Grail Triptych John Barnwell et al.
"Grail Triptych" by John Barnwell and others
A painting by Anna May following the indications of Rudolf Steiner. Painted before WWII on the walls of the Waldorf School in Hamburg, but was destroyed by bombings during the war.
There are three parts, showing the history of the Grail. On the left side are Solomon and Hiram, where Balkis, the Queen of Sheba, brings the Grail stone (fallen from the crown of Lucifer). Below the Grail is shown at the Last Supper. In the center, Joseph of Arimathea collects the blood of Christ at Golgotha in the Grail. The right panel shows the initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz, with the seven Holy Rishis and the five representatives of the Post-Atlantean cultural epochs.
Following the link the representative of the Fifth Cultural Epoch is shown as Jeanne d'Arc.
Anna May von Richter [Rychter] The Grail Triptych
by Margarethe Hauschka
In the estate of my mother I found an old color transparency from the beginning of the 20th century. It is the triptych “Grail” that great picture of the painter Anna May, which she painted at the time of the Munich mystery dramas (1909-13). This image was originally planned for the "Johannesbau" in Munich, later intended for the first Goetheanum. It was, however, by other fateful dispensations years after the [First World] war, given to the Hamburg Waldorf School and during the Second World War was destroyed by the bombing.
Since I knew it was about the only colored reproduction, which still existed, I felt the obligation to snatch this work, to which Rudolf Steiner had personally given important instructions, from oblivion and make it once again accessible to all. It was a wall-filling image, estimated 2 ½ m high, and 4m long. Hanging for a time on exhibit in the Glass Palace in Munich, Anna May herself provided a description at the request of the exhibitors, from which I provide an excerpt. It was entitled: "From Solomon through Golgotha to Christian Rosenkreutz," Triptych.
"The pivotal point in human history is the mystery of Golgotha, ‘Holy Grail' is the word for man, inasmuch as he seeks relationship to this event. The legend says that the Grail is a hollowed out stone, that Lucifer lost from his crown when he fell. Solomon receives it from the Queen of Sheba (left part of triptych).
Then it becomes the Last Supper cup, in which Joseph of Arimathea had caught the holy blood (middle part of the triptych).
When this Christ blood has penetrated to the innermost depths of the Earth in the distant future, so also will the thoroughly Christ filled human being, the Parsival of the future, awake from out the grail chalice as from a coffin and unify all religions and earlier philosophies into a living Christ wisdom. Then Michael will also have bound the dragon, and the ‘woman’ of Revelation will again take in the Sun with the Moon underfoot, then Earth will have achieved victory over being chained to matter.
The upper part of the triptych Grail portrays the spiritual world (gold), the uppermost heads: are the time spirits (Archai), who extend their hands over long periods of time; supporting them are the folk-spirits (Archangels).
Under these looking down on the people are the Angeloi or angels. In the lower part, i.e., the two pillars, is represented the blood streams which flow through humanity and connect with the spiritual (gold), enabling higher guiding beings to incarnate, who lead the evolution of mankind. "
[ ... ]
The triptych Grail was demonstrably on display in 1918 Munich in the art house Reich and later in the Kunsthaus, and somewhat later still in the Glass Palace. From this period comes the above description written by Anna May as required for exhibitors.
From Jerusalem, where she had to earn a living by painting, she sent in July 1946, a watercolor, “View from the Mount of Olives to the city of Jerusalem”, as a Christmas gift to Marie Steiner and also got an answer (the letter is in the archive), to a question on the Grail picture to which Rudolf Steiner had provided indications, as he saw it. As far as I remember these did not concern the artistic conception, but as to the realization of the countenances.
After living with this triptych image a long time, I understood better why Rudolf Steiner recommended that the frame should rest on a pedestal as a kind of altar, and the zodiac should be represented in a spanning bow in gold on indigo. Indigo is the color that we only consciously experience as a color since the 15th century, with the development of the consciousness soul, inasmuch as it is the closest color to darkness, the color of ashes, from which the spirit can rise again. Only when from the eye self-perception is rooted out, when one moves to pure perception, can one experience Indigo. Here I can only hint at the mystery of Indigo, there could be much more said. Each color means, therefore, a stage of our soul development, as Albert Steffen observed in his early essays. Before the Mystery of Golgotha the tones had a reddish impact that testified to the presence, albeit at a subtle level, of life processes in the eye. After the Mystery of Golgotha humanity acquired blue, the color of the soul, which has pushed back the life processes, so that we humans can now meet the soul and spiritual directly.
The content of the images contained within the Indigo is a summary of the solar mystery of the earth and human development. And of Melchizedek, the priest and leader of the ancient sun mysteries, who brings the bread and wine to Abraham. Continuing up to the Mystery of Golgotha the two human streams of Cain and Abel, represented here by Hiram and Solomon who combine their forces, build the Temple; i.e., the body that can take the full “I” of Humanity. The stone from the 'light-crown' of Lucifer is an image of the Earthly-I of humanity, which was brought by the Queen of Sheba as a representative of the starry worlds. Thereby, connecting at this time, around 1000 BC, more with the physical body. This Earthly-I itself, must become the chalice for the higher-I, when the full depth of the Grail mystery is grasped. Then in the distant future the physical body can be purified to transparency, as was the case with Christian Rosenkreutz. What was initially possible for the sun-like eye to achieve, to purify substance to the clarity of crystal, which is also the highest level of transformation of substance achieved by the alchemists, will now be possible for the entire body once the Human-I has become one with Christ, generating Atma, a preview of the end of world development. Here then appears rightmost in the picture the Woman Clothed with the Sun, the new sun human being.
One can also say from this picture that the meaning of Earth evolution lights up as the eye sweeps from left through the middle and again to the right. It appears in the middle as the Blood flows deep into the Earth, and the post-Christian mysteries, starting with the Last Supper, are mysteries of the Blood. So also the Grail mysteries. Joseph of Arimathea captures the Blood, as it were for humanity. What is captured by the Norns, absolves the Earth, and draws the power of Christ into destiny, whose Lord Christ becomes.
