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Steiner and The Secret Circle of 12
Steiner and The Secret Circle of 12
At the time Steiner wanted to reinforce his local Rosicrucian presence in order
to establish his Misraim Service in various European countries, so he must have
asked his European representatives to write a book in their own language
based on the contents of his cycle of conferences published under the name of
“Rosicrucian Wisdom”, held in 1907. This cycle of lectures contains the
essential cosmology taught in the Order back then. Steiner published it in
German, Schuré published it in French (under the title “Divine Evolution”) and
Heindel should have published it in Danish, but instead he ultimately wrote it in
English in order to publish it in North America without having Steiner’s
approval.
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So in the meantime Max Heindel went back to North America with at least
some of the rituals from the Mystica Aeterna, publishing what he had
elaborated on from the unpublished notes of Steiner’s “Rosicrucian Wisdom”
cycle during the 1907-1908 in the “Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception“ which was
first dedicated to Steiner, so “not to seem like a plagiarist” in Heindel’s words.
Some time later news reached Rudolf Steiner who referenced and criticized the
fact in the Fifth Gospel cycle (1913). Steiner understood every single
happening as a reflection of happenings in the spiritual world, for better or
worse. Steiner felt that the new form of Rosicrucianism had to be first
consolidated in Europe and then could be eventually brought to North America
in the future since the American Epoch was to be the last one before the times
of the Apocalypse (roughly in 6000-8000 A.D.). But Heindel anticipated this
move by founding the Oceanside Rosicrucian Fellowship: in the beginning he
was still hoping to maintain contact with Steiner in order to build a bridge
between Europe and North America, but he refused.
This split between the Rosicrucianism of the Mystica Aeterna and the founding
of the Anthroposophical Society, is at the origin of Heindel’s claim to be the
“chosen representative of the Rosicrucian Elder Borther”: the tradition of the
Rosicrucian Fellowship is not anthroposophical, since Steiner founded the
Anthroposophical Society only in 1912 as the external bearer of the
Rosicrucianism of the Mystica Aeterna – but ironically indeed it is based on
Steiner’s Rosicrucianism! Even if it misses the crucial problem of the duality of
evil as Lucifer and Ahriman. In fact after Heindel’s move to the US Steiner
disbanded the Misraim Service, a move which Heindel interpreted as indirectly
electing him as the “only” Rosicrucian representative. In fact, in the beginning,
the Rosicrucian Fellowship practiced an initiatic system of ten degrees taken
directly from the Mystica Aeterna: Heindel describes it both in his books:
Rosicrucian Cosmoconception and Freemasonry and Catholicism, this one taken
almost verbatim from Steiner’s esoteric lessons for the Mystica Aeterna. After
Heindel’s death in 1919, his wife, Augusta Foss Heindel took the leadership and
gradually the initiatic system went into abeyance. It is surprising how the same
process of drifting from the practice of esotericism to a more exoteric
approach, happened twice in the same stream of Western Esotericism, first in
the Rosicrucian Fellowship and then in the Anthroposophical Society.
Steiner then refounded the Anthroposophical Society in 1924 based on the New
Mysteries, but still on the Rosicrucian core. Wegman was meant to hold the
First Class. Marie Steiner to hold the Second Class and Rudolf Steiner the Third
Class. The Second and Third Class should have been Ritual in character.
Unfortunately after Steiner’s passing the Threshold in 1925 it didn’t go on due
to the strife among the members of the Vorstand, which ended in the expulsion
of Ita Wegman and Elisabeth Vreede.
But what was this Circle of the 12? One previous incarnation of Christian
Rosenkreutz was a unnamed personality in medieval times. The boy was raised
in the purest possible community, away from the Catholic church grasp and
removed from the hardness of material life. It was required for him to be in a
blank state and this is why it was necessary for him to be raised among the
purest of heart. For Steiner this spiritual atmosphere was not good for itself but
only functional to the initiation which the boy had to undergo. In fact the boy
was taken away in a monastery where he received tuition from 12 Wise Men.
His astral body had to remain the purest possible.
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Egyptian Ormus together founding the Osiris-Christic Mysteries from which the
Rosicrucian also took from.
