentially new and great in Greek and Roman culture constituted a
spiritual
disillusionment for the luciferic and ahrimanic powers. Through their
different
influences these powers desired to educate the Greeks and so to develop
their
powers of fantasy that the souls of men would gradually have become
weary of
the earth, would lose their inclination to incarnate further on the
earth, and
would tend to withdraw, as souls, from the earth in order to found a
realm and
planet of their own. The effect of this influence was annulled through
the
leadership of those powers we call the normal hierarchies, whereby the
quality
of fantasy and imagination in the Greeks, which also influenced their
social
life, was transformed into joy in the earthly. The Greek received into
his
nature such a joy in the life of earth and of the senses that he had no
desire to
live merely in the world of imagination where his soul would be
alienated from
earthly existence, but inclined rather to the attitude expressed in the
well
known words, “Better to be a beggar on the earth, than a king in the
realm of
shades.” This joy in life between birth and death enabled the normal
powers to
avert from the Greeks the danger inherent in the plan of the luciferic
powers,
namely, to lead away the souls of men so that the bodies still to be
born on
the earth would have gone about without egos, and the souls would have
departed
to a special planet of their own.
In Roman culture, on the other hand,
Ahriman's aim was
to help Luciferic by shaping the Roman Empire and what followed it
in such a way that it would have become a great earthly mechanism for
ego-less
human beings. In this way he would have been of assistance to Lucifer.
Whereas
Lucifer's desire was to extract the juice of the lemons for himself, as
it
were, Ahriman, working in the Roman Empire, set out to
thoroughly squeeze the lemons and to create an entirely mechanistic
state
organization. Thus do Ahriman and Lucifer
play into each other's hands. The plan was frustrated by the
development in a
preeminently egoistic sense in the people of the Roman Empire of the concept of Civis,
the citizen. Human egoism, be it remembered, can only develop in
physical
existence on the earth. Thereby Ahriman's plan to make men into
ego-less beings
was frustrated. It was precisely the bleakness, the lack of fantasy in
Roman
culture, the egoism in Roman politics and system of rights that
thwarted
Ahriman's plan.
The Greek and the Roman epochs were a great
disillusionment for Ahriman and Lucifer. Once again they had not
attained their
goal. The destiny of Ahriman and Lucifer is that they work with their
forces in
earth evolution and repeatedly make the greatest efforts to hold back
the wider
progress of evolution; they try to establish a realm for themselves,
and have
again and again to suffer disillusionment. As I have said before, to
ask why
Lucifer and Ahriman are unable to perceive that their strivings will
ultimately
be of no avail is to judge the spiritual by human standards. Lucifer
and
Ahriman have a faculty of judgment different from that of man. We
cannot judge
from the human standpoint what is observed in the spiritual world. If
we do so,
we should soon be considering ourselves much cleverer than a god, or a
being
belonging to some higher hierarchical order. As we know, Lucifer and
Ahriman,
although they are retarded spirits, belong to a hierarchical order
higher than
that of man. It is therefore understandable that they are repeatedly
disillusioned, but their strivings always begin anew.
Then came the fifth post-Atlantean epoch,
which has
definite tasks in the stream of progressive spiritual evolution.
Whereas the
Greek life of fantasy, and the egoism of Rome were to develop in the fourth post-Atlantean
epoch,
the task of the fifth epoch was to develop the gift of material
perception. I
have characterized this by calling the ideal of material perception, in
the
sense of Goethe's “primal phenomenon,” the pure perception, the pure
beholding
of external reality. This faculty could not operate in earlier times
because
then the perception of material reality was invariably mingled with
what came
from atavistic clairvoyance. Men did not see the pure phenomenon, and
they did
not see pure external, material existence as such. They saw external
existence
veiled in the phantasmagoria of visionary clairvoyance. If people would
observe
a little more closely they would realize, even from history, that this
is so.
Plato did not consider sight as being so passive a faculty as we
consider it in
the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Plato, the Greek, says expressly: Sight
consists in a kind of fire going out from the eye to the objects.
Plato,
therefore, still knew something about the activity in sight. This
activity had
to be laid aside, forgotten, lost, in order that a different faculty
belonging
to the fifth epoch might arise. This faculty of the fifth epoch, which
lasts
from the beginning of the fifteenth century until the fourth
millennium,
consists in the development of the gift of free imagination that arises
in
complete inner freedom. On the one side, the primal phenomenon; on the
other
free imagination.
Goethe spoke of the primal phenomenon and
also of free
imagination. References to what he says in Faust
have been made on many occasions. Here we have the beginnings of what
must
engross evolution in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. The fifth epoch
will
thereby receive its stamp. But in this same epoch human beings will
have to
battle against attacks of the luciferic and ahrimanic powers that will
be
stronger than those launched in the days of Greek and Roman culture.
Again in
this later epoch the aim of the luciferic and ahrimanic powers is to
alienate
the souls of men from earthly life on the one hand, and on the other so
to
mechanize earthly life itself, to make its outer form so entirely
mechanistic,
that it would be impossible for the ego of man to live in the social
order of
the earth. He would therefore take leave of it to enter a life apart
from the
earth upon a separate planet.
When we speak of the attacks of luciferic and
ahrimanic powers, such things as are here indicated are prepared long
beforehand. These attacks begin actually to operate first during the
fourth or
fifth century of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, but behind the
curtains of
world history, even before the beginning of this fifth epoch, complete
and
intense preparation was made by the luciferic and ahrimanic powers.
Their plan
was to bring all human faculties and human forces of will under the
sway of a
longing to be alienated from the earth, to leave the earth and build up
a
separate planetary body, while the earth was to be deserted and left
desolate.
As I say, the very strongest attacks have been undertaken. Think of
what gave
to culture its basic tone in the epoch of Atlantis. Lucifer and Ahriman
wish,
during the post-Atlantean period, to interpose the old Atlantean
culture
everywhere so that the faculties imparted by the progressive powers are
rendered primitive for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch and human beings
will
desire to depart. The attempt, therefore, consisted in placing
everything that
developed into a service of a world beyond the earth, as I have
indicated.
Thus, from two sides, from that of Lucifer and that of Ahriman, the
spirit
reigning in ancient Atlantean life was to be revived in order that the
impulses
connected with that ancient life might enter into the evolution of the
fifth
post-Atlantean epoch.
You will remember that in Atlantean times the
impulses
within the souls of men were turned to the Great Spirit who was
designated by a
word or sound of which an echo still exists in the Chinese Tao. Such
was the
designation of the Great Spirit in the time of Atlantis. The luciferic
and
ahrimanic striving consists essentially in bringing what had come later
and
what was still to come, into the service of the Tao, into the service
of the
Great Spirit. This was not, of course, the Great Spirit as he had
reigned in
Atlantis, but a being who had come after him, a kind of little son.
Lucifer and
Ahriman strove to resuscitate Atlantean impulses by reckoning, not with
the
normal powers of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, but with the impulses
that had
remained behind in the service of the Great Spirit Tao. The only
possibility of
achieving this end was to transfer the impulses that had worked in the
culture
of the now submerged Atlantis to the regions that had emerged after the
Atlantean flood. Thus a part of what had succeeded the Great Spirit
passed over
to the East, to Asia, as it were, where certain mystery cults
were
gradually established during the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries
A.D.
These mystery cults assumed a certain
character
inasmuch as they were a renewal, a revival, of the ancient cult of Tao
in its
original form, not in the form in which it still exists among the
degenerate
Chinese who have intellectualized it. These mystery cults in Asia
were a revival of that kind of initiation that led to actual perception
of the
elemental spiritual, living and weaving beneath the material world of
the
senses, and to actual perception of the One Great Spirit. Certain
priests of
these Asian mysteries were initiated into the ancient Atlantean cult,
which
naturally led to delusions because it was unsuited to this later epoch.
One of
these priests had attained such an advanced stage in his initiation in Asia
that he possessed full knowledge of the nature of the Atlantean
impulses and
was able to hold actual converse with the successor, the unlawful
successor, of
the Great Spirit Tao. It was he, who, in Asia,
transmitted the inspiration he had received through the Great Spirit,
to an
external, worldly power, to a pupil who then became known in history as
Genghis
Khan.
Genghis Khan was the pupil of a priest who
had been
initiated into these Asian mysteries, and he instilled into Genghis
Khan the
following. The time has now come for divine justice to scour the earth.
The
charge has been laid upon you to put this divine justice into
operation, and
you must now place yourself at the head of all those men who, starting
out from
Asia, can enact divine justice all over the
earth. Similar
attempts modeled on the campaign of the Huns and so forth, had failed,
but now,
essentially through the impulse give by this Asian priesthood, the
Mongol
campaign was set in motion. This campaign was intended to carry into
European
culture influences that would have caused the souls of men to believe
in divine
justice, to fall under its sway, and gradually to take leave of the
earth
without any inclination to return. So the culture of the earth would
have been
destroyed. This was the inner purpose of the Mongol onslaughts that
spread from
Asia, and which, as you know, were not overthrown
by
physical deeds.
Remarkably, at the battle of Liegnitz in the
thirteenth century, the Mongols were not conquered but remained the
victors.
Then, quite inexplicably, they turned back toward Asia
without advancing further into Europe. So here too there is actual external
evidence that a
counterstroke, manifesting in a spiritual way, was put into operation.
As has
been said, the Europeans had not conquered the Mongols in Silesia; the Europeans had themselves been
conquered.
Although the Mongols were the victors, they turned back to Asia.
But, in a sense, just because the purely external onslaught did not
come to
pass, or did not go very far, the impulses remained in Europe
in the state of distillation in which they would have to operate in the
fifth
post-Atlantean epoch. So, in the cultural impulses that came over from
the
East, there is clearly and yet to be perceived what was intended to be
brought
to Europe as an aftermath of the mysteries of the
Great Spirit.
Another part of the mystery culture of
ancient
Atlantis made its way, not toward the East, but toward the West, to the
lands
of America discovered later on by the Europeans. There
the more
ahrimanic part of the irregular post-Atlantean culture lived itself
out.
Whereas the luciferic part lived on more in Asia,
the ahrimanic part worked more in America. Within America impulses were to arise that could then
percolate from
the West. Just as those other impulses could work from the East, so
these could
infiltrate from the West in order that the ahrimanic attack might be
made in
the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.
Hence, in the West, the more ahrimanic side
of the
outlived Atlantean mystery culture was promulgated. This led to the
establishment of mysteries that inevitably make a most repulsive
impression
upon those who have grown up in the tender culture of modern times, and
do not
like to hear the truth but only blessedness, as it is often called.
These
post-Atlantean mysteries developed especially on the soil of Mexico. Mysteries were established there, but they
spread
over a large part of the America the Europeans had not yet discovered. If
their
impulses and workings had been victorious, these mysteries would have
driven
souls away from the earth. By this means the service performed by
Ahriman, the
squeezing out of the lemons, would have become effective. The earth
would
gradually have become desolate, having upon it only the forces of
death,
whereas any living souls would have departed to found another planet
under the
leadership of Lucifer and Ahriman.
In order to execute the ahrimanic part of
this task,
it was necessary for the priests of those ahrimanic Atlantean mysteries
to
acquire faculties possessing the highest degrees of control and mastery
over
all the forces of death in earthly working. These forces would have
made the
earth; together with physical man - for the souls were to depart - into
a
purely mechanistic realm, a great dead realm in which no ego could have
a
place. These faculties would have had to be connected also with mastery
of the
mechanistic element in everything living, of the mechanistic elements
in all
life. For this reason these mysteries had to be instituted in a truly
devilish
form because such forces as would have been needed for the powerful
aims of
Ahriman can only arise when initiations of a special kind are attained.
Such
were these initiations of the ahrimanic post-Atlantean era in America. Everyone who was to attain a certain degree
of
knowledge was made to realize that this knowledge is acquired through
certain
faculties of perception that can only be engendered through an act of
murder.
Thus nobody whom had not committed murder was admitted to a certain
degree of
this initiation. The murder was performed under special circumstances.
Steps
led up to a kind of catafalque, a scaffold-like structure. The one to
be
murdered was tied to this and his body bent in such a way that his
stomach
could be excised with a single cut. This operation, the excision of the
stomach, had to be performed with great dexterity. Certain experiences
arose
from the act of having cut into the living organism with such
consummate skill,
and under such special conditions. These experiences had to be acquired
and
through them a certain degree of knowledge concerning the mechanization
of the
earth could then be attained. Every time higher stages of initiation
were to be
reached, further murders had to be committed.
This cult was dedicated to the successor, the
son of
the Great Spirit, in the form he had assumed in America, and who was designated by a sound that
approximates
Taotl. Taotl is an ahrimanic distortion of the successor of Tao. This
being,
Taotl did not appear in a physical body but only in an etheric form.
His arts,
which were essentially impulses for the mechanization of earthly
culture and of
all earthly life, were acquired through these initiations I have
described to
you.
Now these initiations had a definite purpose.
As has
been said, the initiate acquired actual powers of black magic, the
application
of which would have led to the mechanization of the culture of the
earth and to
the expulsion of all egos, so that the bodies born would no longer have
been
capable of bearing an ego. But as forces in the world are in perpetual
interaction, he who possessed such powers would also have become
earth-bound;
the initiate himself would have been permanently fettered to the earth
forces.