In such a manner one can stand before the picture and slowly learn to read it. It's not symbolic, it is a painting of spiritual history, of course, in the guise appropriate to the style at the beginning of the 20th century
Part 1: This comprehensive imagination reflects Steiner' reading of the Akashic Record (Cosmic Memory). The Mystery of Golgotha is being depicted as the central event of world evolution. Two streams of time converge in this center, the one that comes from the pillar on the far left (Jachin) which includes Mechisadek, Abraham, Isaak and Jacob flows along the bottom is connected with the red blood and is met by the bowing figure of Moses beholding the descending Christ in the burning bush, from which he hears the voice of the Logos proclaiming “I Am the I Am” This etheric stream that flows out of the past and worked through the hereditary lineage of Abraham prepared the body temple over 42 generations that would become the Grail Vessel into which the Christ would later descend. The focal point of the Hebrew faith was the Temple that began as a tent in the wilderness but was later built in Jerusalem through the collaboration of king Solomon (Abel stream) and Heiram Abiff the master builder (Cain stream). Between these two individualities is the Queen of Sheba over-lighted by the Sophian star wisdom which was still alive at that time.
Opposite Moses is Paul who through his Damascus experience prefigured the experience of the Second Coming of Christ that is unfolding in our time. The initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz who is the reborn Heiram is the central theme of the panel on the right. The far right pillar (Boaz) represents the astral stream of time that flows prophetically and apocalyptically out of the future, and is associated with the blue blood. Hence the figures of the Archangel Michael and Sophia who appear as the main characters in the central drama that unfolds at the very heart of the Book of Revelation. The Rosicrucian Initiation expressed by the seven red roses are a means of aligning one self to these New Mysteries that prepare the future by helping to build the New Jerusalem which involves the transformation of the Earth into the Golden City known esoterically as the Planet of Love.
Part 2: The impulse towards this entered human and earthly evolution through the intervention of the Cosmic Christ being through his descent into the physical body of the man Jesus of Nazareth in his thirtieth year and after totally transmuting the three Astral, Etheric and Physical sheath’s underwent the sacrificial event of the Mystery of Golgotha this involved alchemically transmuting the Phantom Body which underlies the physical body which had been corrupted through the Luciferic intervention which inevitably led to the invitation of Ahriman the Lord of Death into the human organism. The Christ revered as the Sacrificial Lamb without spot (karma) who’s infinite LOVE was poured out with the Sacrificial Blood which in its inner fire or warmth is the medium of the human Ego raising it into a communion with the divine “I AM”. This precious gift that reversed the consequences of the Fall is caught up in the Grail Vessel made Holy by this overflowing Love by Joseph of Arimathea.
That Sacred Blood which flowed down to the Earth was etherized and drawn into the etheric aura of the Earth, this sun aura of the Earth is also the memory body of the earth that reaches back to the three former stages Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon expressed symbolically by the three Mothers who harken back to these periods and together embody the threefold soul of the Earth. By receiving this Sacred Blood which bore within it the power of the Divine Logos, the Seven Solar Elohim, these three Mothers received the Christ’s Resurrection Impulse which instilled into the Earth the power of the resurrection as a means of over-coming the inevitable death of our common body the Earth so that it can in the future become the radiant Body of the Christ Earth-Sun. The blood arrayed as a circle of seven roses expresses the restoration of the divine plan that stretches from Old Saturn (1st Stage) all the way to future Vulcan (7th stage). The Cross becomes the renewed Tree of Life which Christ as the new Planetary Spirit restored. Around it are gathered souls who have The Buddha Gautama, who helped to prepare this central event is shown in the pillar to the left of the central panel, the Beloved Disciple John who later reappears as Christian Rosenkreutz is shown in the right pillar, both are aligned to the inspirations of pre and post Christian Archai (time spirits) who reach-out to one-another and penetrate them from above.
Part 3: The divine trinity symbolized by the Golden Triangle at the top center is the source of the Divine Plan that rays out into both past and future streams of time. One such stream rays out through the forehead of Buddha, then the ark of the Covenant that hovers over the left panel and streams onward towards the pre-Christian Grail-Cup that the sun-initiate Melchisedek bore when he bestowed his blessing upon Abraham the hereditary father of the Hebrew people who will henceforward come under the Lunar Divinity Jahwe, know esoterically as the seventh Elohim (spirit of Form). Another golden stream emanates on the opposite side towards the future with the same angle touching the forehead of the beloved disciple passing through the image of the crucified one that hovers above Christian Rosenkreutz who has invoked the In Christo Murimur and continues onward to the Heart of the Virgin Sophia who gives birth to the Second Coming of Christ. From the heart of the Virgin and the Grail Chalice held by Melchisadek, the golden rays proceed inward. On the left they pass through the head of Solomon who was granted the gift of Wisdom on through the pre-Christian Grail vessel that the Queen of Sheba bears, then endowing the Golden Sun Hammer (Tau-Tao) held by Heiram with its magical power touching the bowed head of Moses and culminating in in the in the sub-earthly chamber where the Mothers gather in the Communion that gives the Earth its Meaning. From the other side the corresponding rays pass through the Chrystal that envelopes the semi-transparent body of the youth laid upon an Altar formed of the 4 living creature, then touching then opening the eyes of Paul, and finally converging with the other stream coming from the past.
Lucifers Crown is alluded to as a ring formed by a serpent biting its tail that can be seen in the canopy of the central tree. An Alchemical vessel is there in the opening where the crowns central jewel once had its place, and had been dislodged by Michael during the battle in heaven. This Jewel expressive of the perfect balance of the 4 members of the human being now endowed with the power of Christ is seen as a fruit that has grown out of this sacrificial deed. The members of the 3rd hierarchy who act as mediators and servants helping to carry out the divine plan are arrayed above. The angels are imaged as winged heads while the archangels have flames rising upwards to the heights. Around the renewed Tree of Life are gathered the many souls who have been drawn to this new manifestation of the Christ Sun who has enacted this central event of the great seven-fold drama upon the stage of human and earthly history, making this both a profoundly spiritual as well as being deeply imprinted into the dense physical substances that were transmuted into the Resurrection that prefigured the transubstantiation of the entire physical body of the Earth.
