The Initiation of Moses

The Bush Which Burned and is Not Consumed: The Secrets of the Initiation of the Self

Jerusalem: The Role of the Hebrew People in the Spiritual Biography of Humanity

From Lecture 5
The Initiation of Moses

We feel how Moses' soul itself catches fire, is ignited by the flames of the Burning Bush, and how the divine spark of his God-given `I', begins to light upon us and shine and radiate with the full force and beauty at the climax of initiation. This flame springs from and is driven by the heavenly powers of soul and spirit, rising through Moses from earth to the heights, and uniting with the divine creative forces and beings of the wide universe, in order to merge with them, be fertilized by them, receiving from the seed of the future spirit of the true self, the true `I', the future I AM, which would realize the transformation of earth and humanity in their coming evolutionary stage.

The foundations laid in the previous lectures will assist us in understanding Moses' mission, which whollytransformed the evolution of human consciousness, through the mission of the Hebrew people, as described above. All we can do in one lecture is just to begin to lift the veil of mystery shrouding the unique initiation of Moses, which completely changed human history. Moses is such an individuality, about which one must say, that his initiating unfolded through his long life as a whole. It has three major, organically woven stages: the old Egyptian initiation, the Jethro initiation in Horeb leading to the revelation through the Burning Bush, and the revelation of Mount Sinai which was a consummation and intensification of his previous initiations, a wholly unique initiation because it was at the same time an initia- tion of the whole newly formed Hebrew people. …

The Bush Which Burned and is Not Consumed: The Secrets of the Initiation of the Self

In different esoteric sources Jethro is called, among his other names, Reuel. This is again one of the incorporations of the great teacher of humanity, whom we already encountered in the fourth lecture, through the initiation of the patriarchs in the mystery centre of Shem-Melchizedek. As when he initiated Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he now takes, through Jethro, a similar and crucial role in the initiation of Moses, by preparing him for the Revelation of the Burning Bush and the Giving of the Torah. After 40 years of initiation with Jethro, priest of Midian, the Bible describes the Revelation of the Burning Bush, one of the most important events in the spiritual history of all humanity- past, present and future- in these words:

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. (Exodus 3:1)

That mountain, as its name reveals, has been the mountain of God from the beginning of time; it is a place of initiation already familiar to Moses, where Jethro would lead him time and again during his training. This time he comes there himself, `as a shepherd of Jethro's flock', as one whose initiation had ended and is worthy of being `shepherd of his master's flock', who is going to become the shep- herd of the chosen people, whom he must bring out of Egypt and bring back to this place, so that the entire people, like Moses himself, would undergo the `initiation of the mountain of God'. This is a guarded, sacred mystery place. Many tales had been told about what had taken place here in ancient initiation ceremonies. The fact that Moses already knows the place well is clearly hinted at in the legend:

When Moses drew near to Mount Horeb, he was aware at once that it was a holy place, for he noticed that passing birds did not alight upon it. (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews)

Here we have another typical example of what ancient `legends' are really about, the art of veiling in ordinary images, taken from ordinary sense perception, to hint at the spiritual content behind them. It is an esoteric discourse in a language that will be imme- diately understood by those that have first-hand experience of esoteric matters. Such people would know exactly to which place the legend refers from the way the birds behave in a holy place. Birds flap around the mountain, do not land and do not touch him because birds, as all animals, are naturally clairvoyant creatures, as all humans still were in ancient times. That means that the legend wants to turn our attention to the fact that Moses is a seer, because he can see the aura of the mountain; he sees the connection of the birds to the aura, and he knows that the birds sense and feel the radiant powers of the holy place. But Moses does not see only the aura enveloping the mountain. Because of his special constitution as representativeofthe`Geo-logic' people,as Rudolf Steiner calls the Hebrew people in this context (the people directly connected to God, creator of heaven and earth, to the secrets of Earth's spiritual- physical constitution, down to its most geological foundations), he also feels with his feet that in this place the earth's foundations, the geological powers of the deep, are operating differently than in other places:

When Moses approached the mountain, the mountain shifted from its place and began to move, to go towards Moses, as if it wanted tp approach him.Once Moses' foot had trodden upon it,the mountain returned to its rest. (Ibid.)