His act bound him to forces of which you will be able to learn
something
tomorrow at the performance of the scene from Faust,
if you will follow attentively what the Lemurs represent. By
these practices the initiate united himself with the earth forces and
with
everything that causes death on the earth. Thereby, he would himself
have lost
his soul. He saved himself from this fate by bringing it about that, as
a
result of the excision of the stomach, the soul of the one whom he
murdered had
lost his desire to come to the earth again and also the soul of the
victim was
enabled, through the intention of the murderer, to draw the murderer's
soul
into the realm that was to be founded beyond the earth. The soul of the
initiated murderer was thus also to be drawn into the kingdom of Lucifer and Ahriman.
Many opposing sects were founded with the
object of
countering this devilish cult. One such sect was that of Tezcatlipoca.
He too
was a being who did not appear in a physical body but who was known to
many of
the Mexican initiates, in spite of the fact that he lived only in an
etheric
body. Tezcatlipoca was a being akin to Jahve or Jehovah. The aim of his
cult, working
in opposition to those of Taotl, was to establish a Jahve religion
suited to
the terrible conditions prevailing in Mexico. Tezcatlipoca was a spirit akin to Jahve.
Another sect venerated Quetzalcoatl. He, too,
was a
being who lived only in an etheric body. Quetzalcoatl was a being of
whom we
may say that he was connected with the Mercury forces. He was connected
with
medical art of a certain character. Such beings are always described by
those
who can perceive them through clairvoyance in such a way that the
description
conveys the impression of the actual reality. When Quetzalcoatl is
described as
a figure with a serpent-like body, as a green feathered serpent, this
indicates
to those who understand such matters that he was an actual being, but
one who
appears only in an etheric body. This cult continued through many
millennia. It
was widely practiced, not in public but within the precincts of certain
Mexican
mysteries, in order that the necessary post-Atlantean cultural impulses
might
be developed in secret in an ahrimanic form.
A third movement also developed in those
regions.
Counter-movements were necessary, and had there been none, the
influences of
these forces upon the culture of Greece and Rome, and later upon the culture of the fifth
post-Atlantean
epoch, would gradually have become so strong that they would have
proved
invincible to the progressive powers. Thus, a further counter-movement
developed as a result of the birth of a being who lived in a physical
body in
contrast to those beings who only manifested in etheric bodies. The
name given
to this Being may be expressed by a combination of syllables that
approximate
Vitzliputzli. Vitzliputzli was a human being, a being who appeared in a
physical body. In Vitzliputzli the spiritual individuality lived who,
within a
human body, took up the fight against the mysteries I have been
describing.
Among the Mexicans it was said of Vitzliputzli that he was born of a
virgin who
had conceived by the heavenly influence of a bird having drawn near to
her. If
by occult means, so far as it is possible, we investigate the life of
Vitzliputzli in the Western
Hemisphere we find
this
remarkable fact. He lived at the time when, in the Eastern Hemisphere, the Mystery of Golgotha was taking place,
namely,
between the years 1 and 33 A.D. That is the remarkable fact.
Vitzliputzli was
able to make short shrift of the most important initiates of the
Mexican
mysteries against whom he waged violent war.
It was human being, an initiate, not one of
the three
spirits, but an initiate, against whom Vitzliputzli fought.
Vitzliputzli, a
supersensible being but in human form, battled with every means at his
disposal
against the initiate who had been responsible for the greatest number
of
murders, who had attained the greatest power, and of whom it can be
said that
if his aim had been realized, it would have betokened the victory of
this
ahrimanic post-Atlantean culture. Vitzliputzli fought against him and -
as
already said, this can only be discovered by occult means - in the year
33 A.D.
succeeded in causing this mightiest black magician to be crucified.
Thus, in
the other hemisphere of the earth, an event parallel to the Mystery of
Golgotha
took place, inasmuch as the greatest black magician of all was
crucified by the
action of Vitzliputzli who had appeared on the earth for this purpose.
As a
result, the power of these mysteries was thereby broken so far as the
fourth
post-Atlantean epoch was concerned. It was subsequently revived,
however, and
history tells of the fate suffered by numerous Europeans who went to America after the discovery of that continent. Many
Europeans
met their death at the hands of Mexican priest-initiates who bound them
to
scaffold-like structures and cut out their stomachs with expert skill.
This is
a matter of historical knowledge, and it was an aftermath of what I
have been
describing to you.
By these means the ahrimanic impulse was
inculcated
into the etheric nature of the Western world. As I have said, this
impulse in
the fourth epoch was broken as a result of the crucifixion of the great
initiated black magician by the deed of Vitzliputzli. Nevertheless, so
much
force remained that a further attack could have been made upon the
fifth epoch,
having as its aim so to mechanize the earth that the resulting culture
would
not only have culminated in a mass of purely mechanical contrivances
but would
have made human beings themselves into such pure homunculi that their
egos
would have departed. The Europeans were meant to acquire knowledge of
this
world, and indeed the modern age begins with the people of Europe
being drawn to America. Whereas on the one side the campaigns of
Genghis
Khan and his successors were to have executed as it were a divine
justice, on
the other side, there was prepared an atmosphere of wild, ahrimanic,
elemental
forces into which the Europeans were to enter. In such matters complete
cooperation takes place between Ahriman and Lucifer. For example, the
Europeans
were not to go over to that other world with disinterested, unselfish
feelings
but with hankerings and greed for something concerning which they gave
way to
all kinds of delusions. Later on it was possible to coarsen what was at
first
clothed in wonderful fantasy, inasmuch as the discovery by the
Europeans of the
wealth of external nature in America gave an intense stimulus to their hankerings
and
greed. But to begin with this was to take a more idealistic form. Thus,
here
again we have an example of cooperation between the luciferic and
ahrimanic
forces that always work hand in hand.
A successor of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, had
settled
in China as a ruler after the Mongols had stormed
over to Europe.
To Kublai Khan in China there came from Europe a Venetian, Marco Polo. At the court of
Kublai Khan,
who was himself under the influence of the initiation I have previously
described, Marco Polo was deeply and fundamentally influenced. He wrote
a book
of just such a kind as to excite the imagination of the Europeans
concerning
the Western Hemisphere. Marco Polo's Travels
spoke of a magic land in the West, which stirred up longings to
discover it. It
was this book that induced Christopher Columbus to set out on his
voyage to America. So you see how greed was guided into a
world of
fantasy. Things work together with extraordinarily clever foresight.
You must
realize that there is plan in world history in which the evil powers
also come
into the picture, and that the methods with which history is studied
today
enable us merely to observe historical life from the external aspect.
The only
possibility of acquiring real knowledge is to connect the right facts
in the
light of the science of the spirit, such as the discovery of America at a definite point of time, and the
stirrings of
desire for a land of fantasy, this desire being, in its turn, an
impulse
capable of attracting souls away from the earth.
The fitting mood for discovering America at a definite epoch is created by the
description of
this land of fantasy associated with the stirring up of desire. It is a
mood
that worked especially upon the subconscious forces in the souls of
men, and it
was able to work on further in the cultural life. We must think of
Marco Polo
and his book as being definitely connected with what instigated
Christopher
Columbus to travel to the West. It is well known that his wish was to
discover
the magic land; indeed, this is mentioned in ordinary history.
I have here described how the ahrimanic and
luciferic
impulses work in order to make their attacks upon the fifth
post-Atlantean
epoch. Now, this fifth epoch is such that the human being lives in a
middle
sphere of the life of soul. Man's life of soul in the fifth
post-Atlantean
epoch must be protected from direct perception of the ahrimanic forces.
True,
man must learn through the science of the spirit to enter their domain,
but
external life must be protected in order that the powers that were
mentioned
both yesterday and today may unfold. These forces that have been
brought to the
earth in the concrete way that has been described, work below the level
of the
ordinary normal consciousness. Knowledge of man's life of soul is not
attained
by saying, as a generalization: There is a realm of consciousness, and
there is
a realm of subconsciousness, and natural urges and impulses work upward
out of
the subconscious. It is necessary to know how these urges and impulses
are
brought into existence on the earth, and to understand the concrete
facts. In
many domains we see aftermaths in the consciousness that is unfolded by
the
human soul in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. We can picture the
ahrimanic
forces that originated in the way described as being active below the
threshold
of consciousness like lava, like volcanic forces under a soil that
emits smoke
if one sets fire to paper above it. This shows that beneath the soil
there are
terrifying forces that pour from every aperture under such
circumstances. So it
is with the forces of the soul. Beneath what is known to consciousness
there
are forces that have been influenced by what I have described. Then
they press
upward. Sometimes they reveal themselves only slightly, but at other
times they
force their way upward. In the super consciousness the luciferic forces
are
discharged into the soul as lightning and thunder discharge when the
air is to
be purified. There is little consciousness of these luciferic forces in
the
fifth post-Atlantean epoch; during this epoch man's consciousness
functions in
a middle realm.
Investigations into what is thus working in
the
subconscious reveal that ahrimanic and luciferic attacks come from two
directions, and that culture is really created by an interworking
between the
normal progressive hierarchies and the luciferic and ahrimanic forces.
Now just
because culture acquires a specific character in this way, human beings
in the
several regions of the earth are led in different ways to the great
problems of
life. I shall speak further of the aspect of knowledge and what then
passes
into the sphere of the social life.
We may assume that certain ahrimanic forces
flow into
the European culture from the realm of the subconscious in the wake of
the
impulses of which we have heard. These ahrimanic forces guide in a
definite
direction impulses that, in their turn, proceed from the good and
progressive
powers. It can be said that problems of two kinds, strivings for
knowledge of
two kinds, have arisen. But we must not say that human life has taken
on a
certain coloring as a result of the ahrimanic forces alone because
interworking
has taken place between the ahrimanic forces and the normal progressive
forces.
The minds of men were directed primarily to two problems. First, the
problem of
natural urges and impulses and second, the problem of birth. These
expressions
are derived, of course, from the most conspicuous phenomena. A great
deal is
embraced by these problems but I shall speak only of certain matters.
Let us think of the problem of natural urges
and
impulses. Under the influence of the forces I have described, human
contemplation and striving is directed to a perception, to an
experiencing, of
man's natural urges and impulses. The mind is directed to these
impulses and a
certain view of life gradually unfolds. The problem of natural urges
and
impulses transforms itself into the problem of happiness or prosperity,
which
assumes a definite character. Hence in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch,
especially in the culture of the West, you find strivings in connection
with
the problem of prosperity, strivings directed to the creation of
prosperity in
life. Such striving is influenced by the forces I have described.
Investigations are made, for example, into what can be done in order
that the
life of human beings on earth may be as happy and prosperous as
possible. The
establishment of earthly prosperity becomes and ideal. I do not say
that
ahrimanic forces alone are at work here; the good progressive forces
are also
present.
Thought about happiness and prosperity is, of
course,
quite justified. But under the influence of Ahriman it has assumed a
certain
character as a result of a really devilish tenet. This tenet defines
the good
in such a way that the good is a said to manifest actually through
happiness or
prosperity, through the happiness indeed of the greatest number, and
connected
therewith is the misery of the minority, just as if one were to
describe an
organism by suggesting that it develops only to the knees and dies off
from
there down. In such identification of happiness with the good, with
virtue,
there is an ahrimanic impulse. The Greeks, as represented by their
greatest
individuals, were impervious to such identification of the concept of
prosperity with that of the good. But ahrimanic influences produced a
mentality
in humanity in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch that seeks for the good in prosperity, in happiness. It is from
this point of view that you must study the
philosophy of Saint-Simon, and all the different efforts to discover
principles
of national economy, especially in Western Europe; only
so will you be able to understand them. Even the thought of Rousseau is
not
free from this impulse. Such matters must be studied concretely and
objectively.
Side by side with the problem of natural
urges and
impulses is that of sensory existence, existence in the material world
of the
senses. In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the culture resulting from
sensory
existence ought, in reality, to be ennobled, but the ahrimanic powers
desired
to get this culture under their own control. Hence, their aim to
produce a
mentality that considers truth to be found in sensory existence alone.
To this
extent ahrimanic impulses are active in all that is embraced in the
problem of
sensory existence, of existence in the world of the senses. This
problem of
sensory existence is closely connected with the problem of birth, just
as the
problem of happiness and prosperity is connected with that of natural
urges and
impulses. In order to vindicate sensory existence and to cause men,
through
instinct, to regard all evolution as a material process, the genesis of
the
human being in birth was related directly to the evolution of the
animals.
There you can see the thread leading over to the problem of birth.
Thinkers and
seekers in the fifth epoch since the fifteenth century, have been
deeply
engrossed in the question of the birth processes of the human being.
Those who
understand the connections know the implications of the problem “How
does man
enter the earth?” Thought has been directed to the question of whether
the soul
passes over as soul from father and mother to the child, or whether the
soul is
implanted by supersensible powers. To tackle the problem of birth in
the widest
sense is the task of the post-Atlantean era; it is a problem that
arises in
complete conformity with normal and regular progress, but it became
ahrimanic
by being made materialistic, inasmuch as man was placed at the apex of
the
animal world and, compared with the importance attached to sensory
existence,
the soul was left out of consideration.
Thus we see streaming in from the one side
impulses
that strive to distort the problem of natural urges into the problem of
prosperity in a way that does not accord with the forces of the good
and the
moral. To make the problem of natural urges into the problem of the
good and
the moral would be to work in the direction of the normal forces of
progress,
for to develop the good and the moral in its full range out of the
problem of
natural urges would be to discover how to spiritualize this problem of
man's
natural urges and impulses. That is the normal task of the fifth
post-Atlantean
epoch. It should rightly be worked out in great imaginations, of which
examples
are to be found in Goethe's Faust.