In this painting which was very large and was apparently originally intended to have a place in the First Goetheanum , expresses in images what Steiner otherwise expressed in his writings and lectures. The theme is the Holy Grail. In his book Esoteric Science an outline which provides the most comprehensive overview of Anthroposophy published in 1910, he refers to Anthroposphy as a Grail Science.
The mysteries surrounding the Holy Grail involve an ongoing quest, the language of symbols needs to be learned in order to develop Imaginative Consciousness which represents the first stage of higher development, which can be likened to a form of inner seeing, unfolding this capacity involves a cooperation of head and heart. Contemplating such a painting can help to orient the grail seeker as well as acting as a stimulus towards the development of imaginative consciousness. Steiner sought to draw together many facets that belong to the Grail theme in this picture. He gave indications of the kind of frame that was intended, it would have had a protrusion along the bottom suggestive of an altar to evoke the mood of reverence which is necessary to enter into such content with the appropriate soul mood. I believe the carved wood frame was intended to be stained with blue violet with gold rubbed over it that would have adhered to the convex parts.
In one of the lectures contained in the book you've referenced, Steiner stated that, "Krishna-thatis, the spirit who worked through Krishna- appeared again in the Jesus child of the Nathan line of the House of David, described in St. Luke Gospel (Lec. 9 June,5 1913 The Occult Significance of the Bagevadgita) This Krishna-Nathan Jesus became the Physical Grail vessel into which the Christ lived for 3 years culminating in the central event of world evolution highlighted in this painting. The presence of the Buddha who according to Steiner had prepared the way for this event and also overlighted the scene with the humble shepherds described in the Luke Gospel and bestowed his Nirmanakaya-purified astral body as a gift upon this child. Thus with the help of Steiner's reading of the akashic record a convergence of East and West contributed to the realization of this event.
All this including the lofty mission of the Hebrew's recorded in the old testament which was to prepare the physical body for the coming of the Messiah, who's immanent appearance their prophets proclaimed. As well as all of the esoteric insights that Steiner gave regarding the gospels and other books recorded in the New Testement, would be negated, if one were to accept the proposition being put forward and argued by Felix Voluntaryist Hau, who is claiming that both the man Jesus who served as the vessel for the awaited Messiah as well as the Christ being are merely the product of myth and legend. Therefore pretty much all of what was carefully and painstakingly depicted in this Grail Tryptich including the initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz from which the "Rosicrucian Line" arose never actually existed. This radical proposition is certainly not in accord with the better part of what Steiner contributed to Anthroposophy, through his spiritual scientific research.
I love this from Rudolf Steiner, so obvious in the modern world:
'The quieter we are, the more can happen through us in the spiritual world. We simply cannot say that anything happens in the spiritual world as a result of hurry and excitement. We need to develop loving participation in a mood of soul calmness for what is to happen, and then wait patiently to see how things come to pass. This calmness of soul, which in the spiritual world is creative, does not quite have its equal in ordinary physical life. It is similar on higher levels of earthly existence to the sphere of knowledge and of the arts. Here we have something analogous. The artist who cannot wait will not be able to create the highest he is capable of. For this, he needs patience and inner calmness of soul until the right moment dawns, until the intuition comes. One who seeks to create according to a schedule will produce only works of inferior quality. He who seeks to create, be it the smallest work, prompted by an outer stimulus will not succeed as well as if he had waited quietly with loving devotion for the moment of inspiration. We might say for the moment of grace. The same is true of the spiritual world. In it there is no rush and excitement but only calmness of soul.
Chapter 4: Life between death and rebirth
Margareth Hauschka, Das Triptychon Gral von Anna May in Das Goetheanum, 54 #24, Dornach 15 June 1975
APPROACHING THE ALTAR THAT LEADS INTO THE NEW MYSTERIES
The “Altar” imagination reaches into the realm of the Archetypes and therefore has universally human significance that has come to physical expression in a myriad different forms within varied cultures and civilizations throughout the ages. In many traditions it has served as the focal point for religious experience (religion – to bind; religio – bond, reverence) where the connection between the heavenly and the earthly, spirit and matter, or the communion between the human and the divinity was established or renewed. The fragrant incense that is often used in many such religious rites is meant to express prayer and devotion, accompanied by the mood of reverence.
SOLOMON'S TEMPLE AND THE NEW JERUSALEM
The gesture of offering and sacrifice, such as that related to Abraham and his son Isaac within Judaic tradition also plays a central role. It is upon the sacred rock that commemorates this event that the Ark of the Covenant found its resting place within the Holy of Holies in the Hebrew Temple. The “mercy seat” invited the presence of Yahweh who’s voice (Logos) was once heard by Moses from the burning bush uttering “I Am The I Am”. The Altar of incense located in the middle chamber of this threefold Temple, stood before the threshold to the Holy of Holies where the four colored veil related to the 4 elements, concealed the cubicle space which was covered with the sun metal gold which finds its metamorphosis in the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, which also has cubicle dimensions. The veil which served to separate the people from this sacred chamber that only the high-priest, who wore the breastplate, adorned with 12 gem-stones entered once a year to utter the Sacred Name of God was “rent in twain from the top to the bottom” while the Mystery of Golgotha was being enacted.
In other words the secret hidden within this sacred chamber which embodied the future New Jerusalem (Jupiter Stage) which involves the Earth becoming a Sun, was made accessible, and possible by the Deed of Christ Jesus on the stage of history, thus preparing the next 5th stage of planetary evolution when humanity will have brought Spirit-Self (Manas) to realization. This involves a process of astral-purification, catharsis which prepared a communion with the Shekina – Sophia, which led to illumination by the Holy-Spirit through the redemption of Lucifer. The great basin that stood outside the temple, referred to as the “Brazen Sea” supported by twelve bulls (Will) which dispensed the waters of ablution as well as the nearby Altar of Sacrifice were a ritual means of enacting this cleansing and purification with the elements of water and fire.