The mystical initiation of the 12 was in turn an echo of the 12 Knights of the
Round Table around the Holy Grail and Parsifal, the Grail Bearer. Then we see
that Steiner wanted to compose the Circle of the 12 in order to link to the
etheric body of Christian Rosenkreutz who in turn would have fostered the
incarnation of the Christ-Ego in the First Goetheanum. This is why Steiner
ended any relationship with Heindel: without him he was unable to form the
the holy circle which could bring to a Rosicrucian Renaissance which has been
delayed because of the breaking of the 30 Years War. In Steiner’s view this
happened again: he believed the ritual of the Circle fo the 12 could bring
Europe in a new era in which spiritual and scientific knowledge were one,
preventing the national hatred between nations. This in turn connects to the
enigmatic figure of Kaspar Hauser, the Child of Europe, which would have
prevented romanticism to degenerate into decadentism, but the Jesuits
thwarted his deed. The First World War broke out much like after the Bohemian
Revolt in which the war between Catholics and Protestants which prevented the
Rosicrucian utopia to come about through Rudolph II and Christina of Sweden.
Since the spiritual call was not fulfilled by humans, its terrible counter-image,
its shadow, materialised.
This was also an echo of the war between King Arthur and Mordred, which
ended up in not letting the Grail be manifest as a collective “Vision Splendid”
for the 12 Grail Knights, but only as an individual vision of three Grail Knights.
The Round Table was broken because Arthur could not fulfill his role with
Guinevere, the collective Christic utopia of Camelot could not be realised, then
the Grail appeared only to chosen individuals: Bors who testify the existence of
the Grail to the other Knights obtaining the Grail through Hope; Galahad
obtained it through Faith being the predestined child of Guinevere and Arthur
but which was substituted by Mordred born of incest and rape; and finally
Parsifal who reached the Grail through Love and then brought it in continental
Europe, specifically in Germany through his son, the Swan Knight Lohengrin.
For Steiner, the Grail is the perfected human soul able to hold within herself
the Christ, like the Sun Host hosted the Moon Chalice. And Christian
Rosenkreutz through his previous incarnation had been able to make
himself such vessel: in fact since the dawn of history he has been the
warden of the Sun Mysteries. He has been the warden of the Solar
Mysteries: he was Cain the grower of wheat, then Hiram Abiff the
builder of the Solomon Temple, then Lazarus-John the Divine the
disciple whom Jesus Christ loved. Then C.R.C. attained the state of
Master of Wisdom:. as Lazarus he was initiated directly by Christ in the
complete renewal of the Etheric Body, as the unnamed boy at the center of the
Circle of the 12 he was purified in the Astral Body, and as Christian
Rosenkreutz he received the Ego of Christ from the Holy Grail with the help of
his initiator, Manes, previously known as Parsifal. Through this initiation he
became a Christophorus or Christian Rosycross. This is what should have
happened if the Circle of the 12 in the Misraim Service could fulfil its mission in
the First Goetheanum.
The Misraim Service grade structure itself was also a path for man to
recapitulate C.R.C. incarnations and initiations so to attune the members to the
Rosicrucian Stream. So as Christ was the 13th at the center of the Circle of the
12 Apostles and the circle of the 12 Knights of the Round; C.R.C. was the 13th
at the center of the new Circle of the 12, acting as the mediator of Christ.
Steiner himself was to be enlightened by C.R.C., being the Thirteenth in the
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midst of the Circle of the 12, while the 12 held the IX° grade of “Epopt of the
Illuminati”, Steiner had the X° grade of Rex Summus.
Another key factor in this story is the place. In fact the sublime Rite of the
Circle of the 12 through the Etheric Link to Christian Rosenkreutz was
to happen at a peculiar location: the First Goetheanum. In the small
cupola there were 12 Thrones under the 12 Cosmic Columns: these
represented the occult wisdom of the Circle of the 12. Judith von Halle speaks
about the original project of having Seven Mystery Dramas performed: but only
four were ready before the disbanding of the Misraim Service in 1914 due to
the First World War and the breaking if the Circle of the 12. We again see the
sevenfold stages of evolution in time and the twelvefold organisation of space.
At the same time Steiner promoted his Social Three-folding to European
statesman in order to realise a new form of Rosicrucian utopia: but this again
failed while americanist plans went on thorough Anglo-American “fallen”
Freemasonry lodges.