Also as a result of ahrimanic influences, the problem of birth was
diverted to
study of evolution in the world of the senses alone. The problem of
natural
urges was diverted to the problem of material prosperity, and the
problem of
birth to the problem of evolution in sensory existence.
Bearing all these things in mind, we see how
the
ahrimanic powers stream into the culture of the fifth post-Atlantean
epoch. I
have already said that because ahrimanic forces stream in on the one
side, and
luciferic forces on the other, the strivings of men become specialized.
If
things had happened otherwise, four great problems would have filled
the
feelings of men in all their work and productive activity down to the
very
tilling of the soil. The first of these problems is that of natural
urges and
impulses; the second the problem of birth; the third the problem of
death,
which is concerned not only with how the human being comes to the earth
through
birth but also how he leaves the earth through the gate of death. The
fourth is
the problem of evil.
That man's concern with these four problems
has not
been equally distributed over the fifth epoch is due to the fact that
on the
one side Ahriman has diverted the problem of natural urges into that of
prosperity, and the problem of birth into that of material existence in
the
world of sense, thereby averting the true solution of these problems.
Again, on
the other side, Lucifer has directed the thought of the culture that is
more
Eastern in character to the problem of death and the problem of evil.
You can
see how fundamentally the whole of Russian spiritual life is dominated
by the
problems of death and evil, just as the spiritual life of the West is
dominated
by the problems of natural urges and of birth. In the writings of
Soloviev, the
most powerful Russian thinker of modern times, it is everywhere
apparent that
his mind is concerned on the one side with the problem of death, and on
the
other with the problem of evil. Just as the problem of the natural
urges
becomes that of prosperity, so in considering the problem of evil,
man's
thought is turned to the question of sin, of the sinful life. Hence the
problem
of sin, of redemption, of cleansing from sin, has nowhere been tackled
so
profoundly as it has been tackled in the East. But at the same time
there has
been something irregular in the endeavors made to solve this problem.
The
problem of evil and the problem of sin have been used by luciferic
powers in
order that, by directing thought to sin, and to sin in the bodily
carnal life,
the souls might be alienated from earth life.
Whereas in the West, Ahriman makes every
effort to
enchain man in sensory existence on the earth, to found a kingdom where
the
good is thought to lie in prosperity, and where the natural urges of
men
therefore find satisfaction, from the East comes abhorrence of sin, as
a result
of which souls are to be diverted from the earth, alienated from the
earth by
Lucifer. From the East attention is directed to the problem of sin and
the
problem of death. Hence, much contemplative thought in the East is
directed to
how death is overcome by what came to pass in Christ Himself. Impulses
for life
are sought in the Resurrection. Implicit in what I said a week ago,
that the
East turns more to the Christ and the West more to Jesus, there is this
truth:
that the East has need of the Risen One, the Spirit who is not made
manifest in
material existence but who overcomes material existence. This is the
problem of
death. In a treatise that is probably one of the most beautiful
writings of
Soloviev, he says that if death as a physical phenomenon, a physical
fact, were
to signify an end of human life, man would resemble all the other
animals; he would
not be man at all, he would be an animal. Through death the human being
resembles the animals. Through the evil of which he is capable, he
becomes even
worse than the animals. This is a direct indication that Soloviev's
thinking is
influenced by the problem of death, and by the problem of sin and evil.
But we
find everywhere contemplation about knowledge concerning the soul, such
as how
the soul is not affected by death, and external life is arranged in
such a way
that, even in its justifiable expressions, it tends to take a path
leading away
from the earth. That is why in the East there are so many sects that
subdue and
mortify the bodily nature, which flood the body with death, as it were,
striving to lead the life of natural impulses and the act of birth ad absurdum, through leanings to
sacrifice and the like.
In the West there is the danger of becoming
enchained
within the life of the senses, whereby this life would become egoless.
For if
prosperity alone were to be established on the earth, the ego would
never dwell
there. If the good could only be established by the spread of
prosperity over
the earth, a state of things would arise such as came to pass in old
Atlantis.
In the middle period of Atlantean culture, too, great impulses were
given that
would have led to a state of prosperity in their further course. In the
form
and effects of what men first felt as an impetus of the good, they
perceived a
vista of prosperity, and so they gave themselves up to prosperity,
devoted
themselves wholly to it. The earth had to be purged of Atlantean
culture
because men had preserved from the good the element of prosperity
alone. In the
post-Atlantean era, Ahriman strives by direct means to institute a
culture of
mere prosperity. This would mean pressing out the lemon, the doing away
with
it! Egos would no longer be able to live if prosperity were the only
aim
pursued by culture. In short, prosperity and the good, prosperity and
virtue
are not concepts that can be
substituted for one another.
We are gazing here into profound secrets of
life. A
justified element in the founding of culture, an element that
inevitably leads
to a certain form of prosperity among men, is so distorted that
prosperity per se is set up as the goal. And a
culture that would certainly enable the human soul, even in life, to
rise above
and to know both death and evil is distorted in such a way that contact
with
what can produce death and evil is avoided from the outset, and the
bodily
nature is shunned. This was to satisfy the aims of Lucifer.
In this way we must endeavor to understand
how real
and concrete forces work in human existence, and what is at work
beneath and
above the conscious life of soul in the culture of the fifth
post-Atlantean
epoch. If you recognize this leitmotif
you will be able to understand many things. Only you must not give way
to the
delusion that everything luciferic and everything ahrimanic must for
these
reasons be avoided. That would be the very way to succumb to these
forces!
Everyone who lives together with humanity must realize that Lucifer and
Ahriman
have been granted their places in the world. If errors could not take
place,
the human being would never reach inner freedom; freedom could never
come to
man if he were incapable of forming the erroneous conception that
prosperity
and the good are identical; he would then have no opportunity of rising
above
this error. If man were incapable of living under the delusion that
through
subjugation of the external, earthly life, victory can be snatched from
death
and from evil, he would never in reality overcome death and sin. It is
necessary for these things to pass into the life of man.
We must see to it that the woeful doctrine,
“Ah! that
is luciferic and must be avoided; that is ahrimanic and must be
avoided,” does
not obsess us, but that we confront these powers in the right way
knowing that
it is not for us to steer clear of Lucifer but to conquer his forces
for
progressive human culture. Nor must we simply steer clear of Ahriman,
but
conquer Ahriman's forces for the progressive culture of humanity. For
into our
culture these forces must be
received. The battle lies in the fact that Ahriman's aim is to snatch
the souls
away. The task of humanity is to receive Ahriman together with his
strong
forces - all those forces of intellect, for instance, which are
preeminently
forces of intellect but they can also assume a form that is more akin
to
feeling - those forces that have been applied, for instance, to the
problem of
how a state is established. Think of the numbers of people who have
wrestled
with this problem, some more theoretically, some more practically. The
most
intense efforts have been made to solve this problem. Such forces must
be
wrested into the good service of humanity, and must not be made
ahrimanic by resolutions
to have nothing to do with Ahriman, or refusals to be concerned with
what, in
social problems, for instance, is alleged to proceed from Ahriman. That
would
lead to nothing.
It is the same as regards Lucifer. The
impulse of
perception, of feeling, given us by the science of the spirit must help
us to
confront in the right way the forces that are actually present in the
world.
Those who are unwilling to do this are like a man who says, “Evil
elements! Oh
no, I don't like them; I don't like them at all!” Of course, both
attitudes are
one sided, but we must remember that the working together of the evil
and the
good, the union of the evil and the good, make the elements fruitful in
the
state of balance we must bring about in life by learning to be master
of the
ahrimanic and the luciferic forces. In this state of balance lies the
impulse
that must be inculcated into life, and that it is the task of the
science of
the spirit to transmit.
Having
presented Steiner’s rendering of the story, we now supply an indigenous
version
from the Nahuatl, which relates the indigenous story of
Huitzilopochtli’s
struggle with the Black Magician:
The Legend
of Coyolxauhqui
Greatly
did the
Mexicas honor Huitzilopochtli,
They
knew that
his origin, his beginning
Was
thus:
In
Coatepec, in
the direction of Tula,
There
was a
woman,
A
woman had
been living there
Whose
name was
Coatlique.
She
was the
mother of the four hundred Southerners
And
of their
sister
Whose
name was
Coyolxauhqui.
And
this
Coatlique was doing penance,
She
swept, it
was her duty to sweep,
This
was how
she did penance on Coatepec,
The
Serpent's
Mountain.
And
Once,
As
Coatlique
was sweeping,
There
descended
upon her a plumage
Like
a ball of
fine, soft feathers.
At
once
Coatlique gathered it up;
She
placed it
in her bosom.
When
she had
done sweeping,
She
sought the
feather, which she had placed in her bosom,
But
she saw
nothing there.
At
that very
moment Coatlique became pregnant.
When
the four
hundred Southerners
Saw
that their
mother was pregnant,
Many
of them
grew angry. They said:
"Who
has
done this thing?
Who
has got her
with child?
He
insults us,
he dishonors us."
And
their
sister Coyolxauhqui said to them:
"Brothers,
she has dishonored us.
We
must kill
our mother,
This
perverse
woman who is pregnant now.
Who
has begot
this thing that she bears in her bosom?"
When
Coatlique
heard of this,
She
was sorely
frightened,
She
was sorely
distressed.
But
her son
Huitzilopochtli, who was in her bosom,
Comforted
her,
saying:
"Be
not
afraid,
I
know what I
must do."
And
Coatlique,
having heard
The
words of
her son,
Was
much
consoled,
Her
heart grew
calm,
She
felt at
peace.
Meanwhile, the four
hundred
Southerners met in order to reach an agreement,
And
the decided
as one
To
kill their
mother,
For
she had
defamed them.
They
were very
angry,
They
were very
annoyed,
As if their hearts were
about to burst from their breasts.
Coyolxauhqui
incited them greatly,
She
fanned the flames of her brothers' ire,
So
that they would kill their mother.
And
the four hundred Southerners
Made
themselves ready,
They
attired themselves for war.
And
these four hundred Southerners
Were
like captains,
They
twisted and wove their hair,
Like
warriors they twisted their hair.
But
one who was
called Cuahuitlicac
Betrayed
them
with his words.
Everything
that
the four hundred Southerners said among themselves,
He
went
immediately and reported it to him,
He
told it to
Huitzilopochtli,
And
Huitzilopochtli replied:
"Take
care, be on the alert,
My
Uncle, for
well I know what I must do."
And
finally
when they were of one accord,
They
were
resolved, those four hundred Southerners,
To
kill, to
make an end of their mother,
Then
they began
to march,
Guided
by
Coyolxauhqui...
They
were
strong and ready, attired and adorned for war.
They
parceled
out among themselves their paper dresses,
Their
anecuyotl, their nettles, their painted paper hangings,
They
tied bells
to their calves,
The
bells
called oyohualli.
Their
arrowheads had barbed points.
Then
they began
to march,
They
marched in
order, in rows,
In
an orderly
squadron,
Guided
by
Coyolxauhqui.
But
Cuahuitlicac quickly climbed the mountain
And
spoke from
the top of the mountain to Huitzilopochtli.
He
said to him:
"They
are
coming."
Huitzilopochtli
replied:
"Watch
closely and see which way they come."
Then
Cuahuitlicac said:
"They
are
coming now by way of Tzonpantitlan."
And
once more
Huitzilopochtli asked him:
"Now
which
way are they coming?"
Cuahuitlica
replied:
"Now
they
are coming by way of Coaxalpan."
And
once again
Huitzilopochtli asked Cuahuitlicac:
"Which
way
are they coming now?"
At
once
Cuahuitlicac answered him:
Now
they are
coming along the mountain ridge."
And
yet once
more Huitzilopochtli told him:
"Watch
closely and see which way they come."
Then
Cuahuitlicac told him:
"They
are
on the peak, they are here,
Coyolxauhqui
is
leading them."
At
that moment
Huitzilopochtli was born.
He
dressed
himself,
He
took up his
shield of eagle feathers,
His
darts, his
blue dart-sling,
The
one known
as the turquoise dart-sling.
He
painted his
face
With
diagonal
stripes,
With
the color
known as "child's paint."
On
his head he
placed fine feathers,
He
put on his
earrings.
And
one of his
feet, the left one, was shriveled,
On
it he wore a
feathered sandal,
And
his two
legs and his two arms
Were
painted
blue.
And
the one
called Techancalqui
Set
fire to
Xiuhcoatl, the serpent made of firebrands,
Who
was loyal
to Huitzilopochtli.
Then
with the
flaming serpent he wounded Coyolxauhqui,
He
cut off her
head, and it came to rest, abandoned,
On
the side of
Coatepetl.
The
body of
Coyolxauhqui
Rolled
down,
It
fell in
pieces,
In
diverse
places fell her hands,
Her
legs, her
body.
Then
Huitzilopochtli
raised himself up.
He
pursued the
four hundred Southerners
He
harassed
them, he dispersed them
From
the peak of Coatepetl,
the Serpent's
Mountain.
And
when he had
followed them
To
the foot of
the mountain,
He
pursued
them, he chased them like rabbits,
Around
the base
of the mountain.
