Rudolf Steiner on Masonry

[Bruce Michael]

Dear Friends,
Rudolf Steiner was a Rosicrucian- this he admitted when asked. Also, in his Theosophical Society days he titled his teachings "Rosicrucian Spiritual Science" and greeted the audience "My Dear Rosicrucian Freinds".

I have a description by M. Robert Kuentz of Steiner's "Initiation to the Grade of Rosicrucian Apprentice."
A few highlights: You are told to dress in white. You are blindfolded and all metal taken off you.

You enter the Temple and circumnambulate the room three times. After a spoken formulae the bandage is removed, you see Steiner in front of you holding a skull under your nose. Steiner has two servers bearing candles.

Rudolf is completely clothed in red with red cap. He is before an altar in the form of a cube, on which are a cup, crucifix and candle.
There are three altars in all.

At this point you are wearing the masonic apron. You place your hand on the Gospel of John and are told the password. With two extended swords curious signs are made in front of you.

Then a sermon from Steiner on Hiram and Solomon... then the repast. Second address from Steiner now wearing an alb of lace; he speaks on the Triangle and the eye of God.
Closing of ceremony which has lasted four hours. Ritualistic knocks with mallets on the three cubes, black draperies removed. You are surrounded with ruby red... You are Initiated!

Steiner gave lectures on Masonry in 1905. He made it clear then, that he was speaking as a non-Mason, but in November of that year, he and Marie von Sivers, received a warrant, a diploma, to practice the higher degrees of Masonry.

"[On the 24th of November 1905 Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) and Marie von Sivers (1867-1948), became members of MM, and received a warrant to work the 30°, 67°, and 89° from Reuss on the 3rd of January 1906.
[Yarker disagreed with Reuss and Encausse's activities in France, and nominated George Lagrèze in their place on the 9th of September 1909
[15]]."

MM stands 'Memphis Misraim'- Misraim being the ancient name for Egypt. It is an occult fact that the new is grafted on to the old, and this is what Steiner was looking to do. "The new moss grows at the foot of the ancient tree."

Now how do we know that the above is correct?- because Steiner says
so in his autobiography:

"Some years after the beginning of the activity in the Theosophical Society, Marie von Sievers and I were entrusted by certain persons with the leadership of a society similar to others which have been maintained in preservation of the ancient symbolism and cultural ceremonies that embody the "ancient wisdom." I never thought in the remotest degree of working in the spirit of such a society. Everything anthroposophic should and must spring from its own sources
of knowledge and truth.....

"And so wherever possible I also favoured the linking of the newly given to the historically existent. I therefore took the diploma of the society referred to, which belonged to the stream represented by Yarker. It had the forms of Free Masonry of the so-called high degrees; but I took nothing else – absolutely nothing – from this society except the merely formal authorization, in historic succession, to direct a symbolic-cultural activity.

Dr. Steiner mentions John Yarker in his autobiography as well- a "respected mason" I think he calls him. John Yarker was indeed a powerful learned man- you can find some of his articles online.

Br.Bruce