Just prior to the turn of the
century Rudolf Steiner* experience an
initiatory turning point, that can be seen as his Damascus Event, which helped
to inspire the Grail Triptych painting. Relating in his autobiography "It
was decisive for my soul's development that I stood spiritually before the
Mystery of Golgotha in a deep and solemn celebration of knowledge." 1899
The better part of the
Knowledge that Steiner shared out of his spiritual scientific, including that
related to the beings and content depicted in the Grail Triptych was arrived at
through the reading of the Akashic Record or Cosmic Memory.
The following excerpt from the FM work reflects the need to offer us and sacrifice the intellect as a means of accurately reading this record: "The Sacrifice of the Intellect" : "...the further one proceeds along the path of knowledge, the more necessary it is to acquire devotion, one becomes more and more devotional. Out of this devotion then flows the strength to aquire the very highest knowledge. Those who manage to forgoe making their own thought combinations will gain the ability to read in the akasha record (Cosmic Memory). One thing, however is necessary, that one eliminates one's personal ego to such an extent that it makes no further claim to combine the thoughts itself.
This is not at all easy to understand, for a person claims the right to be allowed to combine the predicate with the subject. As long as one continues to do that, however, it is impossible for one to really study esoteric history. When, unselflishly--but also with clarity and consciousness--one lets thoughts rise up within one, then an event occurs, which, from a certain point of view is well known to all esotericists, namely, that the ideas, the thoughts, which one previously formed into sentences and opinions according to one's own views, now form themselves out of the spiritual world, so that it is not I who forms opinions, but opinions are formed in me. It is then the case that one has offered oneself up so that a higher self speaks out of the Spirit through ones's ideas.
That is--esoterically conceived--what was called "sacrifice of the intellect" in the Middle Ages. It signifies the relinquishment of one's own opinions, one's own conviction. So long as I make my own thought combinations and do not place my thoughts at the disposal of higher powers who simultaneously inscribe them into the tablet of the intellect, for so long i am not able to study esoteric history." (Berlin, July 25, 1904) Among those active in the mystery schools that survived into the first Christian centuries were those who "foresaw that people in the future would develop their intellect more and more. Th is would bring them freedom, but at the same time would take away their clairvoyance. They would thereby experience a great crisis through the fact that their understanding would no longer extend to those regions out of which the actual deeper foundations of human and earthly evolution and the cosmic significance of Christianity could be understood. This forsight aroused in the mystery teachers the greatest anxiety as to whether humankind would be able to gain sufficient maturity to receive what had come into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha. For that reason they clothed their message, "that to be able to understand the cosmic significance of Christ a sacrifice of the intellect was necessary.".....For if humankind is to find the connection with what has come into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha , this "sacrificium" must be practiced by all who are striving for a spiritual life, to acquire learning everyone ....who wishes to gain wisdom, must develop a sense for the ritual of sacrifice. For sacrifice is the law of the spiritual world." (Berlin ,February 16, 1905)
Rudolf
Steiner see; www.rsarchive.org
The following excerpt from the FM work reflects the need to offer us and sacrifice the intellect as a means of accurately reading this record: "The Sacrifice of the Intellect" : "...the further one proceeds along the path of knowledge, the more necessary it is to acquire devotion, one becomes more and more devotional. Out of this devotion then flows the strength to aquire the very highest knowledge. Those who manage to forgoe making their own thought combinations will gain the ability to read in the akasha record (Cosmic Memory). One thing, however is necessary, that one eliminates one's personal ego to such an extent that it makes no further claim to combine the thoughts itself.
This is not at all easy to understand, for a person claims the right to be allowed to combine the predicate with the subject. As long as one continues to do that, however, it is impossible for one to really study esoteric history. When, unselflishly--but also with clarity and consciousness--one lets thoughts rise up within one, then an event occurs, which, from a certain point of view is well known to all esotericists, namely, that the ideas, the thoughts, which one previously formed into sentences and opinions according to one's own views, now form themselves out of the spiritual world, so that it is not I who forms opinions, but opinions are formed in me. It is then the case that one has offered oneself up so that a higher self speaks out of the Spirit through ones's ideas.
That is--esoterically conceived--what was called "sacrifice of the intellect" in the Middle Ages. It signifies the relinquishment of one's own opinions, one's own conviction. So long as I make my own thought combinations and do not place my thoughts at the disposal of higher powers who simultaneously inscribe them into the tablet of the intellect, for so long i am not able to study esoteric history." (Berlin, July 25, 1904) Among those active in the mystery schools that survived into the first Christian centuries were those who "foresaw that people in the future would develop their intellect more and more. Th is would bring them freedom, but at the same time would take away their clairvoyance. They would thereby experience a great crisis through the fact that their understanding would no longer extend to those regions out of which the actual deeper foundations of human and earthly evolution and the cosmic significance of Christianity could be understood. This forsight aroused in the mystery teachers the greatest anxiety as to whether humankind would be able to gain sufficient maturity to receive what had come into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha. For that reason they clothed their message, "that to be able to understand the cosmic significance of Christ a sacrifice of the intellect was necessary.".....For if humankind is to find the connection with what has come into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha , this "sacrificium" must be practiced by all who are striving for a spiritual life, to acquire learning everyone ....who wishes to gain wisdom, must develop a sense for the ritual of sacrifice. For sacrifice is the law of the spiritual world." (Berlin ,February 16, 1905)