Four
times he
drove them around.
In
vain did
they try to strike against him,
In
vain did
they turn on him
To
the sound of
bells
And
let the
blows rain on their shields.
They
could do
nothing.
They
succeeded
in nothing,
Nothing
served
to defend them.
Huitzilopochtli
harassed them, he scattered them,
He
destroyed
them,
He
annihilated
them,
He
obliterated
them.
And
even then
he did not cease,
But
continued
to pursue them.
Yet
they begged
him, saying:
"Enough!"
But
Huitzilopochtli was not content with this,
He
grew even
more enraged at them,
He
pursued
them.
Only
a few were
able to escape from him,
Were
able to
free themselves from his grasp.
They
turned to
the south;
Because
they
turned to the south
They
are called
Southerners,
The
few who
escaped Huitzilopochtli's grasp.
And
when
Huitzilopochtli had killed them,
When
he had
given vent to his ire,
He
stripped off
their garments, their ornaments, their anecuyotl,
He put them on, he
appropriated
them;
He
incorporated
them into his destiny,
He
made of them
his own insignia.
And
this
Huitzilopochtli, it is said,
Was
a portent,
For
he was
conceived of nothing more than a delicate feather,
That
fell into
the womb of his mother, Coatlique.
No
one ever
came forward as his father.
He
was
venerated by the Mexicas,
They
sacrificed
to him,
They
honored
and served him.
And
Huitzilopochtli repaid
Those
who
honored him thus.
And
his cult
was taken from there,
From
Coatepec,
the Serpent's Mountain,
As
it was
practiced from the most ancient of times.
We also refer to Karl Taube’s excellent summary of the life
and times of Huitzilopochtli, as summarized from the various codices
and
legends:
Huitzilopochtli was the supreme deity of
the Aztecs, their chief cult god. Associated with Sun and Fire and the
ruling
lineage, his introduction to Central Mexico disrupted other
established solar gods and patrons of long-standing lineages,
particularly
Xiuhtecuhtli and Tonatiuh. In some sources he is also identified as the
Blue
Tezcatlipoca. Literally, Huitzilopochtli means "hummingbird on the
left" or "hummingbird of the south." The Spaniards called him
Huichilobos and saw him as the devil incarnate, the cause of heart
sacrifice,
the source of perversion in the New World. Unlike most Aztec
gods, Huitzilopochtli's image was generally rendered of wood, rather
than
stone, and no monumental examples of him survive - indeed, few examples
survive
in any medium. The main sculpture of Huitzilopochtli was probably
removed from
his temple in 1520 and smuggled out of Tenochtitlan. A document of 1539 depicts the bundled
Huitzilopochtli sculpture after it was reputedly removed.
What did Huitzilopochtli look like?
According to most accounts and to an early post-Conquest illustration,
he wore
on his head a blue-green hummingbird headdress, a golden tiara; white
heron
feathers, and the smoking mirror more commonly associated with
Tezcatlipoca and
probably adopted from him - as is the serpent foot that the Aztec
Tlatoani
incorporates into his Huitzilopochtli costume on the Stone of Tizoc.
His face
often bears yellow and blue striped paint, and a black mask dotted with
stars
surrounds his eyes. Frequently adorned with paper banners and sometimes
with
shield and darts in hand, he usually carries the Xiuhcoatl, or fire
serpent.
As the chief Aztec god, Huitzilopochtli
occupied the most prominent site within the temple precinct of Tenochtitlan. His temple, together with that of Tlaloc,
formed
what the Aztecs called the Hueteocalli, the Great Temple, a double pyramid. According to one account,
Tlaloc
had risen from a spring to welcome Huitzilopochtli when the Aztecs fled
the
mainland and arrived on the island in the middle of Lake Texcoco in 1345. Perhaps the very oldest god in the
Central
Mexican pantheon, Tlaloc offered legitimacy and history to
Huitzilopochtli.
Together, they also suggested Atl-tlachinolli, or fire-and-water, the
Aztec
metaphor for war. Huitzilopochtli led the Aztecs in war and in human
sacrifice.
Huitzilopochtli's geographical origins
remain obscure, but according to Aztec migration legends, he led his
people on
a journey for generations, commanding them first to leave their island
home,
Aztlan, in the early 12th c. and to seek out a new island in a lake.
Divided
into seven tribes, the Aztecs soon gathered at Chicomoztoc, the
legendary
source of origin for all Central Mexican peoples, and where they, too,
sojourned a while, before beginning their wanderings again. Here at
Chicomoztoc, Huitzilopochtli's sister, Malinalxochitl (whose powers
over spiders,
scorpions, and snakes recall the powers held by the principal female
goddess of
Teotihuacan) had gained followers, and many Aztecs had
grown
accustomed to civilized life. When a tree split in two Huitzilopochtli
interpreted it as a sign to lead the virtuous away, leaving the rest
behind. At
this point, religion and history intertwine, and the story of a schism
among
the tribes probably reflects a historical reality in which the group
did
divide. Those left with Malinalxochitl eventually came to settle at
Malinalco,
to the west of Tenochtitlan, and Malinalxochitl's son, Copil, would
later attempt
to avenge his mother's abandonment.
Huitzilopochtli meanwhile led his people
on to Coatepec, Hill of the Serpent, where his miraculous birth - or
what we should
call a rebirth - then took place. It may also have been at this
juncture that a
living ruler, Huitzilopochtli, was transformed into the new cult deity.
One of
the great mountains of Aztec legend, Coatepec was near Tula; the Aztecs
celebrated a New Fire Ceremony there in 1163, just about the time of
the demise
and abandonment of Tula - a coincidence suggesting that the nomadic and
aggressive Aztecs may have played a role in its downfall.
At Coatepec, the goddess Coatlique kept
and swept the temple. One day, as she swept, she tucked a tuft of
feathers in
her breast, but when she had completed her task, the feathers were gone
and she
knew she had become pregnant. Already the mother of 400 sons (known as
the
Centzon Huitznahua) and a daughter, Coyolxauhqui, Coatlicue and her
pregnancy
became a source of humiliation to her children, and they plotted to
kill her.
But from within the womb, Huitzilopochtli comforted her. The Centzon
Huitznahua
and Coyolxauhqui charged Coatepec, slicing off Coatlicue's head. Out of
her
truncated body leapt Huitzilopochtli, fully formed and dressed,
brandishing his
Xiuhcoatl, with which he in turn dismembered his sister Coyolxauhqui,
whose
body parts tumbled to the foot of Coatepec. Huitzilopochtli then
attacked his
half-brothers, only a few of whom managed to flee.
Generations later, the Aztecs would
reproduce Coatepec in the Temple of Huitzilopochtli at Tenochtitlan. Great serpents flowed down the balustrades
while the
wooden sculpture of Huitzilopochtli reigned from the shrine at the top
-
probably in the company of the image of his decapitated mother - and
the
dismembered Coyolxauhqui lay at the base of the pyramid, her image
carved on
the surface of a round stone. When bodies were tumbled down the steps,
every
human sacrifice recreated Coyolxauhqui's fall and public humiliation.
Coyolxauhqui may well have belonged to a
group of older fertility goddesses in Central Mexico, and
her destruction reveals the rise of Huitzilopochtli's cult. Often
identified
with the Moon, Coyolxauhqui is in this aspect also destroyed by the
solar
Huitzilopochtli; in fact, the round Coyolxauhqui stone at the Temple of Huitzilopochtli is periodically sliced by the sun, as if to
replicate
ongoing solar dominance. The Centzon Huitznahua can be identified with
innumerable stars, also chased to the south by the solar
Huitzilopochtli.
Although often considered to be one of the youthful goddesses, at the
Temple of
Huitzilopochtli, Coyolxauhqui is rendered as an older woman, with
sagging
breasts and stretched stomach; the great Coatlicue sculpture (which may
or may
not have been in the shrine of Huitzilopochtli above), has also lost
all trace
of feminine beauty. In Huitzilopochtli's company, female goddesses
become
hideous, subjects for dismemberment.
In the story of Aztec peregrination,
Huitzilopochtli led his people on from Coatepec into the Valley of Mexico, where they were settled at Chapultepec by the end of the 13th c. Generally
unwelcomed in the Valley,
Huitzilopochtli's people soon found themselves at war with their
neighbors, led
by Copil, the son of Malinalxochitl, the betrayed sister of
Huitzilopochtli
left behind at Chicomoztoc. Copil's troops won the battle, but Copil
himself
fell and was sacrificed by Huitzilopochtli, who then took Copil's heart
and
hurled it onto a rock in Lake Texcoco, giving rise to the very island on which the
Aztecs
would later found their city.
Within a few years, .the Aztecs were
forced to leave Chapultepec, and Huitzilopochtli led them on to
Culhuacan, on the
other side of the lake, where they were little more than slaves to the
old
Toltec nobility that ruled there. Compelled to live on the desolate
lava beds
at Tizapan, the Aztecs worked as mercenaries for the lords of Culhuacan
and,
against the odds, thrived. Huitzilopochtli saw that his people had not
yet
arrived at the promised destination, and that their success in Tizapan
offered
them too much comfort. He told the tribal leaders therefore to ask the
lords of
Culhuacan for a noble bride; fearing the Aztecs, the lords complied.
When the
princess was delivered, the Aztecs immediately flayed her, and a priest
put on
her skin. When the Culhua came to celebrate the arrival of a new
goddess among
the Aztecs, they found instead the priest wearing the princess's skin.
Wildly
incensed by this barbarism, the Culhua set upon the Aztecs, killing
some and
driving others into the lake. The survivors took refuge on the island
there,
where they found an eagle sitting on a cactus growing from a rock, the
very
image Huitzilopochtli had told them to seek generations before. The
wanderings
of Huitzilopochtli and his people came to an end, according to most
sources, in
1345 with the founding of Tenochtitlan.
Celebrations in honor of Huitzilopochtli
dominated the religious ceremonies of Tenochtitlan, and he frequently took a role in
festivities
dedicated to other gods. Outside Tenochtitlan, Tezcatlipoca may have been the most
important god,
and the two were often honored together in Tenochtitlan. Thus, during Toxcatl, the veintena
dedicated to Tezcatlipoca,
Huitzilopochtli played a prominent role, and during Panquetzaliztli,
the veintena
dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca was also propitiated.
Unlike
most Aztec gods, Huitzilopochtli had a stand-in, not just an
impersonator,
during many actual festivities. Known as Painal, the substitute wore
Huitzilopochtli's attributes and may be seen as another aspect of his
own
numen.
During Toxcatl, a great amaranth dough
figure, or tzoalli, was outfitted with Huitzilopochtli's
attire, carried
to his temple, and eventually eaten. Supplicants offered him quail, in
particular, and women garlanded with flowers danced the serpent dance
for him.
Several veintenas of preparation led up to Panquetzaliztli,
when the
anniversary of Huitzilopochtli's miraculous birth at Coatepec on the
day 1
Flint in the year 2 Acatl was celebrated, again with a dough figure of
Huitzilopochtli. A priest bearing a figure of Painal led a great
procession
through Tenochtitlan and neighboring towns before returning to
the
ceremonial precinct in Tenochtitlan. Four victims were sacrificed in the
ballcourt, then
many more on the Temple of Huitzilopochtli. (Huitzilopochtli was also celebrated during
Pachtontli and Tlaxochimaco.)”
- from An
Illustrated Dictionary…, pp. 93 – 96, by kind permission of Prof.
Taube
Fig.
29
Huitzilopochtli if full battle array, wielding
the
Xiuhcoatl and feeding
a hummingbird, namesake (“huitzilin”) of this and totem
of all warriors.
|
Fig. 30
Huitzilopochtli letting blood.
Of
interest is his
left foot, which is generally considered a
mark of Tezcatlipoca. Note Fig. 32.
|
Fig. 31
Coyolxauhqui pierced by Huitzilopochtli’s
xiuhcoatl.
Fig. 32
Fig. 32 Notes:
Stela
3, Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico (with tracing), c. 50 AD.
A
warrior, helmeted with the mask of his god, challenges an erupting
earth-serpent, which is, however, contiguous with his left foot. He
brandishes
an empty atlatl (spear thrower) but holds his throwing arm in a passive
position while his avatar observes from his spirit-canoe.
Corn sprouts at lower left, counterpart to
his discreetly portrayed phallus. 89
such stelae have been catalogued in the Izapa site, many with equally
provocative images.
This is the earliest known
representation of the serpent-footed god motif developed through the
Maya
representations of Itzamna, K’awil and the God K, and the
Teotihuacano-Azteca
Tezcatlipoca. It represents the iconographic (and historical?) basis
for all
the subsequent manikin scepters which are the ubiquitous emblems of
rulership
displayed by Mayan priests and rulers.
Malmstrom (1997) places the
origin of the seminal Olmec culture (usually seen as arising in
Caribbean-coastal Veracruz) in the Izapan Soconusco of the Pacific
coast, and
finds evidence of this in calendar, language, and cultural diffusion
patterns,
although most researchers interpret the Izapan culture to be a bridge
between
the Olmec and the Maya civilizations. Research by Malmstrom and Jenkins
also
indicates that Izapa was the place of origin of the ubiquitous 260-day
colander.
This
earliest known representation of the serpent-footed god motif develops
through
the Maya representations of Itzamna, K’awil and the God K, and the
Teotihuacano-Azteca Tezcatlipoca, in which the shaman confronts the
serpent,
the Earth-monster; his double. This emblem is profound in its symbolism
and is
one which is carried through all of Mesoamerican lore.
