Wotan Impulse

Wotan is another name for the Atlantean adept and archangelic spiritual being also known as Buddha, who - in the Current Postatlantean epoch - descended into the physical body of the founder of the druidic mysteries called Sig (see Spiritual guidance of mankind#Sig - Wotan) and afterwards rose as a Bodhisattva to the level of Dhyani Buddha.

The Wotan Impulse refers to the first entry of intellectualism in the European culture of the Northern stream of development in the current fifth Postatlantean epoch. The Northern stream had been waiting and preparing for the current fifth cultural age of the consciousness soul and the fructification by the Christ impulse, see Two streams of development (eg Schema FMC00.438 and Schema FMC00.476)

The Wotan Impulse added the Mercury mysteries to the Sun and Moon mysteries of the Druidic and Trotten Mysteries. The impulse was initiated from the Colchis Mysteries near the Black Sea and spread from the East moving and West, colonizing as the Wotan-Mercury influence was carried westward. (1923-09-10-GA228). The being of Wotan is the same as the Buddha, see below.

It can be deduced, though Rudolf Steiner does not put it like this literally, that this impulse from the Colchis Mysteries went both to the Northern stream as to Greece, part of the Southern stream, and that this happened in the fourth cultural age of the intellectual soul. See Schema FMC00.437 and more on: Colchis Mysteries#Note 1 - The addition of the intellectual component into the Mysteries

Positioning the influences of Wotan-Buddha

Aspects

name: Rudolf Steiner lists the following names for the same being: Wotan, Wodha, Woden, Woten, Odin

nature of the being

"the etheric body of the historic Buddha had been taken possession of by a god, namely Wotan" (1908-08-16-GA105) linking this god to the Dhyani Buddha, see more on the topic page: Three classes of Buddhas#1908-08-16-GA105 (or Discussion Note 2 on that page for positioning)
Wotan or Odin is the creator of human speech, an abnormal archangel who renounced higher development (so: a Bodhisattva, see Schema FMC00.313). People perceived him as working macrocosmically in the wind (see Schema FMC00.473) . Also his companions Vili and Ve are abnormal archangels. (1910-06-14-GA121)
in Germanic mythology
- Wotan, Ve, and Wili are the archangelic influences (amshaspands in Persian mythology) that gave the human astral bo dythe faculties of Thinki ng Feeling Willing by working into the human head through the twelve main cerebral nerves (1907-10-28-GA101)
- Wotan's initiations: (1905-03-22-GA90B, see Germanic mythology#1905-03-22-GA90B)

timing

timing
- At the same time as the period of the Jewish prophets in the centuries before Christ [see eg The being of Elijah], we find here indications of a great, primeval, Atlantean initiate. Wod-Wodha-Odin. (1905-11-05-GA093A). The individuality known as Wotan is the same who appeared later as the Buddha (1908-08-14-GA105)
- See Colchis Mysteries: "On the shores of the Black Sea there existed an occult school which lasted far into the Christian era. They were instructed in the doctrines and principles which had proceeded from Buddhism, but these were permeated by the impulses which came into the world through Christianity".

impulse

like "a modernised Atlantis, in a new form, an atavism, a throwback into the Atlantean Age" both in the North (at the same time as the epoch of the Jewish Prophets, in the centuries before Christ ), as in Asia ("Buddhism appears as a throwback into the Atlantean Age." .. in Tibet, there we have a modern, monumental expression of Atlantean culture.") (1905-11-05-GA093A)
Wotan is described as the bringer of the Runes, the Runic art of writing (1923-09-10-GA228)
- Runes were a symbolic and phonetic written language and predecessor of current alphabets, used to write various Germanic languages before adoption of the Latin alphabet. In addition to being a writing system, runes served purposes of magic.
  - In the 20th century there was a small revival of rune magic in Germany mainly through three individuals (von List, Kummer, Spiesberger - see Further reading section below). Franz Bardon (an Individuality said to be teacher of initiation and magic for millenia) was in contact with Kummer (as he explored what was available and disclosed about this ancient and veiled system) as part of his surveys into 20th century magical practices.

other

the term 'Wotan-Element' (for spirit and life) is also used for the qualities of the Northern ('life') stream (re: Two streams of development) and required for developing I-consciousness after merging with the Southern ('wisdom') stream (1915-07-24-GA162)
see also: Yggdrasil and Germanic mythology

Inspirational quotes

1915-07-24-GA162

in context of Two streams of development and the merging as described on Central European cultural basin

If the southern regions had remained populated by descendants of the old Romans, and the Latin culture had gone on working in them, they would have faced the danger of completely losing the power of developing an I-consciousness. ... The blood of Ostrogoths and Lombardi as well as Norman blood absorbed the withering Latin culture. If the population had remained Romans they would have faced the danger of never being able to develop the element of the Consciousness-soul. Thus there went to the south in the Langobardi and the Ostrogoths what we can call the Wotan-Element, Spirit and Life. The Wotan-Element was, so to say, carried in the blood of the Langobardi and Ostrogoths and this made the further evolution and unfoldment of this southern civilisation possible.