Since this was the second call, after the 30 Years War, Steiner considered
the chance to be lost, and so the call spiritual world would recede and
wait for a better time around 100-120 years i.e. around our time, the
2014-2024 window. This is why Steiner decided that the Mystica Aeterna
project as an umbrella organisation for esoteric orders in Europe had been a
failure and couldn’t be realised, he could again have the chance to found a
Mystery School on a spiritual-scientific basis when Ita Wegman asked for it in
1923 while lecturing in Wales. This is the Michael School of which we only have
the First Class out of the planned Three. Each Class should have correspond to
one of the 3 triads of 3 degrees, for a total of 9 stages. The First Class
nowadays contains only the Michael gesture as a ritual opening and closing but
Wegman’s notebooks tells a different story, recounting of a ritual initiation
given by Steiner himself to her as the bearer of the Rose-cross emblem.
ITS SACRED FUNCTION, IT COULD NOT EMBODY THE EGO OF CHRIST AND PASSED
ON THE ETHERIC PLANE THROUGH FIRE. RUDOLF STEINER HIMSELF ON THE VERGE
OF HIS PASSING THE THRESHOLD IN 1925 GATHERED THE CLOSEST PUPILS TO
ESTABLISH THE SECOND AND THIRD CLASSES. THIS CAN BE AGAIN LINKED TO ITA
WEGMAN’S ROLE AS HEAD OF THE NEWLY FOUNDED MICHAEL SCHOOL, AN
ESOTERIC SCHOOL DEDICATED TO OCCULT DEVELOPMENT WITH SIMPLER RITUALS.
WHILE MARIE STEINER SHOULD HAVE CARRIED ON THE MYSTICA AETERNA WITH
THE SECOND AND THIRD CLASSES AS ORIGINALLY INTENDED.
What would have happened through the final performing of the Seven Mystery
Drama and the embodiment of the Christ Ego in the First Goetheanum? The
ritual of the Circle of the 12 through the link to the etheric body of Christian
Rosenkreutz would have been the climax where the renewed occult wisdom,
the Anthropos-Sophia, would manifest through the representative of humanity
in the center. The people who experienced the First Goetheanum would have
reached for the vision of the Etheric Christ in a new, free and conscious way.
This would have been the culmination of the New Mysteries foretold on the
stage of the Ancient Mysteries in which theatre itself was sacred. But this has
not happened and instead of having the vision of the Etheric Christ around
1933, we had the breaking of the Second World War and the horror of
concentration camps. The shadow of the unheeded spiritual call, materialised
again.
Something deep and high happened in those times full of hope around the
unique personality of Rudolf Steiner, the international role of the Misraim
Service in Europe has been shrouded in silence and since forgotten. But in the
light of this occult event in history, we can understand this: the First
Goetheanum was a huge Western Mystery Temple! It was the restored Golden
Temple of Hiram Abiff and Solomon in the Light of Christ. Hermann Linde was a
painter, after attending Steiner’s conferences he joined the Anthroposophical
Society: Steiner commissioned him the paintings for the First Goetheanum,
and also a peculiar painting called the Golden Temple”, which shows the small
cupola in the moment of the culmination of the Seventh Mystery Dramas with
the Thrones Officers moving towards the imaginative experience of the Etheric
Christ. From this we can infer clearly that he knew a great deal about the real
purpose of the Goetheanum and the Mystery Dramas. In this painting you can
see the zodiacal signs positioned over the Zodiacal Column Capitals, which in
reality were not included in the organic design of the Goetheanum (designed by
Steiner and Edith Maryon, a member of the Stella Matutina). Linde died six
months after the arson of the Goetheanum: Steiner stated that Linde, while
painting the cupola, tied his etheric body to the Etheric of the Goetheanum
himself and so his life came to an end after the etheric body of the
Goetheanum dissolved after its “death” on the physical plane.
The Second and Third Class with the Etheric Link to Christian
Rosenkreutz are missing from the present Anthroposophical Society.
Despite all the beautiful, genial and useful applications of Anthroposophy in the
world for our future evolution there is danger that anthroposophy becomes
completely exoteric. The is a need to return to the esoteric core of
Anthroposophy, and this core is not only the First Class but also the Second
and Third Class which were ritual in character. This esoteric core will bring
about the necessary balance in the relationship between the center and the
periphery of the Anthroposophical Movement as a whole, by resolving its inner
struggles, between the contending forces of Lucifer and Ahriman. After the
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1922 arson Steiner, heartbroken but not desperate, asked “… and now were
would the the Seeker of the West go?” – Here we are.