Upon entering the temple through the porch, one passed between the two great pillars Yachin and Boaz, which in esoteric tradition relate to the descent from the spiritual into the physical (birth) associated with the red blood (Jachin) and the ascent from the physical to the spiritual (death) related to the blue blood (Boaz). This arterial and venous blood are in turn related to in-breathing oxygenated blood and exhaling carbon dioxide laden blood. The exhaling out-breath was also related to the Micro-Logos the Word.
The mysteries of Birth (Jachin) and Death (Boas) symbolized by the two pillars on either side of the threshold embody the 4th Mystery pertaining to the Earth and the human “I” which were revealed through the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus Christ. One has to pass through this threshold into the middle chamber in order to proceed to the Altar of Incense, which leads onward into the Holy of Holies, (which has become accessible through the Mystery of Golgotha), where the Ark of the Covenant, which embodies the first communion with the Divinity, Manas-Holy Spirit comes to expression, the two subsequent stages were symbolized by the two Cherubim who hovered over the Ark as Buddhi-Son-Venus stage and Atman-Father-Vulcan stage.
THE THREE ALTARS
This same threefold mystery was embodied in the layout of the lodge shown below. The fact that while undergoing Initiation the three soul forces Thinking, Feeling and Willing would begin to separate meant that they needed to be oriented to the threefold Trinity in order to avoid falling prey to the adversarial forces, who must be contended with on yonder side of the threshold (Lower Guardian). Thus Thinking was raised to commune with the Holy Spirit through Wisdom, Feeling united with the Son through Beauty/Love and Willing elevated to union with the Father forces through Strength/Courage. This threefold communion with the divinity expressed in the three stages Manas, Buddhi and Atman were reflected in the three Altars. Upon entering one passed between the two pillars and proceeded to the Altar of Wisdom located in the east (Jachin side) related to the morning sun, then onward to the middle Altar devoted to Beauty and Love where the incense sensor was kept, related to the midday sun, and the third Altar devoted to Strength in the west was oriented to the setting evening sun. Finally upon departing from the Lodge one once again passed between the two pillars but this time on the Boaz side. The Hammer TAU/TAO that was used to open and close the sacred rituals enacted in this Lodge was meant as a manifestation of the Micro-Logos, the Word imbued with Inspiration that proceeded from the Logos which only the higher Christ endowed Higher Self could wield.
THE TWO GUARDIAN AT THE ALTAR
Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkruetz can be seen as the two guardians who preside over the mysteries embodied in the two pillars that lead over from the 4th Mystery having to do with uniting the human “I” with the Macro-cosmic Christ “I” to the 5th stage involving communion with the Holy-Spirit. Rudolf Steiner indicated that this fifth mystery was expressed with sacred geometry in the architecture at the entry to Solomon’s temple in the form of a pentagram which symbolizes the Higher Human being who overcomes the Mystery of Evil associated with this 5th stage. The Altar sketch that Rudolf Steiner gave to Ita Wegman who was to preside over the First Class in the High School of Spiritual Science, was meant to convey that CR and RS were acting as the guardians of these mysteries which could only be entered by first making the offertory sacrifice at the Altar. Steiner for example referred to the Sacrifice of the Intellect which was necessary to raise thinking into the realm of the Holy Spirit and Imagination. (Part One)
"The brilliance manifest in so much of the Renaissance art and architecture involved a looking back to the wisdom and inspirations carried over from the Greco-Latin era which involved a recapitulation of the Atlantean period. However in our time when humanity is collectively crossing the Threshold we are no longer recapitulating the past, but rather prophetically anticipating the future, according to Steiner this is what makes our times apocalyptic. The Threshold we are collectively crossing involves the pralaya period that leads over to the future Jupiter Planetary condition (New Jerusalem) being telescoped into our times. This can be better understood by recalling that the Lemurian Epoch which is the 3rd stage of Earth evolution involves a recap of the Old Moon stage, the Atlantean Epoch as the 4th Earth Epoch stands in the middle and our present 5th Post-Atlantean Epoch anticipates the future Jupiter Condition, however the first four ages within this 5th Epoch continue to involve recapitulations with the exception of our 5th age which began in 1413 and gradually shifts to the future orientation. ...............The radical division of humanity that will take place during the transition to the future Jupiter is beginning in a preliminary fashion in our own time. The shift from the Medieval two-dimensional painting to the development of perspective among the Renaissance painters reflects a collective incarnational process deeper into the physical material world, a trajectory dictated by the culminating Kali-Yuga (Dark Age)........However since the end of the Kali Yuga in 1899 the heavens are once again opened, and a re-ascent that the Michael Age which began in 1879 has ushered in has given us Anthroposophy which when brought to Life within human minds and hearts can lead to the awakening of the imaginative consciousness we need to navigate the abyss we have collectively begun to cross since the 1840's. The imaginative world once again involves a two dimensional experience only now rather than the heavy oils the more fluid water colors become the preferred medium........As to Architecture we are being called upon to begin to wield the etheric forces that stream in from the surrounding cosmos so that we can help build the New Jerusalem the Golden City that now shines within the etheric aura of the earth as the Bride of the Lamb descending from above. Obviously we also need to live our everyday practical lives in a grounded manner. So the Architecture that built from below upward also needs to imbued with the quickened and more mobile thinking centered in the etheric rather than physical brain. This would mean more rounded and sculpted forms such as Steiner sought to achieve in the first and second goetheanum where organic forms and metamorphosis play more of a role".
Source Sonia von Homrich:
A painting by Anna May following the indications of Rudolf Steiner. Painted before WWII on the walls of the Waldorf School in Hamburg, but was destroyed by bombings during the war.
