Rudolf Steiner is considered a prolific esoteric teacher in the Rosicrucian-Christian tradition. His discoveries regarding the Atlantean roots of this tradition reveal to us something about the true meaning of the word Rosycross.
The Rosicrucian spirit originates as early as Atlantis, along with the symbol of the Rosycross
The origin of the Rosicrucians is lost in the fog of origins. And by this expression we do not refer only to antiquity, but to the fog that defined the atmosphere of Atlantis, from which comes the Hermetic knowledge taught by the Elohim teachers themselves.
This spirit which now acts as a Rosicrucian spirit also existed in […] the ancient Atlantean period. And [the wisdom] that is unfolding today, unconsciously poured into the hearts and souls of people in those times, is becoming more and more conscious over time. 1
Rudolf Steiner is considered a prolific esoteric teacher in the Rosicrucian-Christian tradition. His discoveries regarding the Atlantean roots of this tradition reveal to us something about the true meaning of the word Rosycross, which defines not only the path that bears his name but also the mission taken over by Cristian Rosenkreutz.
Steiner (in GA266) brings to our eyes the image of a foggy atmosphere where Wisdom itself dwelt and resounded from the waters that filled the air. The Atlanteans still had an intimate sense that the divine germinates like a seed in all natural beings and phenomena, in a sacred breath. The sounds, the breath, the images, were sensations that flowed together in the human soul in a fundamental religious feeling. Steiner also says that when the Atlantean listened to the intermediate tone between the sounds that surrounded them, they would discern the name of what they recognized to be divine: Tao. Through sounds, they internalized what they experienced in external images.
The Tao sound was symbolized by the letter T, the original symbol of the Tau cross.
In German, the sound Tau, which designates the cross, has as its equivalent the word Tau which means… Dew. The fresh drop of dew that gathers on the flowers in the morning is symbolized in the same way as the germinating force that penetrated everything and revealed to human beings the Wisdom contained in the waters.
In Latin, dew means ros, and the cross is called crux. So roscrux means the same thing: the sign of the Tao, the cross and the dew on the plants. This is the esoteric meaning of the exoteric symbol for the cross braided with roses. 2
The connotation of freshness that emanates from the original meaning of this word taken as an initiatory title by the German Christian Rosenkreutz confirms an important aspect of the mission assumed by the Rosicrucians: that of always revitalizing the primordial wisdom, just as the dew refreshes the essential order (symbolized by the cross) every morning of human days.
Updating Wisdom to the Needs of the Age and Ages of Humanity
Music has always been a favorable medium for the transmission of wisdom, and it is still used in the temples of our school to open hearts to receptivity. In the childhood of humanity, when people could not yet absorb ideas, wisdom was transmitted through music, fairy tales and stories. The Brotherhood of the Rosicrucian Sages sent rhapsodists from village to village, from city to city, to proclaim the spirit.
The Rhapsodists were disciples of the Rosicrucians, and their teachers told them: today you cannot yet go into the world and speak to people through ideas, as will be the case later; now you must tell them about the Emperor’s son, the Queen of Flowers, and the Triple Mantle. 3
Thus, people, like children, absorbed thought-forms with pleasure and joy, using their living imagination. Through the force of memory, they planted in souls landmarks, exemplary virtues and a kind of longing for a more meaningful interpretation of the same mysteries, being the premises of later spiritual science.
Steiner also tells how, since the time of the ancient Indians and as long as knowledge was kept secret, initiates had to learn the magical language of symbols. No importance was attached to linguistic expression. The symbolic revelations were the first images in which it was revealed to the Rosicrucians what they needed to know about the spiritual world. The brothers destined to recover these symbols from the spiritual world could only render them graphically, without being able to translate them into ordinary human language. Other brothers were then able to disseminate, experiment, interpret them, systematizing philosophers and theologians in step with the needs of the times.
The symbol of the cross itself has been updated over time, from its original form – Tau – metamorphosing into the Christian cross. It is as if, when the vertical of the letter T rises one head above its horizontal line, the new symbol of the cross appears, suggesting the vertical connection with the divine, through the head sanctuary. And from the center of this personal cross we see how, in time, a single rose blooms: the Rose of the self-conscious human being.
The rose now also signifies the flowering through the living knowledge of the inner soul, of the unfallen one. The Rose comes to symbolize not only the radiant love of the Divine Spirit, but also the awakened soul that reunites with it. The Way of the Rose symbolizes the feminine Way of the Heart: the opening of the heart to revelation through the experience of awareness of divine love.
The rose has become the greatest mystical symbol of the West, just as the lotus is of the East.
The Initiation of Christian Rosycross’s Individuality
The Rosicrucian spirit was therefore born from the need for primordial Wisdom to be constantly actualized in our soul and in our social world. When aware, Wisdom leads to unity, freedom, and love. Christian Rosycross was prepared in several previous lives to take it over in its entirety, being able to give it an intelligible and updated form. The update was aimed at: on the one hand, the cultural acquisitions of external knowledge, on the other hand, the meaning of Christic works, therefore Christian esotericism, given the adopted first name –Christian.