1923-09-10-GA228

Then into all this there spread from the East, to begin with from a Mystery in the region of the Black Sea, what is now contained as an insoluble riddle for the ordinary consciousness in the Norse Mythology, associated with the name of Wotan. ... The Mystery from which this Wotan culture proceeded was a Mercury Mystery, a Mystery that added to the impulses of Sun and Moon the impulse of Mercury. From thence they now spread, colonizing, towards the West. Wotan-Mercury carried his influence westward.
Here at the same time we have thrown light upon the fact that Wotan is described as the bringer of the Runes, the Runic art of writing. He was the bringer of what Man drew forth from himself in the first primitive way of intellectuality as an art of deciphering the universe. This is the very first entry of intellectualism, the Wotan impulse. Thus one might say that the Mercury, the Wotan-nature, was now added to the Sun-and Moon-natures.
Wherever this Wotan impulse worked itself out fully, everything that was present from earlier experiences was influenced by it. It all received a certain impulse from this Wotan element.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.437 provides a simple overview positioning key Mysteries of the Northern stream, with - in red - a few of the important Mystery Centers as described by Rudolf Steiner (see quotes and references on the right). The dotted line represents the Southern stream in the fourth cultural age of the current Postatlantean epoch. The arrows represent the impulse for the age of the intellectual soul coming from the Colchis Mysteries (to both south and north).

Schema FMC00.430: is a drawing made by Rudolf Steiner, recorded by Mathilde Scholl in a private conversation where she asked Rudolf Steiner how the aftereffects of an important Individuality such as the apostle Paul were related to the effects of the Earth's inner layer called the 'shatterer'. See also Schema FMC00.004 on Earth's inner layers.

More comments under the 1905-08-13-GA091 and Holy Supper symbolism - apostles#Note 2 - The Apostles and the Christ - Schema FMC00.430

For another example of what is depicted, see Sig-Wotan on Spiritual guidance of mankind#Sig - Wotan

is a drawing made by Rudolf Steiner, recorded by Mathilde Scholl in a private conversation where she asked Rudolf Steiner how the aftereffects of an important Individuality such as the apostle Paul were related to the effects of the Earth's inner layer called the 'shatterer'. See also Schema FMC00.004 on Earth's inner layers. More comments under the 1905-08-13-GA091 and Holy Supper symbolism - apostles#Note 2 - The Apostles and the Christ - Schema FMC00.430 For another example of what is depicted, see Sig-Wotan on Spiritual guidance of mankind#Sig - Wotan

Schema FMC00.377A: is an alternative presentation of Schema FMC00.377 showing various steps for the coordinated guidance of the development of the I, with the three pre-MoG interventions of the Christ, the preparatory working of the Krishna impulse and the being of Elijah, and the great enactment by Christ-Jesus and John the Baptist where the Adam sister soul worked as part of Christ-Jesus' structure and also 'from outside'.

The same colour code mapping is used for the green and blue streams as in Schema FMC00.377. The dark green box connecting John the Baptist and Nathan Jesus refers to 1912-09-19-GA139 and Schema FMC00.381.

See also related (but not yet on this schema): Wotan Impulse

is an alternative presentation of Schema FMC00.377 showing various steps for the coordinated guidance of the development of the I, with the three pre-MoG interventions of the Christ, the preparatory working of the Krishna impulse and the being of Elijah, and the great enactment by Christ-Jesus and John the Baptist where the Adam sister soul worked as part of Christ-Jesus' structure and also 'from outside'. The same colour code mapping is used for the green and blue streams as in Schema FMC00.377. The dark green box connecting John the Baptist and Nathan Jesus refers to 1912-09-19-GA139 and Schema FMC00.381. See also related (but not yet on this schema): Wotan Impulse

Lecture coverage and references

1904-10-21-GA092

Wotan was an initiate of the northern peoples. He is none other than the bearer of the elements of Atlantean culture into these parts. Everywhere in these northern regions the Druid initiation was still practised.
I have already said that one of its founders, one can say its chief founder, was named Sieg.
And in these northern parts something happened rather like what happened later in Palestine at the Foundation of Christianity. Sieg renounced his body and placed it at the disposal of a higher Individuality. Hence later the transformed Sieg was named Odin.

Odin is the highest initiate of the northern Mysteries. He is the bearer of the spiritual culture of that time.

Sieg was the Chela of the north who placed his body at the disposal of the higher, more spiritual Odin. He himself lived later as an initiate Master. Sieg is a quite special case. He is not able to introduce a movement as Master Jesus did after the foundation of Christianity. Sieg had to lead this northern culture to its downfall. He is called upon to guide the northern peoples until the fifth cultural age of the fifth root-race reached them from the south. The ancient Chela Sieg is the one who had to lead the northern peoples into tragedy.

...
I must draw attention to one feature which we always find in such a situation in human evolution. Before a new phase takes root the earlier phases of evolution have to undergo a brief repetition. This repetition is plainly to be seen in the north. We are shown how all that has been experienced here in the north since the time of Lemuria and Atlantis has to be overcome before these northern nations will become mature, will really develop up to the level of the Christianised fifth cultural age. He in whom all that lives is the initiate Siegfried.
...
Thus you have four levels which come one after another.

First you have Wotan, who comes over from Atlantean times; then Odin.

Wotan corresponds with what develops during the second cultural age of the fifth root-race.

The last before Siegfried is Balder, the sun-hero. He corresponds with what develops in the Chaldean-Babylonian-Assyrian epoch. But whereas what developed in the south is an ascending, a progressive culture, here in the north we find a mood of suspense, of expectancy, of waiting for something to happen

Then we come down from god to Man; and while the southern cultural age developed further, Siegfried became the initiator of this culture of suspense. It is steeped in tragedy. Because this northern culture is coming to an end you have the tragic deaths of Baldur, of Siegfried.