 Therefore, you see the spiritual connection that Moses experiences with the holy place, both through his limbs, from below, and also through the birds, from above, in the mountain's aura. Moses really and truly does appear as an initiate familiar with the language of `heaven and earth'. The mountain moves towards Moses, inviting him in; Moses walks to the mountain, and when he puts his feet on the holy place, the mountain returns to its rest.

At once, the Almighty was revealed to him from the bush in a tongue of flame’. (Ibid)

And let now the Bible continue:

And the angel of God appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. (Exodus 3:2)

[…]

 As we pointed out above, it was not the supersensible sight of the Burning Bush which singles Moses out from the other people of that time, and certainly not from the great seers among the peoples of the East or Egypt in that period. In order to distinguish clearly between what the elementary seer would see, and what Moses saw and did with what he saw, let me first describe in a more tangible way what, in fact, every person with supersensible vision, at quite an elementary level, experiences when he contemplates a non-organic object and an organic body like a living plant, bush or tree. What, in fact, does such a clairvoyant person perceive in the first elementary stage of supersensible vision? Let us observe this table right here before you. With ordinary sensory vision, I see only the physical contours of the table, its shape from the place where I am standing and if I approach it, I can add to the sensory impression of sight also the sensory impressions of smell, touch and taste (if I lick it, which I am not going to demonstrate right now). Now in addition to these sensory-physical impressions, supersensible vision will also per- ceive the etheric force field enveloping it, and beyond that also its astral aura. This means that the clairvoyant will perceive, in addi- tion to what we each perceive with our physical sense, to begin with, two invisible fields of forces and beings which belong to the table as much as its physical body. In these two auras he would perceive an infinitely more rich and vibrant flow of impressions, than all the liveliest impressions of the physical senses can give us. This invisible, supersensible, flow and radiation is composed of the most wonderful subtle tapestry of warmth and lights and colours, sounds and aromas, that constantly stream and circulate, flow and breathe, hidden from the physical eye and ear, enveloping this physical table from all directions. This is the supersensible aura surrounding us all the time, and only we, in the modern period, cannot perceive this as a natural endowment (although the number of people starting to see this again in the modern, conscious way, is constantly growing, and will continue to grow in the future).

 Now, as indicated, this aura has various levels, penetrating each other, and this is not the time or place to discuss this further in greater detail, but for our purposes here, it is important to note that the first enveloping layer of the aura is made primarily up of ethereal forces of warmth, and it is also known as `fire' in esoteric language. This is comparable to a fire-like auraÐit is naturally only an image taken from ordinary sensory perception, as we have no other language to express supersensible realitiesÐexperienced like infinitely subtle and rich flames of fire. It flows and transforms itself, rises and retreats, albeit in a delicate, thin and transparent way, which is much more dynamic, vital, and complex than physical-sensible fire. What this supersensible fire reveals is the first level of the etheric forces, which are the living and formative forces, nurturing, sustaining, and growing everything in the physical world. Around physical, so-called `inanimate' objects like this table, these forces are only hinted at in the periphery of the object and do not penetrate its material body to make it organically-materially alive from within, as they do in the plant and animal bodies. There they flow into the physical body and transform it into a living, growing, nourished and reproductive organism.

