But the root of all evil lies in the fact that the representatives of religion have declared war on science, above all spiritual science, Anthroposophy. They do not want to free themselves of original sin; they still want not only to appeal to God who said to man: He will give them life, they should not eat of the 'Tree of Life' themselves ... but they also want to appeal to the luciferic and the ahrimanic spirit, and let their eyes be opened through religion for the distinguishing between good and evil. Religion (as such, i.e. not as a creed) wants to be 'knowledge'. But that cannot be, because it is life-substance (Ibid.). The adversary powers insinuate into the minds of the representatives of religion the thought of taking up arms against scientific and spiritual-scientific knowledge, i.e. to endlessly perpetuate the fratricidal war between Cain and Abel. But only Anthroposophy can put an end to the evil that has lasted over millennia. Its impulse would consist in experiencing the unity of science, religion and art at Easter; and in experiencing at Michaelmas (from September 29) how the Three - that have one mother, the Easter mother -, how the Three become sisters, and stand next to each other, but complement one another (Apr. 2, 1923, GA 223). They are the heralds of the Triune Spirit of God, who would become the individual spirit in man.
The Division of the Sexes
Of untold significance for the spiritual individual development of the human being is the division, brought about through evolution, of the originally bi-sexual (androgynous) human being into two beings of different sexes. The esoteric depth of this phenomenon can hardly be fathomed properly anywhere outside of Anthroposophy. Such knowledge is of especial importance in our epoch in which, particularly in the realm of sexuality, much that is repellent and evil takes place, thus providing a fertile soil for the mysteries of darkness.
The pre-conditions for the separation of the sexes were already laid down in evolution within the foregoing aeon of the Old Moon. At that time all human monads possessed group-consciousness. This experienced itself as female ... The Sun, which already illumined the moon from the outside, was experienced as male. This is preserved in the old Egyptian myths with, for example, the moon as Isis, female, and the sun as Osiris, male (June 4, 1907, GA 99).
In the earth aeon man was endowed with the spark of the 'I', and it became necessary to develop individual 'I'-consciousness. But the forces required for this were not available in the bi-sexual human being, they were all used for propagation, for self-fertilization. Through the separation of the present moon from the earth the inheritance from the Old Moon aeon came to an end. The unified spiritual centre in man which catered, so to speak, for reproduction and the cosmic mirror-consciousness was divided into two. Gradually the central nervous system developed, together with separate reproductive organs - male and female. The shift of the unified centre resulted in the development of the spine (with the chakras). In the course of time the speech organs also developed out of the same centre.
The separation of the sexes, however, did not yet give rise to mutual attraction of the two sides. Thus the spiritual forces of Venus were called upon to help. Through them ... love in its lowest form, as the attraction of the sexes, is implanted in the earth. This love is intended to be continuously ennobled, and later to attain the highest forms (GA 262, p. 83ff).
The spirit beings of Venus fulfilled yet another mission on earth. They made human reason productive through endowing it with that half of the reproductive force that remained over after the division of the sexes. Since then intellectual activity and the sexual realm stand in a spiritual connection which requires ennoblement and harmonization if the human being is to ascend to higher conditions of consciousness, rather than becoming the source of evil.
Now the facts grow more complicated through the fact that in the distant past of which we speak not only Venus beings, but spiritual beings from Mars also worked on man. They enriched the blood with iron (Mars permeated the not yet consolidated earth in a rarefied, semi-spiritual condition) and imbued the power of understanding with a certain higher passion (Ibid., p. 84). This occurred with the collaboration of luciferic beings. They filled the astral bodies of human beings with the astral forces of Mars, thus activating the passions and the intellect. Their symbol was the serpent of Paradise. It approached the female nature because this possessed the forces of regeneration. And since then man stands between two kinds of passion: that of spiritual and that of organic reproduction. The future belongs to the first; and this is the reason why man blocks his path to it when he sinks into eroticism.
The Biblical myth and the Mysteries of antiquity clothed the idea of the separation of the sexes in the figures of Cain and Abel. In Greek 'Abel' means 'Pneuma' (spirit) and is female. The word 'Cain' literally means 'male'. Two opposite principles are shown in Abel and Cain: the female and the male, though not yet physical, but purely spiritual, at the stage where the division of the unified human being takes place for the first time. The Bible expresses it thus: Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground (Genesis; 4;2). The 'smoke', the spirit planted by God on the earth, rises from Abel to God but Cain's 'smoke' remains on the earth. What is independent remains on the earth as Cain's 'smoke' (June 10, 1904, GA 93).