1905-03-22-GA90B

... there was this fellowship of twelve great Initiates. The thirteenth was their leader, but at that stage he was not yet more advanced as the other twelve. This initiate was called Sige or Sig. At a certain age, he was able to leave his own Individuality to a higher Individuality, so to take into himself a higher Individuality. This is one of the highest mysteries, it also happens with Christ descending into Jesus at the Baptism. The Individuality of Sig was exchanged for the Individuality of Odin or Wotan, who already lived in the Atlantean epoch as a great adept.

1905-11-05-GA093A

Now here in the North, everything that has remained from earlier times took on a more established form. At the same time as the epoch of the Jewish Prophets, in the centuries before Christ, we find here indications of a great, primeval, Atlantean initiate. Wod-Wodha-Odin. This is a modernised Atlantis, in a new form, an atavism, a throwback into the Atlantean Age.
.
And this happens everywhere, over in Asia also. In Asia W, the sound V, becomes B, Wodha = Bodha = Buddha. Buddhism appears as a throwback into the Atlantean Age. This is why we find Buddhism most widespread with what has remained over from the Atlanteans in the Mongolian peoples. And where the very pillars of its greatness make their appearance in Tibet, there we have a modern, monumental expression of Atlantean culture.

see more: Druidic and Trotten mysteries#1905-11-05-GA093A

1907-10-28-GA101

Wotan, Ve, and Wili are the divine forces that gave the human astral body, Thinking Feeling Willing to the still plant-like human bodies.

According to Germanic mythology, they created the first human couple, Ask and Embla, and endowed them with

mind (Wotan),
with figure, intellect, movement (Wili)
and with countenance, hearing and seeing (Ve).

These forces correspond with the amshaspands of Persian mythology (see also: Nerve-sense subsystem#nervous system: the twelve main cerebral nerves or Amshaspands through which the archangels worked into the human head)

1908-09-12-GA106

Already in Atlantis we meet beings who were among men as our fellows are today, but whom man saw and learned to know when he was in the spiritual world, severed from the body. We have already pointed out how Man learned to know Thor, Zeus, Wotan, Baldur as actual companions. By day he lived in the physical world, but in the other condition of consciousness he learned to know spiritual beings who were going through a stage of evolution different from his. In this primeval period of the earth man did not yet have so solid a body as today; there was as yet nothing like a bony skeleton. The Atlantean body could be seen with physical eyes only to a certain extent.
But there were beings who descended only so far as to incarnate in an etheric body. Then there were beings who still embodied themselves at that time, when the air was permeated by water-vapors. When man still lived in the water-fog atmosphere, these incarnations were possible for them. Such a figure was the later Wotan, for example. He said to himself, “If man incarnates in this fluid matter, then I can also.” Such a being assumed a human form and moved about in the physical world.
But as the Earth condensed and Man took on ever denser forms, Wotan said, “No, I shall not go into this dense matter.” Then he remained in invisible worlds, in worlds removed from the earth. This was the general case with the divine spiritual beings. But from then on, they could do something else. They could enter into a sort of connection with men who approached them, who evolved upward from below. We may imagine it thus. Man's evolutionary course was such that he was approaching his lowest point of development. Up to this point the gods had proceeded in company with men. Now they took another path, which was invisible for men on the physical plane. But men who lived according to the directions of the initiates, thereby purifying their finer bodies, approached them in a certain way. A man who was incarnated in the flesh, if he purified himself, could do this in such a way that he could be overshadowed by such a being, who could not descend as far as the physical body. The physical body would have been too coarse for such a being. The result for such a man was that the astral and etheric bodies were permeated by a higher being, which had no other human form for itself but could enter into another being and proclaim itself through this other being.
When we are familiar with this phenomenon, we shall not regard incarnation as such a simple matter. There can perfectly well be a person who is the reincarnation of an earlier man, who has developed himself so far and purified his three bodies to such an extent that he is now a vessel for a higher being. Buddha became such a vessel for Wotan. The same being who was called Wotan in the Germanic myths, appeared again as Buddha. Buddha and Wotan are even related linguistically.
So we can say that much of what was in the mysteries of the Atlantean time continued in what the Buddha was able to announce. This is in harmony with the fact that what the Buddha experienced is something that the gods had experienced in those spiritual spheres, and that men also had experienced when they were still in those spheres. As the teaching of Wotan thus appeared again, it was a doctrine that paid little attention to the physical plane, emphasizing that the physical plane is a place of woe, and that redemption from it is important. Much of the Wotan-being spoke in the Buddha.

Hence it is that stragglers from Atlantis have shown the deepest understanding for the Buddha-teaching. Among the Asiatic population there are races that have remained at the Atlantean level, although externally they must, of course, move ahead with the earth evolution. Among the Mongolian peoples much of Atlantis has remained. They are stragglers from the old population of Atlantis. The stationary character in the Mongolian population is a heritage from Atlantis. Therefore the teachings of the Buddha are especially serviceable to such peoples, and Buddhism has made great strides among them.