Steiner (1916) offers
indications towards additional understandings of the pivotal
Tezcatlipoca-
Quetzalcoatl dynamic: Vitzliputzli as an
avatar of
Tezcatlipoca. I suggest that this image indicates the Mesoamerican
prototype
for the full-spectrum encounter with the same personal and universal
kundalini
forces which, unresolved, wounded the European Amfortas. I also
consider this,
the earliest and most explicit known representation of this shamanic
function,
to be historical evidence of a strong “Vitzliputzli” influence
emanating from
Izapa. Could the avatar have been born and raised in an Essene-type
community
here, later to journey to Cuicuilco for his epochal encounter?
The overall gesture could
not be more explicit in representing the Manichean stance with regard
to the
“problem of evil.” This is, in indigenous terms, none other than the
role of
the shaman. Note that in the dynamic of the encounter, the “Earth
Monster” (as
it is described in the scholarly literature, which may be only vaguely
and
partially correct) faces away from the protagonist, and a flower
sprouts from
its mouth. Hardly the typical “Good vs. Evil” battle-to-the-death
dynamic
typically attributed to the “Manichean” ethic.
The first human God-agent on Earth in the
Mayan Popul
Vuh cosmogenesis also was one-footed: Hunrakan. In this respect also,
the
Izapan initiate partakes of the original creative and world-sustaining
function. As does the effectively one-footed Hanged Man of Card 12 in
the
Western Tarot and the 23rd Path in the Kabbalah.
This image (and extensive discussion) from: Norman (1973 & 1976), Lowe,
Lee, and Martinez
(1982).
Also from Stirling (1941), pp. 276-327.
Fig. 33
A familiar scene, from a
contemporary Mexican print,
but note: the dark figure is not being assaulted nor vanquished, but
held in
check and in place. Note similarities to Fig. 32, above. Engagment with
the
dynamic indicates that, in the same fashion, Michael’s sword functions
more as
an antenna in the mode of an implement of magic than as a literal
weapon. I
believe this to be an accurate depiction
Fig. 34
A mural fragment from c.
900 A.D., Cacaxtla, central
Mexico. The jaguar-warrior
demonstrates his authority over
the dragon but does so by a gesture of healing; water showers down upon
it from
his weapon and symbol of rulership, a bundle of darts, arrows, or
spears. The
jaguar is the spirit-animal most intimately associated with
Tezcatlipoca.
Fig. 35
Another, even more
striking depiction, from the same
suite of murals in Cacaxtla. The Eagle Warrior holds a ceremonial bar,
emblem
of magical capacity, which just barely touches the head of the serpent.
The
mood is one of dynamic balance, not violent conflict.
Fig. 36
Quetzalcoatl, “Feathered
Serpent” (L), and
Tezcatlipoca, “Smoking Mirror” (R) face off. Are they mortal enemies or
allied
counterparts? Is one good and the other evil or are they like the
black-and-white of the Chinese Yin-Yang? However the Mexica of the 15th
C. viewed it, their appreciation was complex and subtle, involving
mutual
metamorphosis. Perhaps comparing them to the two foci of an ellipse
would not
be too far off.
Figs. 37 & 38 – Mesoamerican Maps
Fig. 39 –
Mesoamerican Timeline
Fig. 40
– Mesoamerican Cosmos
Fig. 41
The Mayan Lords of the UnderWorld; a rollout photograph from a
Mayan
vessel.
Fig. 42
The
Goddess not only lives, she rides again….
Steinerian
and Mesoamerican UnderWorlds
Subnatural levels in Anthroposophy
and Mesoamerica
The
formulation by
Rudolf Steiner of the Nine Layers of Evil
within the Earth, from At the Gates
of Spiritual Science (alternatively: At the Gate of Theosophy), GA
95,
lecture 14 in cycle I, of Sept. 4, 1906, Stuttgart.
Rudolf Steiner Press, 1986, pp. 138-140:
The occult science of all epochs says the
following
about the interior of the earth…
1.
The
topmost
layer, the mineral mass, is related to the interior as an eggshell is
to the
egg. This topmost layer is called the Mineral Earth.
2.
Under
it is a
second layer, called the Fluid Earth; it consists of a substance to
which there
is nothing comparable on Earth. It is not really like any of the fluids
we
know, for all these have a mineral quality. This layer has specific
characteristics: its substance begins to display certain spiritual
qualities,
which consist in the fact that as soon as it is brought into contact
with something
living, it strives to expel and destroy this life. The occultist is
able to
investigate this layer by pure concentration.
3.
The
“Air Earth”. This
is a substance, which annuls feelings: for instance, if it is brought
into
contact with any pain, the pain is converted into pleasure, and vice
versa. The
original form of feeling is, so to speak extinguished, rather as the
second
layer extinguishes life.
4.
The
“Water
Earth”, or “Form Earth.” It produces in the material realm the effects
that occur
spiritually in Devachan. There, we have the negative pictures of
physical
things. In the “Form Earth” a cube
of
salt, for example, would be destroyed, but its negative would arise.
The form
is as it were changed into its opposite; all its qualities would pass
out into
its surroundings. The actual space occupied by the object is left empty.
5.
The
“Fruit
Earth.” This substance is full of exuberant energy. Every little part
of it
grows out at once like a sponge; it gets larger and larger and is held
in place
only by the upper layers. It is the underlying life which serves the
forms of
the layers above it.
6. The
“Fire
Earth.” Its substance is essentially feeling and will. It is sensitive
to pain
and would cry out if it were trodden on. It consists, as it were,
entirely
of
passions.
7. The
“Earth-mirror”
or “Earth-reflector.” This layer gets its name from the fact
that its substance,
if one concentrates on it, changes all the characteristics of
the earth
into their opposites. If the seer
disregards everything lying above it
and gazes
down directly into this layer, and if then, for example, he places
something
green before him, the green appears as red; every color appears
as its
complementary opposite. A polaric
reflection
arises, a reversal of the
original. Sorrow
would be changed by this substance into joy.
8.
The
“Divisive”
layer. If with developed power one concentrates on it, something very
remarkable appears. For example, a plant held in the midst of this
layer
appears to be multiplied, and so with everything else. But the
essential thing
is that this layer disrupts the moral qualities also. Through the power
it
radiates to the Earth’s surface, it is responsible for the fact that
strife and
disharmony exist there. In order to overcome this disruptive force, men
must
work together in harmony.
That is precisely why this layer was laid
down in the Earth – so that men should be enabled to develop harmony
for
themselves. The substance of everything evil is prepared and organized
there. Quarrelsome
people are so constituted that this layer has a particular influence on
them. This
has been known to everyone who has written out of a true knowledge of
occultism. Dante in his Divine Comedy calls this layer the Cain-layer.
It was
here that the strife between the brothers Cain and Abel had its source.
The
substance of this layer is responsible for evil having come into the
world.
9. The
“earth-core.” This is the substance
through whose influence black magic arises in the world. The power of
spiritual
evil comes from this source.
The only elaborating remarks are brief ones
relating earthquakes and volcanic activity to the “evil passions” of
man and
the volatile “passion-layer in the interior of the earth.”
The
correspondence which
Eduard Schure discusses in the introduction to the lecture-cycle is
that of the
concentric regions of the Earth and the Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old
Moon
manvantaras which in later lectures are corresponded to the three
Mothers.
The
natural reaction to
this is: “That’s dreadful! Why bother?” If
it weren’t that it was given by “der Doktor”, it would seem to the
results of a
bad meal. No mollifying context is supplied; pity on the person who
stumbles
across this passage as his or her first introduction to Steiner’s work!
This is
definitely Steiner at his worst and lays the foundation for an attitude
as
reflected in Querido’s diagram which was have referred to elsewhere
(endnote 4
here and American Chapters I, p. 62).
The
note to it reads:
Figure 1-75 A diagram appearing in Rene
Querido’s
Introduction to Rudolf Steiner’s Spiritual
Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature.
Insofar as it
goes, it is accurate, but the mistaken impression given is that this is
the
whole map. Granted, Steiner in his title (accurately translated) said
only that
he would address the Heavenly and Natural realms, but even in that, his
treatment of the natural realms is sketchy at best.
However, Querido, long-time President of
Steiner’s
Anthroposophical Society in America, goes so far as to state what even his own
diagram
does not indicate:
“The
threefold hierarchical world (each comprising beings of three ranks)
interpenetrates the three kingdoms of nature with the human being at
the
center.”
Although it is true that the human being does
indeed
occupy the Middle realm of the Worlds, the format as indicated is
woefully
out-of-balance: none of the spiritual worlds lying below the sensible
world are
indicated. That this flaw is not even noticed nor commented upon
indicates the
huge blind spot that most European-based spiritualities have for the
UnderWorld, Orpheus and the like notwithstanding. All of the preceding
images
from natively American sources draw heavily upon the Inspirations that
emanate
from Below. There are pathways native
to Europe that go there and we will investigate them
in due
course.)
The diagram:
Fig. 43
Although it
may be remarked that at the time he made the above formulation, Dr.
Steiner was
speaking as a representative of the Theosophical Society, and hence may
be
somewhat excused for using the more florid and less discriminating
idiom of
that circle, it would then also have to be noted that some of the more
illuminating remarks concerning positive aspects of the Earth-Being as
cited
above were also made at that same time. Judging from the tenor of these
remarks, one would have no idea that he also can come up with things
like this:
“The silver-sparkling blue below, arising
from the
depths of the Earth and bound up with human weakness and error, is
gathered
into a picture of the Earth Mother. Whether she is called Demeter or
Mary, the
picture is of the Earth Mother. So it is that in directing our gaze
downwards,
we cannot do otherwise than bring together in Imagination all those
secrets of
the depths which go to make up the material Mother of all existence.
While in
all that which is concentrated in the flowing form above, we feel and
experience the Spirit Father of everything around us. And now we behold
the
outcome of the working together of the Spirit Father with the Earth
Mother,
bearing so beautifully within itself the harmony of the earthly silver
and the
gold of the heights. Between the Father and the Mother we behold the
Son.”
- The Four Seasons and the Archangels, lecture of Oct. 1923, p. 66.
And:
“It is a fact that in the occult regions of
the earth
what is prepared by the forging of Michael’s Sword is carried to a
subterranean
altar in the process – to an Altar which is invisible and which really
exists
beneath the earth.”
- Youth’s Search in Nature.
Most
peculiar.
In the interests of completeness, we
offer the following similar treatment by him, given on a prior
occasion:
THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH
Physical science as yet only knows of the
terrestrial
crust, a mineral layer which in fact is only like a thin skin at the
surface of
the earth. In reality the earth consists of a succession of concentric
layers
which we shall now describe:
1) The mineral layer contains all the metals
which are
found in the physical bodies of everything that lives at the surface.
This
crust is formed like a skin around the living being of the earth. It is
only a
few miles in depth.
2) The second layer can only be understood if
we
envisage a substance which is the very opposite of what we know. It is
negative
life, the opposite of life. All life is extinguished there. Were a
plant or an
animal plunged into it, it would be destroyed immediately. It would be
totally
dissolved. This second shell - half liquid - which envelopes the earth
is truly
a sphere of death.
3) The third layer is a circle of inverted
consciousness. All sorrow appears there as joy. And all joy is
experienced as
sorrow. Its substance, composed of vapors, is related to our feelings
in the
same negative manner as the second layer is in regard to life. If we
now
abstract these three layers by means, of our thinking we would then
find the
earth in the condition in which it was before the separation of the
moon. If one
is able by means of concentration to attain a conscious astral vision,
one
would then see the activities in these two layers: the destruction of
life in
the second and the transformation of feelings in the third.
4) The fourth layer is known as water-earth,
soul-earth, or form-earth, it is endowed with a remarkable property.
Let us
imagine a cube and now picture it reversed inasmuch as its substance is
concerned. Where there was substance there is now nothing: the space
occupied
by the cube would now be empty while its substance, its substantial
form, would
now be spread around it; hence the term ‘earth of form.’ Here this
whirlwind of
forms, instead of being a negative emptiness, becomes a positive
substance.
5) This layer is known as the earth of
growth. It
contains the archetypal source of all terrestrial life. Its substance
consists
of burgeoning, teeming energies.
6) This fire-earth is composed of pure will,
of
elemental vital forces - of constant movement - shot through by
impulses and
passions, truly a reservoir of will forces. If one were to exert
pressure on
this substance it would resist.
If now again in thought one were to abstract
these
last three layers just described, one would arrive at the condition in
which
our globe was when Sun, Moon and Earth were still interwoven.
The following layers are only accessible to a
conscious observation which is not only that of dreamless sleep but a
conscious
condition in deep sleep.
7) This layer is the mirror of the earth. It
is
similar to a prism which decomposes everything that is reflected in it
and
brings to expression its complementary aspect; seen through an emerald
it would
appear red.
8) In this layer everything appears
fragmented and
reproduced to infinity. If one takes a plant or a crystal and one
concentrates
on this layer the plant or the crystal would appear multiplied
indefinitely.
