Freemasonry and Ritual Work: The Misraim Service »

Rudolf Steiner (Feb. 27, 1861-Mar. 30, 1925) was born in Kraljevic, Austria, where he grew up the son of a railroad station chief. As a young man, he lived in Weimar and Berlin, where he became a respected and well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar, known especially for his work with Goethe's scientific writings. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he began to develop his earlier philosophical principles into an approach to systematic research into psychological and spiritual phenomena.
Formally beginning his spiritual teaching career under the auspices of the Theosophical Society, Steiner came to use the term Anthroposophy, or spiritual science, for his philosophy, spiritual research, and its results.
The influence of Steiner's multifaceted genius has led to innovative and holistic approaches in holistic medicine and therapies, philosophy, religious renewal, Waldorf education, education for special needs (including the Camphill Village movement), threefold economics, biodynamic agriculture, Goethean science, architecture, and the arts of drama, speech, and eurythmy.
In 1924, Rudolf Steiner founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world. He died in Dornach, Switzerland.

Alongside the Esoteric Section, Rudolf Steiner created the "Cognitive Ritual Section," an order connected to Masonic tradition, but independent and Inspired by Anthroposophy. This astonishing volume contains the rituals, lectures, meditations, and other instructions Steiner gave to students and members of the esoteric school.

As he began to establish his esoteric mission, Rudolf Steiner chose to connect his spiritual goals and efforts with the wisdom streams that had prepared the ground for his task. For the sake of conscience, gratitude, and continuity, he determined to acknowledge those who preceded him and to relate himself to them in his characteristically free, creative, conscious, and independent way.

Steiner also understood that ritual was central, even necessary, as the essence of embodied spiritual work. For this reason, he saw Freemasonry as the preeminent spiritual, non-sectarian, communitarian paradigm. He knew, too, that Freemasonry, though it appeared hollow, was perhaps the main repository of esoteric, ritual tradition and initiation remaining in the West. Most of the guiding spirits in the recent Western development had been Masons, including Goethe, Herder, Lessing, the founders of the United States, as well as Madame Blavatsky and the other great esotericists of the nineteenth century.

Although he never "became" a Mason, in 1904 the "Great Orient of the Scottish A & A Thirty-Three Degree Rite of the Order of the Ancient Freemasons of the Memphis-Misraim Rite" granted Rudolf Steiner-based on his self-evident, extraordinary initiatory status-a patent to direct his own "order" under the name "Mystica Aeterna." He received his charter from TheodoreReuss of the Ordo Templum Orientalis or O.T.O. Nevertheless, Steiner was never a member of, nor did he have any involvement with, the O.T.O. Reuss had received permission to operate the Memphis-Misraim rite from John Yarker, who, some twenty years previously, had initiated Madame Blavatsky into the same Order.

In time, Mystica Aeterna became the "Cognitive Cultic Section" (also called the "Misraim Service") of the Esoteric School of the German Section of the Theosophical Society; this is the subject of this book. The "Masonic" phase in Rudolf Steiner's life and work passed, but in many ways it remains-transformed and alive-in Anthroposophy as he handed it down to us today.

There are numerous fictional and superficial books available on Freemasonry, but this unusual volume reveals the deep, esoteric nature of true Masonic rituals and practices and how they form some of the roots of Anthroposophy.