1908-08-14-GA105

[Ragnarok]
Consciousness between death and rebirth darkened more and more, though it was never lost completely; it was never extinguished, though it grew dim. The more affection man developed for the sensible physical world, the more he had to content himself with the vision of lower beings, and the less communion could higher beings have with him. All the beings who were his good companions during the Atlantean epoch, when he was still clairvoyant, disappeared, especially in the period between death and rebirth, and gradually the connecting link between man and those ancient Gods was lost.
We know that remnants of ancient clairvoyance endured up to the later ages of European culture; that there were some people who in certain states of consciousness could still rise to the vision of the Gods. Such people also enjoyed a more vivid communion with the Gods after death; they had a more intimate life with them. Such a communion was good not only for men but also for the Gods, for man takes up with him the love he has won in the physical world; the Gods received back from him as a sacrificial offering that which as love he had acquired in the physical world. Men, however, grew ever less and less fitted for this communion with the Gods, because their love for the physical world continually increased. The souls of those dwelling in the districts from which the Germanic peoples have since sprung gradually participated less and less in the vision of the Gods, so that they had little fellowship with them between death and rebirth. Through this an idea developed that the Gods were losing their connection with the earth which they had themselves created, and losing also their rulership over it.
This feeling gave rise to the conception of the “Twilight of the Gods.”This is the actual foundation of the drama. It was felt that the Gods had to withdraw from the world they had themselves created. The Gods who, even as late as the Atlantean epoch, had descended into the bodies of the most advanced human beings and had taught them important secrets in the Mysteries were obliged gradually to withdraw, and they could only come in touch with the physical world by using the more advanced human beings as their instruments or vehicles.
[Sig]
This actually happened in the Atlantean epoch; and those who were initiated into the ancient Druidic Mysteries knew, that an ancient Atlantean individuality known as Sig appeared for long after the Atlantean catastrophe in many different ways in European bodies.
All such names as Siegfried and Sigurd preserve exoterically the remembrance of the repeated appearances of this Individuality who was finally only perceptible to those who had been initiated into the Mysteries. He united himself with high Initiates, and it became more and more necessary, the nearer we approach our age, for him to seek out those who had already gone through many, incarnations in which they had purified themselves.
Now, in order that we may understand our age, it is necessary to touch the fringe of a great mystery which throws light on much that had taken place in our time.
Let us turn once more to the middle of the Atlantean epoch, when the physical world was first disclosed to man. A sort of parting of the ways then took place for the Gods — those who had been the ancient companions of men in higher realms. Coming from spiritual heights man had plunged deeper and deeper into the physical world.
...
This point (which lies in the middle of the Atlantean epoch) was an important parting of the ways for certain spiritual beings. They had then to decide whether they would sink into a kind of abyss from which they would rise again later all the stronger (for through their fall they would have developed greater powers) or whether they would take the direct way.
Certain spiritual beings, those who had formerly been the companions of Man, took the direct way; they decided never again to enter human bodies, but to remain in the realms of the spirit. The subsequent development of humanity passed them by with hardly a trace.
There were, on the other hand, other divine beings, a number of whom have been preserved in the memory of the people of Europe and elsewhere under such names as Zeus, Wotan, etc.; they decided, for the salvation of humanity, to descend again and again into human bodies, that they might work for humanity. It was not possible for all of them to descend to the same extent, for through Man having entered so deeply into the physical world human bodies became ever less suitable instruments for divine beings.
Only those men who had purified their bodies in a certain way, who throughout the course of many incarnations had developed such noble etheric and physical bodies that they had completely banished from their souls certain connections with the physical world, who, through their whole disposition, had lived less in that which was of the earth than in that which was not of the Earth — only such men were still able to receive into themselves the souls of high spiritual beings as they would receive their own soul. So it happened that those into whom spiritual beings had entered could not, as it were, descend far enough into physical existence; they therefore held a very unique position in the world.
[Wotan]
Let us picture some such being, one who for many incarnations had developed the forces of his body, had won an inner victory over it so that he lived more in the spiritual than in the physical world, and was, on this account, fitted to be the vehicle of a higher being.
Was it possible for such a being to be fully understood by those who had descended completely into physical existence, who had developed a love for the physical world and strove to work on this physical plane? Would he not be better understood by those who had preserved the character of an earlier epoch, who were stragglers from an earlier epoch?
He could, in truth, be much better understood by these stragglers from the Atlantean epoch.
The Mongolian peoples have not descended so deeply, nor have they entangled themselves so much in the physical plane nor done so much towards its conquest as the people of Europe. We see that external physical civilization is accomplished by western nations rather than by the stragglers from Atlantean civilization who had remained stationary, and were therefore not at home in a world of Postatlantean development, because they had retained certain qualities and had then degenerated.
It is often pointed out that the Japanese are going through a significant development today through the qualities of their own character. This is an illusion. They are not developing through the force of their own qualities. In the last war against Russia they conquered with the help of battleships and cannon invented by Europeans; they made use of a foreign civilization. It is only progressive development when a people develops from out its own being. It is on this that development depends.
Spiritual individualities who were still the companions of men in the Atlantean epoch could be understood better by nations who had in a certain way remained stationary, and who represented, in a later epoch, conditions beyond which the people of Europe had developed because of their individual self-consciousness and feeling for freedom. Hence the teaching of these spiritual individualities had to be directed to such people, and we see here the consummation of a great mystery.
We see beings who, when the people of Europe were at an earlier stage of evolution, were fully understood, incarnating and appearing later as teachers in the schools of initiation, and on this account being honoured as Gods.
We see Wotan, who had previously dwelt as an Initiate in a human body and taught in the Mysteries, being able, because he had not descended so deeply, to incarnate in a nation which, in a certain way, was backward, and on this account had preserved a feeling for the nothingness of the physical plane, of its unworthiness as an expression of the Deity, who looked on it as a place of sorrow and pain, and who held that the only real bliss was in leaving it.
This individuality, known as Wotan and who had taught in the Mysteries of the Germanic peoples, is the same who appeared later as the Buddha, and with the same mission.
Buddha, who mediated between our world and the higher worlds, is the same individuality who passed over Europe and is remembered there under the name of Wotan.
We see from this how those people who had preserved certain tendencies and connections with earlier conditions were provided for. Knowing this, the historical fact of the good reception Buddhism received among the Mongolian peoples is comprehensible, and entirely in accordance with the wise guidance of Man.
As humanity had to conquer the physical plane more and more, it was no longer possible, in a later age, for such spiritual beings to incarnate directly in a physical body. It required a mightier spiritual being to do this, One who had been foretold by all the earlier teachers. Even the ancient Egyptians when they spoke of Osiris recalled their connection with the ancient Spirit of the Sun, and said: “The kingdom of Osiris will be established again upon earth.”