There are three parts, showing the history of the Grail. On the left side are Solomon and Hiram, where Balkis, the Queen of Sheba, brings the Grail stone (fallen from the crown of Lucifer). Below the Grail is shown at the Last Supper. In the center, Joseph of Arimathea collects the blood of Christ at Golgotha in the Grail. The right panel shows the initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz, with the seven Holy Rishis and the five representatives of the Post-Atlantean cultural epochs.
Following the link the representative of the Fifth Cultural Epoch is shown as Jeanne d'Arc.
Anna May von Richter [Rychter] The Grail Triptych
by Margarethe Hauschka
In the estate of my mother I found an old color transparency from the beginning of the 20th century. It is the triptych “Grail” that great picture of the painter Anna May, which she painted at the time of the Munich mystery dramas (1909-13). This image was originally planned for the "Johannesbau" in Munich, later intended for the first Goetheanum. It was, however, by other fateful dispensations years after the [First World] war, given to the Hamburg Waldorf School and during the Second World War was destroyed by the bombing.
Since I knew it was about the only colored reproduction, which still existed, I felt the obligation to snatch this work, to which Rudolf Steiner had personally given important instructions, from oblivion and make it once again accessible to all. It was a wall-filling image, estimated 2 ½ m high, and 4m long. Hanging for a time on exhibit in the Glass Palace in Munich, Anna May herself provided a description at the request of the exhibitors, from which I provide an excerpt. It was entitled: "From Solomon through Golgotha to Christian Rosenkreutz," Triptych.
"The pivotal point in human history is the mystery of Golgotha, ‘Holy Grail' is the word for man, inasmuch as he seeks relationship to this event. The legend says that the Grail is a hollowed out stone, that Lucifer lost from his crown when he fell. Solomon receives it from the Queen of Sheba (left part of triptych).
Then it becomes the Last Supper cup, in which Joseph of Arimathea had caught the holy blood (middle part of the triptych).
When this Christ blood has penetrated to the innermost depths of the Earth in the distant future, so also will the thoroughly Christ filled human being, the Parsival of the future, awake from out the grail chalice as from a coffin and unify all religions and earlier philosophies into a living Christ wisdom. Then Michael will also have bound the dragon, and the ‘woman’ of Revelation will again take in the Sun with the Moon underfoot, then Earth will have achieved victory over being chained to matter.
The upper part of the triptych Grail portrays the spiritual world (gold), the uppermost heads: are the time spirits (Archai), who extend their hands over long periods of time; supporting them are the folk-spirits (Archangels).
Under these looking down on the people are the Angeloi or angels. In the lower part, i.e., the two pillars, is represented the blood streams which flow through humanity and connect with the spiritual (gold), enabling higher guiding beings to incarnate, who lead the evolution of mankind. "
[ ... ]
The triptych Grail was demonstrably on display in 1918 Munich in the art house Reich and later in the Kunsthaus, and somewhat later still in the Glass Palace. From this period comes the above description written by Anna May as required for exhibitors.
From Jerusalem, where she had to earn a living by painting, she sent in July 1946, a watercolor, “View from the Mount of Olives to the city of Jerusalem”, as a Christmas gift to Marie Steiner and also got an answer (the letter is in the archive), to a question on the Grail picture to which Rudolf Steiner had provided indications, as he saw it. As far as I remember these did not concern the artistic conception, but as to the realization of the countenances.
After living with this triptych image a long time, I understood better why Rudolf Steiner recommended that the frame should rest on a pedestal as a kind of altar, and the zodiac should be represented in a spanning bow in gold on indigo. Indigo is the color that we only consciously experience as a color since the 15th century, with the development of the consciousness soul, inasmuch as it is the closest color to darkness, the color of ashes, from which the spirit can rise again. Only when from the eye self-perception is rooted out, when one moves to pure perception, can one experience Indigo. Here I can only hint at the mystery of Indigo, there could be much more said. Each color means, therefore, a stage of our soul development, as Albert Steffen observed in his early essays. Before the Mystery of Golgotha the tones had a reddish impact that testified to the presence, albeit at a subtle level, of life processes in the eye. After the Mystery of Golgotha humanity acquired blue, the color of the soul, which has pushed back the life processes, so that we humans can now meet the soul and spiritual directly.
The content of the images contained within the Indigo is a summary of the solar mystery of the earth and human development. And of Melchizedek, the priest and leader of the ancient sun mysteries, who brings the bread and wine to Abraham. Continuing up to the Mystery of Golgotha the two human streams of Cain and Abel, represented here by Hiram and Solomon who combine their forces, build the Temple; i.e., the body that can take the full “I” of Humanity. The stone from the 'light-crown' of Lucifer is an image of the Earthly-I of humanity, which was brought by the Queen of Sheba as a representative of the starry worlds. Thereby, connecting at this time, around 1000 BC, more with the physical body. This Earthly-I itself, must become the chalice for the higher-I, when the full depth of the Grail mystery is grasped. Then in the distant future the physical body can be purified to transparency, as was the case with Christian Rosenkreutz. What was initially possible for the sun-like eye to achieve, to purify substance to the clarity of crystal, which is also the highest level of transformation of substance achieved by the alchemists, will now be possible for the entire body once the Human-I has become one with Christ, generating Atma, a preview of the end of world development. Here then appears rightmost in the picture the Woman Clothed with the Sun, the new sun human being.
One can also say from this picture that the meaning of Earth evolution lights up as the eye sweeps from left through the middle and again to the right. It appears in the middle as the Blood flows deep into the Earth, and the post-Christian mysteries, starting with the Last Supper, are mysteries of the Blood. So also the Grail mysteries. Joseph of Arimathea captures the Blood, as it were for humanity. What is captured by the Norns, absolves the Earth, and draws the power of Christ into destiny, whose Lord Christ becomes.
