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the Egyptians had developed the clairvoyant gifts to a high degree, so that many of their
pupils could look back clairvoyantly into those most ancient times. The Egyptian initiate
had a direct connection with those mysteries, hence the Greek priests seemed to him to be
only childish stammerers. This is illustrated by the words that an Egyptian priest once
spoke to Solon,  O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes remain always children, and there is not
an old man among you. In spirit you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down
among you from ancient tradition, nor any science that is hoary with age. Thus did the
Egyptian point out that his wisdom stood infinitely far above anything that can be
experienced materially. Only in the Eleusinian mysteries did the Greeks progress equally
far, but only a few participated in them.
In his study of earth-evolution, the Egyptian initiate saw that the god Osiris had separated
himself from the sun and had gone to the moon, whence he reflected the light of the sun.
What this god did was also sacred to the Greeks. They too knew that it was this god,
Osiris, who formed the twenty-eight moon-aspects, and thereby laid the groundwork for
the twenty-eight nerves in man. Through Osiris, the nervous system is built onto the
spinal column, thereby forming the whole upper body of man. For what appears as
muscle can maintain its form only because the nerves are its shapers. All we have as
muscles, cartilage, and other organs such as heart and lungs, maintains its form only
through the nerves. Thus through the earlier sun-activity appeared what took form as
brain and spinal column, and on this spinal column the twenty-eight aspects of Isis and
Osiris work from outside. Isis and Osiris are the shapers of all this, and in the tentacles
that the brain sends down into the spinal column, Osiris works upon the spine. The
Greeks experienced this also, and as they became acquainted with the Egyptian mysteries
they recognized that Osiris was the same as the god whom they called Apollo. They said
that the Egyptian Osiris was Apollo, and that, like Osiris, Apollo worked upon the nerves
so as to achieve a soul-life within man.
Now in a simple way, let us try to view this formation. Let us think of the brain as it
might be sketched. This continues itself into the spine, and there the twenty-eight arms of
Osiris enter in; there Osiris with his twenty-eight hands plays upon the spine as upon a
lyre. The Greeks had a significant image for this  the lyre of Apollo. We need only
think of it as transposed. The lyre is the brain, the nerves are the strings on which the
hands of Apollo play. Apollo plays on the cosmic-lyre, on the mighty work of art that the
cosmos has formed, and that causes to resound in man the tones that compose his soul
life. For the Eleusinian initiate, this was what the Egyptians had given in their pictures.
From such a picture we can see that these things should not be expounded too rigidly, or
we shall merely be forcing fantasies into them. For as a rule, our experience should be
that these pictures are actually much deeper than anything we can dream into them by
means of the intellect. If the Greek clairvoyant spoke of Apollo, he had before his mind
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the mystery of Osiris-Apollo and the human musical instrument. Osiris stood before the
Egyptian pupil when he was initiated into the mysteries of earth-existence. Thus we must
say that these symbols, these pictures, which have been preserved for us and which
characterize what has been taken from the primeval mysteries, mean much more than can
be expounded by the intellect. This lyre was seen, the hands of Apollo were seen. The
important thing is that we should relate every symbol to some actual vision, to something
really seen. There are no symbols, no legends, that have not first been seen.
The Egyptian pupil could penetrate to such mysteries only after a long time. He was first
prepared through a definite course of instruction, which was somewhat similar to basic
theosophy. Then only was he admitted to the real exercises. There he experienced a sort
of ecstatic condition which, although not yet true clairvoyance, was more than a dream.
In this condition he beheld what he was later to see in the form of pictures. The pupil
actually beheld in a mighty living dream the departure of the moon, and of Osiris with it,
and Osiris's working upon the earth from the moon. He dreamed the Osiris-Isis legend. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]