1908-08-16-GA105

For we certainly know that what is regarded as the Dhyani-Buddha is nothing but the etheric body of the historic Buddha that had been taken possession of by a god, namely the Individuality of whom we spoke yesterday, Wotan

1910-06-14-GA121

see: Ragnarok#1910-06-14-GA121

from RSH, on germanic mythology:

Odin or Wotan is an abnormal archangel who had renounced his higher development. He is the creator of human speech; people perceived him as working macrocosmically in the wind. Also his companions Vili and Ve are abnormal archangels.
Thor, one of the loftiest angels, who had renounced the higher ranks as well, was seen active in the warmth and pulsation of the blood (Thor’s hammer) and macrocosmically in lightning and thunder.
The Vanir were the gods perceived in Atlantis who were detached by the Æsir (archangels and angels), leading the Germanic peoples from the late Atlantis and during the post-Atlantean epoch.

1912-05-29-GA155

for longer extract, see: Colchis Mysteries#1912-05-29-GA155

Connected with this development of the Bodhisattva up to Buddha, there was something else of which we must not lose sight, namely, the fact that the individuality which had passed through many incarnations as Bodhisattva and then risen to the rank of Buddha, when it became Buddha had to dwell for the last time in a physical body on Earth. Thus he who is raised from Bodhisattva to Buddha enters into an incarnation which for him is the last. From this time onwards, such an individuality only works down from spiritual heights, he still works, but only spiritually. Thus we now have the fact that the individuality of Buddha has only worked down from spiritual heights since the fifth century before Christ.
But, Buddhism continued. It was able to influence in a certain way not only Asiatic life, but the spiritual life of the whole of the then known world. You know how Buddhism spread in Asia. You know how great is the number of its followers there.
But in a more hidden and veiled form it also spread into the mental life of Europe; and we have particularly to point out that the portion of the great teaching of Buddha relating to the equality of Man was especially acceptable to the population of Europe, because this population was not arranged on the plan of caste divisions, but rather upon the idea of the equality of all human beings.
On the shores of the Black Sea there existed an occult school which lasted far into the Christian era.
This school was guided by certain human beings who set themselves as their highest ideal that part of the teaching of Buddha which we have just described, and through their having taken into themselves the Christian impulse along with it, were able in the early centuries of Christianity to throw new light upon what Buddha had given to humanity. If I were to describe to you this occult school on the Black Seas as the occultist or spiritual investigator sees it — and you will understand me best if I do this — I must do it in the following manner:
People, who to begin with had external teachers in the physical world, came together there. They were instructed in the doctrines and principles which had proceeded from Buddhism, but these were permeated by the impulses which came into the world through Christianity. Then, after the pupils had been sufficiently prepared, they were brought to where the deeper forces lying within them, the deeper forces of wisdom could be brought forth, so that they were led to clairvoyant vision of the spiritual world and were able to see into the spiritual worlds. The first thing attained by the pupils of this occult school, was, for example, the recognition of those who no longer descended to the physical plane. But this they could only do after they had been accustomed to it by the teachers incarnated in the physical body.

In this way they came to know Buddha. Thus, these occult pupils learned to know Buddha face to face, if one may so speak of his spiritual being.

1915-07-24-GA162

note: see also second sketch in Central European cultural basin#1924-03-15-GA353

from RSH

The difference between the Germanic and the biblical story of creation. The first does not know any luciferic temptation, indicates thus that in the Germanic current of peoples something is living (man/woman created by the threefold godhead Wotan, Wili, and Ve from an ash and an elm) what is shown by the tree of life in the Bible. As life (without knowledge) this current of peoples constitutes the substance of West-European and South-European nations, which are partially covered by the dying down Latin culture representing the last rest of oriental (luciferic) wisdom. Wotan, Wili, and Ve are the soul qualities, which are then living in the folk-souls of Italy (Wotan), France (Wili), and England (Ve) [see 121-14].

quote (SWCC)