Here is Steiner’s testimony about who Christian Rosycross was, and what his initiation consisted of, perhaps the most important initiation ever made:
According to his esoteric vision, reproduced in GA 130, in the thirteenth century there was a period when a spiritual darkness suddenly set in for all people. There was then a college of 12 masters who had absorbed the entire amount of ancient wisdom and also the knowledge of their time. None of them could see directly into the spiritual world, but all of them were able to awaken in them the memory of what they had experienced through previous initiations. The seven sages were the reincarnation of the 7 Rishis who preserved the knowledge of Atlantis, along with what bore fruit from it. Another 4 represented what humanity had acquired as occult wisdom in the four post-Atlantean cultural periods. Finally, a 12th possessed all the intellectual knowledge of their time.
In this way it became possible to bring together all the worldviews, religious and scientific, representing 12 schools of thought. 4
The individuality to be initiated was the only one who had the understanding of Christ’s works: being the reincarnation of Lazarus, initiated directly by Christ, like John. John the Evangelist was the only apostle imbued with the truth of Christ’s works, since he alone had been present at the Mystery of Golgotha.
The College of Twelve Wise Men knew that at that time a child was to be born who had lived in Palestine at the time of the event of the incarnation of Christ, and who had been present at the Mystery of Golgotha. This individuality possessed an intense education of heart, had a special inner capacity for love. 5
This thirteenth had meanwhile developed in himself the deepest fervor and devotion. He had been born with a humble, pious, deeply mystical soul, and had been raised in the care and education of the twelve wise men, isolated from the rest of the world. He was a very fragile child, the intense education he received from the twelve had increased his spiritual powers, but had completely diminished his physical powers.
At some point, all interest in the physical world disappeared, he refused any food and fell as dead. For a few days, the twelve gathered around him at certain intervals of time and poured out upon him all the knowledge they possessed. Wisdom came out of their mouths through short formulas, like devotional prayers and entered the pure soul of the one who would be called Christian Rosenkreutz.
After a few days, a unique event occurred: his almost dead body became transparent and glowing. His soul was reborn as a new soul. He had undergone a great transformation, and the twelve masters of wisdom were now returning to the twelve wise men in a new form, marked by the event of the Resurrection. It was a repetition of Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus.
Within a few weeks, the thirteenth now reproduced all the wisdom it had received from the twelve, but in a new form. This new form was as if it had been given by Christ Himself. What he revealed to them was what the twelve called true Christianity, the synthesis of all religions. 6
Rudolf Steiner also says that this thirteenth died relatively young, but the fruit of his initiation was preserved within the spiritual atmosphere of the earth through his etheric body, of which nothing passed into the cosmic ether. The etheric body of this initiate, which remained intact, acted by its quality as a body of memory, inspiring the twelve who had recorded what he had revealed to them. In addition, he radiated upon his disciples who passed on this knowledge.
The earthly activity of Christian Rosycross and the mission assumed
All the powers of the wonderful body of the memory of individuality in the thirteenth century continued to operate in the world and then penetrated into the etheric body of the one reincarnated in the fourteenth century. In his proper incarnation, Christian Rosycross lived 106 years, from 1378 to 1484, among the descendants of the sages – but not isolated from the world.
When he was 28 years old, he was given the mission to travel beyond Europe. Having within him all the divine wisdom, fertilized by the great being of Christ, it would be easy for him to absorb the knowledge active on earth at that time.
First he went to Damascus, where the event that Paul had experienced there was repeated. He then traveled to Damcar, in southern Arabia, which in antiquity was called Arabia Felix: a land rich in gold, frankincense and myrrh. From here, at the birth of Jesus, the three kings come to Bethlehem.
This ancient land of wisdom and star worship belonged to the Queen of Sheba. Its symbol was that of the Holy Grail: the recumbent crescent, on which the sun’s disk rests. This is why true Rosicrucians are said to be followers of the mysteries of the Holy Grail.
Steiner remembers it as a symbol of the cosmic Sophia and we can find it today taken up in the icon of the Mother of God Ostrobramskaya.
The Fama records that in Arabia Felix, Christian learned physics and mathematics. After three years, he made his way back and passed through Egypt to Fez, Morocco, a place of flourishing culture in the Middle Ages. Here, he also absorbs a great deal of wisdom. He then returns to Germany. When he returned to Europe after seven years, his wisdom was not received in official schools. Steiner said that he accepted as disciples 7 of the most developed successors of the twelve, and founded the “Brotherhood of the Rosycross.”
Christian Rosicrucian received the initiation of Manes (Mani) in 1459, consisting in the true knowledge of the function of evil. He gained the power to work on the world in such a way that his own initiation would flow from his etheric body into the field of the Rosycross.
