The Mysteries fi 165
scribed by Leadbeater, on the basis of his own clairvoyant vision of the
past, as the most splendid known to humanity, a religion occupied not
with thoughts of personal salvation but with the desire to be a useful
agent of divine power. At the same time the mysteries-of which
Leadbeater considers Freemasonry to be the direct descendant-were
devoted to the hidden work of pouring out spiritual force upon all the
people, a feat accomplished through a few Grand Lodges in the prin-
cipal cities, whose aim was to flood the kingdom with "the Hidden
Light."
Then, by 3100 B.c.E., the world entered what the Hindus call the
age of KaliYuga, or dark age, computed by Steiner to have lasted until
the turn of the twentieth century c.E., dark because direct perception
of the spiritual worlds had become almost wholly extinct, surviving
kronly in a very small number of initiates. By the end of the Old King-
dom even the pharaohs appear to have lost this inspiration. Spiritual
knowledge remained locked up within the Egyptian mysteries, but
even they, says Steiner, could no longer be fully understood, even by
the priests and the initiates.
Moses, a Hebrew, brought up in the household of the Egyptian
pharaoh, born about 1400 B.C.E. as the sun moved into Aries, could still
be initiated into the mysteries. But by Moses'time the ancient Egyptian
clairvoyance, says Steiner, had disappeared. This was considered an es-
sential step in the development of human freedom. So long as people
had actual perception of the spiritual world and knew they were guided
by higher beings, they could not be truly free.The spiritual worlds were
required to be darkened. "Clairvoyance could still be acquired by initi-
ation into the mysteries, but by the middle of the second dennium
B.C.E. decadence had set in, with corruption giving rise to all hnds of
magical rites and practices. While ordinary people were given the truths
of their religion in the form of myths, what lay behind these myths was
revealed only to initiates who kept them secret."
Throughout Greek history two different forms of religion coex-
: ' isted: the mystpries, with their secret teachings imparted only to the
initiate, and the popular religion with its myths, which did not contra-
dict the mystery teachings but did not reveal their true content.Via