In such a manner one can stand before the picture and slowly learn to read it. It's not symbolic, it is a painting of spiritual history, of course, in the guise appropriate to the style at the beginning of the 20th century
Part 1: This comprehensive imagination reflects Steiner' reading of the Akashic Record (Cosmic Memory). The Mystery of Golgotha is being depicted as the central event of world evolution. Two streams of time converge in this center, the one that comes from the pillar on the far left (Jachin) which includes Mechisadek, Abraham, Isaak and Jacob flows along the bottom is connected with the red blood and is met by the bowing figure of Moses beholding the descending Christ in the burning bush, from which he hears the voice of the Logos proclaiming “I Am the I Am” This etheric stream that flows out of the past and worked through the hereditary lineage of Abraham prepared the body temple over 42 generations that would become the Grail Vessel into which the Christ would later descend. The focal point of the Hebrew faith was the Temple that began as a tent in the wilderness but was later built in Jerusalem through the collaboration of king Solomon (Abel stream) and Heiram Abiff the master builder (Cain stream). Between these two individualities is the Queen of Sheba over-lighted by the Sophian star wisdom which was still alive at that time.
Opposite Moses is Paul who through his Damascus experience prefigured the experience of the Second Coming of Christ that is unfolding in our time. The initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz who is the reborn Heiram is the central theme of the panel on the right. The far right pillar (Boaz) represents the astral stream of time that flows prophetically and apocalyptically out of the future, and is associated with the blue blood. Hence the figures of the Archangel Michael and Sophia who appear as the main characters in the central drama that unfolds at the very heart of the Book of Revelation. The Rosicrucian Initiation expressed by the seven red roses are a means of aligning one self to these New Mysteries that prepare the future by helping to build the New Jerusalem which involves the transformation of the Earth into the Golden City known esoterically as the Planet of Love.
Part 2: The impulse towards this entered human and earthly evolution through the intervention of the Cosmic Christ being through his descent into the physical body of the man Jesus of Nazareth in his thirtieth year and after totally transmuting the three Astral, Etheric and Physical sheath’s underwent the sacrificial event of the Mystery of Golgotha this involved alchemically transmuting the Phantom Body which underlies the physical body which had been corrupted through the Luciferic intervention which inevitably led to the invitation of Ahriman the Lord of Death into the human organism. The Christ revered as the Sacrificial Lamb without spot (karma) who’s infinite LOVE was poured out with the Sacrificial Blood which in its inner fire or warmth is the medium of the human Ego raising it into a communion with the divine “I AM”. This precious gift that reversed the consequences of the Fall is caught up in the Grail Vessel made Holy by this overflowing Love by Joseph of Arimathea.
That Sacred Blood which flowed down to the Earth was etherized and drawn into the etheric aura of the Earth, this sun aura of the Earth is also the memory body of the earth that reaches back to the three former stages Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon expressed symbolically by the three Mothers who harken back to these periods and together embody the threefold soul of the Earth. By receiving this Sacred Blood which bore within it the power of the Divine Logos, the Seven Solar Elohim, these three Mothers received the Christ’s Resurrection Impulse which instilled into the Earth the power of the resurrection as a means of over-coming the inevitable death of our common body the Earth so that it can in the future become the radiant Body of the Christ Earth-Sun. The blood arrayed as a circle of seven roses expresses the restoration of the divine plan that stretches from Old Saturn (1st Stage) all the way to future Vulcan (7th stage). The Cross becomes the renewed Tree of Life which Christ as the new Planetary Spirit restored. Around it are gathered souls who have The Buddha Gautama, who helped to prepare this central event is shown in the pillar to the left of the central panel, the Beloved Disciple John who later reappears as Christian Rosenkreutz is shown in the right pillar, both are aligned to the inspirations of pre and post Christian Archai (time spirits) who reach-out to one-another and penetrate them from above.
Part 3: The divine trinity symbolized by the Golden Triangle at the top center is the source of the Divine Plan that rays out into both past and future streams of time. One such stream rays out through the forehead of Buddha, then the ark of the Covenant that hovers over the left panel and streams onward towards the pre-Christian Grail-Cup that the sun-initiate Melchisedek bore when he bestowed his blessing upon Abraham the hereditary father of the Hebrew people who will henceforward come under the Lunar Divinity Jahwe, know esoterically as the seventh Elohim (spirit of Form). Another golden stream emanates on the opposite side towards the future with the same angle touching the forehead of the beloved disciple passing through the image of the crucified one that hovers above Christian Rosenkreutz who has invoked the In Christo Murimur and continues onward to the Heart of the Virgin Sophia who gives birth to the Second Coming of Christ. From the heart of the Virgin and the Grail Chalice held by Melchisadek, the golden rays proceed inward. On the left they pass through the head of Solomon who was granted the gift of Wisdom on through the pre-Christian Grail vessel that the Queen of Sheba bears, then endowing the Golden Sun Hammer (Tau-Tao) held by Heiram with its magical power touching the bowed head of Moses and culminating in in the in the sub-earthly chamber where the Mothers gather in the Communion that gives the Earth its Meaning. From the other side the corresponding rays pass through the Chrystal that envelopes the semi-transparent body of the youth laid upon an Altar formed of the 4 living creature, then touching then opening the eyes of Paul, and finally converging with the other stream coming from the past.
Lucifers Crown is alluded to as a ring formed by a serpent biting its tail that can be seen in the canopy of the central tree. An Alchemical vessel is there in the opening where the crowns central jewel once had its place, and had been dislodged by Michael during the battle in heaven. This Jewel expressive of the perfect balance of the 4 members of the human being now endowed with the power of Christ is seen as a fruit that has grown out of this sacrificial deed. The members of the 3rd hierarchy who act as mediators and servants helping to carry out the divine plan are arrayed above. The angels are imaged as winged heads while the archangels have flames rising upwards to the heights. Around the renewed Tree of Life are gathered the many souls who have been drawn to this new manifestation of the Christ Sun who has enacted this central event of the great seven-fold drama upon the stage of human and earthly history, making this both a profoundly spiritual as well as being deeply imprinted into the dense physical substances that were transmuted into the Resurrection that prefigured the transubstantiation of the entire physical body of the Earth.
