Initiate

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An initiate (Greek: Τελέστης Telestes, from τελεῖται teleitai "to reach a goal", "to improve", from Greek: τέλος telos "goal"; also Greek: εποπται epoptai "eyewitness, seer"[1]) is able, by virtue of the path of training he has followed and the initiation (from Latin: initium "entrance, beginning, start") thereby achieved, to recognise the laws of the spiritual world. This ability is based on inspiration, through which the spiritual world expresses itself about its nature. The initiate does not necessarily have to know the spiritual worlds first-hand like a clairvoyant, i.e. he does not necessarily have to have fully developed the ability of imagination.

Clairvoyants and Initiates

In the ancient Mysteries there was a strict separation between clairvoyants and initiates. Today this strict separation can no longer be carried out. Now it is necessary that everyone who has attained a certain degree of initiation should at least also be given the opportunity to attain a certain degree of clairvoyance. The reason for this is that in our time it is not possible to establish the great complete trust from person to person that existed as a matter of course in ancient times. Today everyone wants to know and see for himself.

„Now he who, without being clairvoyant himself, sees everything that secret science has to say, is an initiate. But he who can enter into these worlds, which we call the invisible, is a clairvoyant. In ancient times, which are not so long behind us, there was a strict separation between clairvoyants and initiates in the secret schools. One could ascend to the knowledge of the higher worlds as an initiate without being a clairvoyant, if one only used the mind in the right way. On the other hand, one could be a clairvoyant without being initiated to a particularly high degree. It will become clear to you how this is meant. Think of two people, a very learned gentleman who knows all sorts of things that physics and physiology have to say about light and the phenomena of light, but is so short-sighted that he can hardly see ten centimetres away: he does not see much, but he is initiated into the laws of the working of light. Thus one may be initiated into the super-sensible world and see badly in it. Another can see excellently in the outer sensuous world, but know next to nothing of what the learned master knows. Thus there can also be clairvoyants before whose spiritual eyes the spiritual worlds lie open. They can see into the spiritual world, but have no science, no knowledge of it. For a long time, therefore, a distinction was made between the clairvoyant and the initiate. In order to embrace the fullness of life, one often needed not one but many people. Some were not made clairvoyant in order to progress. Others were made spiritual eyes and ears. That which existed in secret science came about through communication and exchange of ideas between secret scientists and clairvoyants.

In our time this strict separation between clairvoyants and initiates cannot be carried out at all. Today it is necessary that everyone who has attained a certain degree of initiation should at least also be given the possibility of attaining a certain degree of clairvoyance. The reason for this is that in our time it is not possible to establish complete trust between people. Today everyone wants to know and see for himself. That deep, devoted faith which formerly prevailed from man to man made it possible that there was a special kind of clairvoyant from whom one heard what they perceived in the higher worlds. Others then systematically arranged what they had perceived. Today a kind of harmony has been created in the development of the abilities of the initiate and the clairvoyant. Therefore a third, the adeptship, can today recede very strongly.“ (Lit.:GA 56, p. 26f)

Even higher than the initiate is the adept, who not only knows how to recognise the powers of the spiritual world, but also how to handle them effectively.

Initiation in the pre-Christian and Christian Mysteries

„Man must be so prepared that during ordinary daily life he does those exercises prescribed by the schools of initiation, meditation, concentration and so on. These exercises are basically the same in all schools of initiation as far as their importance for man is concerned. They are only a little different from each other in that the further back we go into the pre-Christian schools of initiation, the more they are directed towards exercising, training the thinking, the powers of thought. The more we approach the Christian times, the more they are directed towards training the powers of feeling, and the nearer we come to the more recent times, the more we see how in the so-called Rosicrucian schools, conditioned by the demands and needs of humanity, a special kind of culture of the will, of exercises of the will, is introduced.“ (Lit.:GA 104, p. 53)

In order to become a part of the initiation, the student of the spirit had to go through mystical death after this preparation, as Plutarch (born around 45 in Chaironeia; † around 125) already described it in a hint. Through death, he says, the soul returns to the whole:

„Of this the soul has no knowledge at all as long as it lives here; only after death does it attain to it, and then the very change takes place with it which those experience who are initiated into the great mysteries[2]. Hence it is that the words which mean to die and to be initiated[3] are, like the thing itself, very similar to each other. The first thing that comes to us in this life is a tiring and arduous wandering, a restless running through dark, ghastly ways. Even then, when we think we have reached the end, all kinds of horrors, fear, anxiety, deathly sweat and senseless stupefaction still await us. Finally, however, a wonderful light suddenly shimmers towards us. We now enter the most graceful realms, where joyful songs and dances reign everywhere, where eye and ear are delighted by the holiest, most sublime objects. Here the accomplished, the initiate, freed of all bonds, walks about in full freedom, celebrates the holiest mysteries adorned with wreaths, enjoys the company of pious and righteous people, and looks down with regret on the unsanctified and impure multitude of those who still prowl fearfully here on earth in mud and mist, and persist in their miserable state partly out of fear of death, partly out of distrust of the bliss of the other world.“

– w:Plutarch: Moral Treatises 5

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ In the Mysteries of Eleusis, the third and final stage of the initiatory path was called epoptai.
  2. ↑ To die is in fact Greek: τελευτᾷν teleutan and to be initiated Template:Polytonic teleitai. Both come from one root word.
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