The organic process of the division of the sexes took place through the fact that the capacity of the single being to reproduce gradually ceased. The female egg lost the ability to fertilize itself; fructification passed over to the other sex. At the same time everything else divided also: the astral body, the ether-body, the dispositions to individual development. Only the highest macrocosmic archetypal phenomenon in man remained unchanged and unified. This is incorporated into the zodiac in such a way that to imaginative perception the macro-anthropos appears as a male being in the seven upper signs (from Aries to Libra), and as a female being in the lower five (from the Fishes to Scorpio).
To imaginative perception the macro-anthropos indeed extends over the zodiac as male and female in a self-enclosed serpent form (Jan. 8, 1924, GA 316). And when clerical ideology lashes out at the 'Gnostic serpent' of the occultists, it declares war against heaven and destroys the innermost being of man, whom God ought clearly to have made according to their fancy.
The archetypal phenomenon of man in the zodiac mirrors the divine plan of creation and encompasses the whole of earth being, which in the course of time separated out into the four kingdoms. Man was able to separate out from himself the three lower kingdoms of nature, and will in the future absorb them again. Originally the human archetypal image of man revealed itself in the zodiac as the four forces of Water-Bearer-Lion and Bull-Eagle (Scorpion), which together form a cross. For imaginative perception, man to this day is the totality of these three beasts and the Water-Bearer or angel. For that which became in him the head-system or nerve-sense-system caused, after it had succeeded in casting off the part that hindered earth development, the world of the birds to arise (eagle = king of the birds). The lion is in this sense related to the breathing or rhythmic system, the bull to the metabolism. The Apocalypse speaks of all this: The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle (Revelations 4; 7 - Cf. figure).
During the division of the sexes the physical body of the woman arose out of the lion-nature, while the physical body of the bull is the ancestor of the male body (Oct. 29, 1908, GA 107). The female physical body has remained to this day on a more spiritual level; it has not descended completely into the material. It has retained something of the condition in which it would have stayed if it had not absorbed matter into itself. Rudolf Steiner says that in its present form it is an illusion with the exception of head and limbs. The forms of the Venus of Milo reveal to us the female figure as it might have become if it had incarnated fully into the earthly.
The male body on the other hand 'overshot' the normal point of descent into matter. The figure of Apollo of Belvedere reveals the ideal incarnation of the male form.
The differences between male and female on the physical level are closely related to those in the etheric and astral body. Thus the astral body plays a large part in the life of a woman; hence her entire organization is more cosmic than that of the man. The secrets of the cosmos are more easily revealed through her; her astral body is more finely differentiated than that of the man. Female life is the fantasy-life of the universe. Male life is what gives contours to life (Jan. 7, 1921, GA 323). All this shows already in childhood and teenage years. Thus the 13-14-year-old girl experiences up to her 20th-21st year the strong influence of those processes which take place in her astral body in the formation of the 'I'. The spirit of contradiction therefore becomes active during this time and ways should be found of letting the child give free rein to her impulses. Boys tend to remain weaker in character at this age, they are withdrawn, but have special thoughts and feelings. Coarse behaviour is often the result (June 16, 1921, GA 302).
In the process of conception the female element brings about the similarity to the parents and to the ancestors in general. The male element specializes. Through the female the species is preserved; the male gives rise to individuality.* {*For this reason states that are built up on racist principles determine the nationality in the case of mixed marriages according to the mother.} This can be explained through the fact that the moon especially influences the male ether-body, and the sun the male physical body. It is the reverse in women.
In each sex there are not only differences but also a number of factors where male and female principles are intertwined. The ether-body - says Rudolf Steiner - is twofold in each person. And the ether-body of a man as he lives among us exhibits female, the ether-body of a woman male characteristics ... The human soul builds itself a body as a magnet is formed out of two poles. It builds itself a male and a female part, this time one part as physical body, and the next time as etheric body. Thus with regard to the passions related to the ether-body: devotion, courage and love, a woman can clearly exhibit male traits of character, while a man can sometimes appear quite feminine.
