All Earlier Religion was Water

[Bruce Michael]

Dear Companions,

In Friedrich Rittelmeyer's "Meditation" he claims the following:

"When the man of ancient times spoke of water, he did not think only of bathing or of sailing in a boat. He felt water to be religious. Water's
power of purification was to him divine and worthy of veneration. In baptism still lives a remembrance of how man can dip into a purifying,
revelation-bringing element. All laws and regulations about washing and
purification are connected with this fundamental feeling. Man had above him a higher world which, through the water which it sent down from the heavens, received him again and again into its purifying forces. Instead of bathing, ancient man thought of religious purification, instead of sailing, he
thought of crossing the stream after death or in initiation. The latter, the
crossing of the stream, was the esoteric of ancient religions, the former,
the purification, its exoteric. And so the old religious feeling lived with
water. And when we notice what miserable remains but still remains-of these feelings are alive in men to-day when they rejoice in water because of bathing and sailing, then we can perceive with our eyes what changes there have been.

"Now let us look at the six stone water-pots, which stood there after the
manner of the purifying of the Jews." In this stands the whole of antiquity.
In this stands the old religious existence of men."

I like the way he connects water with heavenly things through the rainfall.
Of course! the ancients saw water falling from heaven and considered it
Divine.

Water still has a drawing power. Folk still feel the need to get into a boat
and use the excuse of fishing. But what are they really doing?- just
sitting, taking it in... most of the time.

Emil Bock says that where the sea meets the shore, there the soul and spirit meet. Jesus of course, did a lot of teaching by the sea. In the past there were great mystery temples by the sea- places like Tintagel too.

The Ebionites also had the water communion and their gospel was St. Matthew, which according to Steiner represented the Persian stream.

-Br.Bruce