In this painting which was very large and was apparently originally intended to have a place in the First Goetheanum , expresses in images what Steiner otherwise expressed in his writings and lectures. The theme is the Holy Grail. In his book Esoteric Science an outline which provides the most comprehensive overview of Anthroposophy published in 1910, he refers to Anthroposphy as a Grail Science.
The mysteries surrounding the Holy Grail involve an ongoing quest, the language of symbols needs to be learned in order to develop Imaginative Consciousness which represents the first stage of higher development, which can be likened to a form of inner seeing, unfolding this capacity involves a cooperation of head and heart. Contemplating such a painting can help to orient the grail seeker as well as acting as a stimulus towards the development of imaginative consciousness. Steiner sought to draw together many facets that belong to the Grail theme in this picture. He gave indications of the kind of frame that was intended, it would have had a protrusion along the bottom suggestive of an altar to evoke the mood of reverence which is necessary to enter into such content with the appropriate soul mood. I believe the carved wood frame was intended to be stained with blue violet with gold rubbed over it that would have adhered to the convex parts.
In one of the lectures contained in the book you've referenced, Steiner stated that, "Krishna-thatis, the spirit who worked through Krishna- appeared again in the Jesus child of the Nathan line of the House of David, described in St. Luke Gospel (Lec. 9 June,5 1913 The Occult Significance of the Bagevadgita) This Krishna-Nathan Jesus became the Physical Grail vessel into which the Christ lived for 3 years culminating in the central event of world evolution highlighted in this painting. The presence of the Buddha who according to Steiner had prepared the way for this event and also overlighted the scene with the humble shepherds described in the Luke Gospel and bestowed his Nirmanakaya-purified astral body as a gift upon this child. Thus with the help of Steiner's reading of the akashic record a convergence of East and West contributed to the realization of this event.
All this including the lofty mission of the Hebrew's recorded in the old testament which was to prepare the physical body for the coming of the Messiah, who's immanent appearance their prophets proclaimed. As well as all of the esoteric insights that Steiner gave regarding the gospels and other books recorded in the New Testement, would be negated, if one were to accept the proposition being put forward and argued by Felix Voluntaryist Hau, who is claiming that both the man Jesus who served as the vessel for the awaited Messiah as well as the Christ being are merely the product of myth and legend. Therefore pretty much all of what was carefully and painstakingly depicted in this Grail Tryptich including the initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz from which the "Rosicrucian Line" arose never actually existed. This radical proposition is certainly not in accord with the better part of what Steiner contributed to Anthroposophy, through his spiritual scientific research.
I love this from Rudolf Steiner, so obvious in the modern world:
'The quieter we are, the more can happen through us in the spiritual world. We simply cannot say that anything happens in the spiritual world as a result of hurry and excitement. We need to develop loving participation in a mood of soul calmness for what is to happen, and then wait patiently to see how things come to pass. This calmness of soul, which in the spiritual world is creative, does not quite have its equal in ordinary physical life. It is similar on higher levels of earthly existence to the sphere of knowledge and of the arts. Here we have something analogous. The artist who cannot wait will not be able to create the highest he is capable of. For this, he needs patience and inner calmness of soul until the right moment dawns, until the intuition comes. One who seeks to create according to a schedule will produce only works of inferior quality. He who seeks to create, be it the smallest work, prompted by an outer stimulus will not succeed as well as if he had waited quietly with loving devotion for the moment of inspiration. We might say for the moment of grace. The same is true of the spiritual world. In it there is no rush and excitement but only calmness of soul.
Chapter 4: Life between death and rebirth
Margareth Hauschka, Das Triptychon Gral von Anna May in Das Goetheanum, 54 #24, Dornach 15 June 1975
APPROACHING THE ALTAR THAT LEADS INTO THE NEW MYSTERIES
The “Altar” imagination reaches into the realm of the Archetypes and therefore has universally human significance that has come to physical expression in a myriad different forms within varied cultures and civilizations throughout the ages. In many traditions it has served as the focal point for religious experience (religion – to bind; religio – bond, reverence) where the connection between the heavenly and the earthly, spirit and matter, or the communion between the human and the divinity was established or renewed. The fragrant incense that is often used in many such religious rites is meant to express prayer and devotion, accompanied by the mood of reverence.
SOLOMON'S TEMPLE AND THE NEW JERUSALEM
The gesture of offering and sacrifice, such as that related to Abraham and his son Isaac within Judaic tradition also plays a central role. It is upon the sacred rock that commemorates this event that the Ark of the Covenant found its resting place within the Holy of Holies in the Hebrew Temple. The “mercy seat” invited the presence of Yahweh who’s voice (Logos) was once heard by Moses from the burning bush uttering “I Am The I Am”. The Altar of incense located in the middle chamber of this threefold Temple, stood before the threshold to the Holy of Holies where the four colored veil related to the 4 elements, concealed the cubicle space which was covered with the sun metal gold which finds its metamorphosis in the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, which also has cubicle dimensions. The veil which served to separate the people from this sacred chamber that only the high-priest, who wore the breastplate, adorned with 12 gem-stones entered once a year to utter the Sacred Name of God was “rent in twain from the top to the bottom” while the Mystery of Golgotha was being enacted.
In other words the secret hidden within this sacred chamber which embodied the future New Jerusalem (Jupiter Stage) which involves the Earth becoming a Sun, was made accessible, and possible by the Deed of Christ Jesus on the stage of history, thus preparing the next 5th stage of planetary evolution when humanity will have brought Spirit-Self (Manas) to realization. This involves a process of astral-purification, catharsis which prepared a communion with the Shekina – Sophia, which led to illumination by the Holy-Spirit through the redemption of Lucifer. The great basin that stood outside the temple, referred to as the “Brazen Sea” supported by twelve bulls (Will) which dispensed the waters of ablution as well as the nearby Altar of Sacrifice were a ritual means of enacting this cleansing and purification with the elements of water and fire.