Therefore it will obviously be the case that, if we want to observe the human being as a whole, we have before us a manifestation in two parts, a revealed (outer) material part, and a hidden, spiritual part. And only he is a complete human being, who is able to combine with outward masculinity, feminine beauty of character within (Nov. 17, 1906, GA 54).
In the various stages of evolution sometimes the male, sometimes the female principle is dominant. In the last few centuries the male principle has predominated in social and spiritual life. Therefore culture became materialistic. It will only be spiritualized if the male human being acquires what Goethe called the eternal feminine. In the distant future, when the human being will rank higher than sexuality, when he ascends to the Spirit Self, we will be able to say: Neither the male nor the female, but the eternally human leads us on (Ibid.).
For the attainment of this goal, the institution of marriage was given to man. In all its elements marriage is dualistic, but it is also unity in multiplicity, the unity of the opposites. This is why marriages 'are made in heaven', before birth, i.e. are karmically determined.
The gospels say: But from the beginning of the creation the human being was made male-female (the canonical translation is incorrect here). For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh (Mark 10; 7,8). Despite its apparent everyday character, marriage is a mystery in which both sides are preparing for the future union of the sexes. The man has before him in the woman and the woman before her in the man the most immediate completion of his/her own unified (triune) nature. But the unity is attained through the metamorphic process of the opposites.
The human being is involved in a gigantic process of metamorphoses, if he wishes to reconstitute within himself the archetypal image created by God. When he is born on earth as a man, his thinking is less flexible than that of a woman, and thus connected more with the intellect than with the psyche. His life-experience does not press very deeply into the up-building forces, and therefore the tendency arises to build a female body in the next life. Such a tendency strengthens the woman in man.
Women have a deeper and more receptive disposition than men; they are more connected to the psyche and are emotional, therefore their life-experience penetrates farther into the organism, so that their next incarnation will be male. And the experiences they have gathered in marriage play an especially important part in this process. The man is the karma of the woman ... The woman is the karma of the man (May 26, 1906, GA 120). This is why celibacy, rightful celibacy is the expression of a high developmental stage of the individual spirit. - But humanity will have to wait for the corresponding conditions in order to incarnate on earth in a finer materiality. Then the mature souls will begin to pass through a profound mutation. The reunification of the sexes will take place and, Rudolf Steiner says, the reproductive organ will then be the speech organ. After man will have received the cosmic Logos he will master the magic of the word and will be able, through utterance of the magic word in warmth-air substance, to form a body into which a human soul will then incarnate. Yes, indeed, this will come, for it says in the Gospel of St. John: In the beginning was the Word and all things were made by It.
In order to attain this condition in the future man must pass through a deep moral transformation whose basis is love. He is permitted to experience love in its lower and higher aspect. At first he meets it by virtue of his own nature, so that it arises in the woman out of fantasy - the woman loves not so much the real person as the image she has created of him- and man loves with his wish. And this distinction must be made, whether it then comes to expression in a real sense, or more in the sense of ideas or ideals. The highest ideal can still contain ideal wishes; the instinctively most sensual can be a product of fantasy ... A woman's love is steeped in fantasy; a man's love is steeped in wishes. They thereby form something that comes into harmony in life (Jan. 4, 1922, GA 303).
When the harmony is conscious, it creates the conditions for higher development. This is why man and woman should... be able to freely join hands because now spirit speaks to spirit, not sensuality to sensuality. This is the great idea of the future (Jan. 2, 1906, GA 93). But it is utterly destroyed by the sexuality which in our time is artificially implanted, and promoted by every conceivable means. It arises through the earth, i.e. works more strongly on the man and is also the source of egoism. For this reason it will always produce violence. Sexuality can spiritually kill the human being (of either sex); it shares the nature of Judas Iscariot (Apr. 1, 1907, GA 96) and it is not by chance that the same myth is told of him as of Oedipus. Such is lower love. It has two sides. If it is not stifled in sexuality but is ennobled, it shows itself as passion that very effectively frees from egoism.
The experience of what is beautiful and aesthetic from early childhood weakens the erotic principle correspondingly. Now it is easy to understand why the disco has become so wildly successful around the world. It is the spiritual guillotine that prepares the 'Napoleonic Wars' of each against all. It can be countered only through the education of the sense of beauty which also frees the human being physically. Then the body will no longer oppress him, and love will be able to transfer its source, its motive, from the one who loves to the being who is loved. A love of this kind overcomes the luciferic temptation.
