30 March 101 years ago - Holy Monday relections on Rudolf Steiner’s DeathDay.
“The mystic, is one who seeks for truth, and the divine, directly within himself, by a gradual detachment and a veritable birth of his higher soul. If he attains it after prolonged effort, he plunges into his own glowing centre. Then he immerses himself, and identifies himself with that ocean of life which is the primordial Force.
The occultist, on the other hand, discovers, studies, and contemplates this same Divine outpouring, given forth in diverse portions, endowed, with force, and multiplied to infinity in Nature and in Humanity.
According to the profound saying of Paracelsus: he sees in all beings the letters of an alphabet, which, united in man, form the complete and conscious Word of life…
The weapons of the mystic are concentration and inner vision; the weapons of the occultist are intuition and synthesis. Each corresponds to the other; they complete and presuppose each other. These two human types are blended in the Adept, in the higher Initiate…
Rudolf Steiner is both a mystic and an occultist. These two natures appear in him in perfect harmony.
One could not say which of the two predominates over the other. In intermingling and blending, they have become one harmonious force.” ~Édouard Schuré, French philosopher, playwright, & ritualist.
When Rudolf Steiner put the ritual work of the Misraim Dienst “to sleep” at the outbreak of the 1st Great War, it is often interpreted as the end of the original rites performed in Rudolf Steiner’s Rosicrucian Lodge ‘Mystica Aeterna’. But in reality it was the old ways of the secret societies with their blood oaths binding members to clandestine concealment – which had to end. “At the present time such things as these are no longer appropriate. What is it about them that we have mainly to reject? We have to reject their exclusiveness.”(1)
Steiner was all about banishing the secrecy – in order to reawaken the ritualistic element in a new way within the Anthroposophical Movement.
In a question & answer between Rene Maikowski & Rudolf Steiner, Maikowski recounts:
“And so some of us raised the question as to whether it would be possible to have a ritual for the Society. Opinions were divided. I turned to Rudolf Steiner with this question as I often accompanied him on his travels – it was the spring of 1923. To my surprise he responded very positively. He explained that a ritual had already existed before the War, but that in the future it would come to take a different form.”(2)
How would the form be different?
Steiner clearly stated that the time for exclusiveness was over - that the new Michael age is calling for a shift in the presentation & understanding of the rites – based now on individual discernment - Not strictures imposed from without - the old ties that bind – or the mere parroting of words – but a call to articulate the new Hermetic way of self-determined Silence - a fortification of moral acumen - of conscience cultivated from within.
When Steiner inaugurated the First Class of the School for Spiritual Science, it was a clear departure from the traditional form of lecturing, as well as the functioning of the old occult orders. The First Class was never meant to function as a secret society.
It was not enough anymore for content to be delivered only in lectures, but in what Steiner called “Spiritual Acts”, a phrase he used with precision.
The First Class is a revelation direct from the Michael School experienced in the Spiritual World, translated thru Steiner, which begins to bring in new ritual elements - mantric verses, ceremonial gestures (such as the Sign of Michael), & specifically structured Spiritual motifs guiding the willing participant thru a process much like the initiatory grades.
This distinction between the teaching content of lectures, & direct “Spiritual Acts” became a source of contention after Steiner’s death - especially around the question of who should carry the First Class forward.
One of the key figures in this debate was Count Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz, one of Steiner’s occult students, close friend, & collaborator, who was denied the official title of “Class Holder” by the Anthroposophical Society - & yet in a journal entry dated 11-11-1924, the Count shares how Steiner gave him implicit permission to continue the First Class:
“Arrived in Dornach today. When RS learned that I was in D, he had me called. His atelier had been transformed into his sickroom. At that time he was sitting at first in an easy chair. We spoke of my father. Then about the issue of the Michael School, and about the Esoteric Youth Circle. To my question as to how I should hold the Class Lessons in Vienna and Prague, he answered affectionately: ‘Do it as you wish.’ With that, I am taking on a very responsible task.
The continuity of the ME (Mystica Aeterna) must be preserved and transformed in accordance with the times.
After a long silence, I asked RS whether he was also thinking of establishing other grades, including a ‘Master Class’, in the sense of the occult esotericism. He gave me more or less the following answer: The First Class for the members of the General Anthroposophical Society are, to be put into the hands of Frau Ita Wegman. A Class II, the renewal of the Misraim Dienst I shall have Frau Doctor Steiner as its lead. Then a final Class III, which I shall establish and lead, will be a kind of Master Class.