There exists in Europe a legend concerning the origin of Man which is quite different from the one contained in the Bible. It has gone through later transformations no doubt, but its essentials are still to be recognised. Now the characteristic feature is not that this legend exists, but that it has been preserved longer in Europe than in other parts of the earth. But the important thing is that even while over in the Orient the Mystery of Golgotha had been accomplished, this different legend was still alive in the feelings of the inhabitants of Europe.
Here, too, we are led to a tree, or rather to trees, which were found on the shore of the sea by the gods Wotan, Wile and We. And men were formed from two trees, the Ash and the Elm.
[see also Schema FMC00.016 on Yggdrasil]
Thus men were created by the trinity of the gods, (although this was Christianized later, it yet points to the European original revelation) by fashioning the two trees into men:

Wotan gives men spirit and life;

Wile gives men movement and intelligence, and

We gives them the outer figure, speech, the power of sight and of hearing.

The very great difference that exists between this story of creation and that of the Bible is not usually observed—but you need only read the Bible—which is always a useful thing to do—and already in the first chapters you will remark the very great difference that exists between the two Creation legends. I should like but to point to one thing, and that is, according to the saga, a threefold divine nature flowed into Man. It must be something of a soul-nature that the Gods have laid within him, which expresses itself in his form and which in fact is derived from the Gods.
So:

In Europe, therefore, man was conscious that inasmuch as one moves about on Earth, one bears something divine within. In Europe Man is aware that in the human soul a threefold nature lives, that the Gods have sunk a force into the human soul.

In the Orient, on the contrary, one is conscious that one bears something Luciferic within one. Something is bound up with the eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which has even brought men death, something that has turned all men away from the Gods and for which they have earned divine punishment.

That is very significant.
One touches with this, as I have said, the edge of a great secret, a deep mystery.
But it will be readily understood: it looks as if in this ancient Europe a number of human beings had been preserved who had not been taken away from sharing in the Tree of Life, in whom there lived on, so to say, the tree or the trees of Life; ash and elm.
And with this the following fact stands in intimate harmony. European humanity (and if one goes back to the original European peoples this would be seen with great clarity in all details) actually had nothing of the higher, more far-reaching knowledge that men possessed in the Orient and in the Graeco-Latin world.
[see: Two streams of development]
[Northern stream]
One should imagine for once the immense, the incisive contrast between the naive conceptions of European humanity, who still saw everything in pictures, and the highly evolved, refined philosophical ideas of the Graeco-Latin world. In Europe all was ‘Life’; over there all was ‘Knowledge of Good and Evil.’ In Europe something was left over, as it were, like a treasured remnant of the original forces of life; but it could only remain if this humanity were, in a way, protected from understanding anything that was contained in such marvellously finely wrought Latin concepts. To speak of a science of the ancient European population would be nonsense. One can only speak of them as living with all that germinated in their inner soul nature, that filled it through and through with life. What they believed they knew was something that was direct experience. This soul nature was destined to be radically different from the mood that was transmitted in the Latin influence.
And it belongs to the great, the wonderful secrets of historical evolution, that the Mystery of Golgotha was to arise out from the perfected culture of wisdom and knowledge, but that the depths of the Mystery of Golgotha should not be grasped through wisdom; they were to be grasped through direct life.
It was therefore like a predetermined karma that,

while in Europe up to a definite point life was grasped, the I-culture appeared purely naively, vitally and full of life where the deepest darkness was;

whereas over there where was the profoundest wisdom, the Mystery of Golgotha arose.

That is like a predestined harmony. Out of the civilisation based on knowledge which was beginning to dry up and wither ascends this Mystery of Golgotha: but it is to be understood by those who, through their whole nature and being, have not been able to attain to the fine crystallisation of the Latin knowledge. And so we see in the history of human evolution the meeting between

a nearly lifeless, more and more dying knowledge,

and a life still devoid of knowledge, a life unfilled with knowledge, but one which inwardly feels the continued working of the divinity animating the world.

These two streams had to meet, had to work upon one another in the evolving humanity.
[see Schema FMC00.438, Schema FMC00.441, Schema FMC00.432A, Schema FMC00.476 on Two streams of development]
What would have happened if only the Latin knowledge had developed further?
Well, this Latin knowledge would have been able to pour itself out over the successors of the primitive European population: up to a certain time it has even done so. It is hypothetically conceivable, but it could not really have happened, that the original European population should have experienced the after-working of the dried up, fading knowledge.
For then, what these souls would have received through this knowledge would gradually have led to men's becoming more and more decadent; this drying, parching knowledge would not have been able to unite with the forces which kept mankind living. It would have dried men up. Under the influence of the after effects of Latin culture, European humanity would in a sense have been parched and withered. People would have come to have increasingly refined concepts, to have reasoned more subtly and have given themselves up more and more to thought, but the human heart, the whole human life would have remained cold under these fine spun, refined concepts and ideas.
I say that that would be hypothetically conceivable, but .. it could not really have taken place.
What really happened is something very different. What really happened is that the part of humanity that had life but not knowledge streamed in among those people who were, so to say, threatened with receiving only the remains of the Latin heritage.
[see Schema FMC00.501 on Central European cultural basin]
Let us envisage the question from another side. At a definite period we find distributed over Europe:

in the Italian peninsula, in the Spanish peninsula, in the region of present France, in the region of the present British Isles, certain remains of an original European population;

in the North the descendants of the old Celtic peoples,

in the South the descendants of the Etruscan and ancient Roman peoples. We meet with these there, and in the first place there flows into them what we have now characterised as the Latin stream.