9) This last layer is composed of a substance
endowed
with moral action. But this morality is the opposite of the one that is
to be
elaborated on the earth. Its essence, its inherent force, is one of
separation,
of discord, and of hate. It is here in the hell of Dante that we find
Cain the
fratricide. This substance is the opposite of everything which among
human
beings is good and worthy. The activity of humanity in order to
establish
brotherhood on the earth diminishes the power of this sphere. It is the
power
of Love which will transform it inasmuch as it will spiritualize the
very body
of the Earth. This ninth layer represents the substantial origin of
what
appears on earth as black magic, that is, a magic founded on egoism.
These various layers are connected by means
of rays
which unite the center of the earth with its surface. Underneath the
solid
earth there are a large number of subterranean spaces which communicate
to the
sixth layer, that of fire. This element of the fire-earth is intimately
connected with the human will. It is this element which has produced
the
tremendous eruptions that brought the Lemurian epoch to an end. At that
time
the forces which nourish the human will went through a trial which
unleashed
the fire catastrophe that destroyed the Lemurian continent. In the
course of
evolution this sixth layer receded more and more toward the center and
as a
result volcanic eruptions became less frequent. And yet they are still
produced
as a result of the human will which, when it is evil and chaotic,
magnetically
acts on this layer and disrupts it. Nevertheless, when the human will
is devoid
of egoism, it is able to appease this fire. Materialistic periods are
mostly
accompanied and followed by natural cataclysms, earthquakes, etc.
Growing
powers of evolution are the only alchemy capable of transforming,
little by
little, the organism and the soul of the earth.
The following is an example of the
relationship that
exists between the human will and telluric cataclysms: in human beings
who
perish as a result of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions one notices,
during
their next incarnation, inner qualities which are quite different. They
bring
from birth great spiritual pre-dispositions because, through their
death, they
were brought in touch with forces which showed them the true nature of
reality
and the illusion of material life.
One has also noticed a relationship between
certain
births and seismic and volcanic catastrophes.
During such catastrophes materialistic souls
incarnate, drawn sympathetically by volcanic phenomena - by the
convulsions of
the evil soul of the earth. And these births can in their turn bring
about new
cataclysms because reciprocally the evil souls exert an exciting
influence on
the terrestrial fire. The evolution of our planet is intimately
connected with
the evolution of the forces of humanity and civilizations.
[Drawing No. 2 not included here]
THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH
1.
Mineral crust
2.
Negative
life
3.
Inverted
Consciousness
4. Circle
of
forms
5. Circle
of
growth
6. Circle
of
fire
7. Circle of decomposition
8. Circle of fragmentation
9. Ego-centric-egoism
-
An
Esoteric Cosmology, GA 92, lecture 16 of June 12, 1906, Paris:
Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and
the Will of Man.
http://wn.elib.com/Steiner/Lectures/EsoCosmo/19060612p01.html
Valentine Tomberg does review the subject:
The right kind of fighting against human
karma is the
carrying, by mankind, of forgiveness and remission into the affairs of
the
world; for if Man will abandon the principle of “an eye for an eye, a
tooth for
a tooth”, this principle will no longer be used against himself.
The
resistance to karma which was set up by the Turanian culture, was, how-
ever,
of quite a different type. In it Man strove to flee from individual
karmic
responsibility into a “we-consciousness”, and the ”we-humanity” was
striving in
its turn to escape the universal human karma, by seeking refuge in the
Subterranean Spheres. The crushing of individuality in the womb of the
"we-consciousness," was the one side of the Turanian endeavour; the
other side was the turning of this we-totality towards the principles
and
forces of the Subterranean Spheres, especially to that Subterranean
Sphere called
the “Fire- Earth”, which represents the region of Ahriman's power
within the
terrestrial organism. It would never have occurred to Man to take
refuge in the
interior of the Earth, if the betrayal of the Vulcan Mysteries - of
which
Rudolf Steiner speaks in An Outline of
Occult Science - had not taken place in the Atlantean Epoch. It
was
precisely these "betrayed" Vulcan-mysteries - that is, Mysteries
given over to Evil and inversely realized by Evil - which constituted,
although
in a weakened form compared with that of the Atlantean Epoch, the
spiritual
basis of the Turanian civilisation. The fundamental truth of the Vulcan
Mysteries was that the highest goal of terrestrial evolution consisted
in the
complete conversion of the Interior of the Earth through the agency of
Man.
This, moreover, is the reason why Rudolf Steiner chose the name
"Vulcan" for the seventh and highest state of Earth's evolution. This
name is enigmatic so long as we try to find a planet which would
indicate the
future Vulcan-condition, in the same way as "Jupiter" and
"Venus" indicate two conditions of the future. But the enigma
disappears if we seek the corresponding heavenly body, not in Heaven,
but in
the Interior of the Earth, whither, indeed, the Greek mythology has
relegated
it. The truth of the matter is that there is no planet Vulcan, but that
this
"planet" is hidden in the Interior of the Earth. Now when the time
arrives that the Earth is turned completely inside out (a relevant idea
of this
inversion is given, from the standpoint of the etheric, in Dr. G.
Wachsmuth's
work on the Etheric Formative Forces of the terrestrial organism), the
objective phenomenon of the Vulcan-planet will make its appearance,
encircled
by a spiritualised ring of the former terrestrial humanity. Then will
mankind,
in conjunction with the Father-forces of the universe, be faced with
the
tremendous task of converting the lowest Evil into the highest Good.
The fundamental thought of the betrayed
Vulcan Mysteries was, precisely, to misinterpret the spiritual
state of things indicated above, in such a way that it would become its
opposite. The Earth's Interior was not regarded by them as the object of the highest conquest of future
Man, but as the source of his highest
conquering forces. And this highest conquest which would be attained,
with the
help of the Vulcan-forces, consisted in overcoming the "curse" of the
Father, that is, in overcoming pain, toil and death. It was hoped, for
instance, to put an end to all pain through the forces of the
“Air-Earth” (the
third subterranean sphere), which kill feeling, and by applying the
energy of
the "Fruit-Earth's" luxuriant growth, in conjunction with the
"technical" forces of the "Fire-Earth," to achieve freedom
from all toil. And it was hoped that still deeper strata of the Earth's
Interior would give that terrestrial immortality which Rudolf Steiner
calls
"the Ahrimanic ideal of immortality" - which, actually, would be no
immortality at all, but "deathlessness," that is, an escape from the
primal karmic necessity of death into a region whither this necessity
does not
extend.
These intentions were active in the
foundations of the
Turanian civilisation, and determined many of its details: for
instance, the
kind of communism extending even into family life, which was peculiar
to the
Turanian civilisation. In this fact was expressed the
"we-consciousness" of Turanianism; for instance, its inner bias
towards the Interior of the Earth was shown in its hostility to
agriculture.
For if Man's hand furrows the Earth with the plough and scatters seeds
which
are brought to growth and fruition by means of the warmth, light and
rain of
Heaven, he is carrying out a deed in conjunction with heaven, which
stands in
deepest contrast to the alliance with the Earth's Interior.
For this reason the great Zarathustra taught
the small
Iranian community which had gathered round him, agriculture,
as a religious duty of Man. To the Ancient Indian, agriculture was a
servitude
exacted by nature; to the Turanian, it was something hostile; to the
Ancient
Persian, whose life was necessarily spent in hard toil among sterile
mountains,
it was, nevertheless, the earthly expression of fidelity to
Ahura-Mazdao.
The fact that Zarathustra attributed
religious
significance to agriculture, points to what was the essential part of
Zarathustra's wisdom, and of the Ancient Persian culture-impulse
resulting from
it.
Tomberg, Anthroposophical
Studies of the Old Testament, Candeur
Manuscripts, 1985 (from the German of 1933), pp.
153 – 155
Elsewhere, Tomberg does develop the theme of
the Divine Feminine somewhat more than Steiner, but in a cautious
manner which
reflects his anthroposophical background. In the remarks quoted above
he shows
no independent point of view towards the “Inner Earth.”
There
is a correspondence
- of sorts - to these levels as described in Aztec lore:
…the Aztecs conceived of their cosmos as
containing
three superimposed sections: the heavens, the surface of the earth, and
the
underworld. An ensemble of pictorial and written sources, including the
Codex Vaticano Latino 3738, shows us
that the vertical ordering of the cosmos consisted of thirteen
celestial layers
rising above the earth, culminating in the realm of Omeyocan, the
"Place
of Duality," and nine layers below the earth, ending in Mictlan, the
"Place of the Dead." This dense vertical column was joined by the
central region, Tlalticpac, the "Earth Surface." The Iynchpin was the
city of Tenochtitlan.
At the time of the Spanish contact, thirteen
deities
inhabited the thirteen levels, which were designated the "Sky of the
Paradise of the Rain God," the "Sky of the Star-Skirted
Goddess," the "Sky of the Sun," the "Sky of the
Salt-Fertility God," the "Sky Where Gyrating Occurs," the
"Sky That Is Blackish," the "Sky That Is Blue-Green," the
"Place That Has Corners of Obsidian Slabs," the "God Who Is
White," the "God Who Is Yellow," the "God Who Is Red,"
and the "Place of Duality."
The gods associated with these levels were termed the Lords of
the Day
and are: Xiuhtecuhtli, Tlaltecuhtli, Chalchiuhtlicue, Tonatiuh,
Tlazolteotl,
Mictlantecuhtli, Cinteotl, Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl, Texcatlipoca,
Chalmecatecuhtli, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, and Citlalincue (not
necessarily in
that order).
The layers below the earth had such names as
the
"Place for Crossing the Water," the "Place Where the Hills Crash
Together," the "Obsidian Mountain," the "Place of the
Obsidian Wind," the "Place Where the Banners Are Raised," the
"Place Where People Are Pierced with Arrows," the "Place Where
People's Hearts Are Devoured," the "Obsidian Place of the Dead,"
and the "Place Where Smoke Has No Outlet." The gods associated with
these levels were termed the Lords of the Night and are: Xiuhtecuhtli,
Itztli
or Tecpatl, Pilzintecuhtli, Cinteotl, Mictlantecuhtli, Chalchiuhtlicue,
Tlazolteotl, Tepeyollotl, and Tlaloc (the typical order in this cycle).
R.
J. Stewart on the UnderWorld, the Goddess,
and
the Child of Light
A few words
giving yet another, but contemporary, perspective on what goes on
“Below”…
THE
UNDERWORLD AND THE PLANETARY MIND
The
Underworld is the mind of the planet. This planetary mind is the
totality of
all matter, energy and consciousness associated with the planet; it
exists upon
a planetary time-scale. The planetary cycles are part of a stellar
time-scale
which encompasses our own relative time, defined by the movements of
the solar
system.
Just
as
our own consciousness is not solely defined by the physical brain and
body, the
planet has an individuality and awareness that may not be defined by
material
form. Meditation teaches us through direct experience that we may
redirect our
attention inwardly, the balancing opposite of our customary direction.
When we
do so we find a reality that is not limited to the materialist
biological
model, for we do not experience reduction of awareness to a cellular
state, but
a powerful expansion. The meditative disciplines also enable access to
realms
of being that are closed to us when our attention and will are
outwardly
directed. The Underworld and Earth Light experiences, accessible
through
various means including meditation and visualization, teach us the
reality
within the land and planet.
This
inner reality is as subjective or objective as any other, for all
realities are
defined and conditioned by the roles and rules of the participants.
Particle
physics has recently 'discovered', via the hard road of modern science,
that
there are no observers, only participants. This simple truth has been
taught
for millennia in the esoteric traditions, though the models
(world-models)
within which it is expressed vary from culture to culture and from land
to
land.
The
Underworld traditions teach us ways towards conscious participation in
the
life-patterns of the planet; through the simple but neglected method of
passing
awareness downwards into the land.
Popular meditation techniques, regardless of their origin, are inwardly
balancing, for through them our attention is drawn away from
outward-reaching
habits and focused inwardly. Underworld work gives us the essential
balance
below, drawing attention away from our other addiction or obsession,
that of
escaping upwards to a distant light.
The
obsession with elevation is only a variant of the outward-seeking trap,
for
both depend upon rejection or dualism. We find this at its most serious
in
religions and spiritual practices which raise energy/consciousness
upward above
the head, rejecting (or more arrogantly 'redeeming') all that is below.
In
externalized materialism, this old spiritual arrogance appears as
humanity's
self-acclaimed right to exploit nature. Interestingly it is science
today that
has realized that dualism and lack of responsibility towards the
natural world
leads directly to our own destruction; the current spiritual revival
still
uses, to a great extent, the dualistic Christian-materialist model.
Light is
always above, while superior masters and angels will intervene to save
or at
least lecture us through channeled communications. In the Underworld
tradition
the land and all living beings upon and within it are holy, sacred, and
spiritually and physically aspects of one being, of which we are an
integral
part.
As
the
planetary patterns of awareness and our individual and collective human
life-patterns are aspects of a holism, we may enter into planetary
awareness
directly for, of course, we are already there.
We
need
not think of the land and planet as having separate minds in an
exclusive
sense, as we are conditioned to think of each other, but that our own
awareness
is of the planet, it is the planetary
awareness. If, as is often the case, we are unable to make the
conscious dive,
to plunge directly into a state of planetary being, we should work
through the
land, that part of the planetary zone upon which we live and to which
we are
organically attuned.
The
Underworld is the mind of the planet and is not limited to the parts
that we
identify through our self-limited participation. Like our own minds it
has many
patterns and is protean and (in the true sense of the word) plastic.