In spiritual love this personal, individual element, we could say this egoistic element of love, is fully justified, because it takes man out of the world of the senses, it leads him up into the spiritual world, it encourages him to fulfil his obligation to make himself ever more perfect ... Lucifer wants to make sensual love similar to spiritual love. Then he can tear it from the sense world and lead it into his special kingdom (Aug. 25, 1913, GA 147). Here a great service is done to Lucifer by medical science, which holds the opinion that sexual relations are indispensable for good health, or that - according to latest 'discoveries' - homosexual tendencies are inherited and everything inherited is natural etc. Even if these explanations appear in the guise of science - concludes Rudolf Steiner - they are nothing other than inspirations of the luciferic element in the world ... and people do not notice that Lucifer is behind it all (Ibid.). Most people today are not in the least deterred by this wisdom. They simply ask: 'And why not Lucifer?' The answer to this is: return to the animal kingdom awaits the human being in such a case.
Rudolf Steiner gives the following explanation: When present-day civilization thinks about love, then it only speaks the word love, it is actually talking about eroticism ... It is denial of the spirit which turns the force of love into erotic force. In many areas the genius of love has not only been replaced by his lower servant eroticism, but in many places its counter image, the demon of love, has entered ...
So that the descending path is as follows: we recognize the genius of love, we have spiritualized love. We recognize the lower servant, eroticism. But we fall into the demon of love. And the genius of love has its demon in the interpretation, not in its true form, but in the interpretation of sexuality by present-day civilization. We do not only speak of eroticism today when we want to approach love, but merely of sexuality! ... The demon enters where the genius is denied ...
... It lies within the power of the human being, as it were, to deny his own nature (July 22, 1923, GA 225). Thus in all that is known today by the shameless term 'sexual revolution' evil flaunts itself quite openly and assumes hugely destructive proportions. The triumph of this 'revolution' is the Requiem for mankind. It is, as Rudolf Steiner characterizes sexuality, the worst expression of materialism, the most devilish in the world today ... Sexuality and love have nothing at all to do with one another. Sexuality is something that has nothing whatever to do with pure, original love. Science has brought it to this disgrace by creating an entire literature about it ... (May 8, 1912, GA 143).
This was the situation already in the first quarter of the century. Today, at its close, we are witnesses of an unimaginable, open and total pogrom against all the spiritual values of humanity. We are even witnesses to the destruction of the genetic foundation of the human species. Having considered what spiritual science has had to say concerning the deepest cosmic evolutionary traits and interrelationships of the male and female sex, we will now review the complete legalizing, the general justification and promotion of sexual perversions, whereby the comparison of man with the animal sounds like an insult to the animal kingdom.
The whole thing smacks of compulsion, as we already mentioned in chapter 18. Prof. Igor Kohn, until recently considered a luminary of Russian sociology, is now campaigning for the condemnation of protests against sexual perversion as being equivalent to racism, and says that war should be declared on Russian 'homophobia'. But the 'homophobia' among Russians is not a result of their chauvinism. It arises because so far they have succeeded, as if by a miracle, to preserve some natural moral ideas.
From a purely medical point of view it has long been proven that a complicated complex of psychic disturbances leads to sexual aberrations, which would indicate that such people should be treated as ill. But since illnesses of this kind also represent a social risk (the seduction of minors in particular), certain legal boundaries are set, quite understandably. Illnesses of this kind arise from hormonal disturbances, psychic shocks etc. As with any other illness, these too can appear in mild or severe forms. In some, it shows only as an aversion to the opposite sex, in others as an inclination to bestiality etc. The most severe form of the sickness is necrophilia. When a club for 'sexual minorities' opened its doors in Moscow, different groups (or possibly sections) formed immediately according to the category of illness. Were any European who regards as sick all sexual perversions except homosexuality to voice his opinion there, he would have been thrown out of this club straight away.
The mass-media have so far paid little attention to this complex of issues and usually only report on a single form of the illness, which at the same time they present as emancipation of the personality. This propaganda, which is carried equally by the intellectual world elite, politicians and religious dignitaries, influences more and more people who, under different conditions, could lead a quite normal life.
