Mystery History & Esoteric Streams
The mystery streams of history: the Holy Grail, the Knights Templar, the Temple Legend, Rosicrucianism, the Bodhisattvas and the great teachers of humanity. Part of Thalira's Anthroposophical Glossary of 515 terms, and companion to the in-depth guide Anthroposophy.
The wounded Grail King whose unhealed wound, caused by his own fall into lower nature, is the riddle the innocent Parsifal must learn to answer.
The temple initiation school of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, in which the candidate underwent a three-day temple-sleep death-experience and met Osiris and Isis as cosmic realities.
In Steiner’s reading, the two brothers are the seed of humanity’s two streams: Cain who works the earth, Abel who receives grace.
The Greek initiation cult at Eleusis whose Demeter-Persephone-Iacchus drama enacted, in cultic form, what later became actual fact at Golgotha.
The Artemis-temple initiation school at Ephesus where the candidate learned to perceive the cosmic Word streaming through the etheric body of nature, and from which the Logos-prologue of John's Gospel was later drawn.
The Bodhisattva who became Buddha, completing his gift of compassion to humanity, and who then worked from spiritual heights into the Nativity of Luke's gospel.
The pre-Christian Irish initiation centre Steiner identifies as the last Great Mystery before the Mystery of Golgotha, set on the western edge of Europe.
The master-builder of Solomon's Temple, whom Steiner reads as the representative of the sons of Cain, the human stream that wins its wisdom through work and will.
In Steiner's reading, the cosmic teacher who first inspired the age of self-consciousness, bringing humanity the power to say I, and the culmination of the ancient yoga path.
The Folk-Soul-led initiation stream of pre-Christian Germanic, Scandinavian, and Druidic Europe, set out by Steiner in his 1910 Oslo cycle.
The innocent Grail knight whom Steiner read as the soul that receives the Christ Impulse through a pure, questioning heart rather than learned doctrine.
The Western esoteric stream Steiner dates from the thirteenth century, a Christ-centred path of knowledge that joined outer research of nature with inner moral development.
The fire-and-iron Kabiroi rite of Aegean Samothrace that Steiner read in GA 232 as a will-pole preparation for the Christ-Impulse.
The medieval schooling, crowned by Thomas Aquinas, where humanity first grasped its own thinking and prepared the modern self-conscious mind.
The great initiate who guards the ancient wisdom of Atlantis, one of the three great teachers gathered around Manu in Steiner's account of the Mysteries.
The ancient Indian song Steiner read as the meeting of three soul-streams of old India, Sankhya, Yoga and the Vedas, studied beside the letters of Paul.
The succession of twelve great teacher-beings who circle the cosmic Christ and bring spiritual guidance to humanity, each one rising to become a Buddha when his mission is done.
The ancient Celtic sun-mysteries in which Druid priests read the shadow cast by standing stones to perceive the will of the spiritual world.
In Steiner's reading, the sacred vessel that holds the Christ-substance of the blood shed on Golgotha, won not by birth but by the questioning soul.
The medieval order Steiner read as a Christ-stream, sworn to the Mystery of Golgotha and destroyed by the gold-driven will of Philip the Fair.
The ancient temple-sanctuaries where, across many lands, spiritual knowledge was guarded and initiation conferred in secret before the time of open teaching.
The two karmic streams of souls in Michael's School who alternate across the centuries and are meant to reunite within the Anthroposophical Movement.
The Masonic myth of the murdered temple-builder, which Steiner read as the buried record of two streams running through all human history.
In Steiner's reading, Solomon's Temple is a building made to picture the cosmos and the future human being, its very ground-plan the body of God in stone.
Skythianos, the Buddha and Zarathustra, the three reincarnated initiates Manes gathered around himself to guide the post-Atlantean epochs.
Humanity's two lines in Steiner's reading of the Temple Legend: the sons of God who receive grace, and the sons of Cain who win wisdom by work, destined to be reconciled in freedom.