Further references on the Circle of the 12 and its relation to the Second and
Third Class of the Esoteric Section:
1. Massimo Scaligero, From Yoga to the Rosecross, p. 132: “[in 1911] Steiner
came in Italy, among other things, to meet Colazza [Scaligero’s teacher as well
as one of the 12], having ascertained the degree of his personality [Colazza
was Marie Steiner acquaintance, in order to realise a work of a ritual character
and transcendental, with a small number of disciples esoterically qualified. The
work should have functioned simultaneously in a cosmic, human and historical
sense, and it would have unfolded thanks to the help of invisibile and visible
Guides of humanity in a city of Central Europe. It would have been the
realisation of a ritual, of which its entelechy, needed for the fatal moment of
the history of humanity, required from the participants an absolute
transcendence of the human element, and at the same time an act of courage
to trespass the Threshold of the Spiritual World and establish a meeting there
where it is possible, as a vehicle of vision, the peace profound. It was in the
years 1913–1914. The insufficiency of one of the 12 caused the failure of the
rite and from the failure of this rite an altogether different outcome was born
as a result, the First World War with all its consequences, which since some
causes had not been removed would have worked as premises for the Second
World War.” the oral tradition passed down here in Italy from the pupils of
Scaligero and Colazza identify the person who failed to comply to the 12 as
Max Heindel, who had been Steiner’s pupil from 1907 to 1909. Heindel
published the Rosicrucian Cosmoconcetion in 1909. But it is only in 1913 in the
5th Lecture of the Fifth Gospel that Steiner acknowledges what happened with
Heindel. So we can assume that until before 1913 they were still in a sort of
agreement.
5. Francis King, Ritual Magic in England, Chapter 11: here is a summary of the
relationship between Steiner’s Misraim Service and the Stella Matutina. Only
the chief of the Stella Matutina Robert Felkin was eventually admitted in the
Circle of the 12 having been transmitted from the Steiner the Etheric Link to
Christian Rosenkreutz, a ritual still performed to this day.
7. Felkin in his diary: “From what I was told abroad [by Steiner] I was under
the impression… that a few, I was told twelve, were to be picked out of all the
Temples to help C.R.C. when he again manifested in 1926-33 or 35. The whole
of that was to have been told me face to face in 1914 when we went to
Germany. We had tickets there which took us to a place S.S.E. of Austria,
where we were to have been met and been taken to the Old Vault [the tomb of
C.R.C.], and also to have met several Hidden Chiefs [of the Third Order or
Class].” Taken from: Rudolf Steiner and the Golden Dawn, the article has many
other instances and specific details about the Misraim Service and the Etheric
Link. The vast majority of the details have been passed on by A.E. Waite
another member of the Golden Dawn and later founder of the Fellowship of the
Rosy Cross.
8. From A.E. Waite’s diary about Felkin’s experience with Steiner (again taken
from the blog above): “August 13, 1912: 5th grade given to FR [Finem
Respice, Felkin’s magical name and motto] in whispers, 6th grade account
given privately. 2nd grade corr. with Fellow Craft and Portal. Teaching warrant
verbal only. 6th grade enables Adept to communicate power, via unseen forces
with whom he is linked [the Etheric Link to C.R.C.] . CRC reinc. from 1939 to
1950.”
that came directly from Steiner and that Steiner himself had spoken about in
several lectures about C.R.C.
Now, you can read the full Rosicrucian Review of Steiner’s Anthroposphy here
as the latest update to our blog.
Helpful Information
With a lifetime interest in Rosicrucianism, Giorgio is our resident expert on Steiner’s Misraim Service, or the
“Mystica Aeterna.” Giorgio is also one of the key figures in unravelling the connection between Rudolf Steiner and
Alois Mailänder, as the hidden “Master M” figure. A researcher of many western esoteric systems, he sees them
through the lens of Steiner’s Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy. This has allowed him to establish the first accurate
correlation between the Hermetic Kabbalah as employed in the Golden Dawn system and Steiner’s Anthroposophy
model.
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