Then at a definite time, distributed over various territories of Europe,

we meet with the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Lombardi, the Suevi, the Vandals, etc. There is an age when we find the Ostrogoths in the south of present Russia, the Visigoths in eastern Hungary, the Langobardi or Lombard's where today the Elbe has its lower course, the Suevi in the region where today Silesia and Moravia lie, etc. There we meet with various of those tribes of whom one can say: they have ‘life’ but no ’knowledge.’

.
Now we can put the question: Where have these peoples gone to? We know that for the most part they have disappeared from the actual evolution of European humanity. Where have the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Langobardi, etc. gone? We can ask this.
In a certain respect they no longer exist as nations, but what they possessed as life exists, exists somewhat in the following way.

... let us consider first the Italian peninsula, let us consider it still occupied by the descendants of the old Roman population. Let us further imagine that on this old Italian peninsula there had been spread abroad what I have designated Latin knowledge, Latin culture; then the whole population would have dried up. If exact research were made, it would be impossible not to admit that only incredible dilettantism could believe that anything still persists today of a blood relationship with the ancient Romans. Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Lombardi, marched in, and over these there streamed the Latin heritage - though merely mentally as seed of knowledge - it streamed over-the life-without-knowledge, and this gave it substance for continuing. Into the more southern regions there came a more Norman-Germanic element. Thus there streamed into the Italian peninsula from the European centre and the East a life-bearing population.

Into Spain there streamed the Visigoths and the Suevi in order later to unite with the purely intellectual element of the Arabs, the Moors.

Into the region of France there streamed the Franks and

into the region of the British Isles, the Anglo-Saxon element.

The following statement expresses the truth.
If the southern regions had remained populated by descendants of the old Romans, and the Latin culture had gone on working in them, they would have faced the danger of completely losing the power of developing an I-consciousness.

Hence the descendants of ancient Rome were displaced and there was poured into this region where Latinism was to spread, what came from the element of the Ostrogoths and Lombardi. The blood of Ostrogoths and Lombardi as well as Norman blood absorbed the withering Latin culture. If the population had remained Romans they would have faced the danger of never being able to develop the element of the Consciousness-soul. Thus there went to the south in the Langobardi and the Ostrogoths what we can call the Wotan-Element, Spirit and Life. The Wotan-Element was, so to say, carried in the blood of the Langobardi and Ostrogoths and this made the further evolution and unfoldment of this southern civilisation possible.

With the Franks towards the West went the Wile-element, Intelligence and Movement, which again would have been lost if the descendants of the primitive European population who had settled in these regions had merely developed further under the influence of Rome.

Towards the British Isles went We, what one can call: Configuration and Speech, and in particular the faculty to see and to hear. This has later experienced in English empiricism its later development as: Physiognomics, Speech, Sight, Hearing.

So ..

So we see that while in the new Italian element we have the expression of the folk soul in the sentient soul, we could express this differently by saying: The Wotan-element streams into the Italian peninsula.

And we can speak of the journeying of the Franks to the West by saying: the Wile-element streams West, towards France.

And so in respect of the British Isles we can express it by saying: the We-element streams in there.

Hence:

In the Italian peninsula, therefore, nothing at all is left of the blood of the original European peoples, it has been entirely replaced.

In the West, in the region of modern France, somewhat more of the original population exists, approximately there is a balance between the Frankish element and the original peoples.

The greatest part of the original population is still in the British Isles.

But all this that I am now saying is fundamentally only another way of pointing to the understanding of what came out of the South through Europe, pointing to the fact that the Mystery of Golgotha was ensheathed in a dying wisdom and was absorbed through a living element still devoid of wisdom.
One cannot understand Europe if one does not bear this connection in mind; one can, however, understand Europe in all details if one grasps European life as a continuous process. For much of what I have said is still fulfilling itself in our own times.

So, for instance, it would be interesting to consider the philosophy of Kant, from these two original polarities of European life, and show how Kant on the one hand desires to dethrone Knowledge, take all power from Knowledge, in order on the other hand to give place to Faith. That is only a continuation of the dim hidden consciousness that one can really do nothing with knowledge that has come up from below—one can only do something with what comes down from above as original life-without-knowledge. The whole contrast in pure and practical reason lies in this: I had to discard knowledge to make way for Faith. Faith, for which protestant theology fights, is a last relic of the life-without-knowledge, for life will have nothing to do with an analysed abstract wisdom.³

But one can also consider older phenomena.
[cont'd]