Here, any demonstration or explanation becomes very difficult. But we should lead the thought carried by the media - press, literature, cinema and television - to its logical conclusion. If there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, then, please, do not consider bestiality abnormal either. And what is to be said about child molesting in this case? In line with the 'democratizing press' in the Soviet Union we have reached the point where corresponding ads appear in newspapers. Mafia-like groups abduct or abuse children, enslave them for large sums to the sexually obsessed. In Belgium and other European countries crimes of this kind have lately been uncovered and brought to the attention of the public in a most spectacular way.
But, we repeat, if you try to raise such questions in the circles of liberal intellectuals, be it in Moscow, Paris or New York, you will find no understanding; you will be scorned, declared a reactionary, regarded as orthodox and chauvinistic, you will be shown the door.* {*In July 1993 we could often hear in Russian broadcasts of The Voice of America the reporter, in a well-sounding baritone - the timbre and confidence of his voice calculated to express the irrefutability and force of America's leading role - in forming listeners of an event of 'historic' importance. The report contained phrases such as: President Clinton has decided... the White House ... a well-balanced policy... the Senator's declaration ... the General Staff expressed its support... etc. It concerned a regulation allowing homosexuality officially in the American army. American doctors brought forward 'scientific' evidence to the effect that homosexual tendencies are inherited and the legal experts straightway concluded that what is inherited cannot be forbidden. [ ¶] Immediately following and in step with Clinton's decision, Yeltsin issued a decree revoking the prohibition of sexual perversion in Russia. Television quickly took up the theme of 'renewal' from Moscow, and broadcast, mainly for advertising purposes, an interview with the 'happiest' - three-'parent' in this case - lesbian family. Before Moscow could react, the initiative of the Americans was take up by the (US-sponsored) Radio Liberty, which, echoing the old slogans of Soviet ideology, said: Homosexuals stood at the forefront of the struggle for freedom and democracy in America! They deserve eternal praise! etc. - Anyone who considers this obvious and not belonging to the sphere of high, dirty politics, manifests a dangerous naivety. [ ¶] As early as the 16th century the Russian ascetic Nil Medotochivy (of Afon) made an interesting prophecy for 1992: The robberies that will be committed! What homosexuality, adultery, incest and excesses will take place! Rudolf Steiner: Nectar and ambrosia, the food of the Gods - that is the human love between man and woman (GA 266-I, p. 146).}
Right up into our own time, sexual aberrations have been included by the religious consciousness among the mortal sins. They were also condemned by the pagans. We can even read in Heraclitus: Nature is attracted not to what is similar but to what is opposite and creates out of this a certain balance and harmony. - Out of opposite qualities a wonderful harmony is created. - Nature has brought male and female together and established an original harmony out of the opposites. All the opposites are with God.
The Apostle Paul says: Who exchanged the truth of God for the lie ... For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful ... who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practise such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practise them (Romans 1; 25-32).
In the eyes of a Prof. Kohn Heraclitus and the Apostle Paul are both 'racists'. But in our century 'racists' are at the same time 'fascists', i.e. they are outlawed and condemned without trial. Would it not be fitting at last to examine what is our relation to these men of 'ancient' times, some of whom even call themselves Apostles?* {*Whenever something reasonable is brought forward about sexual aberrations, countless dishonest journalists launch a huge outcry about discrimination and a return to dictatorship. - We are thus faced with the choice of either agreeing with them or being branded as reactionaries. But this sector of propaganda also has its unpredictable aspects. Thus the anti-fascists defend homosexuality because it was forbidden in the Third Reich. But the Communists on the other hand wrote at the time they were attacking the National Socialists, that homosexuality was promoted by the SS-Orders. This would imply that the SS men were extreme anti-fascists. - In this way ideological madhouses are constructed today.} Although Anthroposophy would then have to be condemned too. For let us look at what Rudolf Steiner says: Thus the decisive point will come where one can go to the right: but then one will need to be awake; or one can go to the left: then one can sleep; but instincts will then arise, instincts that are abhorrent. What will the natural scientists say when such instincts arise? The scientists will say: This is a natural necessity. It had to happen, this is mankind's development.