Upon entering the temple through the porch, one passed between the two great pillars Yachin and Boaz, which in esoteric tradition relate to the descent from the spiritual into the physical (birth) associated with the red blood (Jachin) and the ascent from the physical to the spiritual (death) related to the blue blood (Boaz). This arterial and venous blood are in turn related to in-breathing oxygenated blood and exhaling carbon dioxide laden blood. The exhaling out-breath was also related to the Micro-Logos the Word.
The mysteries of Birth (Jachin) and Death (Boas) symbolized by the two pillars on either side of the threshold embody the 4th Mystery pertaining to the Earth and the human “I” which were revealed through the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus Christ. One has to pass through this threshold into the middle chamber in order to proceed to the Altar of Incense, which leads onward into the Holy of Holies, (which has become accessible through the Mystery of Golgotha), where the Ark of the Covenant, which embodies the first communion with the Divinity, Manas-Holy Spirit comes to expression, the two subsequent stages were symbolized by the two Cherubim who hovered over the Ark as Buddhi-Son-Venus stage and Atman-Father-Vulcan stage.
THE THREE ALTARS
This same threefold mystery was embodied in the layout of the lodge shown below. The fact that while undergoing Initiation the three soul forces Thinking, Feeling and Willing would begin to separate meant that they needed to be oriented to the threefold Trinity in order to avoid falling prey to the adversarial forces, who must be contended with on yonder side of the threshold (Lower Guardian). Thus Thinking was raised to commune with the Holy Spirit through Wisdom, Feeling united with the Son through Beauty/Love and Willing elevated to union with the Father forces through Strength/Courage. This threefold communion with the divinity expressed in the three stages Manas, Buddhi and Atman were reflected in the three Altars. Upon entering one passed between the two pillars and proceeded to the Altar of Wisdom located in the east (Jachin side) related to the morning sun, then onward to the middle Altar devoted to Beauty and Love where the incense sensor was kept, related to the midday sun, and the third Altar devoted to Strength in the west was oriented to the setting evening sun. Finally upon departing from the Lodge one once again passed between the two pillars but this time on the Boaz side. The Hammer TAU/TAO that was used to open and close the sacred rituals enacted in this Lodge was meant as a manifestation of the Micro-Logos, the Word imbued with Inspiration that proceeded from the Logos which only the higher Christ endowed Higher Self could wield.
THE TWO GUARDIAN AT THE ALTAR
Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkruetz can be seen as the two guardians who preside over the mysteries embodied in the two pillars that lead over from the 4th Mystery having to do with uniting the human “I” with the Macro-cosmic Christ “I” to the 5th stage involving communion with the Holy-Spirit. Rudolf Steiner indicated that this fifth mystery was expressed with sacred geometry in the architecture at the entry to Solomon’s temple in the form of a pentagram which symbolizes the Higher Human being who overcomes the Mystery of Evil associated with this 5th stage. The Altar sketch that Rudolf Steiner gave to Ita Wegman who was to preside over the First Class in the High School of Spiritual Science, was meant to convey that CR and RS were acting as the guardians of these mysteries which could only be entered by first making the offertory sacrifice at the Altar. Steiner for example referred to the Sacrifice of the Intellect which was necessary to raise thinking into the realm of the Holy Spirit and Imagination. (Part One)
"The brilliance manifest in so much of the Renaissance art and architecture involved a looking back to the wisdom and inspirations carried over from the Greco-Latin era which involved a recapitulation of the Atlantean period. However in our time when humanity is collectively crossing the Threshold we are no longer recapitulating the past, but rather prophetically anticipating the future, according to Steiner this is what makes our times apocalyptic. The Threshold we are collectively crossing involves the pralaya period that leads over to the future Jupiter Planetary condition (New Jerusalem) being telescoped into our times. This can be better understood by recalling that the Lemurian Epoch which is the 3rd stage of Earth evolution involves a recap of the Old Moon stage, the Atlantean Epoch as the 4th Earth Epoch stands in the middle and our present 5th Post-Atlantean Epoch anticipates the future Jupiter Condition, however the first four ages within this 5th Epoch continue to involve recapitulations with the exception of our 5th age which began in 1413 and gradually shifts to the future orientation. ...............The radical division of humanity that will take place during the transition to the future Jupiter is beginning in a preliminary fashion in our own time. The shift from the Medieval two-dimensional painting to the development of perspective among the Renaissance painters reflects a collective incarnational process deeper into the physical material world, a trajectory dictated by the culminating Kali-Yuga (Dark Age)........However since the end of the Kali Yuga in 1899 the heavens are once again opened, and a re-ascent that the Michael Age which began in 1879 has ushered in has given us Anthroposophy which when brought to Life within human minds and hearts can lead to the awakening of the imaginative consciousness we need to navigate the abyss we have collectively begun to cross since the 1840's. The imaginative world once again involves a two dimensional experience only now rather than the heavy oils the more fluid water colors become the preferred medium........As to Architecture we are being called upon to begin to wield the etheric forces that stream in from the surrounding cosmos so that we can help build the New Jerusalem the Golden City that now shines within the etheric aura of the earth as the Bride of the Lamb descending from above. Obviously we also need to live our everyday practical lives in a grounded manner. So the Architecture that built from below upward also needs to imbued with the quickened and more mobile thinking centered in the etheric rather than physical brain. This would mean more rounded and sculpted forms such as Steiner sought to achieve in the first and second goetheanum where organic forms and metamorphosis play more of a role".
Source Sonia von Homrich:
In Brazilian Portuguese Language https://soniavonhomrich.blogspot.com/2019/11/grail-tryptych-margareth-hauschka-sonia.html
Thanks to Anna May, https://www.facebook.com/soniavonhomrich, Richard Distasi and Florian Sydow ; Kim Graae Munch
Note: If you download the picture you can expand it to full screen size.
Note: If you download the picture you can expand it to full screen size.