Although
the Underworld Initiation begins at home, as the primal power
traditions are
always regional and ethnic, it does not stay there. At the present time
we are
moving out of some of our old racial patterns but not out of the
enabling
limitation of regions, lands and zones, which are both geomantic and
spiritual.
Each relative entity, from zones to
microscopic life forms, is a part of the planetary mind. The substance
of the
world, defined by the Four Elements, is also part of the planetary
mind. We are
of it and yet we reject and abuse both the planet and ourselves. The
Underworld
initiates plunges willingly and deeply into the planetary mind, seeking
to pass
into it and be changed by it rather than reject it and rise away from
it.
THE PARADOX
OF EARTH LIGHT
There
are some significant links between the Underworld and the more widely
popularized idea of rising to the light, or 'rising through the
planes'.
Initially such links seem to be m paradoxical, for the deeper we reach
into the
Underworld the closer we come to light. In folk tradition, the faery
realm is p
filled with illumination, but there is no sight of the Sun or Moon. The
light
is that of the sacred land, the primal world, the light of the stellar
universe
inherent within the body and substance of the planetary being.
In
the
pagan myths this light was that of the Goddess, and to be at one with
her light
involved passing through darkness. The best known name for her is Isis,
who was
both black and white. The Black Isis is simultaneously the depths of
the
Underworld and the depths of the universe, while the White Isis is the
light of
the planet and the light of the stars. The Earth Light experiences
bridge
between the planetary mind (of which we are an integral part) and the
stellar
consciousness.
There
is
a widespread assumption in esoteric literature that the Goddess of the
Earth
and Moon, known as Isis and by countless other names, is a lesser
power than, say, the God of
the Sun. This idea is merely propaganda or patriarchy. Apart from the
Underworld tradition which does away with such hierarchies and
propaganda, we
need only do a little home- work to discover that the Earth, Moon, sun
and
stars manifested deities of both sexes. In psychic and magical terms,
the way
in which we approach these entities, regarding them as t male, female
or
androgyne, makes definable changes within ourselves. Ironically, the
patriarchal and prejudiced Victorian scholars of myth and legend
identified
over a century ago that there were many major examples of solar
goddesses and
lunar gods in ancient religion, a well-documented body of truth that is
virtually ignored in the modern revival of paganism and the New Age
movement.
Earth
Light is a term that
developed
from the first book, in which the light of the faery realm is revealed.
The
idea of the Earth as a world of light was once widespread in religion
and
magic, though orthodox political Christianity fought constantly to
suppress
such a liberating truth. Today we inherit the suppressive propaganda,
both in
the form of materialism and in many unchallenged assumptions in our
spiritual
revival and New Age enthusiasm. Much nonsense is attached to the idea
of the
Earth and Underworld as negative, dark, even corrupt. We must flee, we
are
told, the drag of A- matter, or alternatively we must seed the passive
Earth
with manly light from the higher worlds. This antagonistic sexist
propaganda is
rehashed in endless ways by people who have never once entered the
sacred land
in meditation or vision, and found it vibrant and filled with light.
The
Christian war waged upon our world has subtly evolved into arrogant
abuse
through science and industry, but it does not stop there. New
spirituality
seems determined to find only the higher planes, the Masters, and
escape from
responsibility. We dread confrontation with any power that will act as
a
catalyst for true inner change, we fear and reject the Earth by our
crass
assumption that spiritual Masters, angels or a Saviour will appear in
some
external manner to save us from ourselves.
The
Underworld tradition teaches that we must confront and pass through our
fear
and rejection of the Earth as a transformative illuminating matrix.
Earth
Light, found by moving our energy and awareness into the body and power
of the
land. This light is our closest light, the divine Being in matter or
substance,
in living interaction with its individual and collective creations. The
land
and planet are alive, and our spiritual reality derives from this life
just as
much as our physical reality. Indeed, the Underworld tradition makes
little or
no distinction between physical and spiritual…these are merely clumsy
words.
- from R. J.
Stewart: Power Within the Land, pp.
16 – 19 (Bib. II)
THE WEAVER GODDESS IN THE UNDERWORLD
Our
last
visualization returns us to the Dark Goddess of the Underworld. In this
we pass
beyond the faery realm to one of the deep Underworld temples. Serious
undertakings in inner transformation, magic, call it what we will,
cannot be
approached or achieved without experience of two closely related
concepts; the
Underworld and the Goddess. Although we have used the word concepts
the Underworld and the Goddess are not theories but
fundamental universal powers. They are presentations or modulations of
the
unknowable One Being, the ultimate reality and truth beyond expression.
There
are many ways of expressing the Underworld and the Goddess, but no
amount of
discussion replaces actual experience. It is pointless to argue over
the
'reality' of words and images, for they all derive from a deeper
reality, beyond
form.
Both
primal concepts and powers, Goddess and Underworld, have been ignored
and
suppressed with terrible, possibly irreparable, effect upon both
humanity and
the planet Earth. Understanding the Goddess leads us to sexual balance
and
maturity upon all levels of consciousness, including those that
transcend
gender. Understanding of the UnderWorld brings a conscious relationship
between
humankind and the land, environment and planet. As the Goddess dwells
within
the Underworld, we should not separate the two in our imagination.
The
Goddess and the Underworld represent energies and consciousness
essential to
our individual, collective and manifest well-being. Moreover, these two
concepts and powers have the potential to rebalance our humanity and
our
collective world, both of which are in immediate undeniable danger of
extinction. In very basic terms we may see the nuclear problem, both
civil and
military, as a result of ignorance and abuse of Underworld powers;
Pluto and
Uranus. The heavy metals are Underworld entities or stellar entities,
but
specifically stellar entities within the Earth. We may see the
grotesque
extremes of materialism and male stereotypical (rather than
archetypical)
consciousness as a result of suppression of Goddess powers.
The
Underworld tradition, the Light within the Earth (as opposed to
theoretical
magic or literary occultism) must work with Goddess power. This much
was
realized by the revival occultists of the nineteenth and early
twentieth
centuries, just as it had been understood by the adepts of the
Rosicrucian
movement, the alchemists, and the Renaissance magicians and
metaphysicians.
Only
one
or two generations ago, Goddess workings were unusual in magical
groups, though
not unknown. Iv1agical arts were still dominated by savage phantoms of
male
egocentric 'authority' and dogmatic 'hierarchy', phantoms which have by
no
means been exorcized at the present time. Such male-dominated groups
tended and
still tend to work with the Goddess only in her Venus or sexual-loving
aspect,
because this is close to the pernicious stereotype of pseudo-femininity
to
which they were conditioned from childhood.
As
we
emerge from a period of monosexual religion and culture, such
stereotypical
imagery is beginning to be replaced by something new, yet essentially
ancient
and primal and enduring.
Social
conditions change slowly, and often express transformations which were
once
limited to exploration by magical groups of earlier generations. Thus,
the
restoration of sexual equality is now a wide- spread social and
political issue
in the Western world whereas at the turn of the century, equality was
often a
highly daring experiment in which men and women worked magic together
(as
opposed to the exclusively male Masonic Orders from which such groups
often
derived). More significant than the mere fact that men and women were
working
equally at magical arts, though this was a major step forward in
itself, were
Goddess-orientated rituals and visualizations that began to appear,
often
drawing on material from earlier cultures and religions. The late Dion
Fortune,
for example, spent an entire life in the task of resolving Atlantean
and
Egyptian Goddess forces in the context of the twentieth century. The
results,
with many potent Goddess visions and rituals, are found not in her
textbooks on
psychology and magic (which seem outdated now) but in her remarkable
novels.
Further
discussions of the explosion of Goddess worship and various aspects of
active
feminism in revival paganism are not relevant in a book of this sort;
nevertheless, one of the most astonishing of the many wonders appearing
in the
twentieth century is the irresistible return of the Goddess, regardless
of her
forms of expression. Only a generation ago students heard whispered
secrets
concerning 'sex magic' in which and something unspeakably mysterious
occurred
between men and women (and it was not sexual intercourse!). The entire
science
of polarity magic has now opened out and is becoming increasingly
defined and
intelligible. Such developments could not occur, in the magical or
poetical
sense, without the active power of the Goddess restoring our awareness
and to a
balanced condition.
In
Western esoteric tradition, as in the East, there is a wide range of
what are
nowadays called feminine archetypes. They
are preserved in legend, myth, folklore and in magical, alchemical and
mystical
allegory, including the heretical Grail legends. Such archetypes have
been
banished, often unsuccessfully, from political orthodox religion,
though they
frequently resurface in the form of female saints who replace pagan
goddesses,
or as folklore and popular superstition, and revivals of the cult of
the Virgin
Mary.
More
important than any of the sources listed is the inner tradition of they
making
contact with empowered images of goddesses, through meditation,
visualization
and ritual, It is quite facile and inaccurate to suggest, such that the
West
has no goddesses and that such images can play no part in new, mystical
or
magical work; but a clear definition and firm contact with such images
is often
difficult to establish, due to centuries of orthodox
suppression and conditioning, Once the
contacts have been made, her however, the Goddess is an undeniable
force, and experienced
as a powerful presence in many ways.
In
the
Underworld tradition there are two aspects of the Goddess that are
especially
relevant and potent. We might call them She Who the Dwells Below, the
Goddess
of the Underworld, the Dark Mother, and She
Who Dwells Above, the universal Goddess of the Stars. They are ere
extremes of
one unity, and are found in practical terms to be very close
to one another, when we visualize or
meditate upon them; but they are not interchangeable in a facile manner
through
human arbitration.
The
Western tradition has a shortened way to
enlightenment, which of has much in common with similar methods found
in
Tibetan Buddhism the or Zen, though there is no suggestion here that
they are
identical; we do and not need to turn to Eastern variants when we
already have
well-defined and powerful initiatory techniques of our own. The
similarities
are due to shared properties of human consciousness; the differences
are due to
ancestors, environment and psychic patterns, all of which are
transcended only
by working with and moving through a native tradition to any its very
end.
The
shortened way simply consists of going into the Underworld and ion
encountering
the Goddess. For many people this is a terrifying experience to be
avoided at
all costs: such people should not be involved in empowering traditions
or
initiatory arts of consciousness and energy. If they do become so
involved,
most soon abandon the effort or become side-tracked into the various
self-perpetuating dead ends of occultism or New Age cosiness and mutual
congratulation. These may seem like hard words but no growing
experience, no
transformation, is ever easy.
By
descending into the Underworld we are paradoxically reaching towards
comprehension and experience not only of the Dark Goddess, the Power of
Taking
and Giving, but also of Her universal stellar aspect. First the
catabolic
destroying force that we fear, which is the Dark Goddess, then her
universal
aspect beyond all concepts of self-hood or false limitation. In this
phase we
comprehend the Goddess as a conscious power permeating all time, space
and
energy.
We
find
the imagery for this Goddess in various forms in myth and legend, and
such
imagery is particularly active upon inner levels of visualization and
contact.
In our present context we can exclude intermediary forms such as
culture
goddesses, love goddesses, sister goddesses, war goddesses and specific
localized female deities: these are strung like beads upon a cord that
reaches
from the Underworld to the Stars. During the Underworld Initiation, we
realize
that the linear concept of this cord is an illusion, and that both ends
are
one, giving us the image of a circle or sphere. This sphere contains
the
universe in one dimension, and the planet or Underworld in another: the
Goddess
weaves all dimensions and energies together.
In human terms, this power is found both
beneath and within, a practical matter of the direction of energy and
consciousness through ritual and imaginative constructs such as goddess
forms
and guided visualizations. T o our ancestors there was an eminently
simple
method: they went underground into chambers, caves, catacombs, and
sought
enlightenment. This physical movement is analogous to a visionary
transformative
experience in which we enter a realm beneath the Earth, yet find that
it is
full of stars. In both Celtic and Greek mythology, we find the goddess
known as
The Weaver, and She appears in several important magical or mystical
visions.
-
from
R. J. Stewart: Earth Light,
pp. 101 – 106. (Bib. II )
WHAT THE BIG MAN TAUGHT
The
Big Man taught me many things, but the best of them is the story of the
Fall,
which was never a fall but rather a loving embrace.
“In
the beginning”, he said, “the world was in many places. Yet it longed
to be in
one place at one time and yearning drew in its presence into a few
places
only. In the heart of the stars great
ones of light and power felt the world draw in, just like a breath
inhaled and
held tight. One of the star beings saw
her and loved her then, knowing that she must exhale and that she could
not,
and that her fullness would destroy her in time. So
he fell from the furthest star, through
the Sun and through the planet Venus, into the earth, who was still
holding her
breath.
Now
as the Bright One came into the Earth, many lesser beings were drawn in
also
like burning flames in his wake, a cloak of light weaving through the
stars,
and perhaps it was her, daughter of the Great Mother, who drew them all
in with
her holy breath, for the Mother was of her and in her also, She who
draws all
things unto herself. And when the saints
took up the story, handed own in poems, dreams, and visions of the
first breath
of the World, they called the Bright One Lucifer, who is the light of
Venus in
the morning and evening. And they said
he was a fallen archangel, out of Heaven.
And they said that when he fell many angels fell with him, so
many in
fact that God and Jesus had to shut the heavenly gates, for fear that
they
might jot have no hosts to shout holy holy holy any more.
And those that fell into the earth were the
faery races, sons and daughters of Lucifer, star-cousin to the Sun,
reflected
to us in Venus. And this reflection of
Lucifer through Venus is one of the great Mysteries of Liberty.