He explained that the so-called Master Class, will have a purely Rosicrucian ritual character which will be celebrated at three altars at the same time.
He spoke about turning to the corresponding Archangel Beings in Class II, and in this Class III, turning directly to the Spirit of the Earth, the Christ Being.”(3)
From this meeting Polzer-Hoditz concluded that the First Class work was a living stream that should be continued with rituals rather than solely intellectual material.
Polzer-Hoditz retained & practiced several of the ritual forms he had experienced directly under Steiner in the original Esoteric Group, Mystica Aeterna. (4) For him, these were not external forms, but Vessels reflecting Spiritual Reality.
In his own words: “We must continue to cultivate a living ritual continuity of the mystery contents Steiner has given.” This conviction placed him on a collision course with others who sought a rigid, hierarchical control of Steiner’s esoteric legacy.
Many viewed the First Class material as spiritually infallible & something that should not be improvised upon or freely rendered.
Polzer-Hoditz, by contrast, operated independently. Deeply devoted to Steiner’s mission, his approach emphasized inner responsibility over institutional recognition. He believed that Spiritual connection to source superseded external authorization.
The 3 Ritual Classes are meant to bring a new model for Esoteric instruction, replacing the earlier occult School, which had become shrouded in an egotistical secrecy, misunderstood, & often taken for granted by its members, which could no longer hold with the outbreak of World War I.
And while Steiner insisted that the New Mysteries he was inaugurating before his early death should not be secretive, the employment of renewed ritual practices was never in question. The use of mantras, ritual gesture, & rhythmically enacted Spiritual themes functioned like a liturgical framework in his Reverse Ritual, consciously understood as “Spiritual Deeds” -
Polzer-Hoditz continued the current of what Steiner had inaugurated. He conducted private meetings based on the First Class format, incorporating materials from Steiner’s original Misraim ritual work, which Steiner had given him permission to use.
This caused considerable waves in the administrative body of the Anthroposophical Society. Despite this backlash, Polzer-Hoditz continued to be guided by Steiner’s encouragement to ‘do as he wished’. He never claimed outer authority; instead, he insisted on the primacy of inner Spiritual responsibility, & the continuity of ritual work.
According to Polzer-Hoditz, following Rudolf Steiner’s death: “The new mysteries must continue to cultivate a living, rational, expression with a ritual continuity of the esoteric contents given by Steiner, passing them on to people who did not know the great initiate personally, and yet through the rites are able to seek to connect with him esoterically, and not just intellectually.”(5)
For Polzer-Hoditz, ritual is the key that allowed Steiner’s modern esoteric current to continue flowing forward - a lineage of what he called Free Modern Rosicrucianism - Reverent, ritually conscious groups working for inner development, connecting with the Spirit sources behind the Anthroposophical Movement, yet untethered by the bureaucratic structures imposed through the administration of the Society.
Those of us working in the Steiner-Misraim lodges today have had to make the esoteric practices thrive outside the understanding & approval of the formal structures. Demonstrating that the independent inner fire of practicing the Misraim Dienst preserves & furthers its meaning, bringing the possibility of renewal & further revelation, without the rigid adherence to institutional legitimacy.
In the early days following Steiner’s death, the Anthroposophical impulse was pulled in opposite directions over this question. One direction sought fidelity to form. The other sought spiritual freedom.
Today on this Holy Monday, while wrestling with the cursing of the fig tree, representing the old clairvoyance - exemplifying the need to let the old ways make way for the new - Extending also out into the social realm - where the Christ in us drives out the money changers, in the cleansing of the Temple – So that the symbol of the fig can be reclaimed as the symbol of the Divine Feminine, renewed to become The New Isis-Mary-Sophia that lives as Anthroposophia in us – an inner marriage of Love & Wisdom –
Today during this Holy Week anniversary of Dr. Rudolf Steiner’s death, the echo of Spiritual continuity rings in my heart – the Misraim Dienst did not die, its potent power is resonant, sometimes in quiet places, often in small make-shift Temples, & you may be surprised, upheld by courageous guardians who on this & every day, are building glorious Temples of the Heart to spark the flame of the New Mysteries with the Cognitive Ritual that employs Art, Science & Spirituality in the service of human evolution.
~hag
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(1) GA 265 – The Misraim Service: “Freemasonry and Ritual Work” ~ Rudolf Steiner
(2) GA 265
(3) Ludwig Polzer-Hodits, A European, ~T.H. Meyer
(4) A History of the School of Spiritual Science ~Johannes Kiersch
(5) Rudolf Steiner and the School for Spiritual Science ~Peter Selg
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