[Man] ... would experience such a feeling of gratification in the pursuit of certain aberrations of the sexual instinct; he would praise it as a particularly lofty expression of super-humanness, of lack of prejudice, of enlightened judgment. Ugly would become beautiful and beautiful ugly ... and it would not be noticed because it would all be looked upon as a natural necessity (Oct. 9, 1918, GA 182).* {*The lecture is entitled The Working of the Angel in our Astral Body. We advise all those who are still incapable of distinguishing freedom from immorality or illness to read the lecture right through.}
The development of humanity under the condition of the duality of the sexes lasts many millennia. But the time will come (5th-6th millenium) when the sexes will unite again. Then those who have perverted these relationships will be unable to undergo the metamorphosis this entails. They will be cast out of the normal evolution of humanity into the subhuman, half-animal realm.
These people therefore sin against evolution for the duration of two root-races, and for this reason their sin is called a mortal sin. The Apostle Paul speaks of 'the judgement of God' in this regard. The mortal sin leads to the second death, the death of the soul.
In view of the fact that Ahriman's incarnation is shortly to take place, he is particularly interested in the propagation of this sin. The spirits of darkness therefore try to strengthen their power over the human being with respect to his evolution.
The extinction of morality, which is currently taking place, gives birth to a cosmic counter-image. The earth radiates disgrace out into the cosmos, as a confirmation to the Divine Hierarchies, that mankind has lost touch with the meaning of its existence!
A situation of this kind cannot be altered by means of a sentimental, moralizing sermon. The mysteries of darkness can only be countered by the mystery of light, and that is Anthroposophy. This is why it is so necessary that many awaken to its wisdom, because it shows the way out of the crisis. It is both old and new and contains the enormous positive experience of humanity, which has been gathered on the path to the spirit. Through Anthroposophy man can find a way to approach the practical questions of the present time.
Civilization is suffering under an outdated, chronic crisis; consequently, a momentary, speculative search for a solution is doomed to failure. Often people have no idea at all what the meaning of the crisis is. What can anthropology or even University psychology say about the destructive effect of an unbridled sexual instinct on the human 'I', on the psychic disposition, the sense of self-worth, the self-identity of the personality? What can psychology create culturally if it is based on the Freud-Jung doctrine of the all-determining role of the 'phallic' principle in the spiritual and even the religious life of humanity?* {*The Jungian interpretation of culture is no more than a crude invention. In early antiquity there was no sexual drive as an end in itself. Everything was a sublime sacrificial act for the purpose of perpetuating the human race. Reproduction was a holy service to humanity. The lower nature in us, as we know it at present, is the result of the luciferic temptation. But it is destined to become our higher nature, and this was known in the ancient world. The leaders of the old Mysteries were not so frivolous, cynical and philistine as people are today. Certain symbols of the ancient peoples - says Rudolf Steiner- which today are only interpreted in a sexual sense, symbols that are drawn from the lower nature, can be explained through the fact that the old Mystery-priests who used them, actually wanted to express in these symbols the higher that lives in the lower nature of man (October 8, 1917, GA 177). But how are we to discuss this with today's scientists, when the main element of their scientific apparatus is the dirty joke?}
All teachings of this kind will sooner or later be attractive only to the psychically ill, and to people who have kept their psychic health, the old wisdom will begin to speak in a modern language. The millenia-old mystery wisdom is not naïve; we are naïve; we are the victims of wildly fantastic conceptions in the epoch of materialism.
The Rosicrucian legend tells that it was prophesied to Hiram Abiff, the representative of the earthly, male Cain-wisdom, that he would beget a son who would be the progenitor of a new human race but who would be unknown to him. Among his descendants the union of the two sexes would take place. Rudolf Steiner revealed the essential meaning of this legend when he said: The old female (Abel- or priest-) culture gave way to the male culture. The female as a physical form will die out. Then the male must have in it a force to bring forth a (new) individual out of itself ... When man has acquired the strength, so that his larynx develops to the stage where his word is creative, and he is able to bring forth his own kind through the word, then the entire productive force will pass over to the male sex. What was once created by the Gods will pass to man. When was the word lost? When the individuality of the sexes began. It is buried, hidden. The sons of Cain only had it in their forefather. Hiram Abiff was at least to have the prophecy of it. Immediately after this he was killed.
