Order of the Rose

“It is impossible to penetrate into any domain of the spiritual world without a link having first been made with what has already been fathomed by the Elder Brothers of Humanity.”

In a closed-circle address in Berlin, June 26, 1906, Steiner spoke of “the twelve Masters of the White Lodge who have all taken part in the whole Earth evolution....The Leader, the Teacher of the [Esoteric] School [which designates Steiner], holds no responsibility toward anyone other than the one [Master] in whose name he speaks".

In his book Esoteric Christianity R. Steiner carefully weaves a story about the occult life of Christian Rosenkreutz and his council of twelve members. In an unnamed place in Europe a spiritual lodge of twelve men was formed each of which had received into themselves the sum total of the spiritual wisdom of ancient times.

The council consisted first of the seven Hindu Rishis of the first cultural epoch designated the Indian. These Rishis were the great teachers of the Hindu Brahman culture now ascended as stars in the great Bear star foci.

The second part of the council consisted of four members each representing the acquired wisdom of each of the post-Atlantean cultural epochs designated as Indian, Persian, Egyptian-Chaldean and Greco-Roman.

The four joined the seven Rishis as incarnations in the thirteen century. To this group a twelfth was added representing the wisdom of the then existing sciences. As Steiner says:

"By means of certain occult processes, the wisdom that had passed over from Atlantis to the holy Rishis had been transmitted to seven of these twelve men. In four others lived the wisdom of the sacred mysteries of the Indian, Persian, Egyptian and Greco-Roman epochs respectively, and what existed in those days of the kind of culture which was to characterize the fifth post-Atlantean epoch constituted the twelfth. The whole range of spiritual life was accessible to these twelve."

Into this council of twelve a child, a former contemporary of Christ, was incarnated. The council took this child into their care and instructed him in all their knowledge and wisdom so that all the wisdom of the preceding cultural epochs rayed into his soul.

For the first time, the twelve great sources of wisdom and religion were united into this child in one interconnected unity. After his early death and subsequent incarnation in the fourteenth century, this child became known as Christian Rosenkreutz and his mystery steam of esoteric Christianity called the Rosicrucian.

This Rosicrucian Society which, ignoring all outer historical forms, has endeavored to bring to light the deepest truths of Christianity:

The awakening, rebirth, initiation, as it is called, is the greatest event for the human soul — a view shared by those who called themselves confessors of the Rose Cross.

These knew that this event of the rebirth of the higher ego, which can look from above on the lower ego as man looks on outer forms, must have some connection with the event of Christ Jesus. This means that just as a rebirth can occur for the individual in his development, so a rebirth for all humanity came about through Christ Jesus.

In further elaborating the mission of Christian Rosenkreutz, Steiner spoke as follows:

“When human beings become aware of the fact that the good and the moral can become something as clear and definite as a mathematical formula, then they will have united on this level as a humanity that will bear a very different physiognomy than the humanity of our day.

To lead humankind to a knowledge of such a moral order, to reveal its laws to human beings, so that a group of people arise who consciously work toward these aims, that was the object of...Christian Rosenkreutz....

[He] and his seven pupils [in physical manifestation] laid the foundation for the recognition of the moral law, so that this would not continue to reverberate in what was given by the different religions, but could be grasped as it was, and awaken to life in each individual. The truth, with regard to morality and goodness, will arise within people as something acknowledged and experienced.”
—Lecture, Munich, November 10 or 11, 1905, H & C, p. 200

Rosicrucianism teaches a future form of Christianity. “In the Rosicrucian sense, Christianity is at once the highest development of individual freedom and universal religion.

There is a community of free souls. The tyranny of dogma is replaced by the radiance of divine Wisdom, embracing intelligence, love and action.

The science which arises from this cannot be measured by its power of abstract reasoning but by its power to bring souls to flower and fruition. That is the difference between ‘Logia’ and ‘Sophia,’ between science and divine Wisdom, between Theology and Theosophy. In this sense, Christ is the center of esoteric evolution of the West.”

—An Esoteric Cosmology, 1906, pp. 20-21