 On one hand, in inert objects the etheric forces make up only an outer wrapping, while in the body of plant, animal and human, its forces become internal forces which organize and form the living, organic body from within and without at the same time. On the other hand, the forces of the soul, or the astral body, which remain external in plants, and only influence it from outside, work also inside the bodies of animals and in humans. But every regularity has its own singular, unique events. The external soul-astral forces which mostly remain outside the body of the plant, do approach it and even touch it at specific times, as though gently kissing from above the living plant at a certain stage of the plant's life. And this begins gently with the formation of the flower's bud, then culmi- nates during the flowering itself and fertilization, pollination, the formation of the colours, scents, pollen and nectar, mediating the living connections with the vibrant insect world of bees and butterflies. The plant's astral body, normally floating above it as though `touching' it from outside,creates thissurprising metamorphosis, which is nothing but another of these evolutionary leaps that materialistic science has been struggling with since Darwin, turning the green plant into a glorious colourful flower. This touch is indeed in all chastity a `cosmic starry kiss', from the astral body, to the green plant, gently awakening it to a higher life than the vegetative organic life of the green plant. The seer sees it as a subtle, gentle, refined process of fire, because at the stage of flowering and pollination, the plant appears really to be ignited and enflamed. Spiritually seen, each flower is a flame, that descends from the cosmic-astral forces of the sun and stars, that bestows on the green plant the wonder of colours and scents.

 This pure `kiss' from the heavenly spiritual forces, from the soul of the universe, given to the organic life forces of the plant, transform them, creating in them a wondrous metamorphosis. Therefore, if we look closely, wecould have said that it seems to `ignite' them (this is, of course, only a picture taken from the sensory perception of fire and flames, but it is nevertheless still quite an accurate one). When, for instance, I study a plant's metamorphosing from the green phase to the flowering phase, the instant the green leaf is transformed into the colourful petal leaf, and the bud of the flower opens to the sun-lit world, I will see this process in the change of its aura, because the astral forces, which up till then had only enveloped the plant from outside, kiss it softly in the place where the flower is created. And it is they, through their helpers and co- workers, the elemental spirits of nature, especially the air and fire spirits, who turn the green leaf into the colourful petal. These spirits create the smell, the nectar and all the other wonderful sweet things, and summon the fluttering, buzzing beauty of the world of butterflies and bees to their feast.

Let us describe this process as a whole, remaining with the plant kingdom, because the Burning Bush is part of it: through the etheric forces of life that stream into it, the plant's physical body becomes a living organism, a living, breathing organism, with powers of growth, metabolism, expansion, shape formation and reproduction. This fabric of living forces that penetrates the physical body is called in spiritual science the `etheric body' or`body of formative forces', in which the life forces are organized; while the aura of the astral, cosmic-planetary body carrying the forces of soul, feelings, desires, appetites and instincts, does not penetrate and transform the physical-organic body of the plant but the physical body of animals and human beings. The astral only touches the plant at special festive seasonal moments, by creating the wonder of the flower, of fertilization, fruit and new seed. These can be called the sacred `initiation events' in the plant's life! These are the events ofkissing, fertilizing, merging and uniting with the higher cosmic soul world, the world of pure heavenly love, consummated in the meeting between the higher soul and spiritual worlds and the lower physical worlds. Thus, is formed the wonderful flowers, that elevate and make humans, bees and butterflies happy, the fruits that abun- dantly nourish birds, beasts and humans, and the potent seeds which will continue the plant species’ lifeafter it has withered and died away.

If we study this process today, with modern forces of spiritual vision, we are able to describe exactly, step by step, how in this moment of pure forces of cosmic love- in which none of the earthly- bound urges and passions of the animal and human soul are involved- are calling and lifting up the physical and etheric bodies to their cosmic world of warmth, light, and colour. The plant simultaneously expresses its devotion and surrender to their love by offering them its vegetative life forces. Not unlike the moth who flies to its death in the burning flame of the candle, the flower also now remembers the times in which it was not yet rooted in the earth as today, but was itself one with the fluttering colourful, light carried and irradiated kingdom of the butterflies and bees. In flaming up and experiencing how its green leaves turn red and yellow, crimson and purple, it opens its longing heart as a pure chalice, to the astral-soul forces of love streaming into it from the whole universe. And of course, the physical-etheric forces of the plant's body actually are burning in subtle flames of fire-the green leaves, full of life, actually do undergo a process of dying when they become the colourful leaves. They are as short lived as the glittering butterfly with whom they long to unite. This consummation of love between flower, butterfly and the cosmic astral world, has always been the living symbol, in all mystery schools, that the pupils contemplated when they were striving to lift their human soul to the cosmic spirit, as the Bible describes in the sublime religious poetry of Solomon's `Song of Songs'. When the pupils prepare themselves to experience human initiation, the purification, lifting and opening of the human soul and heart, to be filled and fertilized by the divine spiritual love forces of the cosmic self, they contemplate this image of love between flower, butterfly and the stars, so that from the sacred marriage of the human soul and the divine self, the human soul will conceive and give birth to the human-divine child, the son of rebirth and new life, the individualized God of the future.