The word is buried, but it is there. If it were not buried, man would be self-creative like the Elohim ... (Oct. 23, 1905, GA 93). But the lost word will be rediscovered when passive male wisdom (Hiram; it was already explained why it is passive) awakens activity - female intuition - within itself. For this reason Goethe says:
The eternal feminine
Still leads us on.
In the hope of finding the lost word people of the past joined together in associations and brotherhoods to form spiritual communities. This is what Lodges of the Freemasons were originally. They would no doubt have rediscovered the word if they had not fallen a prey to political occultism, which turned them into custodians of the 'sexual minorities'. After that, were there Freemasons in the world, who were still able to continue the good, even sublime, traditions of the fathers? We cannot answer this question. But at the beginning of the century a true Freemason could have said to himself or in the circle of his fellows: Everything that does not derive from our own science which has spread throughout the world, originates from the ancient times of rulership by priestesses. We do not only want to overcome this, we wish also to inaugurate a new cycle of existence. We are to give intuition to male Cain-cognition ourselves. This would be impossible if one were to deprive men of the power by sharing the secret with women. The moment we speak it out before women the whole thing would cease to have any effect (Ibid.).
For this reason women were for a long time not admitted into the Lodges. The speech organ is related to one's sex. This is why men, when they reach puberty, undergo the breaking of their voice. Rudolf Steiner continues in the above-mentioned lecture: Now you will also understand what the Freemason says: Only the man is destined to speak the lost word and transform it; only the male larynx is capable of speaking ... what can be regained through the lost word ... The female larynx has remained at a rudimentary stage. It is the male larynx which is formed into the future organ (Ibid.).
Thus spoke the Freemasons in the 18th, and partially also in the 19th century. But it was in the 19th century that they lost their connection to the outer world, and at the same time female wisdom was also lost; therefore there were no longer any higher degrees that preserved this wisdom. This process is to a certain extent legitimate. Man had to pass through materialism, which excludes the priestly wisdom, in order to build up his object-consciousness. As a result the old wisdom disappeared and man had to live in the outer world. But soon the time came when the wisdom was taken in, which is beyond the sexes, which in its essential nature is neither male nor female. This truth is Anthroposophy. It teaches that in the woman the male part is active, and in the man - his female part. On a higher level, in cognition, male and female unite. Anthroposophy therefore re-establishes the harmony of the unified human being.
The advent of Anthroposophy in the world was prepared by a considerable number of spiritual streams, among them Freemasonry. When in the 18th century so-called 'adoptive Freemasonry' was founded, which also admitted women (e.g. Baroness Dudevant, alias George Sand), the unification of the sexes was prepared. H. P. Blavatsky was a member of such a Lodge. But what had developed out of this in the middle of the 20th century, could produce nothing but a moral catastrophe.
The theosophical movement, too, had the task overcoming the one-sidedness of male strivings, but this fact was soon forgotten.
There is throughout the Middle Ages - says Rudolf Steiner - a grandiose preparation for the engendering within the man, of the other sex in a spiritual way. Through concentration within himself, the man first creates as a thought what later is to arise in him as being. This is why throughout the Middle Ages the Mary-cult arose in preparation. It is nothing other than concentration for the purpose of engendering the female in the male (Ibid.). Women have the same role in the Jesus-cult. Now you will realize - concludes Rudolf Steiner - what confusion was bound to arise when an Order appeared which broke with everything and wants to win back female wisdom. The aim is rulership of the world, which is to be conquered. If someone wants to leave ancient wisdom as it is, then he has to conquer the world for the sake of old forces. Such an Order exists: it is the Jesuit Order. It has consciously set itself this task. This is why the Jesuits and Freemasons stand in such stark contrast to one another (Ibid.).
In a complicated inter-connection one of the most important principles of evolution is falsified. On the one hand the difference between the sexes is cancelled in an unnatural way, and on the other it is heightened to the utmost degree. In the Mary-movement the claim is made to rulership of the world by the feminine principle, while religious fundamentalism places women in a condition of slavery. In this way humanity is attacked from two sides: by the luciferic and ahrimanic hosts. One side would stifle self-consciousness through unbridled sexuality, the other would proclaim celibacy as the ideal. Man can only overcome the working of the adversary powers through ennobling sexual love, and learning to love beauty through the cultivation of spiritual interests.
