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existence, but on that very account he had a far more living
awareness of the world around him than is possible in our
fully wide-awake consciousness. And strange as it seems, in
the age which lasted into the second millennium or even as
late as the beginning of the first millennium B.C. ( it was to
the last surviving remains of this age that men like the three
Magi belonged ) individual pupils in the Mysteries were
initiated into a kind of knowledge resembling our geometrical
or mathematical sciences. It was Euclid (1) who first gave
geometry to the world at large. The geometry presented to
mankind by Euclid had already been cultivated for thousands
of years in the Mysteries, but there it was communicated to
chosen pupils only. Moreover it did not work in them in the
same way as in men of later time. Paradoxical as it seems, it is
nevertheless a fact that the geometry and arithmetic learnt by
children to-day was taught in the Mysteries to individuals
specially chosen from the masses on account of their
particular gifts who were then received into the Mysteries.
One often hears it said to-day that the teachings given in the
Mysteries were secret and veiled. In their abstract content
however, these so-called secret teachings were no different
from what is now taught to children at school. The mystery
does not lie in the fact that these things are unknown to-day
but that they were imparted to human beings in a different
way. For to teach the principles of geometry to children by
calling upon the intellect in an age when from the moment of
waking until that of falling asleep the human being has clear
day-consciousness, is a very different matter from imparting
them to pupils specially chosen because of their greater
maturity of soul in the age of instinctive clairvoyance and
dreamlike consciousness. A true conception of these things is
rarely in evidence to-day.
In Eastern literature there is a Hymn to the God Varuna which
says that Varuna is revealed in the air and in the winds
blowing through the forests, in the thunder rolling from the
clouds, in the human heart when it is kindled to acts of will, in
the heavens when the sun passes across the sky, and is present
on the hills in the soma juice. You will generally find it stated
in books today that nobody knows what this soma-juice really
is. Modern scholars assert that nobody knows what soma-
juice is, although, as a matter of fact, there are people who
drink it by the litre and from a certain point of view are quite
familiar with it. But to know things from the vantage-point of
the Mysteries is quite different from knowing them as a
layman from the standpoint of the experiences of ordinary
waking consciousness. You may read to-day about the
Philosopher's Stone for which men sought in an epoch when
understanding of the nature of substances was very different
from what it is today. And again, those who write about
alchemy assert that nothing is known about the Philosopher's
Stone. Here and there in my lectures I have said that this
Philosopher's Stone is quite familiar to most people, only they
do not know what it really is nor why it is so called. It is quite
well known, because as a matter of fact it is used by the ton.
The modern mind with its tendency to abstraction and theory
and its alienation from reality, is incapable of grasping these
things. Nor is there any understanding of what is meant by
saying that our geometrical and arithmetical sciences were
once imparted to mature souls quite different in character
from the souls of modern men, In my book Christianity as
Mystical Fact I have indicated the special nature of the
Mystery-teachings but these significant matters are not as a
rule correctly understood; they are taken far too superficially.
The way in which the subject-matter of the Mystery-teachings
in ancient times was imparted that is what needs to be
understood.
Novalis was still aware of the human element, the element of
feeling in mathematics which, in utter contrast to the vast
majority to-day, he regarded as being akin to a great and
wonderful Hymn. (2) It was to an understanding of the world
imbued with feeling but expressed in mathematical forms that
the pupil of the ancient Mysteries was led. And when this
mathematical understanding of the universe had developed in
such a pupil, he became one whose vision resembled that of
the men described as the three Magi from the East. The
mathematics of the universe which to us has become pure
abstraction, then revealed reality of Being, because this
knowledge was supplemented and enriched by something that
came to meet it. And so the science and knowledge of the
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