He then founded the “House of the Spirit” the Rosicrucian secret school for cultivating ancient wisdom in a form adapted to the needs of the times. Steiner explains in the same lecture GA 130/1 how, from that moment on, the individuality of Christian Rosycross has always been present as the leader of the Rosicrucian current, being active not only in the physical body, but above all spiritually, through powerful etheric forces. His etheric body was strengthened with each disciple who worked through it. As Rosicrucians, we appeal to his forces and allow ourselves to be permeated by his clarifying and uplifting etheric field.
His most important task at that time was to prepare the epoch of the soul of consciousness, on the basis of which man would eventually attain the highest possible development of freedom. But before performing the liberating act he must understand the role and action of the spirit, which is why the Rosicrucian initiation cultivates the understanding of the great mysteries.
But such freedom is always linked to the danger of misusing superior wisdom. Christian Rosycross, says Steiner, has taken upon himself the karma of this freedom of higher knowledge granted to humanity, including the consequences of its magical use in an egoistic, external sense, not for inner perfection, generated by the fact that people want to be offered the ready-made truth on a platter, not to win it through efforts, struggles and burning searches.
I have finally left an answer to the question that perhaps each of you has rightly asked: How did the German Dew metamorphose, over time, into the Latin Rose?
Here is an allegorical vision through which we can each get, meditatively, our own answer:
Let us go back in time to Atlantis, where everything that surrounds us is imbued with a sacred fluid: the fog and the wind, the music of the spheres and the voice of the earth, the rustle of life in the drip of the waters all proclaim the primordial Wisdom. Our heart is like a Grail cup into which diaphanous drops of dew fall, each carrying in its sphere essences of the Spirit.
After the waters swallowed us, we were reborn on land stretching our minds on the field of our hearts. Knowing ourselves and the outside, we then extracted essences ourselves: from understanding, from awareness of experiences. New clarifications were integrated into our souls, drop by drop, like new dew drops.
Thus, still dripping every morning of our days, the Dew of Heaven buried itself in the earthly human, died and was reborn as the Rose. The divine seed came to life within us. The heart, touched, remembers that it is full of the dew of its origins and opens up.
From its center the original soul is born: the baby Jesus. A pure rosebud comes to light, beautiful as the Sun. The new Sun soul illuminates our earthly soul, with time eclipsing it. The old man nourishes the New man from himself, saying: I must shrink myself in order for him to grow. He devotedly handed over to her the reins of destiny.
Then the divine spark ignites the fire of the Spirit. The Rose of the Spirit blooms solarly from the cross of destiny. The spiritual sun spreads its light, envelops and consumes purifyingly. Christ arises. The spiritual soul is translucent like a Rose made of dew drops. The rose clarified in the light of consciousness is like a transparent crystal.
The flowering Christ rose of the Earth is the Dew of Heaven returned, clarified, to itself.
***
The translucency of the spirit soul is the ultimate effect that the magnetic field of the school of the Rosycross produces on its pupils, consistent workers at their own spiritual temple. They are supported by the sacrificial forces of Christian Rosycross who prefigured this transfiguration, in his own initiation.
Steiner believes that true and authentic Rosicrucianism was, from its beginnings, only the subject of oral communication by those who swore to secrecy. That its essence has been preserved in the legend of the Temple, as a mystery that will be revealed to each one in their own way when they build their own inner temple.
The mission of the Rosicrucians to create a bridge between East and West in Central Europe through the up-to-date knowledge that unites antiquity with modernity can be found at the heart of the significance of the legend of the Temple. The building of the temple of the Spirit begins with the construction of the passage gate, presupposing the harmonization of the two poles of the existence of the Spirit in Matter: the East and the West, the inner knowledge with the outer one, the universal wisdom given from the origins with the particular wisdom acquired by each human being, working in their own temple, in which the heavenly Kingdom descends into its own earth and will no longer be taken from it.
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1 GA 124, conf 10/ Steiner, R: Backgrounds of the Gospel of Mark, Bucharest, Univers Enciclopedic Publishing House, 2022
2 GA 266/I / Steiner, R: esoteric lessons, Bucharest: Encyclopedic Universe Gold, 2014
3 GA 124, conf 10/ Steiner, R: Backgrounds of the Gospel of Mark, Bucharest, Univers Enciclopedic Publishing House, 2022
4 GA 130, conf 4/Steiner, R: Christian Rosenkreutz and his mission, Bucharest, Univers Enciclopedic Gold, 2011
5 GA 130, conf 4/Steiner, R: Christian Rosenkreutz and his mission, Bucharest, Univers Enciclopedic Gold, 2011
6 GA 130, conf 4/Steiner, R: Christian Rosenkreutz and his mission, Bucharest, Univers Enciclopedic Gold, 2011