1923-09-10-GA228

for longer extract, see: Druidic and Trotten mysteries#1923-09-10-GA228

[Positioning and Wotan Impulse]
We must imagine the Druid civilization spread out over a great portion of Northern and Central Europe about 3.000 or 3.500 years ago. Men had nothing at all similar to writing. They had only this cosmic writing.
Then into all this there spread from the East, to begin with from a Mystery in the region of the Black Sea, what is now contained as an insoluble riddle for the ordinary consciousness in the Norse Mythology, associated with the name of Wotan.
For what is Wotan?
The Mystery from which this Wotan culture proceeded was a Mercury Mystery, a Mystery that added to the impulses of Sun and Moon the impulse of Mercury. One might say that that old civilization was there in a sun-and Moon-radiant innocence and simplicity, untouched by what could be told to mankind through the Jupiter impulses. Only away in the East these Jupiter impulses were already present.
From thence they now spread, colonizing, towards the West. Wotan-Mercury carried his influence westward.
Here at the same time we have thrown light upon the fact that Wotan is described as the bringer of the Runes, the Runic art of writing. He was the bringer of what Man drew forth from himself in the first primitive way of intellectuality as an art of deciphering the universe. This is the very first entry of intellectualism, the Wotan impulse. Thus one might say that the Mercury, the Wotan-nature, was now added to the Sun-and Moon-natures.
Wherever this Wotan impulse worked itself out fully, everything that was present from earlier experiences was influenced by it. It all received a certain impulse from this Wotan element.
For there was one thing, a special secret of the Druid culture. We know that at all places things arise that do not belong there. Weeds grow on the tilled land. We might say that the Druid culture recognized as the good plants of civilization only the Sun and Moon qualities, and if, hastening forward as it were to a later time, the intellectual element already then arose, they treated it as a weed. Among the many remedies the Druids had, there was one against the Mercury quality of deep thought and introspection. Strange as it may seem to us today, they had a remedy against this habit of sinking into one's inner being, or as we should say, of pondering on one's own salvation. The Druids wanted man to live with Nature and not to sink into himself, and they regarded as sick and ill anyone who even attempted to express anything in signs or the like, unless it were merely to imitate the things of Nature in a primitive form of art. Anyone who made signs was diseased and must be healed. Indeed he was then considered as black human being, he was not white. Yes, my dear friends, if we with all our present knowledge were transposed into the Druid culture, we should all be sent to a hospital and cured.
And now from the East the Wotan civilization brought this very illness. The Wotan civilization indeed was felt as an illness. But it also brought, with a power grown truly great and gigantic, what had formerly appeared as an abnormality, an unhealthy introspection. Into the midst of what had formerly been taken only from the cosmic writing, it brought the Rune. So that Man now transferred his intellectual element into the signs he made. It brought in all that was felt as a Mercury culture. Thus it was no wonder that what proceeded from the Wotan culture, distilled from the best forces that were in it, viz., the Baldur-Being, the Sun-Being, was felt and thought of as one united not with life, but with death. Baldur had to go to Hel, into the dark forces of Death, the dwelling-place of Death.
Moreover, to begin with, men pondered most, as we can see from the traditions of the Edda, not on the question of how this Baldur, son of the Wotan forces, should be freed from Hel (for this is really a later conception) but on the question of how he should be healed. And at length they said: We have many means of healing, but Baldur, the intelligence proceeding from the Runes of Wotan — for this there are no remedies, and it can only lead to death.
Thus we see once more what I have pointed out to you from so many points of view in the study of human evolution. In olden times the instinctive knowledge of mankind knew nothing of the significance of death, for men remembered the pre-earthly life and knew that death is only a transformation. They did not feel death as any deeper incision than this. Above all there was no such thing as the tragedy of death. This only entered in when the Mystery of Golgotha approached, which became indeed a redemption from the fear of death. In the Baldur legend you see the most visible description of how, with the entry of intellectualism, there comes that mood of soul which reckons with deaths, and you see what thus entered into human evolution.
Thus what had been seen in the death of Baldur, who could not rise again, was only healed once more in the way of soul and spirit, when the Christ-figure who could rise from death was placed over against him.
It is wonderful how in the North, through the influence of the Mercury-forces on the Sun-and Moon-forces, the perception of the Christ-impulse was prepared. In Baldur, the God who falls into death and cannot rise again, we see the forerunner, in the North, of Christ, who also falls a victim to death, but who can rise, because He comes directly from the Sun. Baldur, on the other hand, the Sun-force coming from Wotan, is the Sun-force reflected back by Mercury, radiating forth from the signs which man makes out of his intellect.

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Herbert Wimbauer: 'Von Buddha-Wodan und seinen Strömungen (1985)

Runes

see 1923-09-10-GA228 positioning rune script as part of the Wotan impulse

Guido von List (1848-1919)
- Das Geheimnis der Runen (1908)
  - from wikipedia page on Armanen runes
    - Von List claimed the pseudo-runes were revealed to him while in an 11-month state of temporary blindness after a cataract operation on both eyes in 1902. This vision in 1902 allegedly opened what List referred to as his "inner eye", via which the "Secret of the Runes" was revealed to him. List stated that his Armanen Futharkh were encrypted in the Rúnatal of the Poetic Edda (stanzas 138 to 165 of the Hávamál), with stanzas 147 through 165, where Odin enumerates eighteen wisdoms (with 164 being an interpolation), interpreted as being the "song of the 18 runes". List and many of his followers believed his runes to represent the "primal runes" upon which all historical rune rows were based.
Siegfried Adolf Kummer (1899-1977)
- Heilige Runenmacht (1932)
- Runen-Magie (1933)
- Runen – Raunen
Karl Spiesberger (1904-1992)
- Runenmagie Handbuch der Runenkunde (1955, 1968)
- Runenexerzitien für Jedermann (1958)
Sigurd Agrell: Die Herkunft der Runenschrift (1938)

websites

wikipedia page for Runes and runic magic
anthrowiki page (DE): Runen
Dan McCoy: 'The origin of the runes', see norse-mythology.org/runes/