Now we may be ready to turn from nature's initiation wonders to the wonders of human initiation, from the organic and astral cosmic process of the flowering plant, to the unique and singular spiritual event of the Burning Bush. In this `plant', not only the essence of plant metamorphosis is realized, but the full human-spiritual metamorphosis. The archetypal plant metamorphosis, of the Ur- Pflanze, the primal plant, as Goethe described it in his study of the metamorphosis processes of plants, is itself metamorphosed here into the full metamorphosis of the human soul and spirit, demonstrated through Moses' Burning Bush initiation. Asdescribed above, while in each ordinary plant's life there comes a sacred time, in which the cosmic soul forces of love descend and kiss its physical and etheric bodies and causes its death through sacred, initiatory fire, and lift it up above the mere vegetative life to experience a moment of cosmic rebirth with the flowering and creation of fruit and new born seed; in the Burning Bush this process of metamorphosis is realized in its archetypal spiritual sensible-supersensible form. Here the spiritual essence of all being and becoming is acting (and not just the essence of a single plant or of the whole plant kingdom); it is the creative divine being active since the creation of Genesis, forever shaping, forming, enlivening all creation, in the past, present and future. This being appears before and in Moses, as the eternal spirit flame, as a plant `burning' and yet not`consumed', because this is not an ordinary plant that indeed must die physically when the astral world kisses it. This plant cannot burn and die physically, because it is a spiritually eternally burning plant, revealing to Moses the secret of the phoenix in its eternal being and becoming, constantly resurrecting to ever higher and new life out of the flames and ashes of its previous existence.

 The more we contemplate the Burning Bush initiation of Moses in this light, the more we will experience in our own souls how the divine forces of creation, formation and becoming, the forces of God, the creator of heaven and earth and everything in them, who formed our own self in his image, are coming to life in our human souls. And our souls are transformed by this spiritual power, and rise, metamorphosed, to a higher eternal realm, not only astral but beyond it, to the spiritual essence of the spiritual world and beings. We know through experience as Moses did, that in our souls we experience the same divine being that gave us the spark of our own `I', that in the past created us in his divine image and all the kingdoms of nature and heavenly bodies we see around and above us. We share in this way humbly in the lofty experience of Moses, who unites his `I' withthe spiritual fire of the creative divine spirit, which, thanks to his pioneering initiation, will burn in the initiated self of humans and humanity for all ages to come. And we may feel that we share Moses' intensive experienceof the higher world, but not in the old way, losing his self-consciousness and entering a state of deep death and coma-like unconsciousness, while his soul soars to the higher world outside his body and awakens self-consciousness. Moses experiences for the first time in human evolution the same divine being that the Egyptian initiates could only experience out of the body in the spheres of the sun and moon, right here and now in the etheric-physical world, burning as an eternal fire of the Burning Bush. We feel how Moses' soulitself catches fire, is ignited by the flames of the Burning Bush, and how the divine spark of his God-given `I', begins to light upon us and shine and radiate with the full force and beauty at the climax of initiation. This flame springs from and is driven by the heavenly powers of soul and spirit, rising through Moses from earth to the heights, and uniting with the divine creative forces and beings of the wide universe, in order to merge with them, be fertilized by them, receiving from the seed of the future spirit of the true self, the true `I', the future I AM, which would realize the transformation of earth and humanity in their coming evolutionary stage.