And
now the Earth is breathing out. She has
been doing so since before the coming of mankind, for Lucifer burning
within
her causes her to whale and come into being in many worlds. First she breathed out the smallest of living
creatures, so small that they cannot be seen, only their effects can be
felt. Then she breathed out the first
plants and grasses. Then she breathed
out the fishes and the land animals. And
all the while the faery races were in and on the Earth, excelling in
beauty and
light.
Then
the Sun spoke to the Earth also, responding to her changing breath,
which was
like the utterance of a sound or word as she exhaled.
And the first men and women, partaking of the
nature of above and below, sons and daughters of the Earth and Sun
appeared,
still soft and mutable, on the surface of the Earth.
Immediately her Breath blew through them, so
that for long ages they absorbed her exhalations and were composed of
many
animals and fishes, but they also absorbed the angelic sounds, the
powers of
the Sun, Moon, and Planets, which defined them, and gave them yearning
beyond
their mutability.
So
the men and women yearned for the stars beyond the Earth, moulded as
they were
by the sounds of the angels. And the
longed for the Earth, moulded as they were by her divine breath that
caused all
creatures that ever were and ever will be to be moulded into them. So they became divided within themselves, and
through the pride that comes from excess longing, turned away from the
wisdom
of the Lordly Ones, the faery races, and behaved as if they were only
animals. For the words and sounds of the
angels were to come into perfection through the faery union with
humans, the
angels of above and below balanced through men and women, who in
themselves
held all the living creatures. But when
mankind abandoned the faery wisdom, they became imbalanced, for they
heard only
the word of the Sun, and not that of the stars within the Earth.
So
the Sun consulted with the other Stars, and a great Being was sent into
the
World, to unite Lucifer, the faery races, the animals, and the humans. And the Great One was to achieve this unity
through the humans, who were still capable of joining with the faery
races and
the living creatures, to make a whole being that was the final pure
breathing
out of the world. And this Great One
travelled right into the centre of the World, through the Sun, the
Planets, and
the Moon, linking all together. And in
the heart of the world he harmonized with Lucifer, to bring great
changes to
the world, which are still surfacing today.”
Extract from an early 18th century
journal
-
from
R. J. Stewart, as included in The
Living World of Faery, pp. 175-176 (Bib. II)
- all
selections copyright R. J. Stewart, and by kind permission. All rights reserved.
Earth
Light: R. J. Stewart, first
published UK, Element Books 1992, US edition published
Mercury Publishing USA, 1998.
Power
Within the Land: R. J.
Stewart; first
published UK, Element Books 1992, US edition
published Mercury Publishing USA, 1998.
The
Living World of Faery: R. J.
Stewart; first published UK, Gothic
Image Publications, 1995.
Bibliography:
Extensive references are included in the
bibliography for
Section I. Those that pertain directly to the matters at hand in this
section
are noted below, together with some general background material
Inner Impulses in
Evolution, GA 171. Rudolf Steiner, 1916, Dornach,
Anthroposophic Press, 1984. The
English
edition contains seven lectures, from Sept. 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, and
Oct. 1, 1916. The German edition of GA 171 contains
additional lectures from Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, 7, 14, 15, 21, 28, 29,
and 30,
1916: this group is entitled Goethe and
the Crisis of the Nineteenth Century.
An additional lecture from Dec. 10, 1916 is also grouped with GA 171,
although it appears as part
of The Problem of Faust, GA 273. No
mention is made in the English edition of
the abridgements of associated material.
Christianity as Mystical Fact, GA 8. Rudolf Steiner,
Anthroposophic
Press, 1997 (Andrew Welburn,
trans.),
from 1902 book publication. A watershed in Western esotericism, one of
Steiner’s major works. His most concise exposition of his conception of
the
nature and role of Christ, Jesus, and human/planetary evolution.
Incarnations of the Aztec Supernatural: The Image of
Huitzilopochtli in
Mexico and Europe.
Elizabeth H.
Boone,
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 79, Pt. 2,
1989. Full
discussion of Huitzilopochtli-related source materials in archeology
and
post-Conquest literature, together with a large bibliography and
reproductions
of many curious early illustrations and engravings.
General Mesoamerican background:
An
Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and
the Maya: Mary Miller &
Karl
Taube. Thames
and Hudson, 1993.
Essential.
City
of Sacrifice –
The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization.
David Carrasco,
Beacon
Press, 1999. “We know that power,
whatever its origin – sacred, natural, ethnic, contractual, or
democratic – is
an expression of violence. David Carrasco now demonstrates a
shattering,
unsentimental truth: civilizations themselves are born and maintained
by
violence. A brilliant, provocative, timely, and eternal book.” – Carlos
Fuentes,
from the back cover. This and the following book form an indispensable
pair of
resources for understanding the role of sacrifice in the West.
The
Flayed God: Roberta H. & Peter T. Markman, Harper Collins,
1992. On Quetzalcoatl: pp. 63
–
96, ff. Superb
relating and analysis of Mesoamerican pathways.
Mexico: Coe, Michael D. Thames and Hudson, fourth
edition,
1994. Basic background.
The Olmec World – Ritual and Rulership: Coe, Michael D., and Richard A Diehl, David
A.
Freidel,
Peter T. Furst, F. Kent Reilly, III, Linda
Schele,
Carolyn E. Tate, and Karl A. Taube: The
Art
Museum, Princeton U. & Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995.
Splendid essays and color photography by the
best in the business. The Olmec is the
Ur-civilization in Mesoamerica and this volume reflects the current high
state of
scholarship in the field.
Shamanism and Sacred Magic:
Meditations on the Tarot: Anonymous,
Chapters 1 – 5 especially. Back in print from Jeremy P.
Tarcher/Putnam,
2002 (from 1985).
Owning
Your Own Shadow: Robert A. Johnson. HarperSanFransisco, 1993
Religions
of Mesoamerica
– Cosmovision and Ceremonial Centers:
David Carrasco. Harper
Collins,
1990.
The UnderWorld Initiation: R. J.
Stewart. Mercury Publishing, 1998 (from Aquarian Press, 1985).
This Tree
Grows Out of Hell – Mesoamerica and the Search for the Magical Body:
Ptolomy
Tompkins,
Harper SanFrancisco, 1990. Insightful
understanding of the core mythos of Mesoamerica.
Images
References
Frontispiece
Codex
Fejervary-Mayer, from the Mixtec-Puebla area, line drawing of
opening page
illustration of this
tonalamatl,
or Book of Days, in Susan Milbrath, Star Gods of the Maya
– Astronomy in Art, Folklore,
and Calendars. U. of Texas
Press, 1999, p. 132, Fig. 4.4i.
Xiuhtecuhtli, God of Fire is in the center as the axis mundi, in
the top
segment at the base of the Tree of the East the sun rises, in the
bottom
quarter the Earth-Monster waits to receive it in the West. Blood flows
in from
the semi-quarters from dismembered Tezcatlipoca and is received by
Xiuhtecuhtli. The 260 stations of the Calendar Round occupy the border.
A good
color copy of the unretouched faded original is in Markmann &
Markmann, pl.
6. Bruce Scofield has a good discussion breaking down the meaning of
its
different elements in his Signs of Time –
An Introduction to Mesoamerican Astrology, One Reed Publications,
1999, pp.
72, ff, esp. pp. 86 – 89 (see his commentary excerpted on p. 135 of
this
Chapter).
p. 9
Fig. 1 - Bernard Picart, Ceremonies
et coutumes des peoples idolatres, representees par des
figures
dessinees
de la main de Bernard Picart, 1728-1729, as reproduced in
Boone, Incarnations…, p. 65, Fig. 27.
Fig. 2 - Allain Mannesson Mallet, Description
de l’Univers, contenant Les Differents Systems du Monde,
1683, as in
Boone, p. 82, Fig.
37.
pp. 51 - 75
Fig. 3 - Esther Pasztory, Aztec Art. U. of Oklahoma Press, 1998 (from Abrams, 1983), colorplate 49.
Fig. 4 - ibid,
p. 258.
Fig. 5 - .
Tagle, p. 38
Fig. 6 - Mary
Ellen Miller, The Art of Mesoamerica
–
From Olmec to Aztec, Thames
& Hudson, 1996, pl.
139,
p. 168.
Fig. 7 -
National Geographic, magazine, Dec., 1995.
Fig. 8 -
Pasztory, Pre-Columbian Art, Cambridge U. Press,
1998, p. 43. Height 9’6”.
Fig. 9 - ibid,
p. 8.
Fig. 10 -
Michael Coe, Mexico
– From the Olmecs to the Aztecs, 4th
ed., 1994, p. 139.
Fig. 11 - Richard F. Townsend, The Aztecs. Thames
& Hudson, 2000, rev. ed., p. 161.
Fig.
12 - Pasztory, Aztec, p. 154.
Fig.
13 - Arqueologia Mexicana, #6 Especial, p. 57.
Figs.
14 & 15 - Pasztory, Aztec, p. 153.
Fig.
16 - Susan Charlot Jay, www.susancharlotjay.com
Fig.
17 - H. D. Disselhoff & S. Linne, The
Art of Ancient America, Crown Publishers, Inc., 1960,
restored Tepentitla altepetl, p.
46.
Fig.
18 - Arqueologia Mexicana, Vol. VI, No. 34, p. 26.
Fig.
19 - Joseph Campbell, Historical Atlas of World Mythology,
Vo. II:
The Way of the Seeded
Earth, Pt. 1: The
Sacrifice, plate 162, p. 77.
Fig.
20 - Codex Borgia,
Gisele Diaz and Alan Rodgers, ed.,
Dover Publications, 1953,
pl. 53. The
resurrection
motif; life from death. Human beings were considered to be made of maize
by the gods and
the yearly cycle of fallow and harvest mirrored the larger cycles of
personal and
cosmic life. Hell harrowed. Campbell’s
large-format book – Historical Atlas
of
World Mythology, Vol. II: The Way of the
Seeded Earth, Pt. 1: The Sacrifice, Harper
&
Row, 1988, p.
36,
has a wonderful unretouched
full-page copy of the original codex
illustration.
Fig. 21 -
Albrecht Durer, woodblock print, The
Great Crucifixion, c. 1498. From Campbell,
p. 53.
Fig. 22 -
Karl Taube, The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan,
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and
Collection, 1997, p. 132, temple
column detail, Chichen Itza.
Fig. 23 - Codex Dresden,
p. 3a
Fig. 24 -
the lid to Pacal’s tomb, Palanque, Chiapas,
Mexico, c. MAYA,
Rizzoli, 1998, p. 301.
Fig. 25 - Campbell,
ibid, p. 37. The Dream of the Virgin
by Christophoro Simone dei Crocefissi, c.
1350 A.D., Italy.
In both this and the previous item, the voluntary shedding of blood is
the
saving grace.
Fig.
26 - Roger Cook, The Tree of Life –
Symbol of the Centre. Thames and Hudson, 1974, pl. 75.
Fig. 27 - MAYA, p. 233.
Fig. 28 -
Linda Schele & Mary Miller, Blood of
Kings – Dynasty and Ritual in Mayan Art, George
Braziller, Inc., 1986, p. 172, Copan,
Honduras, c. 775
A.D.
pp.
115 – 128
Fig.
29 - Kay Almere Read & Jason J.
Gonzales, Mesoamerican Mythology, Oxford U. Press,
2000, p. 194, from Codex
Magliabechiano, fol. 53r.
Fig.
30 - Karl A. Taube, Aztec and Maya Myths, U. of Texas
Press, 1993, p. 45
Fig.
31 - Miller & Taube, An Illustrated Dictionary, p.
189
Fig.
32 - Lowe, Gareth W., Lee, Thomas A.
and Espinoza, Eduardo Martinez. Izapa: An
Introduction to the Ruins and
Monuments. New
World
Archeological Foundation, Paper
#31,
1982.
Fig.
33 - Santa Fe Flea market, Mexican
print.
Fig.
34 - Roman Pina Chan, Cacaxtla, Fuentes Historicas y
Pinturas,
Fondo de Cultura
Economica, 1998, lamina 10.
Fig.
35 - ibid, lamina 8.
Fig.
36 - Pasztory, Aztec, colorplate 33.
Fig.
37 - Taube, p. 8
Fig.
38 - Linda Schele and Peter Matthews, The Code of Kings –
The Language of Seven
Sacred
Maya Temples
and Tombs, Scribner, 1998,
p. 15.
Fig.
39 - Rene Millon, Art, Ideology, and the Rise of Teotihuacan, p. 402
Fig.
40 - Taube, p. 38.
Fig.
41 - Mary Miller & Simon Martin, The Courtly Art of
the Ancient Maya,
Thames & Hudson,
2004, p. 82. From the Naranjo
region of
Guatemala/Belize, c. 775 A.D.
Fig.
42 - Nicholas Herrera, Santa
Fe artist, sculpture, and
cover to La Herencia
de Hispana
catalogue.
Fig. 43 - Rene
Querido, from his Introduction to Steiner’s Spiritual Beings in the
Heavenly
Bodies and in
the Kingdoms of
Nature, GA
136. Anthroposophic Press, 1992, lectures from 1912, Helsinki, p. 16.
Endpiece
Fig. 44 - Chan, p. 88.
Stephen Clarke
can be
reached at mozartg@yahoo.com
Fig. 44
Print this out
for your
kids to color….
